February 7, 2022 at 5:30 PM - Board of Education Regular Meeting

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes):  Mrs. Dawn Robinson starts the meeting off by recognizing Troy Weathers, chairman of the Bradley County Board.  He will be running for the 24th district of the House, and we are happy to have him here.

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes):  Ms. Leah Hargis led us in a moment of silence and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes):  -Dr. Dyer states it is school counselors week this week, and thanks them for all they do.
-It is safer internet week: February 7-11, through all schools.  Tuesday, February 8 is the safer internet night at CMS at 6:00 pm.
-There are a lot of General Assembly Updates that we are keeping up on.  Governor Lee's State of the State regarding K-12: $500 million for CTE, $2.5 million for future workforce initiative, $124.7 million for an increase into the teacher salary pool, $25.5 million in recurring funding for summer learning camps.  Thank you to TOSS/TSBA for the updates.
-CHS Principal Search Update:  Dr. Dyer met with the student advisory group, Mr. Kiser and Dr. Laing obtained feedback at the CHS Open House, feedback session with community partners is set for February 9, Feedback session with CHS faculty and staff is set for February 22.  The Principal survey is ongoing on our website.  February 24-28 we will conduct initial interviews with candidates, and the hope is to announce a new high school principal in March.

Dr. Dyer introduces the "Thank You" video for School Board Appreciation.  

-The Board appreciates all the videos and gifts for this week.

-The Board asks if all the money that will be distributed will it go to more than just teachers.  For example, assistants, cafeteria workers, etc.?  Dr. Dyer states he can not answer that right now because we don't have specifics on this yet, but in our district in the past we have given a raise to all employees.  We will update this as we hear more about this from the State.

 

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes):  Mrs. Robinson states last month the board approved the director's evaluation form.  The board filled out the form and met with Dr. Dyer individually and scored him then we turned the forms into Julie.  Mrs. Robinson and Julie calculated the results.  The results were:  Part 1, A. Director and Board Relations: 4, B. Community Relations: 3.89, C. Staff Relations: 3.62, D. Finance and Operations: 3.79, and D. Instructional Leadership: 3.86.  Part 2, Directors Goals: 3.83.

Mrs. Robinson states this is a good way to evaluate Dr. Dyer and she appreciates him providing all the information.  Dr Dyer thanks them for the recommendations.

 

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes):  The board filled out the board self evaluation in January as well.  From this evaluation Krista proposes to bring back the board retreats moving forward at least once a year.  Mrs. Robinson wants to discuss some dates to schedule a retreat.  She would like to have a spring retreat and a fall retreat.  The Board agrees on March 31, 2022, for the next retreat.  We will discuss a location and discuss this with the board within the next month.


 

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes):  Mr. Kiser introduces the ESSER Funded Staff that are involved in the ESSER plans moving forward.  Danielle Scarth is a behavior support specialist.  Chase Bennett, Kellye Brownlow, Tekia Grayson, and Lisa Wiley are social workers.  

Dr. Elliott shares the vision of this group of staff.  They will focus on our student behavioral needs as a team for our students, staff, and parents.  We hope to grow this team and make this a priority at CCS.

Maria Herrero is our district interpreter.  She makes sure our families and employees understand what is going on within the district.  

Adam Moss is the District Learning Acceleration Specialist which will help with the summer learning camp and tutoring programs.

The Board asks if the social workers will be housed in a specific school?  Dr. Elliott states there will be 3 different elementary school groups, a middle school social worker, and Lisa Wiley will focus on the high school.  

Ben Garcia is the Elementary Computer Technician.

Tara Watterson is the Data Operator at CMS.  She does all things scheduling and data entry at CMS and works with Michael Kahrs.  

Dr. Dyer wants everyone to know the ESSER funds are directly effecting our students in the buildings.  He thanks them all for coming.

 

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes):  Dr. Dyer presents Policy 4.204 Summer Instructional Planning.  They took out a lot of the old language and inserted new language on what we are allowed to offer and required to offer.

The Board asks if TSBA helped us with this?  Dr. Dyer states TSBA did recommend this policy.

The Board asks if there are any requirements to attend these summer camps?  Dr. Dyer states there is only one Bill being discussed in Nashville regarding 3rd grade retention.  REWORD: As of now, any student can participate, even though there is a priority list that will be admitted first. These classes are fun while learning, it is a camp type of experience.

