BOARD OF EDUCATION

 

The McNairy County School Board meets at 7:00 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month on the second floor of the courthouse in Selmer.

The (appointed) Superintendent of Education is Charles Miskelly.

The School Board consists of seven members, elected to staggered four-year terms.  They are, with the year they come up for election:


    Frank Lacey, Chairman                                                              2010 
   Johnny Blakely, Vice Chairman (645-3157)                             2010     
    Tony Chapman (645-7165)                                                        2010
    Larry Smith (934-7329)                                                               2008
    Alvin Wilson (645-3872)                                                             2008
    David Lynn Baker (632-0663)                                                   2008
    Jean Jones (645-3114)                                                              2010
    
                      July Board Meeting 

10 July 2008

 

 

Financial matters occupied most of the time at the hour-long July meeting of the McNairy County school board, during which a number of substantive issues were discussed at considerable length.  You may want to take notes.


The first ten minutes of the meeting were devoted to discussion of a number of recommendations from Vaughn and Associates for the improvement of the buildings and facilities of the McNairy County school system, the need for which has been regularly discussed at recent board meetings.


Board Chairman Frank Lacey introduced the subject, which was not on the agenda. “We have a memorandum in front of us from Vaughn and Associates, and if you don’t mind I’m going to read over this, and then Mr. Vaughn is here, if we have any questions or anything for him, we can do it.  Following are notes of our meeting in the office yesterday regarding the direction given to Vaughn and Associates for a variety of potential design issues.” 


“The first one is the new middle school, grades five through eight on a site at the fairgrounds near McNairy Central.  Move Selmer Elementary to the existing middle school.  Renovate the existing Selmer Elementary to accommodate central offices for the board of education.


“Item two, Adamsville High campus.  Add a multi-purpose gym/auditorium building and approximately six class rooms.  The multi-purpose building is for P.E., ROTC, music programs and it should include an open floor area to accommodate a full-sized high school basketball court.  No additional floor area for bleacher seating.  Two locker rooms.  One large office.  One large storage room for the ROTC program, and public toilet rooms.  Or, move seventh and eighth grades to Adamsville Elementary campus, and add ten through twelve classroom expansions, expand the cafeteria, library and other spaces needed to accommodate the additional grades, or build a new K-4 campus on a site to be selected.


“Item three is, where is the best location for adding four new class rooms at Ramer.


“Item four is add a storage room, or rooms, and possibly an office for the administration office area at Bethel Springs.


“Item five, McNairy Central High School, add a multi-purpose gym/auditorium building.  The multi-purpose building is for P.E., ROTC, music programs and it should include an open floor area to accommodate a full-sized high school basketball court. No additional floor area for bleacher seating.  Two locker rooms.  One large office.  One large storage room for the ROTC program, and public toilet rooms.”

Lacey concluded by asking, “Mr. Vaughn, do you have any additions, or things you’d like to add to—”


“I have no additions,” Jeff Vaughn replied.  “If there are any comments by the board, or clarifications or adjustments need to be made otherwise, or discussion about anything, I’d be glad to listen, and take direction otherwise.”


Lacey asked if Vaughn had a time frame for proceeding, and Vaughn responded, “We can start immediately.”


Vaughn clarified his remark by saying, “We’ll have to gather information on the existing conditions of these campuses that we’re going to be doing studies for, but we can start this work immediately,” later adding, “Understand, the plan drawing at this point has nothing to do with drawings for construction.  It’s simply generating design concepts for addressing these various issues.”


“Cost estimates,” suggested technology coordinator Terry Burns, who serves as recorder at the school board’s meetings.


“Well, and subsequent cost estimates,” Vaughn added.  “But we’ve got to have a general plan, a concept, to provide a solution to the issues that are being addressed here, or asked for here, so that contractor or construction engineer can apply some numbers to them.”


“So, do you think we could—” Lacey began, before starting over.  “How much time is needed to get, we’re at a point where we can look at something and maybe, you know, three and four, or one and two, or you know just some combination in there, and kind of get some direction on what we’re going to do?”


“It will probably take at least two months for us to build, information gathered, draw whatever it is we need to do,” Vaughn replied.  “It’s—” 


“By the first of October, then,” Lacey interrupted, “by the first of October then we should be able—”


“I think so,” Vaughn replied, returning the favor.


“I think, basically, let me interject that my point was,” Education Director Charlie Miskelly said, attempting to provide some background.  “We had a meeting that night.  We discussed many things and came up with, you know, some ideas.  These are ideas that I thought I understood from the board.  I called Mr. Vaughn.  We sat down and had a meeting.  Even had a miscommunication, ourself.  That was my fault.  We cleared that up, and then he sent this back, and so I think, number one, is this what we discussed at that meeting that night?  Is there any additions or subtractions, or did I miscommunicate to Mr. Vaughn your intentions that night?”


“I don’t have any notes in front of me,” Johnny Blakely observed, “but these appear to be what we talked about, and the priorities that we established.”


After several minutes Lacey said “I’d like to conclude this discussion here, and then we can move on to anything else.  But, is this what we want to say tonight, to Mr. Vaughn?  ‘Please go forward.’”


“It’s fine with me,” Jean Jones said.


“It looks good,” Blakely agreed, before saying, “I’ve got a question for Mr. Vaughn, concerning maybe, item number three, where it says, I’ll read it, where it says. ‘Where is the best location for adding four new classrooms at Ramer?’  Now, what would be the criteria that you would use to determine the best location?”


“Available sites area,” Vaughn replied.  “Previously, when we looked at a proposed concept plan for installing four classrooms in that interior courtyard, questions came about, ‘Was that the best location?’   Construction manager voiced concern about the constructability of that location, being so tight in that area between the two wings of classrooms, though it could be done.  So then we said, ‘Okay, what if we take the four classrooms and put them out in what I’ll call the front yard,’ where there’s parking out in front, and maybe relocate that parking, or rotate it around to some other location, so that it is more accessible, more constructible, and there was no real direction given, or solutions, discerned that night.  So I think the question still is, ‘Where is the best location?’  Now I have been back to the site, and tried to think about, look at, where else we might put it.  And there is another possibility, or two, which I’m going to present, from the drawing concept standpoint, to the board when I come back.  And one of them is going to be locating four classrooms on, call it the left end of the school buildings, there, in the area where there’s, there’s a drive between the end of the school building and the playgrounds across that drive.  But there is a possibility that that area is constructible, or buildable.  Now, what would we have to do with, either relocating the playground, or adjust the playground and the drive through that area.  Otherwise, that’s probably what we’re going to look at.  But if we’re asking ourselves, ‘Where is the best place for four classrooms at Ramer?’ that’s just part of the variety of different alternate locations that I think are logical to give consideration to.”


“Constructibility, cost, and the asthetic quality, right?” Blakely summed up.


“Yes, sir.”


“Very good,” Blakely concluded.


“Well,” Vaughn said when there were no more questions, “I’ll just stay in touch with Mr. Miskelly in the future, about my progress.”


“We’re not setting anything in concrete tonight, are we?” Smith asked.  “This is for, to move forward with the building issues?”  Lacey agreed that was the case.



* * *


Several regular agenda items where then disposed of quickly.  The certified personnel report and the classified personnel report were accepted of without comment or question, as were the minutes of the June 12 meeting, which were approved unanimously on a motion by Jean Jones, seconded by Tony Chapman.


Various bids were also unanimously accepted. Better Source’s bid to supply paper to the schools was accepted on a motion by Chapman, seconded by Jones, and all low bids to supply the nutrition department were accepted on a motion by Blakely, also seconded by Jones.


Miskelly then explained the request from the special education department to purchase a copy machine. “They run so many copies, they just, for special education to copy all the things that they do, it’s typically been in the best interest just to purchase a copier and they would like to purchase this copier from Rayco and pay for them with their IDEA and rehab funds that they get, and so I submit that for your approval.”


Chapman made a motion to approve the purchase, which Smith seconded, and after a brief discussion the motion passed by a unanimous roll call vote.


The next item on the list of items for approval was “LEA Comprehensive Application for Special Education Services.”  Lacey explained that it was an agreement that “we enter into every year,” and it was unanimously approved on a motion by Smith, seconded by Jones.


The next item for approval was the first reading of the policy for maintaining test security, and Lacey drew the board’s attention to several changes as he thumbed through the multi-page document.  “Basically,” Miskelly then concluded, “the big change is the one in number four about, uh, we run into a problem with the lower grades, third, fourth, fifth, sixth where teachers teach those students, so we’re asking to allow those teachers to administer that test, even though they teach them sometimes more than fifty percent of their instructional day.  So that’s the big change in that policy.”  Smith moved that the first reading be approved, and his motion, seconded by Chapman, carried unanimously.


“Item 5.F.,” Lacey then read from the agenda, “adoption of a code of ethics.”  He explained that “every board of education must have one,” and Chapman made a motion that the board approve the code of ethics that had been included in the board members’ packets.


“I second that motion with a question,” Smith said.  “Are we going to form a committee to deal with issues that might arise, also?”


“That’s a good suggestion,” Lacey said.  “Let’s vote on the motion, and then we can pick up on, make a motion to form that committee.”  The motion was unanimously approved by a voice vote, then Lacey said, “Now, Mr. Smith, I would entertain a motion.”


