Absent: Mark Hansen and Cathy Messerly. Mr Vaughan as chair for today.

Meeting starting with Special recognitions prior to calling the meeting to order due to lack of quorum.

Collierville Middle Recognitions:

• Junior Beta service organization – highlighting the service work, and calling up all the winners from the state level competition – presented by Mrs McLemore.
• Mrs Powers – state winners of the Fire Safety poster competition
• Mrs Wheeler – recognized in national article on emerging artists and winner of Gold Key in Scholastic Art competition
• Track and Field – Cross Country runners – consistent top 10 finishers, and this year top 3 finish at state
• Mr Carey – Girls’ soccer – inaugural soccer teams. A team undefeated season; B team full of potential for next year
• Mrs Elrod – 7th grade STEM language arts highlights, including two speeches by students

Meeting called to order with the arrival of Mrs Chism.

No public comment.

Approvals of agenda (with added item), minutes, November 2016 financial statements.

Superintendent’s report:

• Back to school last week, long weekend due to snow day
• iPad rollout meetings under way this week and next
• Budget meetings under way
• Watching the TN General Assembly and possible surplus allocations and/or updated BEP numbers
• Rezoning committee in progress. Late April/early May presentation expected
• Non-resident application information to be published by end of the week; limited space available, could be restricted to teacher kids’ and current student siblings
• Construction slowed down a little with the weather; phase 3 (athletic complex) presentation expected in March
• 3-day weekend next week due to MLK day

Mr Vaughan comments: please pay attention to General Assembly, as it dictates a lot what the school board is able to do. Be in touch with your legislators and provide them with feedback.

Business Items:

• Tenure List (see link) - approved
• Board Meeting Calendar for 2017 – minor adjustments: cancel Jan 24; Work sessions prior to business meetings for February 14 and March 21 – work sessions to take place at 5pm prior to regularly scheduled business meetings – approved
• Legislative Agenda (see link) - Day on the Hill: less testing, opposed to vouchers, increased funding for all school districts, opposed to unfunded mandates, repeal of letter grading policy, repeal of unstructured physical activity policy, opposing election of superintendents – approved
• Text Book Committee for handful of disciplines – approved

Meeting adjourned.

Working Session of the School Board.

Meeting started with special recognition of the 2016-2017 STEM cohorts for Collierville Middle and Schilling Farms Middle. 24 students in each cohort.

Meeting to review various policies:

• Family and Leave policy – basically follows law and is essentially identical to other local policies
• Employee whistleblower policy deferred to April due to legislative updates
• Discipline procedures – adding e-cigarettes to anti-smoking policy; note: category A is dictated by state law
• Student fines and fees – once policy is in place, procedures will be worked on. Items of note:
  - budgeting process working to alleviate the parent fees
  - band support from the system
  - in order to have the quality programs students deserve and parents desire, some things will go outside of budgeted funding. Waiver process in place for those who qualify.
  - extracurricular activities are outside the fee structure
  - once policy is in place, all fees will be reviewed over the summer
  - fines are charges that will not be waived, and are required for payment
  - coordination with booster clubs is under way
  - Mr Hansen: cumulative effect of multiple fees and for multi-student households can get out of hand
  - booster club fundraising activities will have improved consistency and transparency
  - long-term view would see minimal parental funding needs

February financial report.

Superintendent update:

• Battle of the Books Thursday night at Harrell Theater
• Digital Learning initiative April 11 6pm at CMS community meeting
• Building update – site prep bids are in and being reviewed; design meetings continuing; tentative ground breaking date Friday May 13. Could have TN Education Commissioner McQueen in attendance > this will be the largest school in the state
• Central Office will be vacated over the summer
• Legislative session is under way still; hoping for $ for growing districts

No chair update.

Meeting adjourned.

Full board in attendance. Sparse crowd.

