February 13, 2024 at 4:00 PM - Working Committees

Discussion:  Davis called the meeting to order since Chairman and Vice Chairman wasn't present and he was last athletic committee chiar. 

Discussion:  Davis led the meeting in a moment of silence and the Pledge of Allegiance. 

Discussion:  Davis asked for a motion to approve minutes. King made motion and Stout with the second. 

Discussion:  Davis asked that they consider changing the name of the "Athletic Committee" to another name that will broadly cover what they discuss and make decisions on at each meeting. He said he would like to line this up with their strategic plan. Hamby asked to verify the name as to what Davis is recommending it be changed to. Davis made a motion to present a name change to the board, and it will incorporate all extracurricular activities, as noted in the vision statement, and all tasks pertaining to them. King asked what the proposed name should be.  The committee decided on Arts, Athletics, and Activities. Stout made a second on the motion. 

Discussion:  Davis told everyone he wanted to bring the website into alignment with the strategic plan. Stout said on the school sites, they get more specific. Boston said a website can get too busy. She said if the vision of the strategic plan was loaded on there, that is ever changing. Davis said it's not effective if it's not current. Boston asked, did they not already do that?  He said he searched and didn't see any of the big things on it, such as cheerleaders going to Orlando for national competition or Homestead Girls Basketball getting 3rd place in the state. Stout said a lot of that information is on the Social Media page every time. Hamby said she thinks those things are already on there. Davis said not those 2 things. Stepp said they would work on it. Boston said that comes from inside the administration. Davis said he just wants the information up to date for anyone that would use that portion. Stepp said again, he would take care of it. 

Discussion:  Stepp said for this-this is another matter of springboard with the strategic plan. Davis asked if anyone had been a part of any decision that landed these supplements where they are? Boston said our supplements were on the low side when they looked at them compared to other districts, so they updated them, but at that, they are still a couple of years old. Boston said they felt the new scale was fair and got them up to a least a competitive supplement. Davis said he knows there's been a number of discussions over the years about which sports would be supported by the schools, financially. He said mathematically they are spending $75,200 on elementary, and $27,600 in middle school and $250,900 in high school. He said only 2 sports are supported in elementary and 7 in middle and all in high school. He said, is there a reason that's our focus, and should it be?  Boston asked him to say again exactly what he was asking. Davis said can anyone tell him why they spend what they spend for supplements? Only supporting elementary basketball, spending half as much in middle school and 10 times more in high school. Hale asked him again what his question was. Stout said, why is it allocated the way it's allocated? Davis said that would be the short version. King said he thinks it's because that's where the interest was-from the community. Boston said if middle school athletics are going to be separated out, this may need to be revamped. Davis said he would ask, since they are only supporting cross-country and basketball at the elementary level, do they believe that is fair? He said they've relied on the community to cover every other sport. Hale asked if he wanted to take them away. Davis said he's just asking if there's something they are going to do, now or later, that will create a situation where all the kids are given the opportunity they once had or channel their efforts to support a middle school and high school best. Hale said she thinks the individual communities like the competition of across-town teams. Boston said when they decided they would have middle school sports, they promised the elementary kids they would still have those opportunities, and she doesn't want to back off on that now. Davis asked if it was most important that their schools continue to play basketball on their home court or more important that it be funded. The majority said they felt it was equally important. Boston said no, they promised the kids they would get to play. Nichols said," You're not asking to take that away, are you?" Hamby said, yes, he is. Davis said yes, why are they only worrying about basketball? Why are they not supporting all other sports? Hamby said all other sports had already been taken away before they ever started with TMSAA discussions. She said they were already gone except for cross-country and basketball. Boston said after promising the kids that they would not have basketball taken away from them, she isn't going back on that now and if they have to fund it and financially support it, so be it. Stout said if they get to a point where they get a high enough demand, could they get a program started? Davis said decisions are being made based on data. He can provide data on how many kids are playing football, softball and baseball recreationally. He asked if anyone knew how many kids are playing basketball in the county and why it costs over $75,000 to do it. Boston said he's got to combine the elementary and middle school ages. Davis said they spend more money on basketball than any sport at any level. He asked if this decision was made because there was data to support it or if they were doing it because they had always done it and because they promised someone it wouldn't go away. Hamby said they and the Director promised they would not do away with the elementary basketball teams. Davis asked if she was hearing him say that they could have the same level of participation, but Hamby said yes as long as parents can pay for it and all parents can't pay for it, and they promised they wouldn't change it, and they needed to leave it alone. Davis said they have 385 kids playing in softball and is the district willing to take that on? Boston asked if those kids played for us. Davis said they go to school in Cumberland Co. Boston asked again if they played for us or do they play outside? Davis said they would play for us but she asked him to provide a demand. He said there are kids playing baseball and softball that live in Cumberland Co, are we going to support them? Boston and Hamby both answered "I would".  Boston said according to data Davis provided, he's asking if the t-ball teams and elementary grade level baseball and softball teams would be supported by her as a board member. He said yes. She asked if they had a need. Davis said total there's about 1200 kids that are playing ball, that parents are paying for. Hamby asked if the kids were Cumberland County students? Davis said 99.9% are. Boston asked if they provided those teams. Davis said" we don't". Hamby asked Maddox to weigh in. Maddox said if you go back in time in the county, there was at one time, before park and recs was close, a space and opportunity for kids to participate. But not very many schools provide sports in the schools because the parks and recreation areas in their cities provide that for them. He said if the county had an extensive parks and recreations department here in Cumberland Co they could provide those needs for elementary students. He said organized sports across the nation basically start in middle school. He said they couldn't find qualifying coaches in some sports in every school so the district basically said here's a job for you, but you have to be our football coach. Maddox said if you look at the data, you start seeing a drop in sports participation across the board. He suggested a centralized park and recreation dept that would take care of youth athletics and let the district concentrate on middle school and high school sports and then the district would not be out that money. Davis said the intention is not to eliminate, but to shift the burden of what is doable within the scope of abilities. Boston said she felt they are providing the sports needs right now. She said if they choose to play with Dixie Youth, that is momma and daddy's choice. Hamby said they moved out of the supplement discussion and this needs to be in another meeting, giving more information so they can be more prepared. 

