April 13, 2017 at 5:30 PM - Bradley County Board of Education Regular Meeting

Discussion:  Students from Waterville Community Elementary sang for the Board.

Discussion:  Ron Spangler, Principal of Ocoee Middle School, introduced Kelly Bourough, Jacob Mason, and students from the United Sound.  A new CDC class was put at OMS this year.  The students go to band two days a week from the class.  Each new musician has three mentors.  Kids are teaching kids and they perform each semester.  One of the mentors told the Board about one of the students from the CDC class not knowing her phone number.  They put the phone number to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and she was able to learn her phone number.  They are so proud of her and she is proud of herself.  Mrs. Burough thanked the Board for being such a strong supporter of the arts. 

Discussion:  Ritchie Stevenson introduced Dr. Julie Mitchell and three students that competed at the State Capitol in the State National History Day competition and won first place.  Their next trip will be to Washington, DC, to compete in the Nationals.  They showed the Board their video presentation about the Holocaust they did as their project.   

Discussion: 

Ellen Smith told the Board that a bid was put out on the Commercial Liability and Workman's Comp Insurance asking for a $500 and $5,000 deductible quote.  On March 24th, two bids were opened.  One from McIntire Associates/Public risk Insurers and the other from TN Risk Management Trust.  When the bids were opened McIntire Associates bid was for $1,000 deductible and TN Risk Management's bid was for $500.  Neither company sent in a proposal with a $5,000 deductible.  Both companies were ask to provide an additional quote at the other deductible.  McIntire said they would not quote a $500 deductible quote.  TN Risk Management did give a quote on a $1,000 deductible.  So a comparison was made with $1,000 deductible from both companies.  McIntire's annual premium was $727,402.  TN Risk Management annual premium was $739,768 with discounts of $24,788 which takes the total annual premium to $714,980.  Mrs. Smith told the Board that the recommendation is to award the bid to TN Risk Management Trust with a $1,000 deductible.  Dianna Calfee asked what the premium was last year.  Mrs. Smith told her $954,000.  Mrs. Calfee request that this agenda item be moved to the May Work Session and the insurance companies asked to be present for question.  Nancy Casson seconded.  Dr. Cash asked that all questions be funneled through the Business Department. 

Discussion:  Dr. Cash introduced Blake Canterbury from Purposity to the Board.  Mr. Canterbury told the Board that he received an email from a homeless coordinator from a school system that explained to him that it takes weeks and sometimes months to help get resources for student and families living in poverty.  She asked if he would work to see if he could come up with a way to put technology around this problem.  He and co-workers began to brain storm to see what they could do. What they came up with was Purposity.  They took the words purpose and generosity and married them together.  Finding purpose through generosity.  The common belief of Purposity is that you would help your neighbor if you knew they were in need. We come into a community and we partner with the local school system and the non-profits.  We work with you to identify your points of contact (social workers or counselors - the people that will know who is in need).  That person would fill out a form and post it on line.  As a user, you go to purposity.com and put in their phone number and zip code and you are in.  The user receives one text message a week of urgent needs.  To check it out, you follow the link in the text message and it will take you to the organization that posted the need.  It will tell you the cost.  It will tell you their story.  If you want to help, you click on a button and check out through Amazon and the item will show up on the school door steps in a couple of days.  If you don't want to help with the need in your text, you can scroll through all the other posted needs.  Dianna Calfee asked if there was a cost for the app.  Mr. Canterbury told them that they are looking at an annual fee of $2,500.00 but that he understands that someone may be paying that for Bradley County and Cleveland City.  Dr. Cash asked the Board for direction on whether to move forward and come back to the Board with a proposal of a launch.  The Board was in agreement of her request. 

Discussion: 

Amanda Lee announced to the Board the plan to purchase cakes for each school.  The Board will take the cakes to schools on Friday.  Chairman Dillard asked Mrs. Lee to set up the schedule and let the Board know.