e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e is that is that on just as an update we're experiencing some technical issues
right now so bear with we'll get started as soon as we can resolve it thank you e e e e e e okay we will uh begin the meeting we are
still dealing with some technical issues so I apologize for that we're going to try to uh go back and forth between um the oldfashioned way doing some manual things until we can try to get this fixed when we get further into the
meeting um we will start um by doing our um recording of attendance we're going to have to do that by roll call vote because the machine is still being uh started up so Lydia if you would please call the role for attendance Tony
Bostic Dan cash Dennis Driggers pres Josh Brown present Margie Johnson pres Jay galberth pres Melissa Wyatt present Donna clemit present Claire Reeves Pres
Eric Welch here and Tanya hna and Dron Beasley is absent so we have 11 board members present one absent thank you very much okay we will please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence thank you you may be seated
okay we'll now move into our public comment period items of particular public interest we have nine speakers who have asked to speak tonight um therefore each person will have three minutes up to three minutes if you choose to take the full time um I will
call two at a time so for the second person to be ready when the first person has finished our first speaker is uh shanira Williamson ourselves well good evening my name is shanera Williamson I've been a resident for in
Franklin for uh nearly two decades now now we moved to Middle Tennessee for a job but we really came to Williamson County for the schools well on Saturday February the 22nd I attended the students speak that
is a forum where Williamson County students St shared their experiences in our school excuse me in our schools they asked the adults in the audience to Simply practice active listening well tonight I wanted
to be a conduit of the information that I heard so I have just quick three takeaways from that event number one the students wanted more Mental Health Resources now as we've seen an increase in anxiety and depression among teens I
thought it was insightful that they would ask for resources like this and they wanted group counseling to be in area high schools the second thing that the students noticed was a need for multiple Pathways for success school
counselors do a great job of helping kids get ready for college but the students also wanted information on other options like career fairs that helped gear them towards other jobs that didn't necessarily need a college degree now I would also add perhaps a gap year
Fair could be good to offer other options for high schools finally I observed a discussion between students about the inequities that happen within discipline and some of those inequities
are race-based one black student talked about being called the n-word by a white student at a high school basketball game the black student admitted that she responded wrongly by calling that child the b word in response now the black
student was disciplined she said that the white student was not other students concurred that they often take the brunt of racial tensions and have witnessed inequities of their own in their schools now as a parent of three black adults
who were once kids here in Williamson County Schools I remember how difficult it was for my own children to absorb those racial stereotypes and slurs and hits to their self-esteem so I'm just asking you the adults to remain Vigilant when it comes to uh Equitable
disciplinary actions I think our minors who are racial minorities carry a larger mental load for racial divisions and the grown-ups around them have not always reconciled those differences please don't allow these fear-based slogans things like being anti-woke to
give us room for unequal disciplinary actions I believe Educators choose this field because they want to help our kids flourish and adjusting our mirrors to see what lurks our blind spots is necessary for all of our kids to be seen valued and given the tools to succeed
thank you so much for listening I appreciate your time thank you our next two speakers are theopus Boyd and Kimberly calote and you do have a timer there on your screen I should have mentioned that at the outset and Big Font too
good evening my name is theopus Boyd I'm a business owner and proud parent of two Williamson County students I want to thank you for the opportunity to share the impactful output of the one will C teen Conference held last month this event allowed students to share their
experiences and gain insight into issues many were facing across Williamson County Schools after thought-provoking discussions with peers parents teachers and some of your fellow board members in fact thank you for attending by the way
the following were major concerns communicated by the students channels to improve relationships between students and teachers such as being able to seek greater teacher accountability without adverse consequences enhancing the various
Pathways to success by offering more exposure to vocational and non-traditional education resources post High School High quality instruction by advocating for diverse learning styles and more Hands-On and less Technology
based learning more opportunities for students to have frequent open conversations with their teachers counselors and parents surrounding students needs it is our hope that upon reflecting on these issues that
discussions will lead to actionable Plans by the board to address these concerns for the betterment of of our children lest we not forget they are the reasons we are all here thank you for your time thank you Kimberly calco followed
by chrisy Bailey hi my name is Kimberly calco and I've had four children attend Williamson County Schools since the digital shift to covid none of my children have had a Hands-On science experiment in any of their science classes from middle school
to high school it's come to my attention that the science curriculum that's been designated as the front runner currently during the science adoption is highly technology dependent we as parents have expressed to this board that we would like to reduce the district's dependence on screens and return to a more textbook
driven classroom with a Hands-On approach how many of us remember dissecting an animal in science class how many of us remember building a toothpick bridge or maybe doing the egg drop experiment or even looking at cells under a microscope moving to an even
more digitally based science curriculum would further Rob our kids of these Hands-On opportunities my oldest is currently taking a dual enrollment class and she uses a real textbook one we had to teach her how to use because she never learned in school colleges still
use textbooks so it's a false argument that we need to lean into more technology because textbooks are obsolete please consider choosing a science curriculum that allows for real experiments doesn't lock our children into more screen time use for eight years and gives our children the chance
to experience the true Joy of science thank you Christy Bailey followed by Michelle Kinley my name is Christy Bailey I'm a disability Advocate who works with hundreds of Williamson County School families imagine the fear a parent feels
when they are notified that their child was lost during the school day now imagine that child doesn't have the ability to communicate or has a limited understanding in of danger this is a very real scenario for my clients children are regularly lost in our schools and astonishingly WCS has no
incident report form to provide parents the most recent occurrence I'm aware of was at Long View Elementary School this student my client has been lost three times at Long View I am deeply concerned for our students but particularly for our children with special needs there is
no process for documenting lost kids in WCS as such it is possible to identify patterns Implement preventative measures and most importantly fix this obvious problem despite repeated request WCS leadership refuses to develop an
incident Reporting System I urge this board to take immediate action make documentation of Lost Children mandatory require District leadership to develop detailed protocols for staff to follow when a child is lost then conduct
regular formal reviews to ensure the effectiveness of the these measures thank you for your time and consideration Michelle Kinley followed by Sam Leaf hello my name is Michelle Kinley and I'm in my eth year as an elementary school librarian in Williamson County
Schools I'm here to urge you to reconsider the PO proposed changes to WCS policy on Library materials specifically the addition of a mature reading list as you know the state has provided pretty rigorous standards by which school libraries must evaluate and curate Library
materials in addition families have always had the ab ability to restrict their students access to library materials what you may not know is that Librarians are able to create their own Library curriculum and policies for their school communities that provide
guidance to students in selecting appropriate materials for example in my library kindergarten and first grade students May check out picture books non-fiction books and only a few select chapter books but no graphic novels another way I scaffold students is
through my curriculum it provides a thorough understanding of the different literary genres and how to evaluate books I also have a number of middle- grade books that are available with permission to only fifth graders as a way to provide transitional materials to
those students who are ready creating relationships with students and families about their reading preferences and choices I think you would all agree is foundational and definitely more valuable than a list the week before spring break a teacher met with a family
who has a fifth grade student who reads at and above an eighth grade reading level the parent wanted guidance on how to choose appropriate reading materials at that reading level and the teacher asked for my input I was able to give the students several recommendations but
this kind of collaboration and trust is built through these conversations and if we are required to put labels on materials it could potentially create barriers to achieving this trust it could create a mindset that Librarians are somehow hiding materials that are
not age appropriate which is definitely not the case it could also give the impression that materials are not appropriate if they have themes related to real life such as mental health loss parental absence abuse violence and that is simply untrue many of what we would
consider classic literature like Charlotte's Web Little House in the prairie an of Green Gables and even more po popular contemporary novels have those elements because but they were written for children and the very reason why these books become popular and
endure is because of how deeply they resonate with their readers please reconsider the proposed changes as a librarian and an educator my job is to provide access and understanding a list May create barriers to that and may fuel feelings of mistrust and create a
mistaken impression about our libraries that can prevent collaboration and stunt these relationships thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight Sam Sam Leaf FBA Rita Roman hi I'm Sam Leaf I'm a geography student at MTSU uh this is for an
assignment I looked at the fiveyear capital plan and I I thought I'd give some insight um the Cox Road Middle School location you guys proposed kind of makes no sense most of the people live by KS
and um the area by Cool Springs uh I know location and trying to get the land is an issue so I think we should move it between Arnold Road and KS on mboro road cuz there's land for sale right now for 500k that's big
enough um also uh an elementary school on KS Creek Side is busting out and there's new Mega neighborhoods being built on KS and uh on Arno and then uh another Elementary
School by Stevens Valley because um they have to drive 10 miles to get to their their Fair viw school and the superintendent said it cost $200,000 in busing and that's it thank you thank you
ravita Rockman and uh Connor Britt and then Angela Frederick is our final speaker so those are the final three go ahead hello how are you all today I'm Rita with one will Cole and we advocate for students and families of color in our district tonight I come
before you with the other speakers to share about the student speaks event that we invited some of our board members to attend to hear some of the student perspectives and I wanted to thank the two uh school board members who attended your presence and your engagement that they were really
appreciated as policies and rules are created that impact students I implore you to seek out student voices and invite them to be engaged having a student representative on this actual School Board would be a great way to have them involved um in the input as
well at our student speaks event we invited students and commun community members to come and share feedback but we did not want that to be just a area for them to come and compl we wanted it to be a way to find Solutions and and for us in the community to try to help
them with that um they didn't ask for crazy stuff like a three-day school week or coming to school at at um 10:00 but they asked for what I thought was really insightful uh quality instruction and I think that's something that we don't often hear kids asking for um I think
the other parent mentioned that as well so I think more Hands-On activities uh less copying and pasting from the computer screen and real time feedback from the teachers are some of the things that they ask for they also have the audacity to request accountability for
teachers and staff accountability with the goal of improved teacher student relationships and the desire for educators to see them as partners and learning not just names on the roster and that was a sentiment that we heard throughout the day so I ask if we are
continuing to ask about improving in um education and we want our students to be impacted we we need to listen to them and hear them when they speak to us and share so they are L we are listening are we willing to act thank you Connor Brit followed by Angela
Frederick hello my name is Connor Brit and I am a senior at Independence High I want to speak today about the impact of Hands-On and Project based learning experiences and why it's important to reduce Reliance on tech-based instruction in the classroom technology is a useful tool it
has enhanced my learning in many ways but I believe it should not replace the kinds of interactive engaging experiences that help students absorb and apply what they've what they're being taught some of the most meaningful learning experiences I've had in school have been Hands-On projects that allowed
me to exper experiment collaborate and problem solve solve in real time these projects made learning real and memorable in a way that reading from a screen simply doesn't I've also experienced the firsthand the downsides of an over
Reliance on digital learning tools many classes especially through my first two years of high school had lessons that were delivered almost entirely through screens in the form of slideshows digital worksheets and pre-recorded videos instead of actively listening many of my peers would often completely
disengage finding themselves clicking through content and distracting themselves with notifications not all students learn best through screens many absorb information by doing by building discussing experimenting and problem
solving together the more we rely on tech-based instruction the more we risk disengaging students who thrive in a more interactive Real World Learning environment as a student I ask the board and administration to prioritize Hands-On and Project based learning
and reconsider how much instruction is being delivered through screens the more interactive and engaging our classes are the more we will learn not just for a test but for life thank you thank you good evening board members I'm
Angela Frederick I'm here representing the Williamson County Education Association um I have a couple of things I want to touch on this evening um I sat in the work session before spring break so some of this is to do with what we talked about there but I encourage you all not to delay the approval of
textbooks that are up for discussion this evening so that teachers can have time to develop and prepare lessons for next school year delaying will have an adverse effect on students including those who are enrolled in AP courses um your conversations about
technology are ones that should definitely include classroom teachers and I encourage you to seek the input of those in your districts the world we live in is increasingly digitized and students need to learn how to access that world to be successful in academics
teachers use a mix of textbook materials and digital lessons and don't rely solely on one or the other as a teacher leader I stand ready to answer any questions you have about the daily work of our teachers and responding to
something that's been said this evening I have a story for you so I when down in the front office one day and I was standing close to the desk and the secretary said you might not want to stand too close to that package that was just delivered I was like oh really what's in there a fetal pig I was like
oh okay it was for biology they're they were dissecting fetal pigs in biology and I'm the librarian at the school so whenever students are squeamish about dissecting frogs they come and sit with me in the library their parent opted them out so we are doing Hands-On
science uh in my school especially and we'd love to talk to you about any of it thank you very much thank you to all of our speakers uh in particular our student Connor Thank you for being here um we will now move on to approval of our agenda for this
evening's meeting uh we will do this um via voice vote gentleman are we up on the technology now we're good awesome all right do I have a motion a motion in a second um all in favor of approval of the agenda say I any
opposed agenda is approved we will now move on to the consent agenda there are um two well more than two items I'll read through these really quick um approval of the February 18th 2025 Schoolboard meeting minutes and
then four five policies for second reading uh 3604 public records request 4.3 31 inter Scholastic Athletics 5118 criminal background checks
5101 line and staff relations then 5.83 organization charts those five policies for second reading is there a motion and a second on the consent agenda
ask it should okay we have a motion by CLA reev second by Melissa Wyatt any discussion all those in favor of the consent agenda say I I any opposed consent agenda is
approved and I did apologize I failed to mention one item on the consent agenda item C recommendation for field trip fee requests so that has also been approved now move on to Communications to the board Mr golden thank you Mr
chair and thank you especially uh our speakers for sharing your thoughts with us I did want to just briefly touch on a couple of items number one uh with the science textbooks currently we are using what we have called online educational resources eight nine years ago Dr Allen
if I'm not mistaken uh we adopted on totally online science resources we are proposing that we go back to textbooks for science we currently are also doing that with social studies we anticipate that the state is going to go through
the adoption process with social studies probably in 2027 is is uh is our projection I anticipate that uh all things being equal we're going to project that for textbooks uh as well rather than those online educational resources and our board had a robust
discussion at the work session related to the the uh State approved textbooks that that our our team has been vetting so we'll have a a further discussion related to that I also want to specifically thank those who shared uh the information from our students regarding regarding uh um uh ways for us
to grow uh I also have a conversation with what we call the superintendent's advisory Council from uh student Representatives uh at from all of our high schools those are really good conversations and going direct to the source is I think everybody probably
recognizes that from their life experience is a is a good place to start uh so thank you all for sharing that I I do want to mention specifically with uh discipline uh it is it is that ongoing effort that uh we have those expectations for our school administrators and they have those for
their teachers to report uh we keep a focus on that uh and so every time that we that there there might be a question of whether the Mark was missed uh we want to hear it uh so that we can continue that effort so thank you all for sharing that uh Mr chair also I want
to welcome a number of our principles who are here in the audience uh and I think I've Nam I'm G to I'm going to have them all as I as I name them but it's possible I may miss somebody as I'm looking around at faces uh Marissa block uh from uh from from Woodland Bill
Harland from from Brentwood middle Laura Hall from Fairview Middle Jared grind staff from from Mil Creek middle Clarissa Heyman from Sunset Middle Elizabeth vest uh um from uh Elizabeth I
am in thank you Clover Croft excellent School Christa Kramer from Hunters Bend Quinn Williams from Creekside Dana Finch from Heritage Middle Kevin Dyson from Centennial High School and Amy Stevenson from Oakview are are here in the audience so thank you all for being here
tonight uh and Mr chair uh I believe that they are here in part because of some of Carol BT song's announcements uh and as you all know those of you who participate uh uh as board members and those of you who visit us regularly we
only celebrate at the board meetings National and state Awards uh so with that I'm going to turn this over to Carol bird song to share our student and staff spotlights and board memb do I have so much to share with you this
