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.