The Board ask if we will have the same funding as we did last year?  Dr. Dyer states we will have the same funding.  
 

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes):  Julie Smith states the strategic plan for communication in Cleveland City Schools will communicate with all stakeholders and the media through multiple effective and efficient mediums.  She will be presenting what has been done in the past to achieve the goals and how we will work toward this goal in the future.  When Julie started in this PR position in February 2020 Facebook had 675 followers, and in December 2021 Facebook has 3,206 followers.  Twitter had 2,504 followers and now has 3,122 followers.  Instagram had 1,417 followers and now has 2,051 followers.  This is important because some family members and community members get their information and updates about Cleveland City Schools through social media.  The Cleveland City Schools app was around before Julie started but in September 2021 they revamped the app.  The app had 613 downloads, and now it has 1,083 downloads on apple and android devices.  We plan to run the app campaign again in August with our back to school messages in hopes of the downloads increasing.  Examples of social media posts:  Job posts (51% of our applicants come from clicks from Twitter, Facebook, or the website), we show our students stories, we have a post called "new teacher feature" and a post called "employee spotlight" that highlight our staff in the district.  Dr. Dyer will have videos on our social media, as well as during COVID the board members read books live to students.  Also, if you have not downloaded our app please do so on android or apple.
Switching gears from social media Julie gives information about Thrillshare.  Thrillshare is how we run our website and app.  Thrillshare allows us to communicate with our families in 103 languages.  Cleveland City Schools families communicates in 19 languages.  Thrillshare allows us to send alerts through the app, text message, email message and website live feed alerts in a families native language.
Looking forward to the future we are in the process of creating the communication playbook which will be released in July 2022.  This playbook will address logos and styling, internal and external communication guidelines, social media strategy and rules of engagement, templates and stationary and media guidelines.  She ended the presentation showing the board a facilities video that will be going out on social media tomorrow.

The Board thanks Julie for all she does.  
 

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes):  Mr. Nate Tucker wants to speak today about Technology. 

Strategic Focus:  Mr. Tucker has been on the school board for 18 months, and he has been asking many questions.  First, he wants to thank Cody Raper and Julie Smith for all of their hard work because this will affect their departments.  He wants to be clear "The sky is not falling", this information is meant to make our school system better.  The three categories he wants to discuss are Technology, Communication & Marketing, and Diversity.  At the heart of these three things is Customer Service. We want to treat others as we want to be treated.  Some examples of Customer Service Relationships: Teacher to Student, Teacher to parent, CCS to Student/Parent/Partners/Public/CCS and others.
Technology Strategic Focus: Existing goals exist in the current CCS strategic plan that addresses technology in an action step related to the BLADE project.  Approved Creation of Strategic Technology Plan in development: Chief Academic Officer, administrative staff, Teacher, parent, student, and board member.  Thoughts that have come from this group: Technology is no longer a luxury. Technology should be used to solve problems.  Some inefficiencies that we can improve on.  The BLADE project has been very successful and all the infrastructure working behind it has worked.  He states he would like for the board to consider technology pay scales to be increased.
Diversity Strategic Focus: Existing goal exists in the current CCS Strategic Plan: Provide a diverse, high quality educational staff in all of our schools.  Those goals mainly focus on educators and that is a segment that is gaining ground.  There is another segment that I believe should be included.  Mr. Tucker shares research "Delivering through Diversity Report by McKinsey & Company, 2015".  It shows companies with more ethical/cultural diverse employees are more profitable.  This means you have diversity from the top all the way to the bottom, and you thrive more than others.
Communication and Marketing Strategic Focus: Existing goal in the current CCS Strategic Plan: Cleveland City Schools will communicate with all stakeholders and the media through multiple effective and efficient mediums.  With education vouchers constantly being discussed, we need to proactively communicate/market our product/service.  Increase the use of technology to solve communication gaps; thus, providing better customer service.  He would like the marketing/communication strategy to be more specific, geared toward all levels of our schools.  For example: students in elementary school should learn about CMS and CHS before they step foot into the schools.    

What if we made it impossible for students to leave CCS?

Here's Mr. Tuckers ask: Let's expand the scope of goal 3, Diversity:In addition to existing educator goals, include goals specific to diversity in the top leadership team.  Let's expand the scope of Goal Four: Communications: Create a formal detailed communication plan, add a marketing component, and perform an analysis.  He thinks we could have value in having an outside source evaluate our system.