Staff items:

• Audit report – Dixon Hughes and Goodman; auditor representative presenting. Complimentary of work; first audit of the district. Highlights:
  -student activity funds audit – total $1M; state regulated, controlled at the schools
  -board of education audit – all of its budget, including pension funds (CS has pension asset due to good funding); $2.5M in grants
  -clean audit, no compliance issues, no material weaknesses and findings to report
  -some minor issues around deposit timings for student activity fund
• Rezoning presentation; presented by Ms Nedra Jones
  -rezoning information was online – will hopefully be restored and linked here…
  -new incoming 6th graders will be attending at the newly zoned school. Existing students and siblings can transfer outside of the rezoning timings.
  -one additional bus will be needed at CMS – $42k
  -two teachers would shift from SFMS to CMS
  -in order to not split feeder pattern from Bailey Station, a small section of the BSE zone will be reallocated to Sycamore (37 students impacted immediately – no phasing). This will also balance Sycamore attendance. 2 BSE will shift to Sycamore, and one additional teacher is likely needed at Sycamore
  -these rezoned areas are most likely not impacted by possible future rezoning (for 3rd middle school)
• Policy updates – will be brought to next regular business meeting – April:
  -Family and Medical leave – minor wording changes based on legal advice
  -Whistleblower protection – result of audit that just completed; standard policy for school systems
  -Discipline procedures – recommended changes from TSBA; including vaping in tobacco use
  -Fees and Fines – lots of progress on this policy; work left to do with booster clubs. Need to balance sensitivity to parents and their ability to pay and the need to have some parental financial support for quality programming. Policy draft is borrowed from Williamson county. Fine line between required and requested fees. Extracurricular payments are not fees by definition. By July the school board will be presented with the full list of fees to be asked from the parents.
  Fees for for-credit classes = requested
  Fines for items = required
  Extracurricular = special category
  Need to look at this district wide; what does district want (and can) to pay for vs request from parents.
  Need to make the fees more consistent across schools.
  “Everyone gets a scoop of icecream, but if you want sprinkles or whipped cream, the boosters will have to pay for that” Mike Marshall.
  Still to be worked through: what does a requested fee cover (budget)?
• January 2016 financial statements; tracking along expected figures.
  Shelby County capital $ information expected fairly soon, based on average attendance.
  BEP funding initiative from governor being watched closely.
  Digital Learning Initiative will incur cost this year.
  Cost of Living adjustment being targeted in next budget.
  Nutrition sales are up – close to breaking even for the year. Progress over last year.
• TNReady update by Ms Robbins:
  -3 changes in testing for this year – New standards; new assessment types; new testing platform (online)
  -lot of preparation by staff at all levels; technology purchases; teaching, etc.
  -(only) 18,000 students statewide were testing on Feb 8 when the state raised alarms and halted testing – new issue not previously experienced.
  -State reverted all testing to paper and pencil a few days later; new testing schedule developed by Collierville Schools
  -Teachers can now opt out of test results being part of evaluations
  -Each school had testing coordinator (Assistant Principal) on point – recognized in meeting.
  -Paper testing expected this week; printing cost/responsibility lies with Measurement, Inc (test vendor).

Chairman update:
-Trust update
-Reading week next week – school board and staff will be reading to kids

Superintendent update:
- Next Thursday (3/3) is CHS presentation at town planning commission
- Also family literacy night at CMS same night
- March meeting 3/16 1pm in CS conference room
- Non-resident enrollment process has been opened
- Chamber of Commerce gala – Mr A providing Elvis tribute entertainment
- Crosswind Elementary principal opening
- Monday 5/2 teacher employment fair
- Digital learning; depending on funds – recommendation of iPads 4th through 7th grades in January 2017. In preparation, teachers K-8 will receive equipment this year to start their learning process. Full implementation by 2019 with MacBook Pro in High Schools. Public meetings will be scheduled soon on this.

Meeting Adjourned.

Absent: Mr Cox

Policy reviews based on TSBA recommendation:
- graduation requirements, occupational diploma option
- Family and Medical Leave wording updates
- Cardiac arrest prevention/treatment program

Financial Statement for December

General Fund budget amendment – increase in technical support staff; funded from unfilled positions “have enough technical support so the teachers can teach and we can take care of the rest”

High School Design Team update

Note: this is a work in progress; design considerations still under way.

State approved storm water pollution prevention plan. Soil borings look good.

