We will be covering the #WCSB school board meeting tonight starting at 6:30 p.m. Below is the link to the live stream. Follow along in this thread. 🧵
Here is the agenda. meeting.boeconnect.net/Public/Agenda/…
The Livestream has begun, and it does not appear there are many people in the audience. It is a relatively empty room compared to many recent meetings.
Rick Wimberly is joining the meeting via zoom.
Now on to Public comment. First, Nancy Garret welcomes scout troops to the meeting. Four people have signed up for public comment. All will have three minutes to speak.
The first speaker, Marla Peterson, does not appear to be there. The second speaker is Jarod Sullivan. He was Franklin High School Student president in 2009 and now is an author. He is concerned about the last meeting where people spoke out against books.
He says we do not give high school students enough credit.
Next up is Michael Miller. He thanks the board for approving the pay raise. Gives teachers credit for his child's success. Concerned about special education teacher attention and retention. More work needs to be done. We need to make WCS a place where teachers want to teach.
Next up is Adrienne King, parent of two high school students and a WCS grad. Advocating for our teachers, staff, and administrations. Thanks for the 3% pay raise but it's just a start. Some board members have fallen to the influence of the squeaky wheels.
That ends the public comment. (Shortest in a very long time.) Now they are approving the agenda. And then approving the consent agenda.
I missed it in roll call but it appears that Candy Emerson and Angela Durham are both absent. 
Now on to the Superintendents report. Jason Golden will summarize the report from Thursday's work session. He is talking about how they want to improve a sense of student safety and their work there.
He encourages everyone to watch the board work session presentation from the librarians.
We have now used 3 of our 10 snow days. Now Golden wants to jump to student and staff spotlights. I will not go through all of these because they go too quickly to catch the names, but congrats to all of these students for their accomplishments.
Board chair report: Nancy Garrett reminds board members to file disclosure of interest filings and ensure they're current on required training. Also encourages them to volunteer at schools, for example, in the cafeterias.
Effective January 1, the districts may have changed and board members may have new schools in their districts, so introduce themselves to those schools.
Sheila Cleveland gives a legislation committee report: Senate Bill 1674 Vouchers- they are adding options for students to meet the eligibility requirements.
"School Vouchers - As introduced, extends eligibility for an education savings account to students zoned to attend a school in an LEA that, at any time during the three-year period immediately preceding September 1, 2025,...
or thereafter, did not offer students 180 days of in-person learning each school year due to COVID-19 or that voluntarily imposed a mask mandate in response to COVID-19 and that voluntarily refused to allow parents and guardians to opt their students out of the mask mandate."
Jay Galbreath: wants to pass along a note from the library discussion last week. Parents can now go into a child's library account to see what books the student has borrowed. (This feature was not on before).
Golden says board policy 4.4.0.3 does include library books. This is just a clarification from Thursday.
Golden says next week is School Board member appreciate week, and he is giving some swag to the board members. He thanks them for their work. (I think it's a mug.)
Now they are approving the general purpose school fund. All 10 approve. meeting.boeconnect.net/Documents/File…
Now they are approving a middle school STEM Grant. All 10 members approve. meeting.boeconnect.net/Documents/File…
Now they are voting on a need to hire additional staff, typical for this time of year. All 10 board members approve.
Next up is the staff pay raise. Golden has been talking to Mayor Anderson about changing marketing conditions. the mayor intends to recommend an increase in county staff pay. He encouraged WCS to do the same with the funding they currently have.
Proposal to increase hourly employee pay by $1 an hour, and to increase teacher salary by 3%. This is very unusual in the middle of a budget year. We are able to do this largely because the sales tax revenue exceeded what we budgeted for this year.
If approved by the board tonight, it will need to be approved by the county commissioners in February.
Discussion: Galbreath says he is in agreement that we want to take every opportunity to give teachers the pay they need. But he wants to be 100% certain that we have looked at all the potential fiscal responsibility and things that could go wrong.
Galbreath: Wants to know what percentage increase the $1 an hour is overall on the hourly wages. Golden says it's more than 3%. Depends on the person.
Galbreath says he wants to point out that the dollar an hour is more than the 3% and probably close to the 6% some county employees will get. Golden gives an example of special ed making $15 per hour, the $1 would be more than 6%.
Now Galbreath is asking if we are getting our cut of online sales tax. Wants to understand where the sales tax increase is coming from.
Rachel Farmer, Assistant Superintendent of Budget and Finance says we don't see the breakdown of funds coming in, but she is asking for a breakdown. She doesn't know currently if the online taxes are in there or not.
Galbreath is saying there is no way we got a 30% increase in sales tax and it doesn't include online tax. He is wondering where the big increase is from. Were we not getting full compliance before?
The budget was not anticipating that much of a jump in sales tax, that is where the excess comes from. Rachel Farmer points out with people not traveling as much with covid, people are spending more money at home.
Rachel Farmer is assuring Galbreath she is confident we can pay for this pay raise. Galbreath is questioning her some more because he doesn't understand her certainty.
Rachel Farmer says what we are asking for tonight is money we already have in hand. It's not a question of if we get it..we have the funding. We don't know next year, but in 10 years we haven't had less than 6% growth. That would be enough.
K.C.Haugh: is happy about Golden's relationship with the mayor to be able to have that discussion to react to the economic conditions. Is impressed with the fast response to market conditions. Stressing this is a first step.