evening and we are celebrating academics Athletics and the Arts this evening in addition to all of our reward schools so let's get started with our National Merit students now we have 85 of them so
get ready relax and enjoy uh from Brentwood High School Ivy Allen from also brenwood High School Leonardo by Ivy Chang Theo copin Dennis De
Janeiro Andrew Estella Andrew Gahan Todd Glenn Cole H Hawkins Allison holel Nisha Jalal parsa Kira Aria
Mahala Margaret McLendon Cade McConnell on Park Katherine Perez prono suu Katie Wayne Lucy Wyatt and she belongs to Miss
Melissa Wyatt I just had to throw that editorial comed in okay and Colin youngberg now from Centennial High School Natalie blank Roman comr Michael
aishen Alexandra hooks Eve odonnell nebd pedi Levi sponsel Corey styles from Franklin High School adelay Edwards Judy
Shu renez Jamal Andrew Jung zanen King RM ay Mariah quick finnean Sailor Dorset Terry Abby web from Independence High School Payton Brown Brandon Connor
Britt Brendan cner keny Krauss Elliot Lindsay Anthony Paul Lindon Dion suai ad Adit Shan and Nolanville High School Deepu
balam Muran Desi Kelly Samuel McCarthy Bryce Russell Emily Cheryl from Paige High School share Aloo Anna Avery
McKenzie Olivia Lee Nishan suar William swallows from Ravenwood High School jile amaba Obel amaz a
b shuy Croc Bley Yash daabra kayin Dunley whoops there's kin well we've lost kin huh okay kyel Jos Caitlyn green Jack Herman
William Hoskins Rafael Joseph sha young mon truy kosom Rowan KERO Sonia klani Ariel loen Arn
meta Anika nir whoops there's Ana sorry yug Patel Thomas Pierce Jason wayang Che nagala Braden Chen from Summit High School Caroline
Constantine Paul Davis Nathan Hoffman there's Nathan and Nathan Phillips those are your National Merit finalists all 85 of them folks woo I've worked up a sweat up here okay now we're going to go to wrestling and
we have five state champions in wrestling from Independence High School this is rck romano uh class ablea 144 pound category from Nolanville High School Brody monei uh 165 pound and also
from Nolanville High School Chase May uh 190b category Summit High School Zachary little 150b category and also from Summit High School Braden leech 157 pound category so now we're going to
uh All State Theater so these are your All State Theater um All Stars in acting from brenet high school Lauren Gilder camer Cameron mcleen and Reagan schmeer uh
from Franklin High School Keller Kennedy and also from Franklin Jacob mcre uh from Independence High School this is Meredith Hollands and also from Independence Annabelle Kirby and this is
Vis Maya Chapa from p high school so now we're moving to Design Tech and this is Alexander Dillard from Brentwood High School from Centennial High School meline Fleming Jackson
Ives uh Kylie rmus and uh harun Smith Jameson Whitlock from Nolanville High School William Brown and Anar Ross Wetzel now in musical theater here are your All Stars all date Theater brenwood
High School Lauren Gilder Celeste schmeer and Centennial High School Caroline Christan Franklin High School Jacqueline Jackson Independence High School Elliot child Meredith Hollands
Emory me Nolanville High School Juliet delli JT McCoy Natalie Rogers Addison Smith an across Wetzel from pige high school Chloe
Campbell this Maya Chapa paig High School Musical Theater again Gabriel masternick Paige High School Roma leil Paige High School All State musical theater Ravenwood High School is Gabby Miller Summit High School Cadence Aurora
Aurora and Gavin Cox now for playright from Independence High School Ben Allen Lauren dling playright Nolanville high school and Cameron K burbach paig High School uh All State Theater
playwright now it's time to talk about our reward schools where we've set yet another record 29 reward schools so if you are a principal here in attendance tonight representing a reward school please stand I'm going to read through the list
in alphabetical order first with elementary schools Chapman's Retreat elementary clovercroft elementary College Grove Elementary Creekside Elementary Crockett Elementary Hunters band Elementary
Jordan Elementary kenrose elementary lip scum Elementary Oak viw Elementary Scales Elementary Thompson Station Elementary School Trinity Elementary for our middle schools we have britwood
middle Heritage Middle Sunset Middle School Thompson Station Middle School and Woodland Middle School for our high schools we have brintwood high school Centennial High School Fairview High School Franklin High School Paige High
School Independence High School Nolanville High School Ravenwood High Renaissance High Summit High and Vanguard High School so congratulations to all of our award and finally this evening this is
Dr Alicia Justice who's the principal of Legacy middle school and she has been named the Middle School principal of the Year by the Tennessee Association of secondary schools principles congratulations to all of our students and staff members and schools thank you Mr chair uh that is my
report thank you so much and congratulations to all of those who were recognized uh it's great work by everyone um I do not have a board chair report so we can move right into new business uh first item amendments for the current fiscal
year um first one being approval of a general purpose School fund Amendment uh 0325 donation for dual enrollment $7,500 Mr golden thank you Mr chair this is a donation that we are asking you to
approve and to be placed in the appropriate line items do recommend approval we have a motion by Mr Bostic second by Dr Reeves any discussion we'll need to vote on our machines on this one so please proceed to vote
the vote is 11 yes Z no approval of general purpose School fund Amendment 0325 donation for safety equipment in the amount of $6,500 thank you Mr chair likewise this is another donation I was remiss in not mentioning the previous one was from MTSU for
Career and Technical education students uh this one is from atos Synergy uh to help us with some safety related to uh gas detectors do recommend approval on that one okay we have a motion from Mr bosk
second from Dr Johnson any discussion seeing none let's move to a vote on our devices the vote is 11 yes Z no thank you that's approve we will now move to the second item of new business which is approval of the 25
fiscal year 2526 school year budget um budgets plural since there are four of them that we need to approve in uh tonight um let me before I turn it over to Mr Golden and and Miss farmer and others just say thank you to especially
to miss farmer um there's I think I'm right that this the beginning of the conversation about this budget goes back to maybe November of last year um where we as a board had requested you'll recall for um
information around the budget earlier so we could start to process and think through um what was ahead of us what we could expect um and to start to get get into the details sooner so that we'd be better prepared for for tonight's vote
so I want to thank you in particular for all the work you've done to brief us on a monthly basis and get us the information that we've needed um and all the hard work to prepare for this so thank you want to make sure I say that before we get into the presentation and the question and answer so Mr Golden M
farmer uh thank you Mr chair uh I I did want to Echo what you had said thanking the board for the discussion especially the last couple of days before the end of the of the fall break or spring break rather um I'm living in the past uh we had a number of questions from board
members related to that I I I hope we got those answers to you I know it's possible we might have missed one or two but I very much appreciate you all sending us questions after that work session I did want to point out one change that we're aware of that is not
reflected in the budget at this point uh last week late last week the commissioner of Education sent us an email related to an item that we had been talking about uh you may recall that Senator Johnson mentioned when we had our meeting with our state legislators that he was working on
finding a way to offset the fiscal capacity indicator and the work he was doing was related to the letter grade system that the state initiated last year uh and we received a notice from the commissioner of Education that they do intend to uh to uh give us some
funding for that of approximately $4 million what we don't know yet for budgeting purposes is whether that is going to come in this fiscal year to go towards fund balance or come in next fiscal year to go towards revenue from the state uh so at the moment it's not
reflected in the budget document but this is one of those items that will continue to uh evolve on the revenue side uh so I I do want to mention that when this letter grade structure was initiated last year we're now in our second year of that the discussion at
the time at the state level was designed to identify schools that might receive an f and create a process by which they they had an obligation to mitigate uh so this actually is working on the flip side which is the
first return uh for a number of A's and and we qualify for that so we'll probably be talking about that more uh than than we have to in the last couple of years because that's a change at the state level um with that uh I I do want
to give um Miss farmer an opportunity is there any extra detail you want to share following up on our convers ation at the work session and questions we've had from board members I don't have anything additional to add um I think as Mr Golden said we
tried to answer as many questions as we could um what the state has told us is the next week we will know for sure on that $4 million um exactly for how how we should report it so either I will be bringing an amendment to you just like those donations that came through if it's this year or we'll bring an
amendment for the budget as you approve it um tonight so so either way there will be an adjustment for it in the coming months your comments actually gave me a prompt we mentioned to you that we projected our uh fund balance uh
budget Gap from what we proposed was about $15 million so that brings us down into the $ 11 million range uh and so that's what we recommend you all take to the commission we also discussed our proposed pay increase as a reminder we
will not bring you the actual pay increased proposals until May at the earliest because right now we don't know that we will receive sufficient funding uh and so it's premature to actually ask you to approve some pay increases I know many of you have had some questions
related to specific uh um uh pay proposals uh we will bring a finalized version of that to you in May we're also in the process of talking with the wcea through uh the Pekka process the professional Educators collaborative conferencing act um so so we're not
quite ready to bring that to you even if uh we we had the proposed funding but with that Mr chair and board members uh with us projecting an $ 11 million gap uh it the the Gap right now based on our
proposal is exclusively related to pay increases for next year uh that brings us down below the total amount that we project for pay increases which includes some roles for some of for our teachers and some of our classified positions uh and in addition to some adjustments to
some of our arts and Athletics thank you for that um update and report so we have I see one speaker Dr Reeves yes I had a question related to the pay increases and I I had emailed I wondered does that include substitute teachers I had received an email from a
regular sub who said that they haven't received a pay raise since 202 one and I know that it's sometimes hard to find substitute teachers yeah thank you for that uh at this stage we do not have a proposal for substitute uh teacher pay increases um we've looked at some Market
comparisons uh we do know that um that we don't fill every substitute position every day uh we're not sure that a small percentage would make a difference uh but we will have a discussion in the next two months revisiting that um I do
want to um invite uh Vick Hall our assistant superintendent for human resources to speak to that if you'd like to share any additional information I don't have a whole lot to share except that it is always on our radar um that is correct that it's been
um a couple of years 2022 I think since there's been an increase for Subs since that time though we did um we we began hiring what we call Super Subs who are committed to be the building um 18 days
a month and then we also have had um the ability to hire some subs in what we call a long-term sub role which is where we're allowed to pay them at State rate which that varies based on um what their
years of experience on when I say State rate that's what's set by the State Board of Education so that's like at over $200 um a day um in comparison to the regular sub rate and all those things vary based Bas on what's going on but
typically that's for a long-term leave of absence so the Super Sub pay rate and if I'm not mistaken we have two at every school is that right we have two at every school and we did increase it last year so it's at 190 so we definitely encourage our substitutes who want to be
more permanent it's basically 80% of the school days that they commit to uh to to make that commitment and and we can give them a substantial increase before we go any further with questions can I get a motion in a second oh I'm sorry on the floor I fail to do that at
the outset and motion by Mr wel second by Mr galberth okay and Mr galberth you're recognized so Claire thanks for for speaking of that but just m Farmer for um for Subs what do we what's the
approximate line item for for Subs what do we what do we spend on Subs it annually I'll have to check for you okay I hadn't thought about that that's a great it's a great question but the so I guess when we when we look at when we look at that I I guess I would I would
propose that we you Jason if you could look at not so much a percentage increase but uh but what what we spend and what a what a an appropriate increase would look like that would that would be that would be meaningful so I
can't think of anybody I mean it to for given the given what other other pay for both teachers and for um classified employees have done over the last four years um like I could I could see some
people thinking what you know what do you do you not value the subs as much and they're they're critical to what we what we do yeah thank you for that and I'm GNA I'm G to I'm going to take an additional step based on your comment we will also compare our actual spending to our budgeted because if we don't fill
them all we should have some some remaining funds in that lot before we go to miss HMA um Can can I ask you Mr Golden to do something you did at the um at the work session which is just at a high level to explain where
this budget is compared to the current School current budget that we're in from an operational perspective and from a staffing um headcount FTE perspective just for comparison and context sure and I may miss a couple of items but to give
you a nutshell uh we project a 0.44% decrease in our student population this year um most of our grade levels are actually projected to increase in numbers but we're projecting a substantially fewer number of
kindergarteners coming in than graduating seniors rolling out which largely accounts for for for that net so we still have people moving in at every grade level but generally speaking we have have fewer younger ones coming than than older ones leaving so from a
budgeting perspective that's a good thing uh from a staffing perspective that's a good thing uh so related to that for for for Staffing we do project a net total reduction in our total staff
uh I mentioned to you all one specific uh position that we are including in the budget and that's a a director of our Innovation Hub we intend to open our Innovation Hub uh in Fall of 2026 but we need that Innovation Hub
director online to work that in that in that year before it opens to put together curriculum get students signed up Etc uh one item related to that that I didn't mention at the work session uh because uh we heard some conversation I know Miss rockmont and some others who
spoke spoke to this alternative paths for careers are are going to be directly impacted Ed by that Innovation Hub I did give you every um every program that we had that we intend to put in that Innovation Hub but from an overall perspective at the budget uh a net
reduction uh based on based on our our valuation of our staffing standards at each school and in our programming uh on the operation side of the budget we do project a net million dooll decrease uh in our operations cost uh compared to
last year here uh not including our request related to uh computers in in Chromebook Replacements you all may recall that last year as we stagger our Chromebook Replacements by grade bands we actually included in conversations
with the County Commission the Chromebooks for Dr Al or or Mr King I'm trying to remember if it was middle or high off the top of my head that we replaced last year high school high school yes we included those in the in capital expenditures last year as part
of our as part of our agreement with the County Commission to to to get the pay raise currently those those devices are in our operating budget but for that we actually have a reduction in capital uh
I'm sorry a reduction in our operations expense related to that about 86% of our budget is people uh and we're in the people business and so generally speaking that reflects the effort that we've put in and I know Mr chair we had
a discussion about teacher pay uh teacher pay is always very important to us uh when we look at the revenue side of the budget last year our per pupil expenditure our average per pupil expenditure based on the the uh State
data that we received was just slightly below the state average by about $12 below State average uh we have about 147 748 school districts depending on how how the state counts them uh our our teachers were in the if I'm not mistaken
in the 27th range somewhere around there in rankings in Pay uh so we're below average in those 147 call it right at average in those 147 school districts and we're our teachers are at 24th
ranking or so 27th somewhere in that range our leadership our principles and our leaders are in the top five uh related to that because we do put an emphasis on on uh on supporting our leaders we believe that's important
we've been strategically working through that for years but I want you to think about those numbers when we're right at average in per pupil expenditures and we're in the 20s compared to the 70s or so for average per pupil expenditure uh
we are putting our efforts towards people but we can always do better and frankly we always need to because the cost of living here uh is if not the highest right right among the highest in the county so that's the basic overview overview operations were going slightly
down uh but for the computers which got moved to a different spot last year uh and our our staffing is going slightly down thanks for that I I thought it would be important to get that Baseline out for context um once again U Miss edma
yeah uh thank you um chairman Brown um I would like to um make an amendment to the Chromebook budget and I would also like just a few moments to make a few comments about why I'm making this amendment and where I would like to see our district moving uh forward um so if
you guys would just kindly indulge me a moment um so I'd like to make an amendment to the Chromebook budget to increase it to 6.2 million so we can add computer carts to charge devices at school so children will not have to take them home I believe the conversations
that I've had with the district Personnel are for our district to reduce overall screen time for students before during and after school the first step to accomplish reduced screen time is not to have children take home our Chromebooks or their Chromebooks excuse
me uh that's my first goal um My overall goal I'd like to see is to eliminate student screens in K5 K through fifth grade because I believe uh as an educ Ator is not developmentally appropriate and Research indicates across the county
uh country that technology in the classroom does not improve academic performance oftentimes it is a convenience for teachers or currently the need to follow our state requirements as a former elementary teacher um children need to begin
developing social skills and executive function skills their prefrontal cor cortex is not fully developed until after PU Liberty and children need to play they need Sensory Learning social interaction paper and pen and
face-to-face interactions with teachers and fellow students to develop these executive functions when these skills are not part of a child's brain development they do not learn impulse control and their ability to do hard things the immediate reward system of
the interactive screens rewires a child's brain it creates um at it creates addicts from the dopamine Rush children can't resist the low effort High reward distractions on screens children do not use screens like adults
another goal is to provide Elementary children with a digital citizen curriculum to learn how their brain is affected by the high stimulus screens and then for and for them to use technology responsibly as adults the current um there currently is curriculum
available for students parents and teachers for this type of material um um but it needs to be approved by the state before it can be implemented in our school curriculum even though I'm approving the purchase of Chromebooks for third through fifth grade I see this
as an intermed intermediary step while our district works with the state on computer science standards I am also approving this with the caveat for future discussions with the board on the Chromebooks and other dig digital devices so that they are not used for a
reward when classroom work is complete or for any kind of free time in the classroom or as a replacement for recess including days when they must be inside due to the weather our elementary children need as much play interaction with peers and their teachers to develop
