November 14, 2023 at 6:00 PM - Board of Education Regular Meeting

Discussion:  Staff:  Dr. Trey Duke, Don Bartch, Sheri Arnette, Ken Rocha, Chris George, Angela Fairchild, Amanda Adams, Natalie Hardiman, Beth Prater, Maria Johnson, Kim Williams, and Lisa Trail

Assistant City Attorney Lauren Bush.  City Liaison Bill Shacklett was absent.

Discussion:  Amanda Adams updated the board on the progress of the calm coach program. Dr. Duke said that this program will be recognized as a Spotlight on Education at an upcoming board meeting in January or February, but he wanted Mrs. Adams to let the Board know where how the program was going as of today. 

Ms. Adams told the Board that we have 12 calm coaches in the system.  She covered the training process for the calm coaches and explained that they are used in a positive way in the school. She shared the flow chart of how the coaches respond to dysregulated students. 

Dr. Duke explained that the calm coach is not punitive but there to intervene before punishment is needed. He said that he has heard great things about the calm coaches at all schools.

Chair Campbell asked if there is a special criteria to become a calm coach and Ms. Adams explained that they use the EA hiring criteria and like to see that the applicant has experience working in schools. 

Barbara Long asked if parents are notified when their child visits the calm coach.  Amanda Adams said that yes, there is a form that is completed at the end of the session that goes to the teacher and one to the parent.  The parent also has the option to sign a form that states that the student may need to visit the calm coach on a regular basis.

Karen Dodd asked what the parents are saying about the calm coaches and Ms. Adams said that most of the parents get the calm coach confused with the counselor.  Ms. Dodd said that we need to educate the parents on this.

Chair Campbell asked if this was an original idea or is there another system using this. Ms. Adams told the Board that they went to Metro to observe this program. She explained that are program is very structured and based on research.

Barbara Long said that this program must be a huge value to principals and APs with them not having to be called out all the time.  She asked how teachers are responding to calm coaches, and Ms. Adams said that they are very appreciative. 

 

Discussion:  Dr. Duke and Dr. George explained what we know at this time about the new accountability system.  They told the Board that letter grades will be released in December.  They gave an update on how our schools will be graded under the new model.  Dr. Duke shared a PowerPoint explaining how the letter grade will be generated.  Dr. Duke did explain that this information is embargoed and asked the Board not to share.

Amanda Moore asked if we could message and celebrate what the scores would have been under the metrics and Dr. Duke explained that we plan to do that. 

Dr. George said that this will not change anything about instruction.  We will still continue to monitor these things each day.

In Dr. Duke's PowerPoint, he explained the major changes which include the following:
Removal of AMO pathway to meet the achievement goal
Removed performance of individual historically underserved subgroups. Decreased the remaining subgroup weight from 40% to 10%
Removed ELPA as 10% of the school letter grade
Removed Chronic Absenteeism improvement as 10% of school letter grade

Dr. Duke said that he doesn't know when the grades will be released. He feels that we will have minimal notice and then they will be released. He added that we will be celebrating our schools. He said that we have new leadership this year and we are very confident in what we are seeing.

Ms. Amanda Moore asked if the district gets an overall grade and Dr. Duke said no, the grade is just for schools. Dr. George added that we do not know about a district designation.

Dr. Duke said that the message to principals will be to stay focused on attendance, double down on science, and continue to work with the lowest students. He said that we are not anticipating huge changes in our buildings.
 

Discussion:  Dr. Duke gave a summary of the TN Educator Survey.  He said that he pushed this extremely hard since he got here and this is the first year that every school is getting results back. He said that you have to have 40% of teachers take the survey to get results back.  Dr. Duke explained that the survey comes from the state and the state gives us results.  Dr. Duke went over some of the results with the Board and told them that the link to the entire survey was sent out in the Board Update, but he would send it to the Board again so that they could see all questions. 
 
Mrs. Arnette said that she was proud that 93% of teachers agree that professional development is aligned to instructional materials and several other categories on the survey.

Dr. Duke also reviewed some areas that did not score as high. 




 

Discussion:  Ms. Kim Williams presented information on the Fund Balance to the Board.  She explained that this is for the GP budget only and no other budgets were included.  She explained that this is the most recent information but is still a draft and unofficial and has not been approved.

Ms. Williams stated that we are on the upward trend of adding to GP unassigned Fund Balance. She reviewed that trend with the Board. She said that the trend was to budget into Fund Balance every year, but we have added into Fund Balance every year.  She said that this year FY23, we added 19.1 million-20%, a huge increase in spendable cash.  She said that when we receive the email from the auditors' office, we will have the final number.  She said that last year we added 7 million, the year before 2 million, and this year 19 million dollars.

Dr Duke said that when the strategic plan was made, we were concerned if we could maintain it, and now we have doubled that in the last two years. He said that we used ESSER funds to assist with that, but we can now take care of some things that have needed to be done since it was managed so well.

Dr. Duke went over the proposed use of fund balance with the Board. He told the Board that we feel very comfortable saying that we want to move ahead with the Reeves Rogers renovation. 

Don Bartch went over some information as far as cost and timeline of the Reeves Rogers renovation. 

Barbara Long asked if we can keep the building open during construction and Mr. Bartch said yes. 

Mr. Ballard asked if this renovation will be inclusive of all security measures and Mr. Bartch said yes, it will be turn key safety and state requirements are already in the drawing. 

Dr. Duke said that we will bring budget amendments and then final plans to the Board.

Discussion:  Sheri Arnette explained the 2024-2025 Calendar to the Board and said that winter, fall, spring, and Thanksgiving breaks align with Rutherford County. She said that Dr. Duke created a skeleton calendar and met with the Teacher Advisory Council last week and they reviewed it. She said that they had 179 days but had to get 180 days.  They were given four options and most support was for option 2. 

Ms. Arnette explained that teachers return on July 31 instead of August 1

Dr. Duke said that the calendar was sent to principals and he will have a parent meeting tomorrow and will also share with them.
He add that TAC did not want to do a parent teacher conference at night and they did not want to increase their independent PD time.
The student start date is the same as the county.  Dr. Duke said that we have a good calendar.  He said that it matches Rutherford County with our own spin on PD days, but we always have done that.

We need to change November 5 to Tuesday.

Discussion:  Dr. Duke invited the Board to the Tenured Teachers Reception prior to the November 28 meeting in the rotunda at city hall from 5:15 to 5:45. 

Karen Dodd asked Dr. Duke's thoughts on celebrating our level 5 teachers.  Dr. Duke said that we will definitely look at that for an upcoming board meeting.  She also suggested that we showcase them on our website.

Mr. Ballard asked about ending federal money and there was some discussion regarding that to end the meeting.
 

Discussion:  Meeting adjourned at 7:36 p.m.