K.C. Haugh: Request for online sales tax questions be added to FAQ on the website.
Dan Cash: Says retention is a big word these days. Knows the hourly folks will enjoy this $1 an hour because he thinks they are still below what they are making. Wants an overview on teachers that have left.
Golden says the pool of teacher candidates of shrunk. As of last week, we had 71 open teacher positions.
Vickie Hall, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources: 560 teachers were hired between Jan 1 and Dec 31, and we have had an increased number of separations: 529 separations in 2021. That is an increase from 2019 when we had 380.
Hall says it is a challenging time to be a teacher. We know that salary is a factor; we are about 7% below Rutherford and about 15% below Metro. And some things beyond our control, like people moving away.
Things we see recurring in exit interviews are a change of career and salary issues.
Golden stresses it is more than salary isn't the entire picture, as we don't charge a premium for health insurance while some of our neighbors do. But we do need to work to provide a good living salary for our professionals.
Golden commits to sharing a presentation from HR in the future on details on teacher retention.
Dan Cash asks if we are doing anything special to try to keep people in these jobs. Golden says there is no ONE solution. Civility is an issue (compares to the airline industry). Golden says to treat them like professionals and try to accommodate their needs.
Golden gives the example of allowing remote parent-teacher days. PTO's encouraging teachers. It's a team effort. Golden is meeting with @williamson_inc to find ways in the community to encourage teachers.
@williamson_inc Josh Brown asked a question, but to be honest I missed it. This is exactly as boring as a school board meeting should be. 😂
@williamson_inc Something about fund balance, unspent line items, property tax...😴 (To be clear, I am NOT complaining.)
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS : Found a slide from the 2019 TSBA conference that shows how fewer college freshmen are now becoming education majors. Having good teachers is vitally important. TN is a teacher importer - do not produce enough of our own, &we have to fight to keep them here.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS @EricWelchWCS says he found 1 house under $300,000 in the entire house and it's under 1000 square feet. Teachers can't afford to live here in the community where they work. This is easy to vote yes for...but it's a beginning, not an ending.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS @EricWelchWCS when challenges come up, we need to support teachers in what they do and stand behind them.
Ugh. *in the entire county.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS Next up is a retention bonus for school psychologists. We have 54 budgeted school Psychology positions and we are short 12. Salary for this position follows the teacher salary schedule with a 5% differential that is over that.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS Golden says the bonus is comparable to our neighbors but the salary is still less. We will be talking about how we can do more in the future.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS Josh Brown brings up how they talked several meetings ago about the increased mental health needs of the students and is concerned that we make sure we have the support staff to manage that.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS Now on to open zoned schooling. There is a new law governing open zoned schools, requiring changes. Can no longer be first come first serve - must be a lottery system.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS Here are the recommendations for open zoned schooling openings. meeting.boeconnect.net/Public/Agenda/…
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS Eliot Mitchell says he doesn't think our current rules on open zoning are suited to this law, specifically grandfathering, rolling into feeder schools, & sibling rules. We don't have a method for the lottery. Will let Jay speak before making a motion to defer this for a month.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS They are discussing the impact of deferring for a month or making changes to the policy. Dana Ausbrooks points out counselors are already working on schedules. Waiting a month might be difficult. Says they could make a change next month to shorten the open window.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS There is a lot of discussions here about revising the policy to meet the law and the timing and requirements of that, and what the rules of the board allow.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS I'm not giving a specific play-by-play here, but it sounds like they are probably going to delay this and rewrite the open zoning policy to meet the news laws for the February board meeting.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS Note: Golden strongly recommends whatever happens we do not go back on the commitment we've made to families in the past. (Pretty sure he's referring to comments on whether grandfathering is still allowed.)
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS Golden clarifies that if they approve the policy tonight, his assumption would be that students now at out-of-zone schools would continue to be allowed there.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS K.C. Haugh thinks we are overcomplicating this. He doesn't want to cause stress in current families who are open-zoned. In favor of passing it as is, without adding any potential changes that could cause confusion and stress.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS After much discussion, they are finally voting on the original motion, which was the approval of the open zoned schools.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS Now they are voting to approve the charter school committee. WCS been notified by two entities that they have an intent to submit a charter school application.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS They are discussing what is involved in being a part of that committee in approving charter school applications for the 2023 - 2024 school year.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS Now they are voting to approve TSBA Legislative Agenda. All voted yes. (9 voted yes. Jay Galbreath had stepped out of the room.)
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS Last on the agenda, is the Covid accommodations protocol to meet ADA requirements. This is on a case-by-case basis, parents could request accommodations under ADA. meeting.boeconnect.net/Public/Agenda/…
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS Jay Galbreath thinks it is a dangerous precedence to require affirmative action by other people, but that's what we are being told is required by several judges. Likes that requiring masks for the smallest number of people possible is the last resort.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS Jennifer Aprea wants to clarify this is an ADA law to accommodate our kids and keep them safe, not to satisfy a judge.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS Jay clarifies he meant that multiple judges have agreed that requiring universal masking is a reasonable accommodation, despite whether he believes that is true.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS Someone told him today about their IEP kids, is that they are equally accountable to other students, such as deaf students. Basically, he's making it clear that he doesn't like masking but can't do anything about it.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS That wraps it up. The meeting is adjourned.
@williamson_inc @EricWelchWCS @threadreaderapp unroll, please.
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