social skills and these executive functions I have concerns with the safety of students access to inappropriate content that cannot be protected by our District's firewalls or in the home such as YouTube Google Docs Pinterest Roblox and other sites that
provide access for Content children can never unsee I believe our district is using due diligence to follow the children's online protection act or Copa but I have concerned about data privacy and data mining when we are required to hand over information to the state I
would like our board to be educated on what our district currently does to provide that privacy protection for our children so this was a difficult decision to make because I realized that to use technology approp in the classroom there needs to be changes at the state level as well as in input from
our technology committee who will be studying and re reviewing the appropriate use of screen time in the classroom this is a community issue uh from my own research I have access to lawyers who can teach us about privacy issues as well as nurses and
psychologists who can speak on the topic this is important to me because I want to see the Next Generation develop into healthy productive citizens and the data shows that addictive qualities of screens has greatly impacted the mental health of our students and their ability
to function with the proper social skills work eth and work ethic and I want to keep our campuses safe thank you chairman Brown for this time thank you Miss edma um just to get clarity on your Amendment you want to take the the current amount of five 5
Milli $220,600 and increase it by 900,000 is that correct that's correct cor okay do we have a second on that motion I'm sorry 999,000 9,000 okay thank you for
that clarification so the motion is to increase the the budget item for Chromebooks and computer carts to charge those Chromebooks from 5 5,220 $360 to increase that by
$999,000 that's the that's the motion is that's the amendment is there a second second by Mr Cash sorry okay any discussion on the amendment Mr
galberth thank Mr chair um can I know y'all provided us with some with some data around around what that is um and uh I like could Mr King could you could you you tell just what the just some
detail around the U the number the numbers for for K through two and and 3 through five I thought it was really interesting and how we're how we're breaking these down I think everybody should kind of know how many how many computer carts we we're going to end up
having in the in the classrooms so yes sir with this amendment it would be a total of 866 cards for the elementary schools and if I may if I may uh Mr chair give a little bit more detail
related to that our original budget proposed sufficient cards for K through two uh with a with a I'm sorry yeah that's correct and they uh for K and one we were going to reduce it to uh one
part for every other classroom so your the 800 in includes includes adding sufficient carts to cover grades three through five yes sir that is correct we had uh in the budget already was carts for
kindergarten and first for every other classroom we were going to reduce the number of Chromebooks in those grades uh and then it in the original budget there was a Chromebook for every classroom for uh second second grade so now we're
adding this amendment would add three four and five to that and and if I may I'm going to give a little bit of history related to that those who've been in the district a long time know that for many years our pto's supported purchasing devices and cards two
strategic plans ago uh we had a a goal for everyone to have a device obviously there's been a lot of research uh uh since then the state standard speak to students uh who arrive at our schools as
kindergarteners having spent multiple hours per day on their devices and so the the state standards and its preface generally describe an intention to help students learn how to appropriate appropriately use technology when they
enter school as our PTO did that many years ago there was a transition in I'm estimating 12 14 maybe even 15 years ago where we started a process of what was
called byot bring your own technology I'm just going to be blunt we didn't find that that worked well uh it included issues related to some of those comments that Miss hibma mentioned uh with respect to protect protecting every
device uh security issues ETC uh so this is if this if this passes and we were able to fund it through the commission a step towards bringing it back inh house a little bit uh especially at the
elementary level thank you and I really I do appreciate this um because it will it gives it gives everybody the option to to leave them at school today today we don't even have the option to to leave them at school because you'd have 30 computers stucked up on a on a
counter somewhere and nowhere to to charge them so I I think this I think this helps give some options I I don't think we're saying that they can't take them home um we're we're hopefully moving into in a Direction Where where they're not required to take them home
um but U but that will we that can that can evolve as as can the number of the number of computers that we actually have U our ratios in the in the elementary school so I'm I'm fine with with doing the refresh and repurchasing
the old um computers that we have now U but I look forward to hearing from um from the committee I'm glad we're doing the technology committee to to understand um from from all stakeholders to um as we
as we kind of evaluate how we use um technology in the classroom in and out of the classroom uh because you know over time just because we're buying these computers for 3 through five today um doesn't mean they can't be repurposed later if we decide to reduce ratios or
do something in the future so um I completely appro approve this budget uh amend Amendment Dr Johnson are you wanting to be recognized on the amendment yeah okay I guess go ahead please I have some
questions yeah um so I have questions about the final number I'm looking at a a Chromebook plan that was sent to us so now this has 6
6,164 46 for Chromebooks to be replaced but I'm assuming we've reduced that amount from that for so um how much are we spending now it was like 5 what
million I'm sorry we got things in all different places so I'm trying to make sure I understand 5,220 360 was the the latest request okay for Chromebooks and cards that's now does that include K1 being reduced
or K5 being reduced that's K1 okay are we going to look at reducing K5 so let me give a little bit more detail to that we intend not to purchase new devices for
K2 okay uh we it um we our plan is to take the existing devices that are near end ofel life use fewer use that that we're replacing use those that are still in in the best shape at
K2 uh and actually purchase for three through five so Mr King can you speak to the numbers for those for those because that was going to be my next question you saying because the numbers don't the numbers don't add up it seems like not enough yeah that's why I was and I was also just trying to figure
out how we had a budget increase for cart when we were actually decreasing the number of purchases purchase well the original budget didn't have cards right because we were just going to buy Chromebooks one to one and
stay as normal but we've so we've changed that's the reason that uh what we s is a little outdated and we'll we'll update that so there isn't so we we did budget the and then in the newly revised numbers we budgeted the cost of
carts to support those to ensure that as Mr galber said students would not have to take them home and on average um or kind of to his point how many Chromebooks do we have that are functional even though they might be
older like how are we keeping an inventory of that and I ask that just because also when I look at this plan I mean every year there's an ask for almost five plus million dollars to replace Chromebooks yes ma'am so that that's the
cycle uh it would be a four-year cycle like this year we would do uh 3 through five next year we would do uh K through two the following year we're back to middle school and then the following year we're back to high school
and then we start the process because that's the expected life of a Chromebook and has the district ever looked at the the possibility of like computer leasing I know a lot of businesses they lease computers yes matter of fact that's what
we did originally when we went one to one was uh we did a lease purchase program we have been strongly discouraged from doing that that by the comp controller's office um we actually felt like that was actually a better option and we've been doing that regularly U Miss farmer can you speak to
some of that detail sure so three years ago now before then we were making lease payments and that's how we purchased um the C trollers office has changed their position a little bit and at that point in time we then had to begin submitting to them
pre-approval before we could do a lease the thought process being that um the finance charges charged on those leases was too high that it was for tax dollars was kind of I think the thought process behind it and so we submitted and we
were rejected and told that um it would be a better option to purchase outright or to try to finance through a bank versus a lease we talked to Banks and their their rates were higher than what the leases were and so because we had been rejected that's when we've started trying to pull the Chromebooks into the
annual budget okay thank you that's all I have Dr Reeves on the amendment um is my mic on okay I also just wanted to express thanks for um
providing the cart option you know I spoke about this at the work session um with regards to Third through fifth graders having to bring computers home every day and how heavy they are and I think a lot of parents in our community
are going to be very thankful that we are making it a priority and actually you know while it does require an addition to the budget I think that our parent community and our students are going to benefit from it so I just
wanted to say thank you any other comments or questions on the amendment all right we will vote on the amendment um and then we will go back to discussion on the original budget as amended I do recommend approval thank
you the vote is 11 yes Zer no am we are back on the original budget Miss Clemens we were talking about um
substitute raises and I like that get learning more about the Super Subs and how that works um but I wanted to ask um how are we um I I brought this up before we have
some teachers who are carrying a heavier load um say in Middle School you have three Math teachers three science teachers three three social studies teachers but only two language arts teachers they're doing 33% more work I
have learned recently that there are districts that will pay overages for teachers who are carrying have real load and and I and I want to speak to that because in those situations we have a larger class size we have teachers that are pushing the state limit with 30 or
35 students and we all know that in education in the education business and education standard that the golden number is class siiz I've taught in um middle school and had 30 plus students and I've taught and
had 18 and it's a totally different experience you can learn your students teachers do much better so overall when we are looking at our budget I really want to ideally have our class sizes getting
smaller um and and increasing teacher incentives and um stiens for teachers who might want to be a mentor and and kind of looking just overall looking at some of our educational practices a little B
differently um because at the end of the day I think our class size um will do better if we have smaller class sizes and teachers who are paid more um so thank thank you for that Miss Clemens
um let me make a couple of comments uh we do have conversations with our teachers organization the WCA about pay issues we actually have an obligation uh um via the the state rules to do that but frankly we we do that intentionally and
it's actually good to have conversations I am in a moment going to call on Dr Webb who who chairs that discussion team for us uh she's she's our well the old terminology was chief chief representative but I I don't know that they use the old terminology anymore to
speak to some of our conversations with our with our teacher leaders related to that and to speak to that variation uh you that that may happen based on how particular schools uh schedule I do want to refer you in the budget document to
our school by school position control report uh where we address that uh for some of our smaller schools especially our high schools and our middle schools we do have a lower pupil teacher ratio because we want to make sure we have the
appropriate course offerings uh so so you will see that substantial difference uh in in in some of our smaller schools you might have fewer students at those smaller schools in particular classes because we want to make sure that we have enough Staffing for those schools
to make because we want those opportunities to be there uh on the on the numbers with the where the state gives us caps uh for for class size they actually do it in two main ways it's individual classes and then class ranges
great band ranges uh K2 and uh three through actually I'm trying to remember now three through K3 and then four through six uh and then seventh seventh and eighth uh and so especially the middle school it's peculiar because the sixth grade is
a Singleton class but at our middle schools whereas the state actually does B evaluates US based on a grade three through six I mean a grade four through six range so it can be peculiar as we do that math uh um so with with that I will
ask Dr Webb to speak to those to those two issues thank you Mr Golden and thank you for the question so our Pekka conversations are ongoing we still have additional meetings to take place but uh to Mr Golden's Point um that is a topic of our conversation about teachers taking on additional responsibilities we
have a couple of items currently that we're continuing to discuss in regards to uh sub coverage and how classes are covered when um we're short staffed uh that's something that we've been talking about at length but there are some variations of you'll see um in additional pay for teachers as an
example um when we have the secondary level uh let's just say we're short a school is short a math teacher and we're unable to um find a a person to fill that position and teachers give up um give up study halls and and planning
periods to take on additional uh Staffing so if a teacher typically at a high school teaches five classes as a full-time load and we need them to take on a sixth class uh and they are willing to do that uh due to a staff shortage they do receive additional pay to do
that at the middle school level I know there have been some questions about the variation in class size and the variation in courses as students get older from elementary and they start to um have choice in classes and those choices are sometimes a preference and sometimes those are academic needs and
variations of which math class they should be in based on their abilities and um and their skill level there is a variation from class to class we do try to stick to that Staffing standard uh guide that you see at the beginning of your your budget and I know that um Miss
Hall and Miss farmer and I were happy to answer questions about that Staffing standard but you will especially students get older see variation the classes the Middle School level it comes with um the the math placement as an example or there specials that they're able to choose at the high school level
it has to do with variations of whether a student um chooses an AP class or an honors class and it depends on how many total students have chosen that course uh whether or not we're even able to offer it you know if there's only two students who are interested in an upper level course we may not even be able to
offer it but if we have 15 students that are interested um we may go ahead to choose to offer that course but it means that another math class or another history class will have to have additional students in it to be able to offer it so those variations we uh look
at closely to try to keep a balance um that's why at the beginning of the school year you know our our principes will tell parents after the first day of school and we have you know if a school has an additional enrollment and 50 unexpected students come in to register it may mean that the second day of
school we balance some classes so that that doesn't end up that 32 kids are in one geometry class and uh 20 students in a different geometry class we do try to balance those out right as the school year is beginning and our assistant principls who are schedulers work throughout the summer to try to keep
that balance as new students register but there is a little bit of a a math balancing that happens and there are some variations that occur uh but we're super cognizant of that fact to try to keep the the smallest number of students in any various class that we possibly can and I may be overstating this but
especially at the middle school level we see that more often and say comparing Ela English language arts classes to math because in math you're the our middle schools generally speaking are offering sixth sth e8th grade math Algebra 1 and geometry uh and whereas
the ELA classes are are fewer uh so you might see a higher number in an English class than you would in a math class just because of those offerings U but again on the pay side it's it it is worth a a continued discussion with the with the Education
Association thank you I just I would like to see us move up from that 27th rank yeah paying our teachers more at the end of the day I just want their morale I think we'll see them staying more and um so thank you for that and we
agree with that we don't have direct control over our Revenue side of the budget but we have influence on it uh and those com those ongoing conversations with our state legislators uh with our County Commission I definitely encourage you all to have
those uh and develop relationships with them uh the cost of living uh here in Williamson County I've alluded to it already just briefly uh there is a cost of living factor in the Tissa funding formula that's the that's the State
method but as I understand it right now it's not funded so there is still some room for for growth and Improvement Dr Johnson thank you um so you know I ran on a campaign of fiscal accountability so you know that I have come through
this budget um because we only have so much revenue um my goal is to get the funding as close to the classroom as possible in terms of Tas bu like the people who work every day with the students and I do appreciate that we pay
our leaders very well um I was very disappointed when we got the tsba data and saw that our teachers were ranked 27th in the state um because I like to be number one at everything but um so you know in combing through the the
budget there's lots of positions that I question at the district level um even at the school level and when I've asked for data like what do these positions do can you show
me data on their impact um and you know also backing up that you know educational research supports that the classroom teacher is the one who impacts the students the most um so with all that being said um I know when we did
the fiveyear capital plan we were told to to pass it that the budget would come back to us is that the case here here or if we want to change something we actually have to do line by line amendments thank you for that question
this this budget as proposed includes our staffing standards includes our position control report we will rely on your vote for Staffing when it comes to pay for individual positions that will
come back to you our proposal on the on the revenue side and expense side of the budget related to pay is based on mayor Anderson telling the commission at their public meetings he intends to increase
spending for pay by 4% that doesn't mean a 4% raise for everybody I want to make sure that's clear right we've talked about that that's right but I'm not sure everybody here has has heard that yeah that's true and so our proposed budget includes that and then we intend to bring you our proposal for that in May
uh if we get a projection from the commission that we will receive sufficient funding from them to do that and if we don't receive sufficient funding then we would have to come back to the drawing board ma'am and look at line item cuts and things of that nature
that's exactly right okay any other comments or questions on the general purpose School fund budget Mr galbert thank you and so so just after Miss Clemens was talking about reducing the student teacher ratio which I'm not
opposed to at all um and also increasing pay um I just want to just did a some back of the envelope math and say we had 200 2200 roughly 2200 teachers and our
um our regular instruction um budget line item is $255 million and that's that's pay benefits um every everything taxes um but if we reduced the by a one
one student per classroom reduction from but by my numbers and this might there there might be better better numbers but my back of the envelope was 18. 76 student teacher ratio um and if we reduce that by one
that's about 5% it'd be another 125 teachers or 14 million bucks so um so if we I'm not saying that that's not possible that's just the realities that we're that we're looking at in addition to that's that's 125 more classrooms
that we that we have to create and some of our schools are are don't fit so I mean it would be it would be some some adjustment you know we'd have we'd have schools that are that are fitting in their buildings now that don't fit in their buildings anymore so just just
trying to think about that and then from a from an overall standpoint um you know we're talking 255 million um million dollar and we we see what the cost of of each raise is and so it's