“I make a motion,” Smith responded, “that we form a committee to deal with any ethics issues that might arise.”


“I think it’s a good idea,” Lacey repeated.


Chapman found the relevant passage in the code: “A school board may create a school district ethics committee,” and Smith observed that the code provided that the committee should consist of three members, two of whom should be members of the school board.


“All right,” Lacey said, after Jones provided a second, “We’ve got a motion by Mr. Smith to create a ethics committee to oversee, to make sure that we are following the code of ethics that we have just adopted, to consist of two board members and someone outside of the board, not necessarily in the school system.  All in favor please indicate by saying aye.”  The motion carried unanimously.


Jean Jones having twice in the earlier discussion voiced her support for Larry Smith as a member of the ethics committee, Lacey asked, “Mr. Smith, would you mind serving on behalf of the board?”  When Smith indicated his assent, Lacey asked, “Anyone else want to volunteer to serve?”


“I’ll do it,” Chapman replied.


“Mr, Chapman,” Lacey said.  “That’s who I was going to appoint anyway.  And then, do y’all have recommendations of who we could ask, outside the board?”


“Does it have to be someone outside the board?” Chapman asked.


“It needs to be someone outside of our board,” Lacey replied, before suggesting the board ask County Mayor Jai Templeton “if he has someone he’d like to recommend.”



Technology Bids


The next item engendered considerable discussion. “Item 5.G. is technology bids,” Lacey said.  “You’ve got that in your packet, there.  It looks like we’ve got a recommendation to go with CDW-G.   I’d entertain a motion to approve this.”


“Acer computers,” Larry Smith said in a “not-so-fast” tone of voice.  “We had an issue with them once before.”


“CDW-G does not—” Burns began, not responding to Smith’s comment.  “The Linux [Linux is a free computer operating system] is the ones I was looking at.  The Lenovo laptops.”


But Smith persisted. “I’m talking about the ones we that we had that we bought several years ago, and we had an issue and we— You wrote them a letter, and wrote Acer, I think, a letter, and the people we bought it from a letter, and we got no response from either one of them.  And basically they wouldn’t help us at all.  Wouldn’t do anything.”


“Yeah,” Burns acknowledged, before adding, “that’s been, probably, eight or ten years ago, and I know Acer has improved its quality since then.  But, with CDW-G, they will work with us on any product we want.  I’ve bought a lot of technology from them, and they provide free shipping, and they gave us a low bid, gave us a really good bid.  Been very pleased with all, everything that I’ve bought from them.  And I tried to get, with limited budget across the board, our department’s cut, a lot of others are cut.”  Burns concluded by saying, “And we’re trying to get computers in there where we can use Linux, and that’s the low-end computers, that will work just as well as the high-end computers.  And with that, that’s how I just felt that was the best route to go.”


But Smith was undeterred. “Well, when we had the issue before, Terry, did you—  You contacted Acer themselves, or attempted to, wrote them a letter, and you contacted the individual that we bought those from, both, and we got no response from either one at that point.  I mean, and at that point we pretty much agreed we wasn’t ever going to buy Acer computers again.”


“That was with,” Burns said, “at that point we were buying them through Cyber-Tech—”


“That’s exactly right,” Smith said, bluntly.


“—and, uh, like I said, they have improved.  I know they’re making a good laptop now.  Cecil Dickey has an Acer laptop, and he works, he does a lot of work with me, and he’s proud of it.  He says it works really well.”


Chapman provided Burns (and Acer) some support, saying “I personally have an Acer laptop, and that ain’t a problem.”


“But, again,” Burns continued, “CDW-G will give us, they will, and they, and it depends on how many we buy.  The price can even go down.  On Lenovo, they can do Lenovo, they can do H.P.  So if we go with them, they give us the free shipping, and they’re real good, they’ve just been excellent to work with.”


“I understand that,” Smith replied.  “But I just, when I get burned on something, I’m just burned.  I’m done with it, you know, I just—”


“I’m not saying we go with Acer,” Burns said, reassuringly.  “I’m just saying if we go with CDW-G they can give us anything across the line that would be at least equal to that, or lower.”


“They’re a vendor,” Lacey observed.  “They have many different brands.”


“They have contacts everywhere,” Burns continued, “and they work with— They are excellent to work with.  Like I said, they will, if we happen to hit a windfall of money, and we need to buy a bunch, as many as fifteen or twenty, the will go down on the price.  And Lenovo would be the ones that I would want on the laptops.  That’s an excellent computer, at the top of the line.”


“I make a motion we accept CDW-G’s low bid on the technology,” Chapman finally said, and Lynn Baker seconded the motion.


“One other question,” Smith said, before the vote was taken.  “This says Acer on here.  Does this mean, does mean what it says?  Or does this mean we’re going to get something else?”


“That means that was the bid they gave us at that time,” Burns replied, “but we can get something else, yes.  We can get something else.  It would be equivalent to that—”


“I guess my point is, it don’t matter,” Smith said.  “I’m sure we’re going to approve it.  I’m not going to vote for it if we’re going to buy Acers.  I’m not going to vote for it.”


“Well, I’m not a big Acer fan,” Burns acknowledged, “but I do know they have improved.”


“Because,” Smith explained, “last time, they just, they laughed at us, and we was sitting here last time they wouldn’t do anything to help us.  Acer wouldn’t, or Cyber-Tech either, on that deal.  And we eat a bunch of stuff, and I don’t want the board to do that again.  I don’t want the school system—”


Burns interrupted. “I wouldn’t do anything to harm the school system, you know. I know Lenovo’s a good brand, and Acer is the one they bid out there, but they told me, when I would call them, they would work with any vendor that they could work with.  And that’s H.P.  I like H.P. and I like Lenovo.  And I like Dell, but they’re just way too high, for what we have.  The money we have.  And to use Linux.  And I, we’re working real hard to make that work.  It would save us a lot of money.  It’s possible we could put in an entire classroom for twelve to fifteen hundred dollars, with the computers that we already have.  That’s possible, at this time.  I don’t want to be held to that, but that’s the word I got.  We’ve talked about it today.”


“Thank you, Mr. Burns,” Lacey said.  “Any other discussion?”


“How long has it been since you had this problem with Acer?” Blakely asked.  “Eight or ten years?”


“Eight or ten years,” Burns repeated.  “It’s been at least that long.”


“And you’re satisfied now with the product?” Blakely asked.


“I’m satisfied,” Burns said.


“Now I—” Lacey began, before starting over.  “We didn’t buy, before, directly from Acer. We bought through a vendor.  And this vendor is our first line of defense, and the manufacturer is the second line of defense.”


“Yes, sir,” Burns agreed.


“But,” Smith insisted, “he wrote, we had, the board asked him to write Cyber-Tech and Acer, both, a letter.  And he did, the best I remember about the whole deal.  And we never got response from either one, on the issue.  We never got anything resolved.”


“But we’ve been using Cyber-Tech—” Lacey began.


“At that time we were,” Burns said.


“—and we have— Have we used them since?” Lacey asked.


“We used them, ahh,” Burns began.  “We’ve used them some, yes.”


Lacey then instructed Burns to call the roll.  Six of the seven board members responded yes, as did the seventh, albeit not without one last comment.  When his name was called, Smith responded, “I’m going to vote yes, with the understanding that if we can get anything else besides Acer, that’s what I want us to do.”


“I will do everything I can,” Burns said, getting in the final word.



Soccer Field


“Item H,” Lacey read from the agenda, “under 5, items for approval, the bid on the soccer field.”


Miskelly added a word of explanation. “Since this packet went out the bid has been revised a little bit.  I think the bid, original bid, was twenty-seven thousand, and that bid has been reduced to twenty-five.  Mayor David Robinson is here.  I’d like for him to talk, but I think the city board has approved a $10,000 payment toward this twenty-five thousand, and they’re asking the McNairy County Board of Education to contribute fifteen thousand.  I have some pictures that probably weren’t in your packet that Mr. Hamm has provided, and, Mayor Robinson, I’d ask you to speak to this.”


“Sure,” Robinson said, coming forward from his seat in the audience.  “One of the big things—and I appreciate the time—the revised bid, there’s a major difference from the two that you got before.  The $27,000 bid you got was leveling, irrigation, and sprigging.  The bid we’ve got now is irrigation and full sod.  So the field will be ready in a month, if you will.  I’ve talked to Mr. Hamm about that.  We’re talking a regulation-sized field, 360 feet long, 225 wide, probably with a five-foot border, all the way around it.  The soccer field existing is going to be laser level, it will be irrigated— and did you, did they get a copy of the irrigation system in there [that is, in their packets]?  There’s a—  Anyway, it will be completely irrigated.  I’ve got the city standing by to bring in the meter for the irrigation system.


“Talking with Mr. Hamm, they are ready to start in the morning, disking it up.  If you’ve been out to the soccer field, like kind of maybe if you go out there right now, with the rain, and you’ll see where the water stands.  This is going to level that up, drain it, and I’ve got their guarantee that if this does not stop the drainage they’ll put drains in at either side of the field to drain the water off.  I’ve talked with both Coach Lott and Coach Day.  They feel comfortable that they can keep play off of that until September the 1st, at which time this field will be ready to play.