Scott Fleming intro – described the construction management process and the benefits this is bringing to the school system.

1600 parking places between school and athletic facilities

Building planned for 3500 students in core functions, etc. After that add classroom space.

Chism: soccer field info? Lights? Turf? Soccer will have lights on natural grass, and can play in stadium on turf.

Vaughan wants to see tour around the site. Also “please don’t fall in love so much with the trees that you screen the front of our building.”

Town purchased 35 acre lot between shelby drive and 385 which will be a park to prevent development between school and 385.

Floorplan – “no fat” and sized for 3000 students.

On screen 3-D simulations showing a lot of detail – very slick!

Vaughan: building looks like a timeless design. Not like anything that is “typical” for the involved design teams.

Vaughan asking about scalability… how will we accommodate growth? Academic buildings can add wings – what about the core buildings?

Fleming: once you go over 35-3600, you have to make sure that’s what you want… But expansion space is available for the facility and there is space on the campus to build additional buildings, such as a freshman academy. For illustration purposes, the design team will set aside a space for 1000 student facility. (‘standard 150 sq ft per student’)

Currently did not put lockers into design, but the space allows for it. Mr A: “trend is no lockers”

HVAC rooftop units will ‘scar’ the clean look of the facility. Will have some visibility from ground and through windows.

Lots of windows on outside of buildings; Large glass in corridors for outside light. Windows at ends of corridors also. But will have sufficient safe places throughout.

Gym has bleachers for 3000. Adding floor seating will allow 3500+ for pep rally type event.

Current budget still fits.

Chairman report: lots of other projects under way, including digital learning, which is very important for the school system. All will contribute to making this the best school system in the state.

Superintendent update:
Rezoning public meeting 2/18, 8:30 at CMS.
2/12 digital learning day will be about digital learning.
Germantown changing bell times. Collierville reviewing $ impact on transportation, which they will need to cover.

House finance committee passed voucher bill.

BMA will annex and zone the school property at the next meeting.

Kindness challenge week. Movie ‘Bully’ at Malco, Saturday at 1:30pm.

Meeting adjourned.

This is an opinion piece. I will refer back to the title of the blog: Rants, Raves and Reality Checks. This is a little of each of those.

Fact: The town needs to urgently address the high school facility issue.

Fact: The town’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen (BMA) made a mistake.

“They” always say – don’t ask a question in open court when you don’t know what the answer will be. I’d like to modify that: Don’t ask a poorly phrased question that proposes an unfavorable suggestion with not enough context around it for the casual respondent to make a good decision.

According to the Commercial Appeal, the town’s administrator recommended that the ‘poll’ not be conducted until after the public meeting to inform the local citizenry. That would have made a lot of sense. And I would again add – you could have used a much better way to phrase the question.

And mailing a 1-question survey is not a (scientific) poll. It is amateur hour. It shows that our elected leaders are not that good at politics. Which is your silver lining right there.

A scientific poll asks well-constructed questions of a representative sample of the population. It should also take into account the status of the respondents: tax payer? voter? general demographics of the respondent?

Now the town finds itself in a pickle. The high school facility issue still needs to be addressed. Urgently. But now there is a degree of controversy about a poorly worded survey that was asked at the wrong time. And I bet the local media will eat it up!

I guess things are about to get interesting… No public vote is required for the BMA to act and raise the property tax rate ‘up to 38 cents.’ So what will they do? Act boldly? Something HAS to be done.

And I’d like to point out too: “a 38 cent increase in property taxes” is a meaningless and scary sounding phrase with no context. The median home price in Collierville is around $250,000. Those homeowners, to the best of my understanding, will pay approximately $200 per year (!) more in taxes. That’s less than $20 per month. And it would still leave Collierville taxes the lowest of all towns/cities in the county.

I don’t have all the answers… But I trust my elected school board and my elected Board of Mayor and Aldermen to make bold decisions that look at the long range benefit of the school system and my town. I have three children in elementary school. I own a ‘median-ish’ house in town. I have a lot at stake here. I’d hate for misinformation to get in the way of the right thing to do.