all it's all things would that would be that would be nice to have but like Jason said we're you know we're we're limited in our um ability to to to pay our staff based on the money that we get from from both the the state and the in
the county so I mean it's just I don't know how I don't know what the current the the current the cost of a or the value of a penny I remember when it used to be a million dollars and I I suspected it's a little bit more than that now $1.8 million inflation so so let's
just call it let's call it 2 million bucks that's s cents um on the property tax that we would have seven or eight cents that we would have to uh to increase and to that point I know many of you know this but I know we have a good crowd here this the County government is going
through the reappraisal process the value of the penny will go up before July one currently it's at 1.8 million there that reappraisal may make a substantial difference Miss Clemens thank you um and
I appreciate your comments Mr galberth uh and I understand how that how that's going to be difficult to do but I think overall I'm really looking at teacher morale and um as Dr Johnson said getting
as much money straight to the classroom I know we've had discussion on um instructional coaches these are Master Teachers that aren't in the classroom anymore uh and curriculum specials Master Teachers who aren't in the
classroom anymore and um I I think maybe we could look at ways to restructure it we see I don't see this model used a lot I think it's come as new to us I think we started doing this as uh Dr Allen said and 20121 is when we added the
instructional coaches we began Dr Looney brought instruction he was the first one to introduce instructional coaches that was prior to me joining the district Mr Golden 2009 2010 I thought we had some discussion at the I'd WR jot it down
that it was 2021 would we we' we've taken steps towards it so so during that those first few years they were doing multiple tasks uh and then uh we have we have added capacity with our instructional coaches in more recent
years and Dr Allen I think I think you're probably right I think maybe 2010 but again they were doing intervention work plus coaching maybe there may have been some other work there as well to Mr Clems to your point the the significant change
did come in 2020 and it was the hiring of interventionists to work specifically with students in tier three which freed the coaches up to do what their original intent was which was to coach with the teachers okay yes so that was the 2020 reference that we had at okay thank you
and I will I will tell you related to that uh we we are seeing it more and more uh uh around the state the state actually added a a category this year if I'm not mistaken Rachel for coaches uh to to separate it out because the state
recognizes that that Trend um we found that it's making a difference for our teachers I know Dr Johnson we've had some detailed discussions about data uh and there's so many variables we don't have specific data uh to attribute that to but we do have our we do have uh
experiential shares from from our team plus the ultimate student data uh so so that's that's item that we know we're going to continue to work on uh and getting data to uh to show that Dr
Johnson um just a piggyback off of what Jay and Donna said um again the instructional coaches in salaries alone is like 7.4 million that doesn't include benefits and they are Master Teachers and we are
in in a teacher shortage there's 101 of them you know have we considered getting them back in the classroom and looking at a different coaching model such as um I know I've seen coaching models where they'll pay them stiens they'll um you can do
release time you can get creative in ways that you might um do a coaching model um and yes we we do have very high scores as all students but um I actually did some digging in the TCAP subgroup
data which I would think that the instructional coaches would be focusing on and many times our subgroups which are um if you're not familiar with TCAP subgroups that's like black Hispanic Native American then you have economically disadvantaged you have
English Learners students with disabilities and super subgroups most of those subgroup students fall I'm just looking at it quickly uh 15% plus behind the other groups like
The all group so for example the English 3rd through 5th is 70.8 but your students with disability are 31.2 your economically disadvantaged are 34.2 and so that's a um a difference of
like 39.6% 36.6% um so again I'm wondering what the focus for the instructional coaches are do um do we
have information about coaching skills coaching model have we looked at potentially changing that thank you for that we have in the past um used uh supplements and uh stiens uh and and asked teachers to do to do that extra
what we have found is a dedicated coach with the skills to teach the teachers uh has been has worked better for us uh and you're right about those those gaps in what the state describes as subpopulations uh some of you may recall that I'm going to estimate 10 12 years
ago there was a big push at the state level in doing what they called closing the Gap uh between some of those subpopulations and and the all students category uh especially in these last five or six years we've been focused on this basic principle that all students
can learn at High levels uh we want to make sure that we don't take our eye off the ball on all students but also focus on growing those and that is a focus of our coaches I'll give you a data example I happen to look at related to our
science textbooks in TCAP in grades 3 through 8 we were first in all the all students category uh and we were third in the Hispanic and africanamerican uh um category and so there are some gaps there and I'm
talking about Statewide um and we can pull some data related to that um Dr Allen I know you and I have had some detailed disc actually our whole instructional team Dr Webb and Dr or we've had some detailed discussions uh about that can you speak to that well I just want to recognize Dr Johnson for
identifying that it's like you read our minds Mr Golden has we as a a leadership team each year identify themes of focus not always all instructional um safety is one that always we have uh every year
we limit those to two or three themes of intentional Focus every year we've identified unique learning needs or the differentiation for the subpop data that you're discussing as one of those ones that will be intentional for us next year and so to your point it will be a
lot of work um of our instructional coaches when we have a theme like that it means we focus our professional development it means we we focused our work with our leadership team all of those particular areas because that is an area that we feel like we can we can
do better in the achievement levels as you mentioned with those Sub sub pops are areas that we really will will Target we also have growth data that supports that we are doing some things really well with those sub pops so we really balance both of those um but to
your point I just want to recognize the fact I I uh um it's like you read our mind that's that's going to be our intentional Focus next year is what can we do for all of the unique learning needs so it could be um students with disability could be students um who have
characteristics of Dyslexia it could be English language Learners teachers um have a classroom uh of of very diverse Learners and uh we believe that we can better support our teachers in how to
address those unique learning needs um and that's going to be some of the work of of the coaches as you mentioned so I appreciate you sharing that point uh let's uh create an evaluation plan around that so we have some data we can we can make operational there's a
great book out there assessing impact of professional development by Dr Jo and Killian take a look at that and get some ways because it's really hard to justify spending that much taxpayer money for any of our programs if we don't have
data to support it thank you for that Mr galberth before I come to you I want I think it's a good opportunity to make a point that something I've been thinking about with respect to our strategic plan half half of this board was not here was not elected and sitting on the board when
the last when the current strategic plan that we're operating under was created and approved um in my mind at least the budget should be a reflection of the district's priorities and strategic Direction um that's what it it's what it should be um and I think
some of the things we're talking about here kind of rise to the level of being more strategic conversations about what's our instructional philosophy going to be as a district what's our because that's going to drive our staffing um our positions or the number of positions we have in any different
area um that's going to all flow out of our philosophy and our strategic plan so I might suggest that that's something that we maybe revisit the Strategic plan not for a wholesale review or wholesale read-option if you will but maybe for modification sometime in the next 90
days 120 days just because that gives the new board members a chance to participate in a conversation about the plan maybe make modifications that might include some of these things regarding strategic Direction Staffing instructional pH philosophy all those things I think rather than trying to
deal with it as a budget modification now which might be shortsighted deal with it more holistically as part of the Strategic plan that's just a suggestion and I wanted to say that in the context of this discussion because I think that's where this is going a little bit Mr galbert thank you for that Mr chair
um I do want to say and I and Dr Allen I I could be I could be mistaken lately but the last time I saw the the subgroup data compared to our overall achievement um yes the Gap was bigger than than normal but if I don't if I recall
correctly our subgroups were performing it greater than the than the state average in most areas if I'm not mistaken I some of them I believe I don't feel confident in say I do believe that we do have no it might it might not be all and and that's fine but like
let's just remember the I mean economically disadvantage student here who you know might might be might be much less far behind in Davidson County versus Williamson just because their their peer group is so much is is at is
at such a high level so we we do it's not to to to Mr Golden's point we think that all students are eligible are able to learn at a high level U but we're we're starting with a with a bigger Gap and closing the Gap is a great um it's a great achievement but it's a I mean it's
a pretty big task yeah thank you for sharing that Mr go with our our subgroup data compared to others is really good um we feel we can do better we're always looking for areas for improvement and really we we're taking it on ourselves as a leadership team to better equip our
teachers it's not that we're blaming the teachers for not impacting those teachers we feel like we as a team can do better in equipping them with better professional development because dealing with lots of different unique learning needs requires a a really complex tool
belt to be able to be successful with all of those unique learning needs so we're taking upon oursel to to better equip our teachers and help them because they're trying to do the best that they can do they're not intentionally in classrooms saying I don't want to help this student learn we need to better help them and support them with more tools sure well and to and to be clear I
know we we we talk we started talking about student teacher ratio and then the coaches just just to be to clear I'm 100% in favor of our coaches staying coaches so I I think the the best teachers aren't always the best coaches um and um and I've seen firsthand um
what with what coaches are able to do with new teachers um I mean experienced teachers too everybody can can be on a growth curve but um particularly as we as yall talked about how many how many young new teachers we have um but they
they had the ability to go in and and view that teacher in the classroom which if we if we didn't have coaches that were dedicated to coaching then every time they stepped out of their classroom into another classroom room then they're leaving their students Alone um and
they're so now we're taking again we're taking our best teachers out of the classroom and so I think the ones who have a who have a knack who have a love for coaching um let them coach like they they obviously have experienc teach they're probably yes they're probably some of our best teachers but they're
ones that with the with the gift of of teaching other teachers which isn't for it isn't for everybody so I I'm I will I'll Fight Hard to uh to keep keep those um those coaches in
position Miss GL thank you for that um so when I was a young teacher I had I was paired with a mentor teacher and this teacher continue to work full-time and um we would take turns sitting in each other's classes
and um and then I was given advice and I think we could still I mean we're not going to be able to change it this year but or but I I think that technology could be a friend to us in this one
because Master Teachers can have their classes videoed and then share with other younger teachers and you can still do a peer mentoring without keeping someone 100% out of the classroom um this has been done for years um I really actually just wanted to speak and thank
Miss Farmer for doing such a good job um since I've been on this board this process has become more and more trans arent and I'm really thankful for that and all the work well I might not 100% support the budget um I really am appreciative to all you've done that you
have sat down with me and um and taken time to meet with me and I feel like this this budget has been better and leaner than others and I really do appreciate your efforts for that her Miss Farmer's microphone's not on so I'm going to speak a little bit
for her thank you she's she's incredible um our our leader leadership team evaluates and evaluates and cuts and makes priorities uh and she keeps us on task so thank you for that any
other yes yes oh no I have to say this that yes I in this role but everybody I mean like everybody from the school level up contributes to this budget and I think we've all learned um over
the years how to be more uh forthright with information it's not that we're trying to keep it from we just don't even know what we take for granted that you don't know what you don't know and so um I'm appreciative for everybody including you all and but I just have to say it's not me it is a whole team of
people that um that get us here so anyway that's it and I I will share this is this is the proverbial fire hose right for for for many of you because it's a it's a large budget I know Mr Cash you're smiling because you're probably thinking back to years ago when you saw it the first time and what
you've learned over the years it will be an ongoing learning process I'm not seeing any other anybody else seeking recognition before we go to a vote on the budget would you just remind us either you Mr Golden or Miss farmer once we approve this budget the
next steps for the budget in terms of County Commission consideration and when we might expect it to come back to us us um after they have dealt with it the first time thank you Mr chair so uh we have a responsibility to the County Commission to get this budget to get
their our proposed budget to them before April 1st this year based on our schedule they have actually scheduled their first meeting the last week in March March 24th this coming Monday and that is the education committee if it's both education I'm sorry budget and
education are having a joint committee meeting I I don't know off the top of my head how many meetings that we have with them it's it's joint and then we have an additional one with education additional with the budget committee and then the commission as a whole okay so probably
half a dozen or so uh meetings with them they project that they will vote on our budget and all their budgets in June June 20th June 20th uh so when we could start getting some idea from them about about the tax rate and what they're
projecting that's why mentioned to you may as the as the projected time that we'll be able to take a pay proposal to you because again we don't want that commitment to a pay increase unless we know we have the funds um that will still be before their ultimately
ultimate June 20th meeting but we'll have a a lot more information about where the County Commission is uh on on that uh by that time I do want to mention that we actually do have a county commissioner in the in the in the audience with us so so thank you for uh
for for being here uh to to listen to this board discussion um uh Rachel any any other detail related to the commission now they have to they have to vote on their own budget as well so this is done in conjunction with with their
budget and Bill Petty I actually didn't mention your name specifically thank you Mr Petty for being here uh to as a commissioner to listen to this meeting okay so I think we have reached the end of our discussion um one more call for comments or questions
before we go to a vote all right Mr Golden I assume since you brought the budget to us that you recommend approval yes I do all right all right let's proceed to a vote on the general purpose School fund budget as the vote is 10 yes one
no you approve the budget General purpose School fund budget 2526 um thanks for the good discussion we'll proceed to the next three um budgets I'm just going to give you a preview that after we deal with
those three we'll take a short break and then we'll finish out the rest of the agenda so Central cafeteria fund 2526 Mr golden thank you Mr chair uh as a reminder the central cafeteria fund is not funded At All by state or local
dollars it's funded by users and federal uh I know that there some questions have come up about where the USDA is with funding from every projection we've received any any information um we do project that we will still receive that funding I do recommend approval from you
for that budget uh based on what was presented to you do we have a motion in a second on this motion by Dr Reeves second by Dr Johnson any discussion of the central cafeteria fund budget okay let's proceed to a vote the vote is 11 yes Z
no approve the 2526 Central cafeteria fund budget proposal item number three the approval of the 2526 extended school fund budget Mr golden thank you Mr chair starting on page 57 of your budget includes what is
described as the extended school program fund which is what we call sack uh school age child care uh this is a self-supporting fund based on uh on uh customer payments for lack of a better term uh our parents who uh send their
children to before or after school care uh you may recall that at our work session uh Dr oyer if I'm not mistaken mentioned that we're projecting to open up reopen uh the possibility for drop in clients based on our staffing having
improved over this past year uh and again that will be based on a combination of capacity and need do recommend approval of that budget can we get a motion in a second on this motion by Miss Wyatt second by Miss Clemens any
discussion let's proceed to a vote the vote is 11 yes Z no you have approved the 2025 26 extended school fund budget item number four approval of the 2025 26 Capital outlay request fund Mr golden thank you
Mr chair uh our final budget is our annual Capital request this has evolved over the years with the County commission based on some of their request we have a 5-year Capital plan that projects longer term major construction projects but this annual
Capital request is related to maintenance safety and Technology typically uh you may have heard the the reference we and we mentioned last year to to some of the computers rolling into Capital that's part of the discussion that may happen from time to time with the County Commission uh so we go
through the process of uh uh School request and I know some of our boosters and pto's will contribute to the princi principal's information with a request from us we ultimately bring it to you and I will tell you generally speaking
this is a needs budget uh we we have 52 schools of course one of the 52 is are Vanguard virtual but 51 School locations uh with roofs alone you can't replace one roof a year over the course of 51
years and maintain your buildings so we always have uh cost related to that want to share this also especially for those of you um uh who uh who are relatively new not new anymore to the board Mr chair but relatively new at least to this budget process this budget is
typically the one that that that gets the most discussion by the County commission level uh because they're looking on their funding side for how they fund this and it often is a discussion at the commission level of of
debt sending some of this out to bond uh and so they do ask us some detailed questions related to this Capital plan you on the other hand hear from some of our constituents about the need to have improvements and more so it is that balancing that we go through with this
capital budget can we get a motion in a second motion by Mr wel second by Mr galberth any discussion of the capital budget request Dr Johnson I think Brian already answered this for
me but I think it's good to bring out to the public because in this budget there's 3.5 million for computers but I think if I recall you mentioned those were like teacher white boards and is that correct it's okay
because it's kind of like you know why are we spending six million yeah the way the state uh codes everything yes it's actually not computers thank you any other questions comments okay let's proceed to a vote the vote is 11 yes Z
no 526 Capital outlay request fund and that gets us through the four budget approvals that we were required to do congratulations to the six of you who voted on your first budgets um we will go to a 10-minute
break let's reconvene at 8:37 e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e e next item on the agenda is two board policies for first reading um Mr galbert do you want to speak to these and then uh defer to staff if needed from policy committee yes I I I