“The city board on Tuesday night approved a $10,000 donation toward this project, which basically will keep you back at the $15,000 that we originally discussed.  I think it’s an excellent partnership, quite frankly, between the school board and the city of Selmer, because y’all certainly use it out there a lot, the city uses it.  The same thing with the tennis courts.  We’re getting those repaved.  They start, I think the 14th.  Is that next Monday?  They start paving the tennis courts, and certainly the high schools use that a lot, as do our citizens.  So, I would hate to see us miss this opportunity, quite frankly.  You know, it’s not much to ask.  The next project, and I’ll throw this out to you, once we get this, because I want you to approve this, I want to look in to see how we can light that field out there so we can really use it around the clock.  I mean, at that point in time it opens us up to tournaments.


“The only other thing that I did talk with both coaches and Sybil Dancer about, and Tony [Chapman] as a matter of fact, the other night, we are going to have to put a barrier in there so we can keep the cars off of that.  But I think, quite frankly, and Charlie, help me with this, I’m pretty sure we can get some donated phone poles, light poles, from Pickwick Electric, that can be cut down and sunk in the ground with cable running through it so it really won’t impede pedestrian traffic, but it will certainly keep cars off of that field.  Because once we do this, and I read in the minutes from last month that there was some discussion about the Cars for Kids— They need to go somewhere else.  I mean, because we don’t need to spend $25,000 and let folks get in there.  One thing that Sybil’s concerned about, and we probably want to do this, the barrier, sooner rather than later.  She’s concerned about just some vandals coming in and doughnut on the field after it gets in there.  So I would—  When does school start back?”


“August the 1st, basically,” Miskelly replied, before adding, inexplicably, “It was kids six, fifth, sixth, seventh, somewhere in there.”


“Is,” Robinson asked, “what I’m talking about with the pole, cable and all.  Is that something the vocational group can do at the high school?”


“They could,” Miskelly responded.  “Probably our metal department could do something to help, they’ve done something—”


“And we’ll certainly try to help,” Robinson continued.  “You know, I’ll put the city’s resources in there to help, you know, with drilling some holes or whatever, but I would like to get that in there, probably as soon as they— Well, let’s see, if they start— He said it would take about two weeks.  A week for the irrigation, and a week to sod it.  And then it will be ready to play September 1st.  So we probably need to, once school starts we need to start looking at getting that protected.  But, hopefully, y’all can find that money, because I think it’s a great partnership.  I think it’s going to be great for the kids, it’s going to be great for the city.  We’ll finally have a great, a good soccer field.  And I’ll entertain any of your questions, if you have them.”


“There’s going to have to be some dirt hauled in to the field,” Smith observed.


“Well,” Robinson replied, “what they’re going to do, Mr. Smith, they’re going to plow that up and they’re going to go outside, you know how that field slopes?  They’re going to take some of that dirt right there and bring her down.  And if we’ve got to get dirt, I’ll get you dirt.  That’s not a big deal.  We’re going to make the field right.  So you’ve got my commitment on that.”


“Mayor,” Blakely then asked, “is there any kind of a break-in period on the sod?  Can you just go out and have a full-scale, full range of activities, soccer games from now until the end of the year and it, uh—”


“Sure can,” Robinson responded.  “And that’s coming from Pettigrew, is where it’s coming.  And it’s that sports tiff, what is it, four, four-nineteen?  I think it’s the same stuff that’s on your football field, isn’t it?  That’s sports Bermuda up there?”


“I don’t think so,” Miskelly replied.  “But I don’t know.”


“But, yeah,” Robinson said to Blakely.  “To answer your question, by September the 1st they’re ready to go.  Because this will be down—  If he starts, this grass and field will be in by the first of August.  So that’ll give it a full month to sit, watering, establishing itself, and then it’s ready to play.  And, you know, to alleviate any of your concerns, we can get Coach Day and Coach Lott together with Hamm and Pettigrew, to ensure that.  But, yeah, I’m pretty well, I’m told that they’re ready to play September the 1st.”


Lacey then asked if there were any other questions, and Chapman responded, “Yeah, I’d just like us to commend the city of Selmer and the board of alderman for, and you, Mayor, for committing to do this.  And I think it’s a good partnership—”


“Oh, I do, too,” Robinson responded.  “I think it’s a great opportunity.”


“This might be a good opportunity to thank the mayor and the alderman, too,” Burns added.  “They gave— I went before the board Tuesday night, and they gave the One to One $2,000.  And they gave a thousand last year.”


“The board came through,” Robinson said.  “They did good.  I was proud of them.”


“And I thanked them on behalf of the board,” Burns continued.  “And I especially thanked them on behalf of the children of McNairy County.”


Blakely expressed his appreciation as well.  “I’d like to add my voice of commendation to the mayor and the board, too.  You know, we don’t have a soccer field for the athletes of McNairy Central, and what we— Well, we do, but I think we deserve to make this a top-notch facility, as long as it is what it is.  And so I’m in agreement to do it, and I thank you for the work you’ve done on this.”


Chapman then made “a motion that we approve $15,000 to, for our part of the soccer field at Selmer Middle School.”  The motion, seconded by Blakely, passed by a unanimous roll call vote.



Hughes Street, Episode Whatever


Lacey then called on Miskelly for the director of schools reports.  After pointing out that “obviously we don’t have a revenue report for this month,” Miskelly turned to the recurring issue of Hughes Street.  


“Hughes Street, Adamsville Elementary.  You remember several months ago we talked about Hughes Street and paving it, the street that runs down by Adamsville Elementary and the Headstart Program and the Pre K-4 building, whatever.  Mr. Thrasher approached me again and wanted to know, if I understand him right, this is basically his comment.  He said that we’re paving the streets in Adamsville.  We’re allotting money.  Hughes Street is not one of our priorities, but if the Board of Education would meet us half way and pay half of that cost, then that would probably bump it up to a priority.  He estimates that the cost to pave Hughes Street would be somewhere between ten and twelve thousand dollars, which would be, would make our cost between five and six.  But Adamsville city wants a five-year lease on that street.  I asked him why you would want a five-year lease, and his response, basically, was, paraphrasing, ‘Well, if we’re going to put five or six thousand dollars in that street, we wouldn’t want the board of education to turn around next month or next week or next year and close that street to where it could not be used by the city.’  So, again, they’re approaching us about paving Hughes Street and splitting the cost.  But they want a five-year lease on—”


“Is the five-year lease contingent upon splitting the cost?” Blakely asked.


“Yes, sir,” Miskelly replied.  “Yes, sir, I’m ninety-nine percent sure that that is contingent, yes, sir.”


“So” Blakely asked, “they say it’s our street, right?”


Miskelly nodded his head, but Lacey said, “No, we say it’s our street.  It belongs to the board of education.  For five years it was a county road, and the county didn’t want to pave it, and now it’s the board of education’s road.”


Blakely said that he didn’t “feel good okaying an agreement” that would tie the school board’s hands for five years, then Smith offered a suggestion. “What if we did something like, if we did decide to close it.  I mean, I don’t feel good about, you know, doing a five-year lease.  And I think there was a reason— Craig’s [town attorney Craig Kennedy] not here, but there was a reason that he gave us before for us not to do that.  A suggestion that he gave us, maybe.  What if we agreed to pay half the cost of paving the street, and if we do close it within five years, or have to be in it, we agree to pay the entire cost, or the balance of the cost.  Why would they not agree to something like that?”


“I don’t know that they wouldn’t,” Miskelly said, and Lacey remarked that it “Makes sense.”


“That would be my motion,” Smith said, and Chapman seconded it.


Lacey said, “I have a motion by Mr. Smith, second by Mr. Chapman, that we approve paving half of the cost of paving Hughes Street at Adamsville Elementary School, on the condition that if we decide to close the road to the public in the future, within five years, we will reimburse them their portion.”


After Chapman and Blakely addressed some particulars, Smith said, “All right, I change the motion to say what we said at the beginning.  Split the cost, and then within five years if we decide that we need to close it or use the street then we reimburse the city of Adamsville whatever, fifty percent, or fifty percent of their cost is, not to exceed $12,000, to be completed this summer?  Within ninety days?”  Chapman seconded the revised motion, which carried by a unanimous roll call vote, with Lacey, who is an Adamsville commissioner, abstaining.



Craig Kennedy


“One last extra comment,” Miskelly then said.  “And this really none of my business, but maybe it is.  Last month the school board attorney, Craig Kennedy, resigned, and I’m going to tell you that Craig Kennedy is not only a good man, but does a good job with school board law.  Very knowledgeable, very considerate, very patient.  And I know that anybody and everybody can be replaced, but I would encourage or ask this board to, for us to somehow approach him and ask him if he would reconsider that, because he’s very valuable to me, calling and getting advice and opinions before we wade of in something and get in trouble.  He’s done an outstanding job for a long time, and I know sometimes people make decisions, and I know his children were part of that decision, but I would just ask this board to consider, us, somebody, as a group or somebody designated to call him and ask him to reconsider that, because I think he’s a valuable asset to us.  That’s my personal opinion.”


