Working session for April. Full board present. This would normally have been a business meeting, but due to a lot of business before the board, the April meetings were flipped. Note: next business meeting is this coming Monday April 17.

Special recognitions:

Bailey Station Elementary

Blair Mynatt – West Tennessee Counselor’s Association – Elementary level Counselor of the Year

Stephanie Rice – 4th Grade Teacher @ Crosswind Elementary School (Selected as the PreK-4 Teacher of the Year for Southwest Core Region)

Carol Richardson – ESL Teacher at Collierville Elementary School (Named the TNTESOL West Tennessee ESL Educator of the Year)

Lee Ann Kelly – DEC Teacher @ Collierville High School (Received the 2017 TNTESOL President’s Award)

Policy Revisions:

• Extracurricular Activities – minor update on wording of eligibility to clarify students must be enrolled in Collierville Schools to participate in (non-sport) extracurricular activities. Sports participation is governed through the TSSAA.
• Grading Systems – minor updates on wording, eliminating interim reports being sent out and updating the weight of End of Course exams, based on updates to state law. Also puts in clause to exempt state mandated test scores from student grades if not received at least 5 days before end of school year.
• Special Course Application to add African American Literature course.

Business:

• Custodial Contract Bid Awards – RFP process in final steps – should be ready for recommendation by Monday. Current contractor is ABM. 13 bids received. Price is bid per school, so contracts can be awarded to one or more companies.
• Inclement weather day (1/6/17) not to be made up. Applied the stockpiled instructional time (which is good for up to 13 days).
• February Financial Statements.
• HVAC bids for old CHS and SFMS – funded out of Shelby County capital funding.

General Fund Budget for 17-18

Benefiting from growth and from small increase in BEP funding. Looking at some more ambitious use. Draft Budget posted online – click for link. Highlights:

• up 7%
• district increased enrollment expected of 300 students for total of 8,497
• State and County funds are vast majority. Collierville’s contribution is a little over $2M
• increase of 15 teachers, including a dedicated STEM teacher for each elementary school
• step increase for all eligible positions, and adding a new row in the step table
• 2% cost of living adjustment for all staff
• 13 additional instructional support staff, including 4 full-time occupational therapists, bringing the contract services in-house
• 2 new assistant principals: CHS and CMS; 1 new principal for new school (see school configuration plan)
• Maintaining current teacher – student ratios: 20.4 in K-3; 24.5 in 4-6 and 25 in 7-12
• year 4 of 12 of $507,819 payments to SCS
• starting maintenance department – 6 staff, 3 vehicles. Previously outsourced to GCA; in-house will save $ and provide increased service levels
• new 3-year lease for teacher laptops and iPads; new iPads for additional grade levels
• adding and replacing/upgrading cameras in some common areas
• Nutrition: $2.1M; Federal: $2.6M (60% IDEA, 20% Title I, etc.)

Differentiated Pay:

• Mandated by State Board of Education
• Scrapping performance based pay
• Paying for Education, Experience (step increases), and Additional Roles and/or Responsibilities
• Additional Roles and Responsibilities area is newly designed
• Link to summary of proposal is here
• School support teams, with eligibility requirements, an application process and defined responsibilities
• Model is hailed as a differentiator and example for other schools to follow
• Proposed change for 17-18 is focused largely on technology

2018-2019 School Configuration Plan:

• Based on rezoning committee process; high degree of involvement from all stakeholders across the board
• Must ensure continued educational use of transferred buildings
• Capacity issues at all schools, and more growith expected
• 2 models: 5 elementary and 3 middle schools vs 6 elementary and 2 middle schools
• capacity models in past only counted simple classrooms. Current model requires non-standard classroom space
• All schools above 90% capacity; CMS: 104.3; SFMS 128.9%; CHS 104.6%
• 5-year enrollment projections show lots of growth. School staff is somewhat surprised by projections of elementary enrollment growth
• Re-configuring CHS into new middle school will have programmatic capacity of 1250 (at least)
• Optimal use of facilities would convert SFMS to elementary and CHS to middle school
• 6-2 model would keep capacity pressure on middle schools, but address needs for next 5+ years
• 5-3 model would result in underutilized middle schools (utilization in 50-60% range), and continued capacity issues (95+%) in elementary schools
• Both models reviewed for curriculum and support services impacts; personnel impacts
• New principal to be hired at start of 17-18 school year
• Adding a new school (regardless of level) will cost approximately $2M
• Adding capacity will allow for additional out-of-district enrollment, which will bring additional revenue
• Conversion of SFMS to elementary and conversion of CHS to middle school, etc – $1M total
• Transportation cost would not vary much between two models
• No consideration of start time adjustments at this point in time due to prioritization of effort
• Recommendation is to create Schilling Farms Elementary School, and move SFMS to the CHS property (with a new name TBD)
• If approved, then rezoning of all attendance zones with formal process to be initiated
• Note if nothing is done to address elementary school growth needs now, we will need to in just a few years at much higher cost

Chairman’s update: renewing application for Pre-K program to continue and expand.

Meeting adjourned.

Tags: budget, Citizen's Report, Collierville Schools