will as soon as I get to that section so I'm going to relieve Miss osbrook who can't speak very well but she will gladly uh assist if we uh if we need so um first of let's see what item is this
homebound instruction homebound instruction 4.26 um just a couple of um mainly editorial changes due to um change in state law so this one is
pretty straightforward we just need a can we get a motion in a second motion from Dr Johnson second from Mr Boston any any discussion of homebound instructions policy
4206 on first reading seeing none we'll move to a vote I'm sorry Mr Golden do you have any I do recommend approval thank you the vote is 11 yes Z no is approved on first reading um item
number two 4.43 Library materials Mr chair um a couple of um I'd say a pretty pretty big change to um to this and not only the change in
the um in the decision tree Matrix if anyone is familiar with that um but that's the that's the first um first large scale change after we went through that for the the process for um for the
most recent time um and I would just describe that as being um more reflective of how the um how the state law and the federal law are are actually being implemented in terms of we we read
the state law first um in the in order versus the other um decision tree was was more um going through the motions on the on the federal law um but then still having to do the state law which is
where um if there if you were going to um to fail the process it would um it would the state law being newer and and and and more probably more restrictive um you would get to that first but um um so that's the that's the biggest change
there the other one is the um the addition of the mature materials list um I know that was spoken to at um a little bit of public comment um we discussed this at at Link at um at our policy
meeting as well as the um work session um so recommendation my recommendation um if anybody has any any comments feel please feel free to uh to make them but um but this is this is first reading we'll definitely have some uh some work
to do when we uh when we get back to policy with that explanation can we get a motion in a second still need a motion and a second we can't it's not on our I'm sorry it's not on the screen my apologies U motion by Dr Reeves second by Mr BOS
any discussion as Mr galberth mentioned this his first reading this will go back to policy committee for further discussion and back to the board for final vote let's proceed to a vote recommendation I do recommend approval per Mr galber uh mention that we still have some work to
do at policy committee thank you the vote is 10 yes one no uh policy 4.43 on first reading now move to item D approval of High School courses and special course applications board policy
3205 annual agenda item Mr golden thank you Mr chair annually we uh submit to you any new uh proposed uh High School courses that require year approval and state approval uh this year we do propose leadership in action and we have
attached to the board packet some detail of uh of different courses uh certainly open to any questions that you may have related to our submitting this to the state and you do recommend approval sorry thank you we do recommend approval all right can we get a motion in a
second motion by Dr Driggers second by Dr Johnson any discussion all right let's proceed to vote the vote is 11 yes Z no approved let's move to item
e approval of science textbook adoption committee recommendation board policy 4.41 annual agenda item Mr golden thank you Mr chair uh attached you will find uh the recommendations from the committee for adoption of science
textbooks uh it's broken out in uh um grade levels k235 68 plus High School science courses there are also two additional courses uh other than science uh that are being recommended this year based on state schedules advanced
placement psychology and mathematical reasoning for decision making uh do recommend approval of those um and certainly open any discussion because I know there's some robust discussion at the work session okay let's get a motion in a second to get this on the floor
please motion by Dr Johnson second by Miss Wyatt any discussion of the recommendations from the textbook adoption committee Dr Reeves thank you Mr chair so you know
I've really dug into this and spent a lot of time reviewing all the curriculum options and I as a board member prioritized several things the first being that I
believe as a board we are obligated to adopt curriculum that provides the highest instructional quality materials and that demonstrates evidence of improving student outcomes in the classroom and
as a scientist myself I evaluated the the Hands-On piece I really wanted to see how that Hands-On piece was being implemented in the various curriculum options so I've sent emails on this I don't
think it's going to come as a s great surprise to anyone on the board here and I've had numerous conversations um all of the curriculum Options under consideration for kindergarten through 8th grade um
utilized a 5e instructional model that's phenomenon based so there's no difference there um they all offer print and digital resources and the digital resources are custom customizable there's assessment bakes etc etc the
clear distinction that I saw came in two areas and that is the amount of evidence that accelerate learning stem Scopes has on its website um it is extensive whereas the other curriculum options
didn't provide any evidence on their websites of notes Savas has a whole web page devoted to um every student sees act the tier the four tiers of evidence for lots of their other curriculum
options and nothing for science so I also was able to talk to a couple of teachers late this afternoon I was really grateful to have those conversations because I really wanted to hear directly from from them and I just want to share a few things that they
said one was for a um Elementary School teacher and she was very open and shared that she preferred Salas and when I asked her why the first thing she said was the the teap assessment piece and I shared with her that that's not
necessarily what I would focus on as a board member because I've heard from multiple parents in our community about the concerns of teaching to the test and I understand that that's how the system is set up right and so teachers are going to want to see that piece and I
don't fault them for that the other piece that she said example that she gave was that if she's out and has a substitute and there was a lab scheduled for that day that she could utilize the a digital demonstration of the lab
instead of having the sub lead the Hands-On demonstration and I also explained to her that as a parent that's not that's not the most effective way for our kids to be learning science so we've had many um several public commenters tonight emphasize the high
priority on Hands-On science I think that while all the curriculum options offer uh digital resources for teachers to use there was one one clear stand out to me and that was stemscope science and
the ability to really minimize the use yes teachers can still use the digital features but really it allows for prioritizing the Hands-On piece and the print materials that will give parents um and kids greater exposure to to
science on a daily basis so I would like to amend the motion to Bobby you may not may need to help me with the language because I don't have a prepared statement sure so to amend the
motion to pull out the K through 8 and approve vote on approving stem scope science by accelerate learning okay so the amendment is to remove savis and replace it
with stem accelerate learning stem Scopes accelerate stem scop well it would be it would well it would be to to to remove Savas to replace Savas in K through K through 2 with stem Scopes to
replace Savas in grades three through five with stem Scopes and to replace McGraw Hill in grades 6 through eight with stem Scopes is that correct yes that's correct so the motion is
to amend the recommendation from the committee so that K through 2 3 through 5 and 6 through 8 would now be the stem Scopes curriculum is there a second for that motion seconded by Miss HMA any
discussion on the amendment Mr Welch can you Mr Golden can you speak to the teacher's recommendation how that numbers how those numbers broke down between um the two curriculums what they recommended and then what's on the
amendment sure and thank you for that um with the teacher recommendation uh number one they recommended Sav is for grades K through K through two um 108 teachers recommend recommended savis uh 88 recommended
Studies Weekly 42 recommended McGraw Hiller the Tennessee science and then 19 the stem Scopes um so that was uh 7% for the for the for the stem Scopes uh and and for savis 42% so no no no curriculum
had a majority but the savis did have a plurality uh of of that in K12 K2 uh in 35 five uh 82% of the teachers uh science teachers recommended uh the savis which is which
is the committee's recommendation 134 teachers there um uh accelerate learning to stim Scopes was the second most recommended there at 17 teachers McGraw Hill was third for with at 11 and then Studies Weekly was two uh thank you Mr
chair um then let's see Middle School grades 6 through 8 the third one that we've discussed um uh there were a total of 75 science teachers at the middle school level who gave their opinion uh 38
recommended savis uh 37 recommended McGraw Hill and of those teachers not none recommended accelerate learning stem Scopes or the fourth option which was kidum which was open science head the committee actually recommended
McGraw Hill uh for that one based on um based on their review uh and the committee um rather than that 4951 split that we saw with the teachers recommended McGraw Hill by 57% Mr Welsh you you okay uh Mr
galberth thank you Mr chair um at the uh at the work session there was uh there was some discussion about um about potentially deferring the um deferring the decision um based on
the the information that we that we got at the um I guess through the process um and at the work session was um I I would say it it it met the spirit um and the letter of of our of our
process and I I just want to take some some responsibility for that um because since we're you know we we've done a couple of um after after the wit and wisdom CR criticism and and ultimately
ultimately we changed some of the um some of some of the books and the curriculum there um you know we we we did a I would say a pretty pretty good um look at the uh at the process that we go through for uh for curriculum review
and and and and adoption um so I it seems that though the the math curriculum adoption process was pretty similar to um to what we did with uh with science um but even as we even as
we are approving the math um I guess with any with any kind of change we think okay well it's changed so it's so it's better and and it kind of does its its goal um but at the end of the deth adoption and now when we're when we're
sitting before and we're trying to make a decision um on on the science um I'm I'm still still kind of left with the feeling that the that this process um it
it is a it's a transparent process of um of pushing the board to adopt a recommendation but doesn't give us much more information than to do that um and so it it basically it basically says we
need to trust the trust the teachers trust the process trust the committee um which I I think we we I largely do I think we largely do um but it's but this is kind of it puts us in a situation where trust would verify and so I found
myself um not having enough information to um and it's 100% I I'll accept responsibility that I I didn't design a process to create the information that would enable me to make a decision as a
board member um the but so given that um you know I'm I'm open to um I guess I think it would be a mistake to um to move forward with with a recommendation if I thought that
doing so would would move us into a keep us down a direction of of overreliance on technology um and I believe after I reviewed these um these
curriculum um and how they differ um I I think that while we haven't made a decision as a district where we're going the the decision that we make tonight um actually you know puts us eight years down the road on um on what we're going
to be doing with regards to science at least um and so I what what I was missing um and I still don't have um and and I'm open to to how to rectify this but um I saw the
criteria that the that the committee used um and and provided the teachers on uh on the things that were were priorities to to the committee to the district I I can't remember if we signed off on those
we probably did at some point but um what is what's not clear we have the teacher votes but it's not clear what they were what they were voting um what they felt was the most important and what they what they felt was
um stood out for for each of the each of the curricula so um so I guess Jason I I'm I'm actually I'm open to to accepting um Dr ree's
recommendation um but I'm also open if to to what your desire would be before before we chose to accept a curriculum that's counter to the to the committee
committee's recommendation would you rather um us make a decision tonight or would you rather us have some more discussion um and let the committee weigh in and get us more of that information to to answer that question I
want to um look to Dr Allen uh and his team on the the potential for that um we had a professional development day for all our science teachers to make recommendations uh so I'm going to ask him that question and I want but I want to give you this
threshold uh and Dr Johnson actually spoke to this at the work session uh the textbooks are not the curriculum alone they're a piece of curriculum uh uh our teachers our science teachers are the ones who are held accountable for
growing our students uh and what I know from my experience not speaking for an individual teacher of those 188 or however many there there may be what I have seen is they evaluate it based on it the the the uh textbooks
ability to allow them to grow their students and help teach their students Mastery um that's the fundamental start to that uh um Dr Allen I'm going to get you to fill in really to his specific question yeah I can answer that question
specifically if if the two options are delay and get specific information from the committee about why they chose what they chose or for the board to vote to adopt a curriculum not that not a single
middle school teacher referenced as their choice then I would vote for the delay yeah so I I that um given those two options um I would also say that hearing the conversation about the
technology piece leads me to just make the comment that curricula having additional technology resources doesn't mean that it doesn't have the resources without the instructional technology so in those
two particular curriculum when we look at them we see lots of opportunities for Teacher choice for Tech integration but we also see a really solid curriculum as uh Dr Reeves mentioned that is phenomena
based in all of those other pieces so it has kind of all of those and so when I hear the speakers tonight and when I hear the conversation about potentially the overuse of technology and Reliance on technology as the assistant
superintendent of teaching learning and assessment I would say that I agree that that is not our intention on how we would want to uh our students receiving science instruction and by and large we believe that that's not the way that they're receiving it right now in some
cases may it be uh being abused at this point uh absolutely we probably have some of that uh that's why I like you mentioned earlier am excited about the opportunity to engage in that conversation but our teachers um are not
picking a curriculum because they think that the uh curriculum is easier to implement because of the technology they are they are they are selecting a curriculum by and large because they believe that curriculum
will give them the best opportunity to improve student outcomes because our teachers number one are professionals and that's what they want to do but number two they're held accountable to those scores and so I think we're falling short of of what our teachers
are looking for if we're saying that they're looking for something um to ease their their Tech integration that's not the case and then I also want to reference just back to what our Tech integration philosophy is as a district
and this came from our instructional technology department has been in place since probably uh 2019 our Tech integration philosophy is that we start with the instructional standard and that our teachers work in
professional learning teams to dissect and disaggregate that standard to really understand what the standard is asking the students to know and be able to do and then they are required by law to use our state and board adopted resources
first and to implement the highest impact instructional strategies we use hatti as our reference most of the time to determine what is the best way to deliver this instruction so the two primary occurrences through our Tech integration plan don't mention
technology at all in the first two steps those first two steps are disaggregate the standard determine what is the most highly effective instructional strategy using Hattie's research um through the last
decade couple decades and then at that point if there is a tech integration tool that can help the teachers um provide differentiated learning or if there's uh a lab for example that we
can't replicate without the use of Technology then there's an opportunity for Tech integration but only if and when they do those first couple of steps is it probably time that we need to revisit that yes absolutely um but from from the person who's responsible for
how we instruct in students and and coming directly from our curriculum specialist and our instructional coaches in the classroom we are going nowhere in a direction of relying more heavily on technology to teach science that is the
absolute opposite of what our instructional philosophy would be Mr Gabbert I want to add a little bit to Dr Allen's answer if and you all might you all ought to know this as individuals if you have as
an individual made a decision already I ask that you just vote on it now uh if you're not sure and you want to hear that additional piece from teachers Dr Allen mentioned that that there that there may be a way we can get it um I am concerned
about putting that additional questionnaire on our teachers um but if Dr Allen believes based on his team's analysis that they that they can do it uh then then I we'll be open to it um but again if you all have already decided
based on what you have now and and you were convinced that that you know where you want to go I'd rather us just get this vote so that we can get the get the textbooks purchased thank you Dr Rees um superintendent golden I
appreciate you saying that because as you know I called you yes and Dave today and had a very candid discussion and was told that that you all would prefer that we make a decision tonight so to hear it
expressed that we now are open to deferring which is what I was leaning towards so that we could have some more discussions kind of is very surprising to me um
I come back to a a couple of things well one is if we did decide to defer I had asked for our edte department did an evaluation based on a rubric that they developed
and that they presented to the committee and I would like to see the results of that evaluation I I did ask for that before the meeting but um it was late it was today so I understand why I didn't get it um when we look at the questions that
the teachers were asked to consider it was instructional model assessment Banks print resources versus digital resources how it integrated with schooly whether those resources were editable customizable and whether or not supplementary materials were included Ed
and so apart from the very first topic instructional model which they all have the same instructional model the rest of those bullet points directly speak to a lot of the the digital features of the
platform and so um again I go back to we could all come up with a different preference based on what our priorities might be for a board member I think my priority has to be student outcomes and
in the conversations that I had with a few teachers today I asked if if if there was evidence of a curriculum having um increasing uh having a positive effect on student outcomes would that
make a difference to you and the answer from both was a resounding yes and I asked were you aware of some of that when you were were you aware that that evidence existed when we were going through the curriculum evaluation process and they said no they don't recall that being
discussed so M Wyatt just as there are no perfect books there is no perfect process we can learn and adjust this process next time if needed and I welcome those discussions in our policy meeting I am not
comfortable delaying this process if it would negatively impact our students and teachers I support the original textbook science recommend the science textbook recommendations because I support the work that has been done by our T teachers parents and staff the committee
made up of teachers and parents met four times including full day meetings in October and January and shorter meetings in December and February there was also a meeting for the committee of teachers and parents with the Publishers in February there was interaction and
conversation during those meetings between people who very much have our students best interest in mind additionally I trust our teachers on how science is taught in the classrooms I trust the work done by the teachers parents and staff on that committee and
I thank them for their time and effort to support our over 40,000 students Dr Driggers how do we turn it on oh there we are uh I'm as probably the only other
scientist on this board my degrees are in biology and chemistry in high school led to the university uh led to a career for 10 years in that field and then later I got