“I agree,” said Johnny Blakely.  “I agree with your statement that all of us can be replaced, some probably, myself included, easier than others.  But if we got a new attorney, first of all it would take some time for them to get up to speed on we, what Craig and the board even has in the works, not to mention the various facets of school law.  And I think it’s a good idea.”


Lacey said that he would “be glad to approach Mr. Kennedy on behalf of the board and see what we can do to try to keep him as our attorney, and bring back any suggestions or comments.”

 

 

* * *


That turned out not to be Miskelly’s “last comment” after all.  He had two more.


In response to a question from Lacey, Miskelly reported that “Ms Brooks is up and about and working and doing better.  She gave us a pretty good scare, but she is doing well and back at work, and doing good.”


And then he reported that “We’re working on our science labs.  We’ve got them pretty well torn out. The floor, the ceiling remodeled, and now waiting on the cabinets and the sinks and the gas and water to be run, but I think, I hope, that— in fact, I had some pictures taken of the old science lab at McNairy Central, and I think when you see the new ones I think you will be very proud.  We’ve tried to improve that considerably for the students of our schools, because, again, in my opinion, that was something that was very limited in our ability to offer upper-level science and have lab work and I think, once that’s completed, hopefully by August the 1st, that you’ll be very proud of it.”



One to One


“Any other board members have a comment?” Lacey asked.


Chapman responded, “I’d like to comment on the, Mr. Burns, the One on One [sic] initiative. I think—  Is it my understanding that we don’t have anything in the budget this year for that?  Per se?”


Chapman’s question was directed to Miskelly, who responded, “Per se.  I’ll let Mr. Burns, obviously his budget has been, as all items were, cut back from our original figures, to make a balanced budget, and make a budget work.  And he took a pretty good hit with technology.  But obviously some of that money could be spent on One to One, and I think we’ve made some plans to do some additions to, with One on One [sic], as he quoted earlier.  Looking at some ways that we can address One on One [sic] and still save some dollars.  But I would defer to him and let him make some remarks about that.”


Before Burns could speak, Lacey said, “One thing that I would like to— Mr. Robinson, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like you to challenge the other mayors in our county, including the county mayor, to match, at least match what the city of Selmer has done—”


“Be happy to,” Robinson responded, before adding that, “realistically, Adamsville is probably about the only one that can do that, just looking at the budgets, and the federal money, but I will certainly challenge them for something.  Be happy to.”


Lacey then asked Burns if he wished to add anything.


“Just that I’m, we’re working real hard to do the Linux this year, and that’s, it’s free software, it’s totally free.  And you just use, basically a box, it has to be, the computer box has to be, of course, Linux compatible.  And that should save us a lot of money.  The program works.  I’ve seen it work.  I know it works.  It worked when I was in the classroom.  And there was some, somehow rumors got out that we wasn’t going to do anything, we’re not going to do anything.  Well, we are.  As long as I got breath in my body, I will support the One to One.  As long as I’m technology coordinator, I will do what it takes to get that in there.  It works.  I just have to work with, we’ve all taken a pretty hard hit, and I’m just having to work with what I’ve got, and we’ll use every avenue possible that we can to keep going.  We’re hopefully going to have, we’re going to have one at McNairy Central, and we’ll, we’ve got another school in mind.  It hasn’t totally panned out yet, but we’ll have at least two, hopefully, by the time school starts.  Two more.”


Chapman then addressed the limited scope of the program, saying, “So we’re going to have the current ones in the same grades that they were in, so the students who are advancing to the next grade will not have the availability of continuing in the program.  Is that correct?”


“That’s correct,” Burns acknowledged.


“I think that’s going to be a big let down, don’t you?” Chapman asked.


“I know it will,” Burns replied.  “There’s a survey, and I’ve got it, that they ran at one of the classrooms, and it’s an amazing survey.  I’ll show it to you some time.  I don’t have it.  It’s in my office.  But all the kids loved it.  It inspired them to learn more.  A lot of them bought computers as a result of it.  They got excited about learning.  Attendance was up, absentees down, discipline was down.  People wanted, the kids wanted to come to school.  They wanted to learn.  The biggest thing you could do is to go see it, and see those kids light up as they’re learning.  How excited they get about learning.  And everything, I get emails every day about it, of these people that are, people that support it like I do.  And the creativity that it does, the innovation, the critical thinking, all of this is what the skills are for tomorrow.   And I was talking to a [unintelligible word] this week, and he was talking about the plant down in Tupelo they’ve been building.  Forty dollars an hour, they’re going to start kid at out of high school, that know technology skills.  Forty dollars an hour.  That’s just right out of high school.  And that’s not— That’s, that’s, what it does is to inspire kids to learn, not just to go to college but for the real work force.  Both.  They’re come together.  It’s an inspirational tool.”


“I’m just curious,” Robinson said from his seat in the audience.  “Terry, what’s the ballpark cost to equip a classroom with computers, to get that started?”


“With what we did last year,” Burns replied, “with new computers, Dell computers, top of the line, it was twenty-five, twenty, eighteen to twenty.  That was with the best computers.  Then we had to put in, we had to have new desks, we had to put the cabling in, and we bought a little software.”


After a bit more discussion regarding cost and equipment Chapman added a final observation. “I’d just like to add one thing on that line.  If we have any capital improvements that we’re going to put in, I think we need to do some on technology, because if we just do capital improvements on buildings, then we’re missing the whole boat if we don’t include technology.”

 

 

 

 

  June Board Meeting 

12 June 2008


Thursday, 12 June 2008, was a sad day for the students and children of McNairy County.  It was the day on which the school board (with one exception) cravenly abandoned any pretense that it had any oversight or control over the director of schools.  And the transparency of the coup only added insult to the injury.

 

The problem is not that Mr. Miskelly may not be the best person for the job.  The problem is that the way the process was conducted—it appears, was deliberately conducted—made it impossible to determine whether he was or he wasn’t.  And Mr. Miskelly and Board Chairman Frank Lacey were directly involved in putting forth and promoting the flawed procedure.

 

The irony here is that he didn’t have to do it.  This school board, in common with most school boards across the country, largely allows itself to be led around by the nose by the director of school.  Only Larry Smith challenges Miskelly with any regularity, and Board Chairman Frank Lacey is a reliable cheerleader for whatever course or policy Miskelly wishes to pursue.  So there never was any question whether the board would ultimately renew the director’s contract.  That being the case, Miskelly’s actions can only reasonably be interpreted as rubbing the board’s—and the tax paying public’s—nose in it.



Extending Miskelly’s Reign


That the fix was in at the June meeting of the McNairy County school board was evident from a mere glance at the agenda.  As any regular attendee of these meetings knows, the board’s agenda always contains the following major topics, always in this order:


1. CALL TO ORDER

2. PRESENTATION

3. CERTIFIED PERSONNEL REPORT—FYI

4. CLASSIFIED PERSONNEL REPORT—FYI

5. CONSENT AGENDA

6. ITEMS FOR APPROVAL

7. DIRECTOR OF SCHOOLS REPORTS


But the June agenda was different.  Squeezed in between CALL TO ORDER and PRESENTATION was


2. ITEM FOR APPROVAL

A. RENEWAL OF DIRECTOR OF SCHOOLS CONTRACT


All the other regular agenda topics were there, only numbered one digit higher.  That this item was special was evident from the fact that the June agenda did include the regular ITEMS FOR APPROVAL, renumbered 7 instead of 6, and under that “7. ITEMS FOR APPROVAL”—for approval,  mind you, not “for your information,” or “here’s something you might find interesting,” but for approval—was found, as item 7.K., “EVALUATION OF DIRECTOR OF SCHOOLS,” tucked safely away on page three of the three-page agenda, where it would not even be considered until long after the director’s contract was safely renewed.  (Later in the meeting Miskelly admitted that he had himself placed the item on the back page of the agenda.)

 

Here, verbatim, are the words with which Board Chairman Frank Lacey opened the June meeting: “Well, my wife is here, so I’ll go ahead and call this meeting to order.  And the first thing on the agenda, I will entertain a motion to renew the director of schools contract, which will expire June 30th of 2009, and the renewal will be for two years, from 7/1/09 to 6/30 2011.  Do I hear a motion?”

 

The motion was promptly provided by Tony Chapman and seconded by Lynn Baker, but before Lacey could call for a vote an incredulous Larry Smith asked, “Are we not getting the cart before the horse, here?  Should we not do the evaluation first?”

 

“I believe the approval’s got to be the only thing,” Lacey said, somewhat confusedly, but he did condescend to allow Terry Burns, who serves as recorder at school board meetings, to pass out copies of what Lacey called “the evaluation,” which had until then been withheld from the board member.  Burns then removed some papers from a large envelope and distributed them to the board members in attendance.  Board members are routinely mailed a packet of reports and other materials before the monthly meetings so that they can familiarize themselves with the materials in advance of the meetings, but copies of “the evaluation” were conspicuously absent from the packets sent to the board members before the June meeting.