Today’s school board meeting started with three special presentations:

• Bailey Station Elementary had two choruses perform
• Iyonia Boyce from Collierville Middle School was the Tennessee honoree for middle school receiving the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards.
• Collierville’s inaugural STEM Scholars were presented – 25 for each middle school, selected from over 200 applicants based on aptitude and an interview.

Having these celebrations brought a record crowd to town hall, with all standing room taken up.

Agenda – Based on not having been able to complete all preparations, moving the OPEB trust membership recommendation to another meeting.

Minutes and Monthly Financial Statements approved. Nutrition (underuse of offerings) seems to be the biggest challenge area.

Chairman’s report –

• Tennessee School Board Association (TSBA) legislative update in conjunction with the legislative session in Nashville.
  BEP funding major topic. Has not been fully funded by state in years.
  Current session sees various bills on different aspects of education – voucher bill; school funding reallocation bill; charges for record requests under FOI over 1 hour and over 25 copies; home school student athletic participation; searching of electronic devices – search warrant required; lobbying expenses – go from prohibition to line item disclosure; dismissal of support staff bill – due process rights; election of superintendents; local school board to assess fees to charter operators (going from $500 to 5000 for new, and 500 to 1000 for annual renewal); parental demand bill for turn around plan.
• STEM night presentation at CMS last week was very well attended

Superintendent’s report

• OPEB trust update – actuary meeting with CFO to review scenarios. Next month expecting update on this plus an update on health benefits. Numbers looked encouraging.
• All-day assessment training in Jackson on TN Ready Assessment.
• On schedule to have public meeting for high school 3/31 at Harrell Theater, 6pm. Survey forthcoming of all public. Town website has informational videos, and questionnaire to public about the associated tax increase from the town coming soon.
• Working on annual budget.

Policy update – Sales of surplus items – minor updates to allow for online auctions and to allow for multiple times a year events rather than end of year only.

Recommended Actions:

Textbook Committee recommendations. State required process. Blanket adoption option – to allow any books that meet state approved list. Current math books through 2017. Approved.

5 year strategic plan. Broad goals from the board turned into specific actions, with responsible parties assigned, progress indicators, etc. Input from all key stakeholders. Approved. (will be posted on Collierville Schools Website soon)

Middle School Rezoning Recommendation. Tight at SFMS, but would be OK for this year. Reviewed moving whole neighborhood/subdivision, which would flip capacity issues to CMS, looked at phased changes, looked at elementary school expansion to 6^th grade but that would require rezoning there. Proposal out of the rezoning committee to stand pat for one year, and start public process next school year and use the current high school site as the third middle school starting in 2016-2017.
Note: open enrollment count at SFMS – 33 total this year which will reduce some as 8^th graders move out. Most non-resident MS students are at CMS.
Kevin Vaughan pointed out: prefer single rezoning event, not doing this twice with CHS campus conversion. Approved.

Approval of Special Courses. State has to approve annually.

New: abnormal psychology at CHS

Returning courses: ACT Prep math; honors etymology, calculus III, facing history in ourselves, ACT prep English (this will be the third annual approval – after which they are ‘vested.’

Meeting Adjourned.

Today’s meeting was moved up a day and hosted at the Collierville Schools Central Office. Public attendance was high at the start of the meeting due to the Collierville Middle School presentations on the agenda.

There were no comments from the public.

The first special presentation was by the Collierville Arts Council. In the spring they organized a special event around the Suessical musical, and had a competition of Cat in the Hat art among the many classes that participated. Two winning works of art were framed and presented to the Board for display in the central office. For next spring, a similar event will be held for the Wizard of Oz.

The second special presentation had Principal Jones from CMS introduce several members of the pom squad to the board. Mr Jones highlighted some of the recent accomplishments of the squad, which is going to the state competition this coming weekend, and already has a bid to nationals in Orlando later in the year. The second part of the presentation was where Mr Jones had three award winning student artists present their work to the board for review. These all won prizes at the recent competition at Briarcrest, and most also won prizes at the fair.