into teaching the point I when I was looking at the books I don't care how easy it is to access the test I want to know if that kid when they finish that class are they they ready to go into the university and from the University are they ready to go into
biology or chemistry or Premed a science field in in the industrial world uh so when I looked at the books uh the biology chemistry books uh I came out with McGraw Hill and I said if I had
to teach that to these kids this is the book I want it does a better job of content and preparing for a future career here how having said that I'm not going to have to teach that in the high school class so that's up to the
teachers how they're going to do it I would have one question for the superintendent what was the vote between what the committee picked and what I picked with McGraw Hill was it close or not even close Dr ders you're referring
to the biology and chemistry okay the bi the uh biology textbook um uh let's see 44% recommended savis 34% Sage 22% MRA
Hill oh I'm sorry yeah mcra 22% McGraw Hill so that was that was more that well it more balanced no it's 21 44 to 22 and chemistry yeah um and then uh then there's a accelerate learning and Kindle hunt there were two other choices not
not neither for those for chemistry uh the uh recommendation was 16 for savis six for S gagee the National Geographic uh and four for the McGraw Hill uh with zero for the stem Scopes
okay so in in those terms they weren't that close the teachers had a clear the teachers had a clear preference of which book they want to use for for for biology to use a mathematical term the plurality recommended savis but a
majority recommended uh um savis for chemistry okay then I don't contest what the committee picked Dr Johnson um so I'm just going to say that I probably don't have enough information to make a decision tonight
um while there is a process over half of this board you know we came into this the process was already created I'm I know I asked how people were selected and it was principal recommendation I know our board member who was assigned
um wasn't able to attend the meetings and there wasn't like followup and there there was like a lack of communication and some breakdown um so my recommendation like I said would be to defer it because I don't know that I
have enough information to know that the teachers well even with the technology changes would that change which product that they would want I don't know you know and this is an 8-year Commitment if
it weren't such a long commitment I could probably make a vote and i would support teachers but knowing that we've already starting to change the direction of um some of the ways that instruction
is going to be delivered and again the teachers didn't have that information um and it's an 8-year commitment I would propose that we defer can I just for clarity we're what were you referring to
on the changing the direction of how we're doing instruction how how does that pertain to this particular decision well I'm just thinking you know we're I know particularly 3 through five we're no longer doing the one to one Chromebooks now we are well they're still in the
classroom but they're not being taken home and yeah so and and the fact that this board seems committed to reducing screen time so if we're going to reduce screen time but we're going to adopt a curricula that students have to use
technology you know the screens to access the techn the curricula then and would that make a difference for teachers in terms of how they are going to start delivering their instruction so I think the just a
statement for context is that we some of the things you're talking about are longer term Decisions by definition are longer term decisions strategic decisions this decision that we have before us whether we make it tonight or make it in a date
in the future it's still has to be done relatively soon because of the timeline that we're under by the state so we don't really have the luxury of kicking this can down the road to coincide with those future strategic decisions that you're talking about so we so the state
kind of puts us in a Crux I appreciate the I appreciate the in an idal world we would be able to have those things be done simultaneously but we don't have that luxury right now so I think we have the choices in front of us are either to act on the
recommendation or a different recommendation as is the subject of the amendment before us right now I want to remind us that we're on an amendment we're not on the main recommendation um just procedurally we're on the amendment that Dr Rus has
proposed which would address K through 8 okay so we need to deal with that amendment in the in the in the moment all right um but then the larger question is again making decisions tonight which Mr Golden has spoken to
versus making deferring to a later date and then the question for that becomes what do we specifically seek to accomplish if there's going to be some kind of deferral um and then by when would we do that because we talked at the work session about um realistic timelines for
this for the district to be able to acquire the materials to begin the process of the training and so forth so just trying to sort of objectively lay that out there for us all to consider um but we need to deal with the amendment that's on the floor currently um
anything else Dr Johnson in the moment Mr Welch on the amendment okay thank you so I guess I want to start I want to address this phrase teaching to the test um because I hear that used often and I
and I honestly I still haven't really figured out what that means because a lot of times we're talking about the the teap test and our teachers don't know what's on that I mean if they did we'd have perfect teap scor when the kids not
really learning anything and well we saw you know 85 National Merit Scholars nominated tonight so I think the kids are learning something instead what we have is testing on on what is supposed to be
taught and we have a set of standards that the teachers are given and those flow from the State Board of Education to us and we augment and there's a whole process but that is what we actually test on and and when people complain about that I I I kind of wonder what is
your alternative to this testing the kids on what they haven't been taught it doesn't seem really fair to to our students so yeah you know we're we're teaching on
standards and testing on those standards because that's what we've decided things that are that are important um another thing I want want to ask superintendent golden how many uh how many members of the committee were there for middle
school and Elementary School uh so um I'm trying to remember off the top of my head I think it was 20 let's see 12 for uh 12 for K2 28 for 35 um not more than that I mean there
was 108 for oh committee members yeah you're asking committee members I'm talking the the answers I gave on the data was teachers teacher revie how many committee members committee members uh sorry let me let me total it up so um my recollection is around 225 230 of
committee members yeah now there's there's the teachers all the science teachers evaluated it and then we had a committee that reviewed the teacher recommendations the evaluators the teacher evaluators that's question thank thank you thank you so the teacher evaluators um it's a the K2 we had a 108
plus 88 plus 42+ 19 so I'm going to estimate that's somewhere close to 200 50 in that range 250 okay um for the uh grades three through five it was about
150 171 134 and two by the way that difference is because uh in in our grades three through five we have teachers dedicated to teaching math and science and other teachers dedicated to teaching social studies and English so
you have fewer science teachers at those grade levels okay at middle school I'm going to again add add those numbers up uh for teachers total Middle School teachers of uh 75 I can manage that number
okay so the number she gave I mean it was 42% to 7% and what 82% to like 17 something like that for the lower grades so about a 6:1 and a 5:1
ratio I mean it wasn't close and and with the amendment we we quite literally being asked to substitute the highest recommended some cases overwhelmingly so and some case plurality for the lowest
recommended to to flip-flop those and it wasn't like it was three or four teachers to your point it was 250 in a group of not only just teachers but parent volunteers who tend to be our more engaged active parents as
well as those parents are are chosen based upon their their own expertise in the field I I know when we went through the math adoption a lot of parents were were asked to be on it because they were engineers or mathematicians or or others
so there is there is something to the wisdom of the crowd in this case the crowd is not just um 250 random names out of the phone book it's our certified teachers with subject matter expertise and again I I point back to
our 85 Merit Scholars or tonight they're getting the results um the last thing I have it's a bit of an antidote and so bear with me and I'll I'll make it very quick um but about two weeks ago I got a
message on Facebook from my former company Commander uh in the Army who I hadn't seen in more than 30 years um letting me know he was going to be in town and you know could we get together for for lunch or dinner which for me is absolutely it was great and we got
together uh Saturday in fact I was so excited I I met with him even while the the Tennessee Auburn game was going on that's that's how excited I was about it and um we met and you know first thing he does he says well lunch is on me and I said no sir absolutely not he wanted me to call him bill I couldn't do that I
said I don't think I can do that sir um and I said let me explain why lunch is on me too you and and I had a letter that he had written me when I got out of the service as a 20-year-old kid leaving Germany and it was a reference letter and then I didn't know I thought maybe I
wanted to go on ROTC program do military career simultaneous membership program I knew I wanted to go to college also wanted a a recommendation to an employer and and you know and what he wrote it was it was standard military you know
has exceeded the standard that but then it was also uh Kelli really put his time and personal an meant a lot to me and I'll say you know there's there's there's two instances I can remember that I've used this uh one is when I had a have a character reference letter
wanted before the the dean of U student discipline I won't talk about that one today um and the other was when I needed a job between getting out of the army for a few months in college and it was
an opening for a server at Ruby Tu days and um had you know maybe a dozen people applied for it and uh I got it and the reason why the general manager told me was not he said you interviewed fine he
said but honestly there were people had a lot more experience than you did it was really that letter that stood out and you probably hearing that going okay big deal you got a server job at a chain restaurant and I would agree with you except I start started dating a cute
little hostess while I was there and a couple of months ago that Hostess and I celebrated 29 years of marriage so it was a little thing that letter that got me a little job but little things can
have these huge impacts on how it steers your life and without that I I never meet my wife I never have my kids all of these these things you know it improved my lives in a a very different way and
and I tell the story to say delaying these textbooks is not a little thing it's a big thing we've we've heard that tonight from our superintendent from our assistant superintendant from our teachers that
it delays our ability to begin preparing the lesson plans for our kids they are less prepared it impct the quality of the instructions and you know maybe that doesn't hit
every single kid it doesn't hit every single kid but it's going to hit one of them out there it's going to hit quite a few of them out there and it's going to hit them in ways like they're not as excited about a career path they don't
get the ACT scores they need to get that scholarship we don't know but it it it happens there are real life implications negative implications and those implications are paid by our students who were supposed to put first
and foremost so all this to say I'm not in favor of delaying we've had a good process it's been transparent it's been open it's very well documented the committee has made their decision and additional three weeks or a month or
what have you isn't going to change that it wasn't a rush decision they were thorough they read the material they discussed they knew the standards they got the recommendations and these are the recommendations that they came with and I
don't I just can't flip-flop the top recommendation for the bottom recommendation on that when it is so clearly designated between the two thank thank you m CH if I may
address that a little bit um Mr wel to your comments about the test um uh Dr ree thank you for sharing those examples of conversations with teachers I will say we don't approach it that way we do teach to the standards and then the state tests the standards and our
teachers have done an excellent job in that uh I mentioned earlier that in in in all grades for for science according to the state data on TCAP uh all students were first uh economically disadvantaged happened
to be first in Williamson we were first Statewide I mentioned that we were we were third Statewide uh with African-American and Hispanic that subpopulation our teachers are really good at it uh uh and they use the the
the textbooks and the curriculum with an eye towards how do I teach the standards with these materials um I want to be uh doubly respectful of of you and the discussion that you and Dr Allen and I had today uh and just
double down on what I said if you all have already made a decision I would ask for a vote now um and I know Dr Allen mentioned um me mentioned in response to to uh to Mr galer's Question and so I want to speak a little bit to more to the timing of it based on Mr Welch's
comments um we have emphasized to you that when the selection process is well when the selection is made we then go into the queue for textbooks and I'm going to speak for you for you just a bit because if I'm not mistaken you told us today you had a conversation with
with a with a rep uh from SIM Scopes and he said we've got them now we could we could address that now uh um that's as I understand it Dr Allen that's not what we've heard from savis that that that
it's really a question of when the requests come in and it's first come first serve so if you would speak to that a little bit and also speak to the technology discussion especially to reference um uh the the comment that you received from one of the teachers about
about well I can just do a virtual experiment if if I happen to be absent that day well thank you for that I if it would be helpful for the board we do have Miss sa here who ran the process who has a better understanding of what's actually included in the instruction
materials and whether we have to use the tech integration pieces so if it would be helpful to the board I would like for her to to speak to that um and so that way you know exactly what's in the curriculum any objection to hearing from
Miss s okay Miss s you're welcome to come up thank you um I wanted to speak just a little bit about that technology piece I think that if you look back 15 years ago
if you looked at a textbook really for any course for science for math for social studies it was what we I guess I shouldn't speak for everyone on the board but when I was in school a textbook looked like a book right like it was a book and you turn the pages and there was the book and I am a former
science teacher so I know that like the Hands-On instruction was supported with a book lab manual and there would be a teachers guide that supported that instruction in book form in the last 15 years or so I would say the the national
appetite has shifted Publishers towards we're interested nationally not speaking at all about Williamson County or our teachers specifically but there really is a push for there's a lot more technology integration and so you'll see
that reflected in all of the publisher offerings they have print materials and then they offer often it's exactly the same material offered in digital form as well sometimes the digital supplements or supports the print material but I can
tell you with confidence that in looking at all of the science materials that were approved by the state handson science instruction is really first and foremost in all of those materials and if you look through whether you're looking digitally or whether you're
looking print multiple opportunities for students to engage in Hands-On instruction supported by print materials so when we were talking about K to8 specifically the K to8 curriculum in all of the different materials that we
looked at comes in the form of a consumable physical workbook that supports Hands-On instruction in the classroom so what that might look like is the student receives the consumable workbook we don't have to talk about digital at all as we talk about this
piece the teacher instruction includes here are some Hands-On activities that you can do with your student at the beginning of the lesson to kind of like introduce phenomena based instruction throughout the unit to continue to
support and build uh the what am I trying to get to the like competency towards the standards and then in most cases there's actually Hands-On assessment that's offered for students as well so that multiple Hands-On experiences are really in all of the
different curriculums that this the teachers evaluated none of that requires any digital integration at all I on the spot would hesitate to say with 100% confidence but I would say with 90% confidence you could really Implement
any of the curriculum completely physically without any digital use at all what other questions you Mr Golden back to your original question if you could speak to availability from the Publishers if there was a delay because
Dr ree spoke to accelerate learning but I couldn't answer the question about yeah no and I think that I mean to be very clear for you there's a little bit of speculation in my answer but I will tell you that both the advantage and disadvantage of the state going through
their initial vetting process is that every sing single District in the state is choosing from the same very limited list of Publishers and so there really is a line that starts to form eventually
there is going to be a bottom to what they have available right this minute as opposed to what they're going to have to print on demand I think it's hard for us to say but we can say with experience looking back at the math adoption some of our math textbooks were coming in
days before we need needed to get them in the hands of students and that was with the timeline that we're kind of proposing right now if you don't mind just remain there in case other questions come up but we'll just go go through the queue now U Miss Wyatt I just wanted to say that I
feel like that we're between a rock and a hard place here on this timing um we don't control the timeline of when the Tennessee Department of Education releases their approved textbooks and we need to have material ready um for our school year and our teacher training but
I have a lot of confidence about what happened during the time that we could control and I really would like to see us move forward in confidence with those recommendations from those teachers and from those parents and I would like to see us trust those teachers with the
outcomes of our of our screen time committee I'm really excited about that and I feel like um they are going to be receptive of that they are within our community many of them our parents they're having the same struggles that we are and I just would love to see us
move forward in confidence of the work of the committee and um trusting the teachers thank you Dr Reeves so I can appreciate all of that Miss Wyatt I I think our teachers truly
do care about student outcomes and we can have a debate about I absolutely acknowledge that all of the curriculum Options under consider ation have a digital platform they all offer print based instruction and where I keep
coming back to where I saw a clear difference is just the sheer amount of research evident based evidence-based studies that showed improvements in students scores when it came to science
and I wonder if teachers had that same information for example comparing fourth grade grade um stem Scopes where is it this Tennessee Middle School raises science score six plus points in one year with stem Scopes would they have
voted differently and the second question that I guess I would pose to everybody on the board is after this adoption process can you clearly point to what exactly what features of the curriculum led the teachers to vote the
way they did and prioritize one platform over another um and the last piece back to talking about the teap and testing is that I had a discussion with Christy Brown who is the chief academic officer for the
Tennessee Department of Education um last week and we talked about all kinds of things including um the fact that Pearson is the company that developed the teap and then Pearson became Savas and became a
curriculum m that now provides teap assessments with most of the curriculums that they produce and I asked her you know is that a conflict should we can be concerned about that and she said that's an absolutely fair question that they've had those exact same conversations
themselves so you know I don't think it's it's out of the ordinary to be thinking through some of these things and I know that it is a it's a 180 Dee opposite
recommendation from what our our teachers recommended but the fact remains I still wonder how much of the ease of implementation of the curriculum came into the decision-making process I watched a lot of videos savis is
beautiful not going to deny it it has a wonderful platform it has autog grading it has you know read aloud features that's all great and and I hear you