 

After he glanced briefly over the document he had just received, Johnny Blakely said, “There’s no breakdown on these, other than just the over-all, is that—”

 

“Over-all, yes,” Lacey said, dismissively.  “He [the reference is to Kevin Redmon, to whom the seven board members had submitted their individual evaluations] has all the, all seven evaluations, if anyone wants to go by and look at the seven.  [Redmon's office is not open at seven o'clock on Thursday evenings, so Lacey's "offer" was meaningless, as well as insulting to the intelligence of his hearers.]  It’s just an overview and a grade,” Lacey said, referring to the “evaluation.” Then, less than three minutes into the meeting, without the board members having been allowed to look at the collective evaluations upon which they were supposed to base their decision in the weighty matter of whether or not to extend the contract of the director of schools for an additional two years, Lacey called for a vote.  Larry Smith cast the lone “no” vote among the members present.  (Alvin Wilson and Jean Jones were not present at the June meeting.)

 

After the roll call was completed, Lacey looked over at board attorney Craig Kennedy.  This was evidently as signal, as Kennedy rose to his feet.  “I think Mr. Kennedy has something—” Lacey began.

 

“You also need a motion to authorize you [Lacey] to sign the contract,” Kennedy said before sitting down again.

 

Right on cue, Lacey said, “I need a motion authorizing the chairman to sign the contract.”  Baker made the motion, which Chapman seconded, whereupon Lacey immediately called for a vote without asking if there was any discussion.

 

“Did I miss—” Blakely began before anyone could vote, then he inquired about the terms of the contract which the board was being asked to approve.

 

In his best “Move along here, there’s nothing to see” voice, Lacey replied, “We’re renewing the same, renewal of the contract the same two-year term.  No further discussion, all in favor indicate their vote by saying aye.  [Chapman, Baker, Blakely and Lacey said “aye.”]  Opposed?  [Smith said “no.”]  The ayes have it.”

 

Total elapsed time from calling the meeting to order to extending the director of schools’ contract for an additional two years: three minutes and twenty-nine seconds.  It just goes to show how efficiently government business can be conducted when the public’s representatives are not burdened with such unnecessary information as the contents of employment evaluations and the terms of contracts.


 

Adult Education


That bit of misgovernment out of the way, Lacey returned to the regular agenda, calling on Patsy Pearson of the Adult Education Department for a presentation.

 

“Thank you, Mr. Lacey,” Pearson began, only to be interrupted by freshly-renewed School Director Charlie Miskelly.  “Before Ms Pearson says something,” Miskelly said, resorting to the tiresome self-deprecation to which he is prone, “could I just say that one of my few strengths, and obviously many weaknesses, is to surround myself with good people.  And I want to thank Ms Pearson for the job that she has done as adult education director over the last four years.  She has taken that program and run with it, and I just want to say thank you publicly to Ms Pearson for the job that she does on a daily basis.  And, again, thank you.”

 

“I appreciate you telling me that,” Pearson said, “and I appreciate being able to do it.  But I would just say something up right now: it’s not me.  I do try to cover what goes on in the building, and try to make sure everything’s going the best it can be, but it’s definitely my staff, that I have with me tonight.  They are [unintelligible words].  They’re dedicated.  They’re talented.  They’re professional.  And always, always looking out for the best of the students.  And so that’s what we’re focused on.  

 

“But.  I do appreciate you giving me an opportunity to give you just a synopsis of our program.  And I didn’t do a power-point, I thought it would be better— I do have a folder [indicates folders which board members have been given], and in this folder is the material that you can refer to.  And I’ll try to allude to some of it as I go through, but we’ve had an exceptional year, and I do want to review some of their accomplishments, of our program.  You’ll find in your folder, first is our brochure, and we just give you a brief synopsis of what adult education is all about.  Our mission statement is there.  

 

“Since I’ve come on, on July 1st of 2004, until June 30th of last year, we’ve served 1052 people, and we had 280 GED recipients.  Now this year has been phenomenal.  We have served 230 participants, with possible 20 more that we’re in the process of getting entered into our database.  We’ve had 87 GEDs to this point.  We had 20 testers last Friday, and hopefully the majority of those testers will receive their GEDs, so our graduation on June 22nd we hope to have 107 GEDS registered.  And I think that’s history-making.  And as I’ve gone back and researched, I don’t think we’ve had that many.  So, we’re just excited to be able to have the opportunity to help this many people.  

“We also serve our dislocated workers, and I want to be completely honest with you, when I took this job, and they talked about some of these things, I’m going, ‘How is that connected with adult ed?’  But adult ed is to help our citizens, our adult citizens in McNairy County in whatever way we can.   So when a person loses a job, and they need to go back to school to get some extra training to find another job, they often need some refresher skills courses.  And so they come back to us, we work with them.  We pay them and do assessment tests to find out what level they need help in.  We work with them in math, or reading, or language, or whatever it is.  And then, they brush up, and they go back and they take their entrance test into vacation schools, or colleges.  And so we are able to help them that way.  We helped, we worked with 130 dislocated workers this year.  

 

“And also would call your attention to the fact that there is a club, at this time, UT Martin comes out and does our testing for us on the site, which makes it easier, and they have what they call the 600 Club.  Eight hundred is a perfect score on the GED.  So anything above a 600 is extraordinary.  We have 35 in that club at this time.  So, not only are they getting their GED, but they’re getting a good dose of education at a higher level, so we’re just excited about that.  And again, I do just want to mention our GED graduation, we’d love to see you there.  

 

“We have, for the last two years … we’ve been awarded the performance excellence award, and that’s where we meet all the goals of the state education.  They set up the standards to meet.  We keep an eye on those tables, and we look at them, and we analyze the students and we see what we can do.  For the last two years we’ve been given the gold award, and hopefully we will do it again this year.

 

“We are also in the process of looking toward doing a second level of Far Reach.  We have the entrance level in our building, and we’re beginning to work on the commitment level, which is the next level.  So, that’s pretty much adult education, but that’s not all we do.  That program in itself keeps me busy, but there’s other programs, too, and I just want to tell you a little bit about them—”

 

Blakely interrupted. “Can I ask you a question before I forget it?  The ones who score 600 or above, is there any special recognition on their GED diploma?”

 

“Not on their GED,” Pearson replied.  “But when we do graduation we acknowledge that, and we call attention, and also of course we give awards and high light that.  And so, I wish—  That’s a good idea, and that’s something I will take to the state department, because sometimes they take suggestions from the field, and sometimes they’re so good they take them for their own, for themselves, but I’ll see what we can do about that.  That’s a very good idea.  

 

“Also in our building, we have the Our of School Youth, and that is a special program for students 17 to 21 year old, that failed to get their high school diplomas.  And I’ve never educate— I’m an educator from the inside out, and I know that high school education is important.  But sometimes students just don’t make it through high school.  And they need an education.  So at this particular age we know they’re vulnerable, so we try to find these students and we bring them in, and we have a special grant through the W.I.A. [Workforce Investment Areas], and we work with those students to not only try to get their GED, but also to find them a job when they get through.  If you will notice, this last year, we served 38 students in this Out of School Youth; 27 earned a GED, with four students awaiting the test results from June 6, so we have a possibility of 31 of 38.  That’s an exceptional percentage, higher than any of the other sub-contractors.  And I know I say that, it sounds like I’m bragging.  Maybe I am, but we’re proud of our students, okay?

 

“And the pilot Pre-K class.  You know, one side of our building is adults, and the other side is children.  And we’ve had our pilot Pre-K program there for the last six, seven years.  We served twenty students this year, four- and three-year-olds.  We had sixteen four-year-olds and four three-year-olds.  And when we give the test, the four-year-olds, the scores are very good, it indicates everybody is ready for kindergarten.

 

“And then, of course, we have Even Start in our building.  And Even Start is, there’s a description in there, I’m not got to read it to you, but I just want to tell you that this is the way we help families that try to give their students an even start when they start to school.  Ms Cathy Taylor is over this program.  She helps parents, she works with the whole family, and many times families come to us and they use Even Start as a child care, while they’re working on their GED.  So, it’s an incredible program, and it all works together.”

 

“Then, of course, we have the Family Resource Center, with Ms Pam Vandiver, and she has, I believe she has her report in your list there for tonight.  So, I just wanted to mention all of those programs.”

 

“Also, we have a newly created little pamphlet, information booklet.  And Ms Pam has worked on this and we thought it was really neat because it’s a flip chart, and it pretty much gives you an idea of everything that we do in our building.  And, by the way, you know the W.I.A. is also housed in our building, Ms Jennie Carroll.  It works well, because we do so much work with her.  So, all those programs are listed in here, and a brief description, and we hope to use this to enhance our image in the public and to bring recognition, and to let people know what services are in there.  And we find that is our weakness.  People don’t know what we do out there.  So we’re trying to do that and let everybody know.

 

“I just want to tell you again that I appreciate the support that you give us.  Without your help, without your support, we couldn’t help the people that we do in McNairy County.  

