All of the policy about charter schools was passed by consent and the issue we were keeping an eye on was who picks the review team. It was originally the Superintendent and that is changed to Executive committee which is the Superintendent and chairman of the board.
If necessary, the Executive Committee Superintendent of Schools and/or designee Board shall
26 appoint a review team to assist in reviewing and evaluating charter school applications. The team shall
27 be comprised of members of the administrative staff for the district, community members, and a
28 member of the Board with relevant educational, organizational, financial, and legal experience. At a
29 public meeting each year, the Superintendent of Schools and/or designee shall make a
30 recommendation to the Board on which members of his/her administrative staff should be appointed to
31 the team. The Board shall name the members of the team at its meeting in January of each year. The
32 Board shall designate a Chair of the review team as the contact person for answering questions about
A lot of time was spent talking about the bus driver shortage. We have 250 buses and right now we are short 30 drivers with 12 new drivers in training. The state of Tennessee does not require a school district to provide bus service, but if a district provides bus service, it must provide it for any student who is more than 1 ½ miles from school. WCS provides service at ½ mile from school. Right now, we have kids on the bus for one hour and more.
Several pilot programs are being studied to consolidate bus stops and require that children walk further to get to the stops. Nothing is final and several board members brought up potential issues. Consolidation of bus stops is only a mitigation and not a solution. The best solution is to get enough drivers.
$1,124,990 is currently allocated to purchase six new general education buses and two special education buses to go online when school starts next August. We are required to replace buses after 15 years of use. This is the smallest request in 15 years. 40 buses have been retired in the last two years. We have brought maintenance in house so our costs are down and we’re keeping up with the number of buses we need to operate.
They are requesting $1,170,000 from the county to purchase 195 radios for our buses that are integrated into the new county emergency response system. The current radios are old with lots of dead spots.
They have a $15,500,000 grant from the state to build a building and offer instruction in the trades like HVAC and aviation training.
The last 12 minutes is taken up with an arcane budget discussion that I couldn’t follow because it is all new to me, but it had to do with TISA funds from the state and the % of the state education budget that comes from Williamson County and how much we get back. We are 4% but account for 7% of the tax revenue. If anyone is more knowledgeable about this, please weigh in.
Next week is the Full board meeting and we need as many people as we can to attend. We have speakers lined up and we need to keep the pressure on the board to develop a policy about flags and other paraphernalia in the classrooms.
Board meeting is at 6:30 PM in the Auditorium at the Williamson County Administrative Building unless otherwise noted. The Administrative Building is located on the first floor at 1320 West Main Street, Franklin, TN 37064.
Contact your board member and tell them to make a policy to keep our classrooms neutral. No flags other than US and Tennessee. We want our children to be taught how to think, not what to think.