Discussion:  Davis brought this item up and asked what current condition the facilities are in? He said he knows they are waiting on the assessment from Upland Design Group. Stepp said the fields and equipment are going to be included in this assessment. Davis said this is part 2 of having a middle school athletic mentality. 

Discussion:  Davis said for this, he is just trying to visualize what the district is doing, year in, year out, and is there a central location where they can house the events schedule? Stepp said it could be on the home page possibly. Hamby said maybe a drop down menu could work. Boston said if a facility is being used for non-sporting events, would that be posted as well? Stepp said yes. 

Discussion:  Davis introduced this item and Stepp said they are working on getting this in place. Davis said it's currently being shared. Boston said if she understands what he's trying to say, they need to look at what facilities middle school teams will need. Davis said yes. Boston asked if he was proposing looking at all the facilities for middle school, so they wouldn't continue to use the high school. Davis responded, correct. Boston asked if there had been scheduling problems at the high school or at the practice fields. Davis said it is continually that. They are constantly juggling. Boston asked if this wouldn't go hand in hand with middle school when they started discussing middle school academics. Davis said he hears that will release a lot of burden. Boston said she thinks those conversations need to be started. She said first and foremost, without athletics, they need to look at academics. Boston said their job was not to play basketball or football, their job was to educate the children. 

Discussion:  Davis said he added this item to give Dr. Maddox an opportunity to provide an annual report or discuss items within the report. He said the current report was in the middle of the transition between AD's, but asked Maddox if there was anything he wanted to add or provide. Maddox said most things have been accomplished. Some tweaking still needs to take place, but most things are working fine and they've made a lot of progress. Maddox did tell everyone that is talking about facilities usage, some sports can set the same time for practice, but they are not permitted to practice with each other-middle school athletes cannot practice at the same time as high school athletes. Boston said for track, would looking at building another track help. Stepp said it would cost about the same as a tennis court. Maddox said they can handle what they are currently doing, but the biggest issue is finding people. 

Discussion:  Davis said during the process of the subcommittee goals they felt like this was an area to improve on.  Boston asked if he had a proposal. Stepp said it's all being built and this was to be planned within the strategic plan. 

Discussion:  When Davis presented this, Boston asked what exactly this was. He said this idea is to create a portfolio of athletes of what they have accomplished. How these look and something for them to carry into college or career. Boston asked to take the word construction out as she thinks they are trying to actually build something. Boston asked what their job was in this. Davis said discussion is being had as to how to facilitate this, track and monitor it and who is responsibile for that. He said there are companies out there that take care of these portfolios. Boston asked if this fell under the athletic director's purview? Davis said yes. Hale asked if this was basically keeping a scrapbook of what they've done. Stout said it was more like an athletic resume. She said instead of it just being athletics, part of the strategic plan is finding out how they turn this portion into a whole educational piece. Boston asked if he was saying the Board or the district would be responsible for the portfolio. Davis said the district. Created by the athletic department. 

