Summary of the January 21, 2020 school board work session.

New time and location: 4pm at school offices.

Family Life Curriculum update. Updated curriculum reflects updated state standard. Curriculum update process included representation from every building in the district. New program is called ‘Puberty: The Wonder Years.’ Request from board in prior presentation was to review the program with a current user. Benchmarked with East Lansing, Michigan. Similar size district. Have been using the program since 2010. Major difference: in Michigan a Health Education certificate is required to teach the curriculum, unlike in Tennessee. Ample positive feedback on the abstinence-based curriculum. “Difficult to mess up” the scripted lessons. Recommended the implementation of a preview night annually, which Collierville Schools will incorporate in the communication plan. Collierville will also have weekly ‘office hours’ for parents to access the curriculum at the central office. Parents will also be able to opt out of specific topics as desired. In prior years, Collierville has not had a lot of parents opt out of the topic in the past.

ELA Textbook Adoption. Process under way. Each building has teacher and parent (PTO) representatives. Teacher representation includes appropriate grade and subject teachers for each building. February is allotted for individual text book reviews. Textbook selection voting by committee members will be March 12-13. Parents may provide feedback online through the district website. Every available textbook for selection is approved by the state. The goal is for the textbook committees to adopt multiple options regardless of purchase intent. Purchase recommendations will also be collected. Collierville Schools CTE (Career Technical Education) courses are dual enrollment, which means the texts are prescribed by the partner educational institution. However, a ‘just in case’ textbook is approved as part of the overall process.

Teacher Tenure Recommendations. Reception 5:30pm CHS cafeteria prior to the January 28 Board Meeting. Unrelated question from Mr Warren: any chance the background check process will lead to some teachers being unable to continue employment? A: yes, that is possible, and with 1000 employees in the district, it is not unlikely this will happen. Note: state law introduced a mandatory re-check of all school employees’ backgrounds.

Financial Reports. Dr Lilly talked briefly about the disruption of services at Crosswind Elementary due to electrical issues, which prompted him to make an emergency purchase as permitted by the purchasing policy. Initial pricing was $20-25k if part was available, semi-custom component. This led to school to be cancelled for the day. $6k temporary solution put in place. $18k permanent fix will be in place in three weeks. Policy requires notifying board – thus completed. Note: the missed day will be considered an inclement weather day and will consume a banked day.
No significant issues noted in the financial reports. Tracking with expenses favorable to revenues. One key item to note was the shift in county capital funding disbursements shifting to monthly payments instead of the current annual disbursement following year end. Shelby County is developing a significant capital improvement project, which will result in future capital funding to come available to the municipal districts (15% of the county allocation).

Interlocal Agreement Amendment for Purchasing Services. Most of the shared services agreements have been phased out between the different municipal districts. This particular one is being extended to allow for training for the new resource at Collierville Schools.

Middle School Course Alignment:

  • Freshman English is to be discontinued in Middle School due to the change in state requirements for 4 years of English in the High School. The available English classes for those 12th graders are not meeting college requirements of robustness.
  • Physical Science was taken out of the High School and moved to the Middle School a few years back, and seems to have offered minimal benefit. It is now being removed altogether.
  • STEM for all changes brought STEM into the Elementary Schools, which changed the need for this curriculum in the middle schools. Additionally, the intervention courses require sufficient time in the day. STEM is now changing to an elective, and for students not in RTI will be able to select two electives.
  • Math needed to be aligned better. Math was being brought further lower into the grades, including teaching Algebra I in 7th grade. However, state requirements for four years of math are causing curriculum challenges in senior year. Algebra I will no longer be available in 7th grade, which also means no Geometry in 8th grade. There will be a handful of ‘high flyers’ (5-6 per middle school) who will appropriately want and need Algebra I in 7th grade, and they will be accommodated through an exception. This is a newly developed plan which will be fleshed out and communicated with the parents in the parent meetings coming in February.

Dr Lilly added informal discussion topic: Chamber Luncheon for the Collierville 150 celebration in February will have a table available for the board.

Meeting adjourned.