 

“And before I sit down, there’s one other person that I want to introduce, and that is Betty Hurst.  Ms Betty, would you come up here for just a moment, please?  She is one of our students from this year.  When she came to us, back, what, early in the year, I guess.  January.  She was insecure, and she said ‘I just don’t know that I can do this.’  And we said, ‘Oh, we’ll work with you.  We’ll work with you.’  I’ll never forget, one day I walked in and was going to help with math, because I think Mr. May had gone somewhere, and Ms Betty was kind of frustrated, and I said ‘This will come.  Just don’t worry about it.’  Ms Betty took her GED test, not this last time, but the time before, and guess what?  Ms Betty got her GED.  And when we told her, we all cried.  Because we were so excited, because she deserved it.  I just asked her to come and just tell you just a word or two of what the program has meant to her, and some of the things that take place in the building.  And we won’t take up a lot of your time.  Ms Betty?”

 

“I enjoyed going to school there,” Hurst said.  “They’ve got three of the fantastic teachers you ever want to meet.  I call them the three Cs.  Mr. Curl, Ms Cathy, and Ms Craig.  Ms Craig is my favorite, because she’s hard on you.  She makes you study.  But I’d tell anybody that hasn’t got their GED to go there, and they will, if you want to learn, you will learn, because they will push it into you.  It’s a fantastic place.  That’s all I’ve got to say.  Thank you.”

 

Pearson asked if there were any questions, and Lacey asked her if she would announce the date and time of the graduation again.

 

“Yes,” Pearson said, “it’s June 22nd, 2:00 p.m., at McNairy Central Little Theatre.  And afterwards— There’s the graduation, which, already we’ve got over, what, fifty, right at fifty that’s agreed to come and take part in this, and be honored, and then there’ll be a reception following.”


 

Items for Approval


After the board promptly (40 seconds flat) and unanimously approved the Certified Personnel Report, the Classified Personnel Report, and the Consent Agenda on a motion by Chapman, seconded by Blakely, Lacey moved on to Items for Approval—numbered “7” on this special occasion, rather than its usual “6.”

 

The low bid for LP gas ($1.94 per gallon) was unanimously approved on a motion by Chapman, seconded by Smith, and the low bid for diesel fuel ($3.79 per gallon) was unanimously approved on a motion by Smith, seconded by Baker.  A breakfast waiver for McNairy Central High was unanimously approved (without explanation of what a breakfast waiver is) on a motion by Smith, seconded by Chapman.

 

The board then unanimously approved the low bid of $351,146.80 for four new buses on a motion by Smith, seconded by Blakely.  The next two items were also bus-related.  On a motion by Chapman, seconded by Smith, the board voted unanimously to increase the bus charge for trips from fifty cents to a dollar per mile.  The board also unanimously approved, again on a motion by Chapman, seconded by Smith, increase in drivers’ hourly charges for trips from $9 to $10 for day trips and from $10 to $11 for night trips.

 

At this point Lacey, evidently not realizing that there was a third page to the agenda, said “Something else we needed to—” and fumbled with other papers before him while holding the agenda in his right hand.  “I’ve got another item here on the, for approval on the new packet that we got,” he said, before Miskelly pointed out there was another page.

 

“Schools to carry outstanding invoices over to the next, new fiscal year,” Lacey read. “Item G in your packet.”  Smith made the motion, which was seconded by Chapman and passed unanimously.

 

“H. is declare property surplus for auction,” Lacey read from the agenda.  “Buses, computer equipment, furniture, desks, chairs, tables, etc.  This is going to be coming from numerous departments?” he asked Miskelly.

 

“Right,” Miskelly replied.  “We have them up at the maintenance building, and we’d like to auction those off on June 21st.”

 

“Public auction?” Lacey asked, and Miskelly confirmed that it would be; the item passed unanimously on a motion by Chapman, seconded by Smith.

 

There was a bit of confusion over the next two items, both relating to school nutrition.  After Lacey said, “I. is the 2007-08 school nutrition budget amends and transfers,” Miskelly, who confused the years, said, “Just a comment about the nutritious [sic] budget.  This is being accomplished without a raise in prices for lunches and breakfasts.  We think we can do that, and I know a lot of schools around are raising prices, but we think we can maintain what we’ve got with the price that we have, $1.25 and $1.50 for lunch, and 75 cents for breakfast.  And I commend Ms Brooks and her staff for the exceptional work they do to maintain that.”

 

Lacey remarked, “I understand that they’re going to be able to keep the costs of the meals the same next year?  [Miskelly nods affirmatively.]  Do I have a motion?”  Chapman made the motion, which passed unanimously after being seconded by Smith.

 

Lacey continued, “The next item is J, 2008-09 school nutrition budget.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Miskelly said, realizing his earlier mistake.  “I confused you a little bit.  I got a little ahead of it.  Actually, what Mr. Lacey was referring to was the transfers for this year, the first one, which is on the back of the page, and then the first page is the budget, so I apologize.  That’s my fault.”

 

Lacey was understanding. “I know we have a lot of approving and a lot of amending, end of the year stuff.  Now we’ll be, I’ll entertain a motion to approve the 2008-2009 school nutrition budget.”  The motion was provided by Smith, seconded by Chapman, and passed unanimously.


 

Evaluation of Director of Schools


“Item K is evaluation of director of schools,” Lacey then read.  “You’ve already been handed that out.  I don’t know if it has to be approved or not,” Lacey added, ignoring the fact that it was listed under “Items for Approval.”

 

“I didn’t know exactly where to put it,” Miskelly said with a completely straight face, “so I put it there.  Again, that was my fault.”  

 

So the director of education, the renewal of whose contract was to be voted on by the board at this meeting, “didn’t know exactly where to put” the evaluation on which the decision on whether to renew his contract was to be based, so he put the vote on the renewal of his contract at the very head of the agenda, immediately after the “Call to Order,” and put the “Evaluation of Director of Schools” on the last page of the agenda, as item 7K, to be taken up long after the board had been called upon to renew his contract.  If Mr. Miskelly honestly “didn’t know exactly where to put” the evaluation, then he is too incompetent to be picking up trash on the school system’s playgrounds, much less to be running the school system.  The only reasonable alternative this “village idiot” explanation for his action is that Mr. Miskelly knew perfectly well that in any rational universe the “Evaluation of Director of Schools” would come before the vote on “Renewal of Director of Schools Contract” and he deliberately chose to hide the evaluation at the end of the agenda, where it would be rendered moot by the earlier vote on the renewal of his contract which he put as the first item of business on the agenda.  Either way, his action is beneath the dignity of the office he holds and an insult to the taxpayers of this county who pay his princely salary.



2008-2009 School Budget


Lacey then moved right along, as though this chicanery was no big deal. “7.L. is the 2008-2009 school budget.  It’s in our little handout that we’ve got here.”

 

The budget, and its consequences, engendered considerable discussion.  Miskelly began by saying “It’s basically the same budget that you got about a week ago at the county commission education committee meeting.  Did have to go back and reduce $50,000 that the county commission had committed last year.  They did not commit that this year.  Going to have a balanced budget, it’s going to be tight.  As we know, a lot of costs and things are going up.  This does include a 3% raise for classified employees.  And it’s going to be tight, but we think we can make it.”

 

Smith asked, “On the budget that we had—I assume it’s the same on this one, I haven’t finished look at it—but that we got at the meeting with the county commission the other night, the tuition is, out-of-county tuition is less, four thousand dollars.”  Miskelly put his hand to his ear, as though he could not hear, so Smith said it again.  “Out-of-county tuition is less by four thousand dollars, on the budget, wise.”

 

“The reason there,” Miskelly replied, “is because I estimated this year at $26,500, I believe it was, and we did not meet that number, and so I reduced it to what we did collect this year.  You know, we’ve had some attrition of students, some graduated, and you know we, again, tried to meet that 95% ratio of students, and so I just didn’t want to go over it, so I reduced that.”

 

“So we have less out-of-county students, is that the bottom line?” Smith asked.

 

Miskelly evaded the question while pretending to answer it: “Basically, we have less that are paying, yes.”  (This did not answer Smith’s question, which he had raised at board meetings the previous summer, as reported in our account of the August board meeting: “On a motion by Lacey, seconded by Baker, the board approved the second reading of the Non-Resident Teachers Policy, which will ‘Allow children of non-resident “out of state” teachers of the McNairy County School District to attend a school in the McNairy County school system without tuition charge.’  Voting no were board members Alvin Wilson and Larry Smith, both of whom had argued against the policy on financial grounds when it was proposed at the July 12 meeting.”)

 

“This doesn’t include anything for certified?” Chapman then asked.

 

“It does not,” Miskelly replied.  “You remember the first numbers that I received from the state included a 2% raise for teachers, and when I got the final budget figures in from the state they had reduced it $638,000, I believe it was, and about $300,000 of that would have gone to that raise.  That’s why we are so tight, because we only, not only lost a 2% raise, we’ve lost about three hundred other thousand, 388,000 I guess, 338,000, if you want to say.  So, it tightened our budget considerably.”

 

“What percentage of,” Chapman began, “do you have any idea what percentage this is of the county’s budget?”

 

“Forty-six?” Miskelly suggested, uncertainly.

 

“Forty-six?” Chapman repeated.  “Down to forty-six now?”

 

Miskelly still appeared uncertain.  “Wasn’t it about forty-six, I’m wanting to say?”

 

Chapman continued.  “And was it last year that we, they gave us $50,000 and they took two cents?”

 

“Fifty-eight thousand,” Miskelly corrected.