Discussion:  Boston called the Budget Committee meeting to order at approximately 5:31 pm. 

Discussion:  Boston introduced this first item to approval. King made the motion to approve minutes and Hale with the second. 

Discussion:  Boston introduced this item and told everyone that this was the current pay scale for Assistant Principal and forward and attached are the supplements. She said they've talked for years about getting rid of the supplements and creating a pay scale that would allow them to move forward every year. She said she wanted this on the agenda for everyone to have a reference when they look at the proposed scale. 
 

Discussion:  Bray told everyone what they were looking at in terms of the spreadsheet. She told them to pay attention to the daily rate of the positions. She also told them that, due to workload, one of the requests was to take an assistant high school principal from a 210 to 215-day employee. Hamby asked if all principals and assistant principals would have to have a Master's. Bray told them in order to have an admin license, you must have a Master's degree. Bray said there are people that are in the system that will have to be frozen where they are because the scale won't accommodate them, but that's not that uncommon when implementing a new pay scale. Bray said she looked at several other districts to compare and see how they were doing their pay scales. Boston said she didn't feel they would approve anything today, but needed a starting point to look at. She asked Bray how much money the district was looking at if they adopt this scale? Stepp said the additional money is because of the governor's mandate to get up to $50,000 for a teacher's salary. Davis asked if the frozen employees were above the 17-year mark. Bray said, yes, some are and some are not. She said this will work for the majority of people, but some will have to be frozen on the scale. Bray said other districts have had to do the same when they've implemented a new scale. Hale asked why she didn't take a regular scale that the district had as a base and then add a supplement to it, so the regular pay would go up, but the supplement would stay the same. Hale asked where they came up with the numbers and Stepp told them a lot of things they were looking at came from the lean frog study as well as comparisons to other counties. Hale said, in her opinion, the numbers are very high. Bray said that's why she encourages everyone to look at the average daily rate for each position. She said people work different numbers of days and that can skew it tremendously from those that work a 205, or someone that works a 240. She said that column is more of an apple to apple comparison. Boston asked if this already had the increase built in? Bray said she started with teacher scales and then built the system-wide. Davis asked if all assistant principals were required to have a Master's and Bray told him they already do. Stout said this will help the HR processes as well. She said she feels that people that go to the website get confused on how much money they will actually make. This is a more straight forward way to calculate pay. Boston said it took her years to figure out those numbers as well. Bray said she recalculated all the positions, from teachers forward. Hale said she doesn't understand why they can't take a certified scale and add a supplement and the scale would still go up. Bray said for recruiting purposes she thinks an admin should get more money. Hale said they could still go up in the base pay, Bray said some districts never go up in supplement pay, regardless of how long you have been in the position. Bray said she thought the goal was to get away from the supplements and this was just her proposal. Hale said no, they were trying to get away from percentages. She said maybe do 1–5 years, and you get a set amount as a supervisor. Bray said that basically what the percentages were doing-it was the same thing. Boston asked how close we were to Roane Co. since they are closest to the student population. Bray said the district was still a little below them, but this pay scale would put us closer. Boston asked Bray to calculate how much this new scale would cost the district and get it to them before the next budget meeting. Bray said even when the other scale had frozen employees, they still got a raise, they just were not going to move up because they were already above the topped out amount on the scale. Bray said again this was her best effort as to what she understood she had been tasked with. Boston said she suggests everyone take the proposed scale and look them over and they will come back with an idea of what they are seeing. Davis asked if this scale incorporated COLA, which is the cost of living adjustment. Bray said the district doesn't call it that, but yes. She said it's called an annual raise here. Davis said he said it's real and inflation is real so that's the reason he's asking. Bray said this will change yearly, to which Davis replied that it makes sense. Bray said if they adopted this and next year they agreed to give (example) 6% raise, she would change the scale to show that. Hale said when compared to the non certified scale it just so much more. Boston said remember they haven't done classified yet. Hale said it's just a large amount of money to her. Davis said compared to what? Hale said there are positions like custodians and bus drivers that aren't being filled. She said she isn't saying anything against supervisors but the little people need to be looked at. She said they are always concentrating on Central office and what goes on there. Stout said this is the first step and all will be looked at during the budget season. Bray said yes, it's just the starting point and try to go to a normal salary scale. Davis asked if the model follows the same for non certfied and Bray said yes. She told him that 2 years ago they done a salary study for classified employees and adjusted a lot of pay and many of the classified personel got a lot of nice raises. Even with that, they still can't hire custodians and bus drivers. She said she was told a magic number for bus drivers and they are above that now and they still can't hire people. She said becuase of that she doesn't know if money is the answer and if money will fix it. Hamby said that she spoke with someone from Fentress Co. that used to drive a bus here and they don't know why people aren't running here to us becuase our pay scale and insurance is so good. Bray said she's tried everything but there's a nation wide shortage with any position. Stout said they have to also make it a good culture and climate in order to attract people. Boston said they want time to digest all of the information. Hale made a motion to adjourn and King with the second. 