The first item on the formal agenda is the approval of the monthly financial statements. Up for review and approval at this meeting are the September financials. In response to Mr. Hansen’s question on how the district is doing financially, Mr Aitken stated Collierville Schools are doing well financially. They have not yet needed to take the town up on the line of credit that was made available. This was helped by the fact that some property and sales tax revenues came in early. The state’s BEP adjustment for attendance numbers was delayed a little and will use November 15 attendance numbers. No major adjustment is expected. Overall, startup costs were a major concern, but it has all gone well.

The financial statement for Septermber is approved, and will be posted online soon, in the same location where the previous months are posted.

The chairman’s report touches upon the recent opportunities the board has had to attend school functions, and the positive experiences those visits afford. Also, various state rankings, including for ACT scores, are showing Collierville near the top of state rankings. Seniors are reporting a lot of scholarship offers and feel very well prepared for college life.

The superintendent’s report is extensive:

1. The TSBA convention in Nashville is this weekend and will be attended by board members
2. On December 1, at the Harrell Theater, reelected board members Messerly and Chism will be sworn in. This will be following the Collierville Elementary spelling bee in that location.
3. In accordance with State Law, the process which will lead to adoption of a mathematics text book has begun. This process will start in December with the presentation of selected teacher and parent members for the Local Textbook Selection Committee to the board for approval. In January through March, the state prescribed process will lead the committee through the steps for selection, and in March the board will formally adopt a textbook for mathematics.
   In response to a question from Mr Hansen about the possibility of state educational standards being in flux, Mr Aitken deferred to Dr Crafford, who affirmed the state requirement to go through the process even though standards may change. Ms Claney added that while a text book has to be adopted, it does not have to be purchased.
   Part of the comments on state standards included some comments by Mr Aitken. The name ‘common core’ is likely to end with the next legislative session, but a Tennessee State Standard will be in place. Mr Hansen added that he hopes the legislature will come to a decision on this early in the next session.
   Also of note: the governor has opened up a website to collect public feedback on educational standards.
4. An update on transportation is next.
   In light of recent news about issues with SCS bus drivers the following points are made:
   - Ms Rike meets with Durham at least weekly
   - There are a lot of positives about the transportation arrangements for the municipalities, and those need some highlighting also. A lot of drivers in the municipalities are the same drivers who have been driving the routes for many years.
   - Most of the assurances made to SCS by Durham were either already in place for the municipal transportation contract, or are being extended to the municipalities, including the rescreening of existing drivers.
   - The 6 municipal superintendents are meeting with Durham executives this week.
   - Main areas of concern are recruitment and retention of drivers. Of 139 routes, only 11 currently have out of town drivers. This compares to 68 out of town drivers at the start of the school year.
   - The transportation department is looking into the future and exploring options to bring transportation in-house. This will come with significant start up cost. For example a single new bus will cost upwards of $104,000.
   - In reference to the Andy Wise reporting on WMCTV5, the comment was made that ‘not all information provided finds itself on air.’
   - Finally in response to a question from Mr. Vaughan, Ms Rike stated that in the time after the first two weeks of operation, there have been no significant issues or complaints about transportation in Collierville. There has been one accident, which involved a resident at fault.
5. Thanks for the various veterans’ day events board members attended across town.
6. The capital planning process is under way, and the December board meeting should include an update of the plans. Mr Hansen adds that he has had some informational talks with the town Mayor and administrator, and they are very receptive to the needs of the school district and have faith in the board and administration in place.
7. The board self-evaluation process is beginning.
8. Finally, a district emergency response plan is being provided to the state. Due to the sensitive nature of some of the information, the board will meet in executive session, probably at the start of the next meeting.

In other agenda items, a memorandum of agreement for evaluation of the superintendent was approved.

The final item on the agenda is a capital improvement agreement with Shelby County and Shelby County Schools. This will allow for $1M in reroofing for Collierville High School. These are 2013-2014 funds. The current year funds are being determined, and an average daily attendance (ADA) share will be made available to all municipal districts.

Summary of the working session of the Collierville Schools board of education. This is from my notes and observations.

All Board members present. Attendance by a handful of the public, several central office staff, and Chip Blanchard from CHS.