 

“Have they restored the two cents this year?” Chapman asked.

 

“No,” Miskelly said.

 

“Did not restore it?” Chapman asked again.  “So they gave us fifty and took forty, so we were ten to the good last year—”

 

“No,” Miskelly answered, “they took fifty-eight and gave us fifty.”

 

“So,” Chapman said, “we were eight in the hole, in the red then, and this year we’re forty more thousand, forty-eight, fifty-eight, fifty-eight more in the red.  Next year we’ll be fifty-eight more in the red.  Is that correct, each year?”

 

Lacey joined the discussion at this point.  “Looking at this budget, it looks like we get 5.6 million from the county, 20.9 million from the state, and about, a little bit less than 200 from the federal government.  Am I reading that right?”

 

“Basically,” Miskelly affirmed.  “The federal government sort of fluctuates, because there’s a lot of grants and programs that come in that we apply for that sometimes are not actually reflected in the budget until they are actually approved by the federal government and sent to us through state monies or whatever.  But we don’t reflect anything on the federal government, on the revenue, that we don’t reflect on the expenditures.”

 

“Right,” Lacey said.  “Our total budget for 2008-2009 will be $26,963,630.50.”

 

“That’s true,” Miskelly acknowledged.

 

Chapman asked, “What are the— Are we making any major cuts, other than not giving raises, and—  What about insurance for our teachers?  Are we going to contributing more to them?”

 

“No,” Miskelly said.

 

“We’re not going to be able to?” Chapman persisted.

 

Miskelly said “We’re not going to be able to contribute any more to that.  It wasn’t any major cuts.  We just took some of that new money that we got last year and, again, whittled away some of those issues, you know, staff development, some of those things down through there.  You know, a little here and a little there, but it wasn’t anything major.”

 

“So,” Chapman asked, turning to another area, “is it going to leave us anything to do any kind of building, further, other than what we’re doing now?”

 

“Again,” Miskelly said, “when we get to our amendment transfers, tonight, you know, we took a very hard estimate at this time as we were paying bills today, Ms Kaiser was working on that and writing checks and doing other things, I think you will see that, right now we show that we’ll probably finish, oh, somewhere in the neighborhood of $40,000 to the good.  But, you know, that’s give-or-take here over the next few weeks.  There may be some revenue that we collect a little bit of, and it may be some of these expenditures that we won’t get exactly those, and so we’re hoping that maybe there’ll be a little additional money left over to add to the fund balance.”

 

“What is the fund balance?” Chapman asked.

 

“Right now,” Miskelly began, “it’s about—”

 

Lacey supplied the figure: “$1,693,403.93.”

 

“Are you,” Chapman asked Miskelly, “going to report on the results of the joint meeting the other day, other night?  Later?”

 

Miskelly gave an affirmative response.

 

“Okay,” Chapman said, and then, after a pause, he said to Lacey, “You need a motion?”

 

“Well,” Lacey replied, “if discussion’s over.  I’m having, I want to understand that we’re going to do, basically exactly what we did this year, next year, with less money.  Is that what I’m understanding?”

 

“Yeah,” Miskelly replied.  “One thing, you remember that we had a, we had some money left over that we committed to our science labs, and we’re working on those right now, that $100,000.  So, that $100,000 is absorbed in the budget, so, yes and no.  We’ll have a little extra play.  That’s where some of those avoided some major cuts, probably, that $100,000.”

 

Lacey said, “Our One to One initiative, losing fifty thousand from the county, how much, how are we going to maintain that?”

 

“It’s going to be a struggle,” Miskelly observed, “but Mr. Burns has been in contact with some people [a couple of unintelligible words] capital development had some people in that—maybe I’m talking to much, let him talk—but, basically from—Mr. Burns, don’t let me say something that’s wrong—explore some avenues and ways to use some of our older computers, recycle them and do some cost saving things with those that still will help the One on [sic] One initiative.  Is that a fair way to say it?”

 

Burns responded in the affirmative.

 

Chapman turned to Burns and asked: “Is there any chance that the county commission might reconsider.  Are you going to ask them to?”

 

Burns replied, “They told me several months ago there wasn’t any need in asking, but I went on and asked, and they didn’t do it, so, I, it would be up to Mr. Miskelly, and this board.”

 

“Do we need to look at more drastic ways to cut the services we are able to provide in education?” Lacey asked.  “Do we need to be looking at cutting out, maybe some bus routes in town, things like that?  I don’t know.  I’m trying to think of ways—  Is there anything like that that we can—  I’m looking at this, and I’m seeing we’ve pretty much cut to the bone, but I don’t, I mean.  Money don’t grow on trees, I understand that, and you can’t get blood from a turnip.  You’ve done a pretty good job getting money we need for next year, and I just—”

 

“Well,” Miskelly replied, “like I said, it’s going to be tight.  We may have to sit down and look at things that, anything we can to save cost, some of the things, maybe, that we’ve spent money on that, I want to say are, wants instead of needs, I guess would be a pretty good way to say it.  But I, you know, like I said, it’s a tight budget, that I wouldn’t put it before you if I didn’t think we could make it work.

 

“I’ll entertain a motion to approve it,” Lacey then said, and the motion to approve the 2008-2009 school budget (made by Chapman and seconded by Blakely) passed by a unanimous roll call vote.



Budget Amendment Transfers


Miskelly then said, “I’ve got a couple of items we had to add to our addendum [sic] tonight.  One is your budget amendment transfers.  Again, this is a hard item to nail down.  Some people, I guess, think you can do it a little more accurately, but it’s very hard to do at this time of the year with two and a half, three weeks left in the month, and trying to do some maintenance and repairs and do other things, pay some bills, but Ms Kaiser’s done an excellent job here, and we think we’ve got it, you know, in a— I’m sure we’ll have to come back, and I would ask for authorization to come back and amend even this amended budget.  But we think there’s, oh, forty-something thousand dollars that we’re going to save if you look at the bottom line of total revenues and reserves compared to the bottom line of total expenditures.  There’s approximately, like I said, $40,000 there left over, but, and I think we’ll, there’ll probably be a line item or two that we’ll have some more money left over, so.  Again, very hard to nail down at this time of the year, but Ms Kaiser’s done an excellent job.”

 

Lacey asked for “a motion to approve the budget amendment, to the ‘07-’08 budget, and authorize Mr. Miskelly to amend further if necessary.”  Smith made the motion, which was seconded by Baker and passed by a unanimous roll call vote.



McNairy County Equine Association Agreement


Reading from the agenda, Lacey said, “7.N. is an agreement between McNairy County Equine Association and, I assume, the McNairy County Board of Education.  It’s in the packet that we had.”

 

Miskelly asked board attorney Kennedy, “Do you have any comment about this agreement, or anything you want to share with the board about this agreement?”

 

“Two things,” Kennedy replied.  “One, there was some concern on their part because of the language you put in there about the key.  What was agreed to basically was they can put their own lock on there, but if the gates are open we have the right to take that privilege away, if you will.  But that’s the way it’s worded now.  And the other agreement is pretty much in line with the one we done previously, with American Auction.  The only problem I think about that part is, is that there is, I’ve come across since we did that some statutes that leads me to believe that we cannot enter into an agreement like we did with American Auction.  So I guess in the future, if they come back, anything that’s a private pay, private profit, we probably don’t need to be in the business of allowing them to use our property.  And I apologize to the board for not catching that before we allowed that to happen.  I don’t have anything else, unless you have some questions.  I will say this, there is, the fair is scheduled, I understand it is to take place, and I have not talked to anybody about that yet.”

 

“So,” Chapman asked, “does this include any kind of rental or anything?”

 

“No,” Kennedy replied.  “What they’re doing, is they’re paying, you know, they’re paying for the water that coming out there, the electricity that’s coming out there, they’re keeping it mowed and maintained or whatever needs to be done, but they’re not paying any type of a rental.”

 

Chapman asked, “Have we got something in here that we’re grandfathering them in, because I don’t see how we can charge someone else for using it when we don’t charge them.”

 

“Again,” Kennedy said, “there’s nothing that says they’re grandfathered in.  This is an agreement that says it’s good until, for this year, basically.  From now until the end of October.  They have shows from April to October.  I believe that’s what that says.”

 

“Yeah,” Chapman confirmed.  “April through October.”

 

“April through October,” Kennedy repeated.  “Then after that point you can do what you like.  But there is no, I think that’s what the board’s got to do, is decide about rental, charge a rental, and how much.  I haven’t approached that with anybody.  I doubt if in years past—  The Jaycees have used it and I’m not sure that there has been any rental collected that I’m aware of.”

 

Chapman finally made a motion to approve the agreement, which was seconded by Smith and carried on a unanimous voice vote.


 

Director of Schools Reports

 

“Item 8,” Lacey intoned, “Director of Schools Reports.”

 

“Your revenue report,” Miskelly began, “I think you’ll find that in good standing.  We met several of our line items.  A couple we didn’t, but again that’s part of, I won’t call it the game we play, but trying to figure out exactly where revenue will come from and expenditures will go as far as far as making a budget, and so most of them are in pretty good shape as far as each individual line item.  If you have any questions or concerns, I’ll try to address those."