Discussion:  Hamby called the meeting to order in Safdie's absense. 

Discussion:  Hamby could not approve minutes due to her being the only member present. She adjourned the meeting. 

Discussion:  Hamby called the policy meeting to order at approximately 5:59 pm.

Discussion:  Hamby asked for a motion to approve minutes. Nichols made the motion and Hamby with the second. 

Discussion:  Hamby presented the recommended policies and asked if anyone had anything to add to 1.300.
1.300-This was updated by TSBA Attorney, Ben Torres and brought to committee for review. Stout said that at the retreat it was discussed to review in June and not September. Committee agreed to change review date as well as update "athletic committee" to "athletics, arts, and activities committee". Hamby made the motion to make changes and send to full board. Nichols seconded. 
1.404-Hamby presented policy. Committee made suggestion to add last paragraph into the paragraph under "Appearing Before the Board" paragraph. Choose 8 working days and 5 minutes on lines 14 and 16 on page 1. Hamby made a motion to accept changes to match the TSBA model policy and the changes from the committee. Nichols with the second. 
1.900, 1.901, 1.902, 1.903, 1.904, 1.905, 1.906 policies were updated to reflect TSBA's model policies. Hamby made a motion to approve all of these at one time. Hale asked if we had charter schools in the county. Stepp told her no, but with TISA funding, any charters schools coming to the county, TISA funding can be routed through us and to them. Stepp said the district wanted these policies to line up with TSBA. Nichols seconded Hamby's motion. 
2.8041-Hamby told the committee that they are recommending updating the mileage reimbursement. They chose to have the policy read "that matches state and federal rate". Hamby made the motion to accept this recommendation and Nichols with the second. 
5.600-Hamby said she had this policy added due to trying to update the employee dress code and a lot of districts use this policy if they don't have an employee dress code in place. 
5.6001-Hamby told everyone that this dress code policy was updated by Stepp and Maddox. Boston asked if local school rules were the employee handbook? Stepp said yes and Boston asked if the handbook could be amended to match policy. Stepp said yes, whatever they decided. Hale said she is concerned about the language that says "decisions on professional attire may be made at individual facilities". She said she doesn't want the principals to be in charge all the time, especially when staff are given casual days. She then asked for an explanation. Hamby said she voiced concern to Stepp about the same thing. She said Stepp is going to meet with his principals and let them know there needs to be more uniform across the board as best they can. Hale said she doesn't think one school should be doing something different than another.  Hamby said she believes it should be county wide. Davis said the entire thing is subjective to their interpretation of neat and professional and acceptable. Stout said it should be district wide, so there's no finger pointing. Boston asked how it was handled now. Stepp said each school has its own standard of professionalism. Stepp said he had not had a complaint directed towards him about this and when it was brought forward, he was surprised because there was no one coming to him. He said he works with the principals on consistency, but there has to be a leader in the building. He said they can itemize it or get rid of it, whatever they want to do. Hale said it doesn't need to be so subjective. Hamby said there needs to be uniformity across the district. Boston said if you have a principal, and you are neat and put together and are clean, and you're principal says you are good, go do your job, then you are happy and do not want changes. If another principal says there are requirements that their staff must wear, then we're going to have unhappy employees. She asked how to find the happy medium. Hamby said people have reached out to her and the CCEA rep with complaints against the policy. Davis asked what kind of number they are looking at for complaints? Hamby said she didn't know for sure, but she said at one school there are 15-20, maybe more. She said at another school there were 3 and another school had several, but she didn't keep a count. Stout said when they addressed the student dress code there were people from the administration's side coming to board members asking for adjustment on the policy. Stout said that's not coming to them now-they aren't getting feed back straight from the administrators. Hamby said they don't feel comfortable going to the administration. Stout said have them go to the principal. Hamby said they didn't want to go to principal either.  