Mr. Cogdill states he agrees with Mr. Tucker and our students do need to hear what is available at CMS and CHS.  He states Renny Whittenbarger has been bringing students to the CTE department to showcase all they do.

Nate asks if it's best to expand on these goals or create new ones?  Dr. Dyer states he thinks it would be great idea to take this to the Board Retreat to talk about this more.  

Ms. McKay would like an outside group to help facilitate this discussion at the retreat.
 

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes):  Mr. David Beckler is here to represent the BCPEF to bring a midterm report.  They want to serve CCS as much as they can.  Nancy Blank is our president and could not be here today, which is why I'm here today.  The focus on educational excellence and to join forces with you both teaching and administratively, we enhance the teaching and learning together.  Mr. Beckler is very pleased with the admin team at CCS and how they represent us.  The foundation is focused on supporting Cleveland City Schools and Bradley County Schools.  Teacher Grants: The Lily F.Fitzgerald teaching in excellence award, and the friend's innovation award continues. The Tucker Foundation has invested $51,000.  We can not do this without donors, sponsors, and grantors.  We had a couple of events recently that were very successful.  One event was Women United, which raised $114,000 (62% of the donors had never contributed to BCPEF before this event).  Vision 100 raised $66,000 (on top of the $12,000 that went to the bands). This event showcased all 3 schools in the county and the focus was on public education.  We gave each band $4,000 each, $12,000 Total. 

Mrs. Lynn Voelz wants to update us on Telemedicine.  Erlanger Childrens, United Way Health endowment fund & Coordinated School Health worked together to put Telemedicine into each school in CCS and Bradley County Schools. Since 2014-2015 the United Way Health endowment fund has invested $416,000 into this program, and Erlanger reported investing $150,000 each year.  In December 2021 Erlanger terminated this partnership.  We began working together again to formulate a plan to retain this service. Ultimately, we have partnered with Ocoee Pediatrics, which is a local practice.  Angela Coates is the owner, and she is a CHS graduate.  She feels thankful to help underserved students in this community, and it is her passion.  Lynn wants to thank the Coordinated School Staff with all districts.  

Mrs. Voelz states there was a donor at the Vision 100.  This donation was then assigned to a grant at CMS.  These CMS teachers wrote a thank-you letter to the donors.  It turns out the donor's child had these teachers at CMS, and the teachers helped their child through a tough time.  They said they never felt better about a donation than they did about this one.  

Mr. Beckler wants to tell Mr. Cloud that all the people that knew him thank him for his time.  

 

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes): 

Girls Wrestling - This past weekend the team state duals were held in Franklin. The CHS  girls finished 3rd in the state! This was very impressive since this was our inaugural year. This was the 1st sanctioned high school girls wrestling match in the US.  

Boys Wrestling - Our boys did it again! They are state champions for the 5th consecutive year. 

The individual region tournament will be this weekend at Walker Valley. State duals are at the end of the month. We have several boys and girls that will be competing. 

Boys Basketball-  Record of 13-15, they have 3 games this week.  Tuesday 2/8 is McMinn at home. This is senior night.  Thursday 2/10 Bradley at home. This is a makeup game. We will recognize the 1997 boys state championship team. This is the 25th anniversary of them winning the state championship. We will also recognize the 2021 girls track 4x100 team. Friday 2/11 Farragut game at home.

Girls Basketball- Record of 20-5 with a district record of 9-1. Girls will play the same team as the boys.  This district tournament will start next week in McMinn. 

Swim - The state swim meet will be held this weekend at UTK. Sara Pirtle, Aly Hutchings, Ella Lipscomb, and Jayden Daukphinis will all be competing. 

Track - competed in the indoor state meet this past weekend. The 4x100 girls team won! This was their back to back state titles for them. 

Winterguard - Had a competition this past weekend at Kennesaw Mountain High school. They came in 5th in their division. Their next competition will be 2/19 in Woodstock GA. 

Spring sports start at the end of the month.  Soccer has a scrimmage on Feb 22.

Renaissance had a competition this past weekend and had a good performance. 

Spring sports start at the end of the month.  Soccer has a scrimmage on Feb 22.

Drama - will have their performance showcase this coming Saturday and Sunday at CHS. 