First item is a preview of the proposed changes to the employment application policy to include the prospective employees’ agreement to notify the school system of any criminal activity that took place after start of employment, as well as any state sexual predator registrations.

Second item is the proposed policy on school attendance zones, and specifically the process to be followed to change them. The key items to note here are that necessary changes will be carefully weighed and planned, and will go through a public comment process prior to any vote. The basics:

• intended to address any overcrowding, long-term capacity planning, feeder patterns and transportation concerns
• when zoning changes are to be considered, a committee will be formed that includes representatives from all stakeholders, including the central office, the town, the schools, parent representative, etc.
• school zone changes will be communicated in the spring prior to the school year they would go into effect
• ample communication of any proposed changes will allow the public to provide input to the board before any vote
• generally, the process would start in Oct/Nov in order to allow for a board vote in February or March
• changes in attendance zones will have an impact on the ability to allow open enrollment of students as space at schools has a limit

Mr Hansen expressed the board’s desire to plan carefully and deliberately for school zone changes, as these are likely to attract passionate responses from the parents.

Mr Vaughan asked about grade restructuring – which Mr Aitken said would follow a similar process if considered.

The next agenda item is a presentation by Ms Claney and Ms Robbins on school district test results. At the time of the writing of this report, the presentation could be found at this link. Key statistics in these results show that Collierville Schools outperform the state averages across the board, generally by a very significant margin. Rather than averaging the Collierville schools’ scores, the presentation includes the range of scores, showing that EVERY Collierville school exceeds the averages.

It should be noted that usually, this data is in the principals’ hands by June, but was not made available by the state until the start of the school year this year. Ms Claney’s office estimated a predicted set of results, which turned out to be right in line with the actual results. This allowed Collierville Schools to plan and implement measures to address achievement gaps immediately.

The board discussed that it is very hard to improve performance when performance is already at a high level.

In essence, three Collierville Schools were identified as eligible for targeted assistance schools based on the highest % of economically disadvantaged students attending. These are, in order, Collierville Elementary, Bailey Station Elementary and Sycamore Elementary. Each of these schools was assigned an additional teacher and teachers’ aide to target any and all underperforming students, regardless of their economic status. This is expected to have a positive effect on the overall performance of the school, and the underperforming students specifically. These are paid for through (Federal) Title I funds. Federal monitors visited the district this week, and were impressed with the program already in effect for this school year.

After this update, the superintendent talked about the need to have a half-day board retreat scheduled in the near future to complete several required processes, including a self-evaluation, as well as establishing a formal mission and vision statement.

Mr Aitken also announced that 7887 students were enrolled in Collierville Schools by school day 11. This is 98.1% of the projected attendance, and expected to be stable. Schilling Farms Middle is at 1051 students, and Collierville High has 2179 students, 632 of which are freshmen. These numbers are high but in line with expectation. As a result of these enrollment numbers, the State Department of Education has agreed to start a true-up of funding after day 40 enrollment numbers are reported. The first regular payment from the state has already been received.

Mr Aitken said transportation is stabilizing, after experiencing some initial startup challenges. The transportation department is using ridership numbers to determine whether any routes need to be consolidated or even eliminated.

Other quick updates:

• Parental responsibility zones will be a topic of discussion for the board retreat
• The school district and individual school websites will be updated soon. The new look and feel will be consistent throughout and is being tested right now.
• In Nutrition, meals at schools are very well received. Some challenges exist with the software to run the registers, but the vendor is fully engaged and this is expected to be resolved soon.
• Powerschool is expected to be up for parent access by September 8.
• Payroll is doing very well, with minimal issues reported.
• 600 laptops were provided to the teachers, who were very pleased to have their obsolete equipment replaced.
• Starting in September, each school board business meeting will celebrate a school in the district.

Finally, in the chairman’s report, Mr. Hansen touched upon the need to address some items at the upcoming board retreat. He also stressed the need to have board members be made available to address local civic events as invited. One great benefit of local control of the schools is local visibility and accessibility of school board and central office personnel. Mr Hansen has been on touch with various parents over the past couple of weeks, discussing how easily issues were getting resolved.