know Dr Allan and and Miss Sour say we could Implement any of these without using the digital platform at all then then then why are we even I mean then why why can't we adopt a curriculum where where it's it's the it's the has
all the rigor but none of the fluff essentially so that's where I am okay can we I'm I'm sorry so Mr galbert then we'll go to you Mr
Cash thank you Mr chair um Miss s is so so I looked at the I looked at the Sabas website um and and both of them really but um so they did they did highlight on
on Ela and math their their as a tier 2 like research that that shows their outcomes and that's one of the things that they highlight when they're trying to sell us on their math curriculum yes um and so so I guess so the fact that it
that it doesn't exist for for Science and if it did they would they would surely be highlighting it so I guess how do you how do you compare um how you compare that from from the curriculum that we did that we did approve um and
that was research based um versus the versus the stem Scopes that that has that same research-based criteria or or or history um and and the and the saice that doesn't know yeah no I appreciate
you asking that and I am going to again um tell you something that I think is true that I hope is true but I apologize I was out of the country until last night so I've been uh keeping up on email at a very big time difference but I believe that we got some questions
last week about what were the research studies that all the various Publishers had done with their curriculum we reached out to we went and looked on their websites as well so we saw all the same information that was publicly available that was available to teachers if they chose to look in that part of
the curriculum and we also asked each of the Publishers can you send us any research that you've done we also went and kind of in dependently looked for what are the SS studies that exist for
science curriculum and interestingly what we found is that there are actually no curriculum that are currently labeled with Essa scores on their website lots of Publishers have
started to do studies I don't know how much you all know about this Research into curriculum but it is incredibly expensive and it takes a long time to show results and so it may take several years to build up enough data to really
submit a report that gets approved what we found is that and I may have to turn to Jenny because she pulled a couple of the reports Savas and mcra both had reports that they had put together with
research submitted through a university one of them I believe was John Hopkins I forget who the other one was and there a statement in those reports that says we believe this data is conclusive with an
Esso rating of tier 2 but because it hasn't been long enough in the process that isn't like an official rating yet I think that we were able to pass some of that on to the board but we have all that information and we're able to pass that on to you if you're interested in
seeing it Mr Cash that that works thank you Mr chair you know um I read an email from Mr Allen this week and he said we really
need to take some time and look at the process and make some adjustments I heard that back in the Wht and wisdom days no adjustments and that started out in a mess and we we approved
it on time um Miss Miss Wyatt basically said if if we need to make changes in the process that we can go ahead and do that at some point but tonight probably isn't the
night I've heard that with math I heard it with wit and wisdom and now I'm hearing it again tonight so how do you trust the whole process let me just continue savis is very heavy
with technology if you look at the website accelerated is a quite a bit less there's a lot of bells and whistles with savis and what they put on there if they want to prove their point they can say
anything they want but they still never put any proof on there of what the outcome was but if this this process isn't only a Williamson County issue uh you know on behalf of our staff and and the teachers uh it's not a matter of
trusting a teacher or the teachers this comes down from the state the state the governor uh selects Specialists to come up with standards
for us and that'll look at these books and then they go from this State the the the folks that are on the commission that develop our standards goes to the National Science
teaching Association for more credibility in what they're doing okay so that now it's gone from state to probably you know National and then their standards are all combined I
guess and they make a decision and then this all this goes all the way down to the the National Association uh references and the United Nation's uh intergovernmental
panel and then what happens we come up with global norms for standards this is what's at stake here it's not just about teachers and staff I know how hard these folks work
been on this board for almost uh well 10 years now and I know how hard these folks work but we go through this every process something needs to change if we don't if we don't want it to change then
we won't vote for this stuff if we want it to change we're going to get involved and we have to push you know buttons to get it changed and it's got us Chang at the state level maybe maybe just an amendment like
this a change comes down maybe people are going to see this maybe they're going to say hey these boards are are looking at uh these issues differently now with with some of these issues that
are in the science curriculum there's no debate it's this how many theories have changed in the last eight years there's theories on everything it's science like Miss Wyatt said we're not
going to have a a perfect book ever but I think this is a chance to let our voices be heard and change some of this stuff and and work together in the future and and and get this process taken care of and
thank you so much for your hard work uh all you guys I I really appreciate it it's hard work and it's it's tough getting up there and standing in front of the board and trying to explain things but this is just down to earth this is from from from me this is just
my opinion I've seen the process too many times and I'm just uh I'm looking for some change thank you Mr chair Mr chair if I may mention a couple things related to Mr Cash's comments the states made some changes from the wit
and wisdom time to Mass they the textbook commission started emphasizing to these Publishers that Tennessee standards must be addressed but to your point the key window is still just as tight as it ever was uh
and and so you know locally we've tried to inform you earlier than we have in the past but the key window is still that narrow time uh for evaluation um I I'm uh I know you may
have a couple more comments I know Miss hibma is there um the to to the chair's Point earlier the motion on the floor is to substitute at K through 8 um stem scopes for the the
recommendations we spent some time talking about a delay versus that and I want to make sure that we that we're differentiating on those points my answer to um to to Dr Reeves question uh uh
about and I'm going to speak for you again your original thought that there' be a delay to try to get more information versus make a decision now I want to reemphasize if you all have already
decided what you want please vote on this amendment and then we can make it then we can take the underlying uh motion uh as amended um uh Dr Allen in response to Mr Gabbert's question did add some additional
information that we had not discussed or additional thought that we had not discussed um related to the possibility of delay um and so I do want to explore that a little more um based on the comments some of the comments that you have made can you
speak to that in more detail I I just was speaking specifically to what can I recommend can I recommend we vote for the curriculum that was not chosen by our teachers um or delay that
Liv that leaves me limited options and I didn't certainly didn't mean to go in a different direction than what the conversation that we have with Dr Reeves today but we didn't really address an amendment that spoke specifically to I've got to answer a question on do
we do we vote on on that particular option um if there is additional information that the board feels like that we can provide that you can make a more informed decision we can do that I don't I don't know I'm not I'm not hearing any new
questions that we've not addressed and so back to what Dr Reeves and Mr Golden and I talked about today if you have all the information and and it's time to vote then it's time to vote MMA yeah I was just going to say I think
we should um just take that vote so we can see where everybody stands um and I just agree with what um Mr Cash had said as well um but also as um new on the board and we went to the Tennessee School Board Association orientation and
they informed us that as a board member we are to make our decisions based on data and I and you you know telling me which teachers that's you know the answers that were posed about how many people voted on on these you know which
which topic or which books or curriculum um didn't answer my why and um uh Dr Reeves did answer my wise a lot uh clearer and uh so that's why I'm G to I'm going to vote for stem scope but um
and that's because I I I want to make decisions based on data just like the decisions I make on uh the Chromebooks it's from a lot of data and research um that's out there that I've read and um yeah that's how I'm making my decision thank
you can I ask a question um I'll come to you in a second Tony um I I read or heard somewhere in the last few days that uh stem scopes of the choices that were available that stem Scopes was the only one or is the only
one that only does science I believe there're Science and Math Science and Math okay but the others have full curriculum full curriculum every subject area Okay so this one stem Scopes is a little more specialized in the the stem
area if you will it's where they focus their attention yeah all right Mr Boston yeah was just going to say um to Claire's point you know and kind of what we've talked about tonight so I'll be brief but you know we've heard from one
of our students that was here tonight we've heard um from the student speak Summit that they had um and overall theme was kind of that they want more engaged Hands-On kind of you know education with screen time so it comes to digital integration screen time I I
feel like we we've heard and I know that this is intentional but it's like you know it's not really happening that way but isn't it great that it is type of thing because we have all this it's available to us but we don't really use it but we need to choose this CU it's available to us and like just seems a
bit incoherent to me um I think the evidence-based student outcomes piece should be something that's definitely considered on it so um declares point for stem Scopes it seems like that piece is there can I speak to that one more
time if you don't mind we have evidence-based research from mcra from from Savas also from stem Scopes and they are all very similar in the student outcomes I believe that all of those papers got sent to the board but if they
haven't been we have them and we can pass those along Mr chair if I may oh I'm sorry Dr re is on there I won't speak I just want to reiterate though that stem Scopes is the only tier 2
it it's the only curriculum option that qualifies as a tier 2 curriculum under the every student succeeds act so yes there are research studies to your point but I mean I I found it on their website I specifically reached out to the um
publisher rep and he sent me an email if you know to um Mr gal's Point earlier today and I've seen it myself if Savas had tier 2 data for their curriculum they would
absolutely be using it as a selling point and it would be publicized on their website so while they've conducted studies and there is research it doesn't reach that level that's required to get that tier 2
designation I don't see any other speaker so any before I come to you any final comments on your motion since it's your motion oh sorry Dr ders I need some help here the biology and chemistry I'm okay
with I looked at it fine they can use that but I've got 40 to 50 emails in the last week and they all name one book Meyers AP Psychology that's on the list it's the
only book we have so my question is what if I want to read that book well let me let me we have it physically I mean so to speak to that we're right now we're on the motion to deal with k
through eight once we once we dispose of that motion then we're going to be back on the original recommendation which includes that among other things so we can deal with that in short order um any Mr Golden any final comments on the motion before we on the
amendment rather before we go to a vote Yes Mr chair with a warning that this is on the edge of being Direct related to the to the uh uh to the uh motion to amend um you all as board members have in your in your uh either in your Norms
or your internal um uh uh ethics standards a commitment that you won't make a decision until after debate um based on that based on what I've heard from my team leader that's different um based on based on the
questions that you all asked I'm prepared to change my recommendation but it's not what's actually on the floor right now um Dr Allen has basically said he thinks we can get an answer to the question that Mr galbert and Dr Reeves
asked related to teachers and as I understand it what you're saying is the delay that we spent so much time convincing you is very important is less important than making sure we get you guys the information
Dr Allen is that accurate I I don't want the board I want to say yes to that but I I want you to have all of the information that you need to make an informed decision that's where we started this process from the very beginning and so if we've not I
tried to answer every email last week uh you had me you had me on the edge of my seat all week ready to respond um and so if if there are still unanswered questions and it's still uh for consideration then yes to Mr Golden's point if that decision has
already been made and you have all the information then and so Mr chair I'm not recommending approval of this motion but if there was a motion on the floor to defer I would recommend that okay so the motion we we do have on
the floor is as a reminder is to amend the original recommendation from the committee to replace Savas in K through2 with stem Scopes to replace Savas grades 3 through
five with stem Scopes to replace McGraw Hill grades 6 through eight with stem Scopes that is the amendment currently before us it has been moved has been seconded we can we can now proceed to a vote
the vote is 8 yes two no and one abstain motion carries U so the the the main recommendation now now amended um has stem Scopes as the the approved
curriculum for K through 8 so we're now back on the main motion which involves recommendations for biology chemistry physics physical science I'm reading off the list here
anatomy and physiology AP bi biology AP Chemistry AP environmental science AP Physics 1 and two AP Physics C AP Psychology mathematical reasoning for decision
making those that I just named are part of the original recommendation that still need action by this board and Mr chair if I may um I want to give one correction Dr Driggers mentioned there um there was one textbook for AP Psychology if I'm not mistaken they were
four so just just so you know Dr ders you're recognized I would still like to read the one that was recommended because I got so much mail about it okay so I don't know how that works with
I'm not going to put words in your mouth but let me ask you would you would you would you want to make a motion that some action be taken on AP Psych ology other than recommending its approval for tonight that's exactly what I meant would you like to make a motion
that it be removed from this recommendation list for further discussion yes is there a second to that motion Mr bosk is seconded okay so we're now on the motion to remove what's that
motion we're on an amendment to the motion to the original motion as amended um to remove AP Psychology BFW Meyers psychology for the AP course fourth edition to remove that
recommendation from the committee's recommendation list any discussion Mr galberth yes I I guess in response to the I mean we have gotten a couple of emails and I guess more than a couple
emails about this book but I guess my my question is to to Dr Allen or maybe Dr web around um around the AP curriculum and I as I understand the AP curriculum um and going through AP
classes myself albeit a couple years ago um they they focus they focus widely on looking at at different different ideas looking at the um at the author and their their bias and what they're what what
they can't what what kind of point they're trying to to drive and and I guess if we I I would hope that that part of our um part of our teaching philosophy and our um that our teachers are going to take with with the even
even our source material our primary source material being the being the curriculum um itself uh or being being this this publisher of the book um can we can you just talk talk to the talk to
how they would view um some of these some of these statements where um where they where they do they do reflect a um a cultural bias if you will around some I mean they were talking about gender gender identities and things like that
which I recognize as a mental health issue that that has to be uh that has to be addressed and um and I know people in in that industry very close to me and understand that that the way they're talking about it in the in the material is probably the way
that it's taught in most of the classrooms and and it's considered kind of a norm um in the mental health in the mental health world but maybe not so much proven science um How would how would that conversation go in terms of
when that when that topic came up in conversation in in a classroom so let me take a quick stab at it and and make sure the doctor well I'll just I'll be brief first of all there's actually some some state law that that maybe Dana could speak to that we would number one
stay within the limits of the state law and follow that number two we would stick to the learning outcomes um and if it's not one of the learning outcomes uh through college board then we stay away we're not going to we're not going to be going down that path as well so within those two
parameters um that keeps us free I think of of some of the the issues that you're describing um and you want to take it from there the other thing that I would mention is similar to what we've been discussing with the science textbooks
with our AP courses when we adopt curriculum uh in partnership with college board and the the standards that they lay out and the learning outcomes that they lay out we don't teach that book with Fidelity we teach we look at the process with integrity and to review
the the standards that and the learning outcomes that we're trying to accomplish and then use the a the aspects of of that adopted textbook to to help reach those uh and I I agree with what Dr Allen has established and if there are
controversal things that you've seen in a textbook and they don't align with our standards those are not aspects uh that will be taught in our classes that's fair I appreciate that yes sir M Clemens for chair um my trigger
finger was not quite fast enough um this actually is my undergraduate degree and so I when I went down I went down couple times to look at the textbooks review and I really my favorite and I thought it
was I thought they were fair in the way they presented it was s Gage and that was the one that I was going to recommend instead of Myers I don't know if we can amend amend how we do that but I did I did kind of pour into the four
choices and um I I my favorite was engage so again not putting words in your mouth are you wanting to put that in the form of a motion or are you just making a comment if that's how it if that's how we can do it I Robert's Rules yes okay
okay then I would like to make an amendment to the amendment for S Gage to be the AP Psychology Okay so the amendment on the floor is to remove the AP Psychology recommendation from the list the amendment to that amendment is
to make S Gage this the choice for AP Psychology correct is there a second Mr bosk second any discussion on the amendment to the amendment does the staff have any feedback or input from on Sage observations about
Sage before we I'm sorry Mr Wyatt sorry can we have some information about the voting on that on those books from the committee those choices so just a couple of pieces specific to that book and and I don't have that data in front of me but I I
think I know the information and Miss s can correct me if I'm wrong um I believe it was unanimous among our teachers um for s correct correct yeah thank you uh yeah thank you for more specifically nine nine AP Psychology teachers
recommended it was nine of nine and then there were eight committee members on that on that evaluation it was eight of eight okay thank you yes and then also that is the book that's currently being used this is just an updated Edition um that uh particular publisher was the
first to align uh to the updated course and exam description by college board so our our teachers have had a lot of um uh they've used that instruction material for some time so I don't know if Dr web has something to
add the only thing that I wanted to add about AP Psychology specifically is the exceptional Talent of the teachers who teach these courses our AP Psychology scores are through the roof they uh far
exceed the national average this group of teachers are phenomenal typically you have one teacher in each building who teach this course and they're a super tight group of professionals who you know you can speak to
specifically because it's such a small group um they are super passionate about ensuring that what they teach is in line with college board and that they're meeting the psychology most of our students who are taking AP psychology