JROTC - will compete in the Olympic drill competition on March 5 in Rossville, GA. They will compete in drill, marksmanship, fitness and academics. As of now, 18 schools will be competing. 

It is cultural awareness month at CHS. Every morning during the announcements we are recognizing a different influential person regarding cultural awareness. We will have a culture celebration day on February 25. 

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes):  Mrs. McKay has enjoyed seeing these goals evolve in this process.  Dr. Dyer states it helps him to look forward and stay focused on these goals.  

 

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes):  Mr. Hal Taylor wants to state we have had some challenges.  In the past, we did not have a roster for the school buses, we didn't know the distance between students houses, and we didn't have training for school bus drivers like we do now.

Today we have 28 bus drivers, 10 bus monitors, 3 teacher/monitors.  28 bus routes, 5 of which are special education buses.  2,948 students with transportation plans.  1,212 miles driven per day.

We now have TransAct which provides us with routing, field trip, and work order programs.  This map shows all the students in the CCS System on the screen.This is also an example of a bus route sheet on the screen.  The next screen is a map of GPS locations of a bus route.  We are able to keep up with buses if a bus breaks down and which bus stop they are at.  Last year we started the notification software.  We have sent out 194,000 texts and emails to parents if a bus is running late or not running.  

The basic laws we have to follow is state and federal laws require public school systems to transport special needs students to and from school.  Regular transportation is not required. However, CCS has always provided this service as a courtesy to our parents and students.  Current conditions created by the pandemic have made it difficult for us to take all of our bus routes every day.  We have combined routes where possible.  We have done everything possible, while maintaining safety in order to service our bus routes.  Unfortunately, we are short drivers for school bus routes on a regular basis.  
This is not just in Cleveland, TN.  Schools across the U.S. are requesting National Guard Assistance to aid bus driver shortage.  Systems are offering a bonus of up to $2,500 for new bus drivers.  We also have competitions and the reasons people leave are: they find better pay with an easier schedule, some need full-time work with benefits, such as health insurance, and some relocate, retire or have failing health.

What is making it hard for us to hire new bus drivers:  In 2017, the State of Tennessee enacted new laws pertaining to school bus driver qualifications and training.  The laws were in response to the tragic school bus accident that occurred in Hamilton County which killed 6 children and injured over a dozen more from Woodmore Elementary School in 2016.  The new laws require all school bus drivers to be at least 25 years of age and complete a more extensive, supervised licensing education process.  The new process also required a bus driving trainer be used and for every school system to have a Transportation Supervisor.  Both the trainer and supervisor of Transportation must now certify that the new school bus driver has been properly trained.  Prior to 2018, most school bus drivers studied on their own for the written license exam and had only enough skills training to pass the driving license exam.  Most of the drivers' education happened once they began driving the bus.  Starting this month new federal regulations have been enacted for the training of all new CDL license holders.  The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has implemented Entry Level Driver Training (ELDT).  The new requirements are more extensive and formalized.  New drivers will have to go through classroom training, driving range training, road training, required examinations and a review at the state level of the curriculum and exam scores before being able to even take the CDL exam.  We expect the new requirements will take potential school bus drivers 2 to 4 months to complete.

Transportation Funding: Over the last decade, the State of Tennessee Departments of Education and Safety have implemented numerous requirements of school transportation departments without providing any additional funding. Now the Federal Government is requiring in depth driver training without any consideration of the cost they are creating for the school systems. Our staff is stretched to their limits and finding people to drive school buses is difficult.  Parents all over the country are having to take their children to school and are finding out how much a big yellow school bus actually means to them and their children.

The Board thanks Hal and his team for his hard work.

 

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes):  Mrs. Robinson appoints the Site Committee members.  Charlie Cogdill - Chairman, Krista McKay, and Peggy Pesterfield.  Carolyn Ingram - Alternate.

Mrs. Robinson appoints the Policy Liaison.  Nate Tucker.

 

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes):  Mrs. Ingram will be attending the state board meeting next month, and she will report next month all the good things happening with that report.  

Mrs. Robinson wanted to thank the Board for re-electing her to the board chairman position at the last meeting.  She does not take the position lightly, and it is her pleasure to serve with all of them.

Mrs. Pesterfield states Mrs. Katilin Gebby, with the Banner, will be moving to Ohio, and she wants her to know she will be missed. 

Discussion (Visible on Public Minutes): 


Mrs. Robinson adjourns by general consent.