Davis said that was an issue in itself-if you can't go to your superiors. Hamby said that was another issue that would have to be addressed at a later time. Boston said in looking at the dress code, it does need to be updated. But she asked if Stepp could meet with the principals and talk to them. He said he can and also told everyone that if complaints would be filtered up to him, this could have already been taken care of. Hamby said there's a lot that fear repercussions. Stepp said he's never in his career been accused of repercussions. Hamby said she didn't say it was him. Stepp said he uses conflict resolution to fix things quickly, if he knows about it. Stout said the board also has a policy about repercussions. Hale asked CCEA rep Timson what teachers would like to see. Timson said she's worked for both types of administration-those that say you are clean, you are good and those that will take the policy and highlight everything. She said the problem with every building making the decision is that her principal and 2 others all said different things when bringing the policy up that week to their staff. She said principals aren't going to come to Stepp because they are in charge of their building, and they don't want it to look like they are not in charge of it. Davis asked Stepp what he preferred to see his employees wearing. Stepp said he was never too hard on it because it was all focused on academics. He said if someone came in with something that was distracting, he or a female assistant would talk to them. He said it wasn't jean day every day, but as long as they were doing their job, high expectations for academics, a team player then he always had high success. Hamby said it needed to be consistent and Stepp said he agreed. Boston asked if Stepp could meet with his principals, get their feedback and then come back to them. Davis said people need to point their concerns back to the appropriate channel. He said they can't constantly adjust policy because people want to remain in anonymity rather than follow their contract they signed. He said it's hard to work with an invisible target. Hamby said that is also why they have a CCEA rep. Boston said she still thinks they need to give Stepp time to talk with his staff. Hamby made the motion to table until March meeting and give Stepp time to speak with his employees. Nichols with the second. 
5.803-Hamby told everyone that Stout had requested this to be on the agenda. Stout said this was a TSBA model policy and it puts some parameters around the evaluation of the Director of Schools. She said in the retreat, they mentioned making some adjustments to the DOS evaluations. Nichols asked if the district currently had this policy and Stout replied no, they did not. Davis said there's no mention of incentives or potential considerations for raises, so what is the value of the evaluation based on, and what is his performance based on, for compensation. Boston said that would be in the contract with the Director-that doesn't need to be in policy. Davis asked, "so we don't want to point one to the other"?  Boston said one contract may be different than another contract with another Director. Davis said people that are incentivized to perform usually perform.  Hamby asked if we paid the employees and teachers based on their evaluations? She said the school systems are a little different from corporate offices. Hamby said she's never seen in the state of TN in education where raises were based on evaluations.  King said they do, but it's in steps. Stout read parts of a contract that wasn't the current DOS contract, so after attorney Patton called their attention that it wasn't the current signed contract and told everyone how the current contract reads regarding evaluations, goals and working relationships, Hamby said they really didn't need this policy. Davis reiterated that it doesn't tell what the performance metrics are. Hale said she thinks they should just keep with the contract. Stout said the contract is not very specific on how they are going to help Stepp develop and move forward. Hamby said they are to hold him accountable and it states that in the contract. Davis asked hold him accountable to what? Hamby said doing his performance. Davis asked of what? Hamby said of his leadership, of his employees, making sure he's taking care of...Davis asked how they evaluate that? Hamby said through his evaluation. Davis asked if he gets a 3 or above you can stay for life but a 3 or below...Hamby said no, that's not what his contract says. Davis said that what he's asking. Stout said this policy specifically talks about a set of performance objectives based on the needs of the district. Davis asked what professionals in his role prefer to be graded on. Hamby asked Patton about the TCA code listed on the policy. Hamby said she would like to table this policy until Patton could do a comparison between this policy and the current DOS contract and she would like more input from the Board attorney. Davis said he would like to add that they get feedback from the Director on how he would like to be evaluated. Hamby said if he wanted to put that together and have it ready for the March meeting, she was fine with that. Hamby made the motion to table and let Patton research. Nichols made the second. 
 

Discussion:  Boston made the motion to adjourn. Hamby with the second. Meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:04 pm.