The school board met on Thursday for their monthly work session agenda video
The budget was discussed and Superintendent Golden pointed out that due to a re-evaluation of the medical costs county wide, $9,000,000 has been taken out of the 2024-25 budget which has lowered the deficit to $16.6 million. Williamson county schools are unique as their healthcare is managed by the county and their employees don’t pay any premium for their health insurance. The county health plan is self-funded. The $9 million savings comes from a reduced projection of costs for the 2024-25 year.
Appropriate books in the libraries. Well, that has been totally scraped due to yesterday’s passage of HB0843/SB1060 and here’s the (summary) If you want to listen to the discussion of this, it starts at 26:22 and ends at 59:50. There is a current criminal code 39-17-901 and 902 that spells out the definitions of excessive violence, prurient interest, sexual interest, etc. that will be used to clarify the terms in this bill. During the discussion, it was pointed out that books like for whom the bell tolls and Lord of the Flies or any book with any violence in it might be subject to removal. There was a lot of confusion as to when and how existing books can and should be taken out of the libraries.
The voucher bill was also discussed however, it doesn’t look like a voucher bill will get passed this session as the house and senate are so far apart and we’re running out of time. The current session ends on April 26. One other bill discussed was the SB1325 (summary) which is currently “held on the desk” which is short hand for, “we don’t have enough votes yet” and will likely come up for a vote before the session ends. This bill pertains to teachers carrying conceal fire arms.
Next meeting is this coming Monday the 15th at 6:30 pm in the Auditorium at the Williamson County Administrative Building located on the first floor at 1320 West Main Street, Franklin, TN 37064. Agenda To watch the meeting online in real time, go here and click on School Board Meeting Livestream.