have a specific interest it's not a required course it's a course that students have the elective to teach and I would say in in some of our schools students take that course because of the reputation that those teachers have they're excellent they're passionate
about their work and our students who take our Williamson County AP Psychology courses Excel greatly at the University level to me when I see this recommendation that our teachers all chose the same textbook it carries a
significant weight because of the expertise and the level of those nine teachers and I just want to share that with you guys because of the weight it carries for me from being in those classrooms and seeing the outcomes that we have consistently with some of our
highest achieving students it's it's incredible thank you for your comments no one's going to be surprised that I'm going to go with the teachers is there any data about the recommendation Miss Clemens tell me your question again your
the data around your alternative recommendation as I said earlier I thought it was a more fair and balanced um representation of the psychology course um I thought that the Myers was a
little um just didn't reflect Our Community Values thank you Dr Johnson um so speaking of the outcomes and I know it's last minute so you probably don't but I would like to know data for like the percentage of
students who passed the AP exam um cuz it would make sense that the teachers would want the same book that they were using but again if we want to make evidence-based outcome based you know do we have some data to support that I have that on my computer if you
want me to check I can get it I know they're they're pulling theirs up so whoever I would just at some point like to hear it can I say one more thing about the CED alignment as well just so so we're all in the same terminology CED is the
course and exam description it's really College board's version of the standards College Board the whole reason that we are adopting a book for AP Psychology kind of out of rotation is that college board made a really significant change
to the course and it's not necessarily the content it's the structure of the class so they've actually reclassified AP Psychology traditionally for a million years it's been considered a social studies course they've changed it
and as far as College Board is concerned it's now dual assigned social studies and Science and so they now incorporated into the course a lot of science practi practices and from the teachers the
overwhelming what I heard from them was that's what we're looking for in the resource the content as uh Dr web said our teachers are phenomenal they know the content they've got the content down what they're looking at is does this resource support those practices that we
know our students need to be proficient in and their evaluation was that this is the book that really aligns to those practices as well as the content if you will of the course Mr galberth thank you Mr chair that Miss
how that's really that's really helpful I I love the I love the why behind it um and particularly given that we're we I mean we we adopted this book prior to there being a book that that met all the all the standards and we had to have
something um and so I mean I'm I'm inclined to I mean it it's it's got to be a pretty high bar for me to um to go against the the recommendation of the teacher and the and the uh and the committee for sure uh so I don't I don't take that lightly lightly at all um but
I I mean I you know outside of outside of more U databased um information like I'm I'm inclined to to give the teachers the I mean I I would hate to pull the pull the course the the book that
they're using that's worked and they've been successful at I know this course saved me like 20 about about 2500 $3,000 or so um for mine and uh so I I and I really I really love this um the course
and and the and the teachers that that teach it so um I I will not be agreeing to this amendment Mr Welch my son took AP psychology his teacher had a PhD was a licensed psychologist and was the
school teacher of the year she's obviously recommended it because it's a universal recommendation as did all of our other teachers on this I would really encourage some of
you to go and talk to your principles about the impact you're having on teacher morale and staff morale when you insert your own opinion over theirs on a lot of these things when
it's not always an educated opinion just a a comment from me I I I I have some I had some concerns about the de Meers textbook um and I I guess my personal preference just speaking as an individual not as the chair is would
would have been for more time on this particular one and I I want to ask you Mr Golden are we under the same constraints TimeWise for selecting the AP psychology textbook as we are on some of the
others no because of the volume and because of the teachers's experience with um this textbook okay for that reason I would respectfully oppose choosing oppose the amendment and would prefer the original
amendment that that makes no recommendation or removes this recommendation from the list for tonight for in order for us to have a future consideration of it that'd be my personal preference any other comments on the amendment and to be clear the amendment to the amendment that's on the floor is
to adopt Sage as the AP psychology textbook um instead of meersma um I I'm having a lot more difficulty making that decision um I understand the Community Values and fair
and balanced and that weighs heavily um and I also understand that um we can't always Shield our kids from the world I mean it's out there and um that it that is going to be part if they're going to Community College orever that's going to
be a part of the discussion and that's the discussions that you need to have with your children at home so I'm you know I'm trying to weigh this in my mind so I would like to have some more time to review those books myself and just um just try to come up with a a good
decision thank you Dr re sorry Dan Mr Cash and then Dr Rees okay yeah sorry I I'm not on the on the board tonight I got to remember to look over there sorry that's all right
uh well thank you Mr chair um you know I I got to be honest um it's it's a hard decision to just switch books Midway I I I would rather really look at these books and and
evaluate it um my granddaughter she uh she graduated U 4.3 or four or five something like that uh she took she took this course and I never heard anything from
her on it really uh and she's succeeded in her first semester of college and again all a so you know it's hard to it's hard to change a book like that uh I kind of agree with Miss HBA by this
point in in their life you know um they know what's going on they know everything and they they try to do what's right um I wish I wish the curriculums
though gave them uh a chance to have an opinion in a real true debate on some of these social issues that that they're facing rather than it being uh leaning one sided all the time so um I I just i' just assume wait
and get into the books thank you Mr gber just want I think Dr did you get a chance to to look at the scores um the you referen the value of the course
being elective credit when kids get to college so you have to have a passing score typically the university that student is attending sets that what that score is typically it's a three four or five um so you at least have to have a three to get the passing score the
national um our average score is a 3.29 across all of our schools 725 students took it in 2024 the uh the national average is a 2.97 the 2.97 equals a 62% pass rate in
the course and we have a 73% pass rate in 2024 so we exceed the national and and those are all AP students from across the country right so it's kind of compar comparing Apples to Apples so we exceed that national average by about 11% in 2024 yes
maam 725 in 725 in 2024 yes in Williamson County yes ma'am yes they have to okay any other comments on the amendment to the amendment okay as a reminder the vote is
whether to adopt Sage as the AP psychology textbook instead of the recommended Meyers textbook let's proceed to a vote I'm sorry recommendation I do not recommend approval of the
amendment both to change it toau or not the vote is two yes N9 no is to delete the AP Psychology recommendation from the recommendation list um as part of the main
motion is there any discussion on that motion okay let's proceed to a vote recommendation Mr Gold yeah I missed I missed the original motion so this so there was an amendment the original motion was was to remove this from the
list was by Dr Driggers okay to remove to remove AP Psychology from the recommendation list entirely and defer it well it's just to remove it which by definition means we'll have to take it up at a future date okay and Mr Golden's feedback was that we're not under the same time constraints for this as we are
for some of the others W with that being said Mr chair um I think we'll be fine but I I recommend based on our teachers track record that we that we do honor the request that was presented by the
committee again we'll be fine either way okay all right with that let's proceed to a vote I Rec I recommend no on the amendment e the vote is seven yes three no and one
abstain the amendment carries um so we're back on the main motion and where we stand just as an update is we now we have now have a motion which is the which is the original recommendation from the committee that has been amended
Twice first amendment was to amend K through2 3 through five and 6 through eight to replace them with Sim Scopes the other amendment was to delete remove AP Psychology recommendation from the list um we are now left with all of the
other recommendations as as presented to us by the committee are there any other comments or questions about any of the other recommendations on the list Mr Welch yes I just want to say for the
record that this is a vote to to replace what our teachers recommended to us their top recommendation with a series of texts that was their bottom recommendation in some case Zero teachers recommended this this is what we're voting on so I just want to be very clear and have that on
the record that this is what we're all going to vote for now Dr ree what I'm confused are we voting on something quite yet just the the remainder of the we're back on the main motion and we're taking comments or questions for apsy no no we we've already we've already voted on the aps
Amendment it's getting it is yeah it's confusing because we've had variety of procedural things going on but where we stand now is the recommendation list has been amended twice yes and we're back on the main recommendation as amended um so
we're now left to take up any of the other recommendations that haven't already been got it voted on got it okay so you know the the high school biology chemistry and physics um classes all had similar options with stem Scopes being one of them and so you may be wondering
why I didn't include that in my um prior um motion and that is because the the evidence related to these High School courses isn't quite as strong or as clear to me so I just wanted to speak to
that piece I still have the same concerns about the um digital integration of those platforms but um yeah that's what I want to say about that Dr ders this is a vote to give this
board more time to look at a book simple as that you can look at the book or not look at the book and then come to your own conclusion it's simple any I do have one question can can you
Dr Allen or or someone walk us through which of the remaining items recommen recommendations had only one choice available to the committee m s can it was anatomy and physical science
are the two courses and mathematical reasoning those are the three that only one book Pass State betting physical science anatomy and physiology and then mathematical maical reasoning only had the one option correct okay yep okay do we have any M Clemens so
this is more of a procedural question but since we've removed Myers do we need to make any adjustments on when we're going to make a decision on the AP cuz I know that's a course that a lot of kids loved or is it just automatically
delayed well I'm going to I'm going to answer it procedurally and you can ask answer it substantively procedurally we don't have to do that right now okay substantively I'll defer to Mr Golden on when on when it should be taken up post post this meeting if this passes I would anticipate we bring it to you in
April okay so most likely we would be on the April April board meeting regular agenda not a special call meeting a regular agenda item for for April with a new recommendation for AP Psychology is that
do I understand that correctly uh well we would have a recommendation I don't know what it would be at this stage it may not necessarily be a new one it just would be another recommendation that's right to bring it back to us for another vote where whereby then presumably we
would have more information at our disposal um if needed M Wyatt can you go through we are we this is a motion to approve the amended titles for K through 8 and then what else since we've removed AC AP
Psychology um well that would be it so we we're Mo we're the motion now as amended is The Replacements in K through2 3 through 5 6-8 M which we approved and the removal of the recommendation entirely for AP
Psychology M everything else stands as recommended can you read those titles those recommendations yes and the courses including the ones already amended or not or just the other ones yeah the other thank you so the remaining ones are biology
Savas Savas experience biology is the exact wording chemistry Savas experience chemistry physics physics Savas experiened physics physical science McGraw Hill Tennessee physical
science anatomy and physiology McGraw Hill holes Essentials of human anatomy and physiology AP biology BFW biology for the AP course AP chemistry sagee chemistry 11e
AP Edition AP environmental science BFW environmental science for the AP course AP Physics 1 and two s Gage College physics AP Edition AP Physics c s Gage
physics for scientists and Engineers 10th edition AP Edition and then mathematical reasoning for decision- making Savas thinking mathematically thank you okay I don't see any further comments or
or anyone in the queue Mr Golden recommendation on the on the on the recommendation as amended thank you Mr chair just as a reminder this this will be the final vote uh on this uh If This Were a recommendation to defer them all I would I would recommend
approval because it's not uh I do not recommend approval but we'll be fine either way okay thank you okay board let's vote the vote is nine yes two no science textbook adoption our
final item on the agenda is approval of the 2025 26 school fees Mr golden thank you Mr chair uh just as a reminder from the work session we have on your agenda uh the um fees for elementary school
plus fees for high school extracurricular activities our plan this year is to take the curricular fees for middle and high school from the past and treat them as an administrative request for for funding donations I do recommend
approval to the document that you all have uh before you thank you we have a motion for Mr galberth a second from Miss HMA any discussion M Wyatt I brought this up at the work session I just wanted us to revisit this it's very important to me
that our language is descriptive about what this is covering just because for families that are paying so many different things at the beginning of the year with ap fees and stuff like that and I'm sensitive to our our PTO and their fundraising abilities and I just want to make sure that our families know
um what they're supporting and I agree I agree with it I just want to make sure there's a lot of great um description around it for our families thank you for that uh so I I'll I'll start with well I'll start broadly and then drill down
broadly the state uh allows us to charge fees but the word fee is not an excellent descriptor for all of it uh because we cannot require someone to pay for for for school which is in
essence inclass time we can't require somebody in a public setting to pay for a class um for additional tests such as an AP exam which is not strictly part of the class we can for extracurriculars we can but the state calls at all fees we
have struggled over the years with making that clear to our community because the the state nomenclature uh so that's Piece One Piece two is we can charge extracurricular fees
but we don't make payment of the extracurricular fees a necessary precursor to participation we have found a way usually through PTO or booster clubs to support that making that request for fees with a commitment that
if you can't pay those fees you can still participate in the extracurricular even though we could require that uh so in no way are any of these required fees even though the state calls them that the distinction this year is for the
curricular fees we are eliminating that nomenclature of fees to try to make it more clear that it is always been a request for funding uh for voluntary funding from parents and so our intent through our
through the process for this coming year is to make the request basically in the same format we had without using the term fee for curricular quote unquote fees um with all that being said one
issue we're still exploring and we may not have an answer because we're not tax professionals but someone's tax professional May uh if we structure it in an appropriate way we may open the door for our families to if they give us
a donation for curricular Services um uh write off write that off as a donation on their taxes we don't have that defined yet um but we're going to do our best to put that in terminology that may give them an opportunity with their tax professional no I agree with you I just
want to I know our PTO are fundraising at the same time so I agree with you about making it clear to the community what the money is being used for thank you Mr galbert I know it's late but I mean you got to give me this I got to I gota at least thank you for uh for finally
making something happen and it's uh it's been been a lot of years up here um I still want to talk about science textbooks but I know you do I know you do can we call off his microphone please but I but I really uh I really do I really do appreciate it it's not not
exactly how I wanted to go this and and and things but but it's it's more movement than than I've gotten in the last 10 or 11 years so I'm going to I'm going to take it and run with it so I appreciate the uh appreciate the the movement on
this Dr Johnson and I just want to Echo what Jay said because when I had two seniors and paid $5 to $600 in curriculum fees I would much have rather made that a tax deduction
than just make it so I'm I'm happy about this one Dr Reeves yeah I I also think it's a wise move I want to make two points one is um just one example at at Perry Creek
several years ago we recognized to your point about feeling nickel and dimed at the beginning of the school year there was the student fee a class t-shirt and one other oh and then the PTO was doing their fundraising and so what we decided to do was to say hey pto's going to
cover all of that and all we ask in return is that you make a donation of any amount that you feel comfortable with and we did provide a recommendation for what that amount looked like but again made it very clear that any amount was welcome and we actually increased
our fundraising efforts doing that so um you know that goes back to kind of one of the goals that we talked about sharing those types of strategies with all of the different PTO and booster clubs across the district and then number number two I'm going to make a
plug for foundation you know it's we've talked about bug budget struggles tonight and um many many many school districts public school districts Across the Nation have foundations it that you know public private Partnerships if you
will including my tiny little um M Junior Senior High School in northb Nebraska where the state or the that County actually pays more than we do per student about $14,000 even they have a
little Foundation that they use to support certain initiatives like you know art supplements for teachers and things of that nature and this could be another example of where maybe a foundation might be able to feel those gaps because one of the things I do want us to keep a pulse on is do our teachers
feel like like I know science teachers you know there's labware and things like that that get purchased I think with these fees and we don't want them to be shorted we don't want them to be having to come out of pocket and so keeping a pulse on that making sure that this this
um new system works well is going to be important Dr Driggers closing statement I'd like to thank Dr Allen and the entire District staff superintendent golden for six or seven months
everything I've asked for I got it so I've never been denied anything that I've asked for so I thank you for that thank you just a a comment based on something Dr Reeves just said I think there's two
things tonight well we need to get past this item first but I'll say that after we vote um any more comments on the approval of the 25 26 school fees all right let's
vote the vote is 11 yes Zer no um my my comment was going to be that two of the things tonight that we've dealt with deal with your goals that we set for you one of those being the creativity around funding which um this
is sort of tied to the V we just took is sort of tied to and then also what happened in the budget which we didn't really talk about tonight but um the try to the differentiation we're trying to do that you're you propos doing for um Arts teachers supplements being more
mindful of the folks who were on that um the non-traditional positions if you will um supplemental positions and so forth so I think just recognizing that you've in a couple ways tried to address what we've asked for in your goals and
um Incorporated that into some pretty important decisions that we had to make tonight so I just wanted to acknowledge that thank you for that all right with that thanks everyone for your patience and for the good discussion we're adjourn