 

Moving on to the last few items on the agenda, Miskelly said “8.B. and C. are thank you notes to the board from families there.  8.D. is a report from your family resource center, an annual report that’s required by her.  Pam is here, if there are any questions about that.  We appreciate the job that she does with that program.  8.E. is your school nutrition report, from Mr. Brooks.  8.F. is your Boardsmanship Awards Program, for your information.”

 

The agenda items being concluded, Miskelly then said, “Three or four things, just to bring your attention to.  Have met with the landowners across from McNairy Central and Pickwick Electric, Mr. Harvey Neal Smith, I think we have that worked out.  Pickwick Electric is going to take a couple of days, the last week of June, where it’s sort of in a dead period with school and programs, and move those poles, and then Mr. Smith, maybe the first of July, some time in July, can build that turning lane and hopefully give us a little relief there in the mornings and afternoons at the turning lane at McNairy Central.  So that is in the works.”

 

Miskelly next reported that one of the suppliers which had been awarded three bids for janitorial supplies had “sent us a letter, did not want to accept that bid for those three supplies, so we will award those three items to the low bidder that was left.”



Tennis Courts and Soccer Field


Miskelly’s next item engendered considerable discussion. “The town of Selmer has approached myself, and I’ve talked with Coach Day, and this is just for your information right now.  The town of Selmer has resurfaced the tennis courts which are used by the McNairy Central tennis program.  They are also looking at leveling and filling and reseeding and establishing some water at the soccer field in front of Selmer Middle School that we use for our soccer program, which does need some attention.  The cost that they project for the soccer field is about fifteen thousand, and the cost that they project, I believe they’ve already done that, for the tennis courts was about twenty thousand.  And they have approached me, and I’m sharing with you, to see if we would be interested in sharing that cost with them.  Maybe just us doing the soccer field and them doing the tennis courts, if our team, our school does use both of them.  I’ll just throw that out for your information now, and if you have comments or questions, obviously you can ask the now, but as we study that, see if you have any thoughts about that.  Again, I have mixed emotions.  Obviously, I do think it does need to be done, obviously, and our children, our students do use those facilities.”

 

“Does the city own that land, there?” Chapman asked.

 

“No,” Miskelly said.  “The soccer field, we own the land there, and they own where the—”

 

“But the walking track is around—” Chapman began.

 

Miskelly said, “That part.  Right.”

 

“Okay,” Chapman said, then after a pause he asked, “Is that our soccer team that uses?”

 

“Yes,” Miskelly responded.  “The high school.  McNairy Central.  That is where their soccer field.  Which obviously, over the years there’s been some concern about [unintelligible word].  Obviously, it would cost a great deal of money to build a soccer field, at the high school or whatever.”

 

After some discussion about the condition of the existing field and the cost of improving it, Miskelly said “they [the city] also use that field and play some, and I think that’s why they came to us, like I said.  They think it’s a joint adventure [sic].  You know, we use the tennis courts, we use the soccer field, they use the soccer field.  So I think that’s why they approached us about sharing the cost of doing both of them.  And like I said, their estimate was about twenty thousand to resurface the tennis courts.  I do know that’s a very expensive item.  They think this, like I said, filling and leveling and reseeding and a sprinkler system and all would cost about $15,000.  So, it’s just one of those things.  Do we want to put it on a priority list?”

 

“When would that need to be done?” Blakely asked.

 

“Well, obviously,” Miskelly replied, “it would need to be done this summer.”

 

Chapman asks about effect of parking cars on the area where the irrigation and drainage systems would have to be installed, and Miskelly said that was a problem that will need to be dealt with.

 

Chapman then asked, “Where can we come up with that kind of money?”

 

Miskelly replied, “You know, again, I, you know, it would just come out of a line item for improvements, or out of our budget for next year.  Again, as I said, it’s one of those things, priorities.”

 

“You don’t have to have an answer right now, do you?” Lacey asked.

 

“No,” Miskelly replied.  “You know, I’d want you to think about it and study it and give me some direction—

 

“Fifteen thousand—” Lacey began.

 

“Well,” Miskelly responded, “I think what they’re saying now, Mayor Robinson says, if y’all would do the soccer field for fifteen, we’ll take care of the tennis courts for twenty.”

 

“Could he give us a thousand on our soccer field so we could give it to Mr. Burns?” Chapman asked, referring to the fact that the city had voted not to put $1,000 into its budget for Burns’s One-to-One program.

 

“I can see so many pressing things,” Lacey said, in a doubtful tone, which led Blakely to remark that the issue didn’t have to be decided that night.  

 

“It needs to be decided by next meeting,” Chapman observed.

 

After some more discussion, Lacey said, “I wonder if there’s something that we can do for less than this to make it playable, or in better condition, until we can get to the point where we can put a sprinkler in.”

 

“Well,” Chapman said, “you know, the town of Selmer is, they’re redoing the tennis courts.  The public uses it, of course, but Coach Day and his team uses it, too.  So, they’re spending money in a time when I’m sure their money’s tight, too.  Especially if they can’t afford a thousand dollars to give Mr. Burns on his program, I would say it’s really tight.  So, I think we probably need to try to do something?”

 

“Is that a motion?” Lacey asked, but Chapman did not respond.

 

“Mayor Robinson,” Miskelly finally said, “like I said, he just communicated to me that they had talked to some people about doing this project, and he felt like it was going to cost around fifteen thousand for the soccer field, and around twenty— and his first question to me was, you know, would we split it?  Well, again, I don’t know.  And then he came back and said, ‘Well, if we did the tennis courts, would y’all entertain doing the soccer field?’”

 

Kennedy observed that the board would need to get bids for the project, and Chapman made a motion that the board solicit bids for refinishing the soccer field and install a sprinkler system—”And,” Lacey interjected, “also I think we need some kind of understanding in that motion that no cars will be driven on it.”—which was seconded by Blakely and passed by a unanimous roll call vote.



Joint Meeting with County Budget and Education Committees


Turning then to the “joint meeting that we had last week,” Miskelly began by saying, “I’m not the author, and so if you disagree with anything I say, or you question anything I say, you can certainly correct me.  I won’t take it personally.  I thought the meeting got a little, I don’t know the correct word, off track, I’ll put it that way.  My personal opinion was, that I thought the meeting was for us, the budget, the education committee, and the board of education to discuss the pros and cons and issues of raising the sales tax a half percent, to capture that money which would generate about $700,000 a year for items, improvement items.  And I don’t really know that we ever accomplished that.  And I take responsibility for that.  And, again, I’m not saying that, I don’t know how everybody feels.  I think, you know, that the times that we live in, and the cost of gas and fuel and all the things, you know, it might be a burden to put another tax on the public, and the people that pay the bills.  But I also think that $700,000 would do some improvements in our schools.  I also think that the question is, the question I have is, would we get that $700,000?  Would we have to share it with other people?  And would this, you know, if we don’t do it, at some point in time is the state going to come in and capture that money.  I think there’s some discussion there.  Again, that’s just some comments, you agree or disagree.”

 

Chapman said, “I think we need to, after all it’s ultimately up to the public to decide, whether or not to have the extra tax, of half cent.  Obviously, when the city of Selmer asked for it, they did not approve it.  But—”

 

“Quarter percent,” Lacey said.

 

“Quarter percent,” Chapman repeated.  “But, I think that if we make a case, I believe that, the last time the state of Tennessee had to balance their budget, that’s the way they did it, with sales tax.  And I just see them, the maximum that they can get is another quarter percent, I see them some time in the future getting that quarter percent, especially if their budget projections keep coming in below the estimates, as they are every day now, in the year.  So I think we need to try to make the case to the people that it would be good for the school system to have that to make improvements to our schools that we have to do somehow.  I mean, we can’t put this off any longer, to get some space for our teachers to teach and our students to learn.  So I think we ought to ask them to put it on the ballot, but I think it needs to be on, worded in a way that the, that it goes to the school system, and not like, in the past, some funds have gone for, you know, much needed fire protection.  I’m not saying anything against roads, or fire protection, or anything.  But I’m saying that if we have something that needs to be designated for the schools, it needs to be designated for the schools and then used for the schools.”

 

Smith spoke next.  “I believe this board would have to take action on whether they wanted to do that or not.  And I believe that we would have to specify, you know, what our plan is.  Exactly what our plan is.  What I mean is, with the incorporated cities and towns around, you know, we would have to include whatever we intend to do, we want that part of their sales tax, if that’s what the board chooses to do.”

 

“It doesn’t say that the county commission can authorize it to go on the ballot?” Chapman asked.

 

“The way we understood it the other night, yes,” Lacey replied.  “The county commission puts the referendum on the ballot, but it is up to us to go to the different municipalities and get them to agree to give it to the county and the school system.  I understand that in the past this has never been done formally or anything.  It’s just been passed on to us.”

 

“Probably been pretty easy over in Adamsville, hasn’t it?” Chapman said.

 

Lacey continued, “I understand from the meeting, though, that they were in agreement with us on the referendum, but they wanted to see a plan from the school system.”

 

Smith disagreed.  “That wasn’t what— I talked to Jai Templeton a little while today, and that wasn’t the way I understood, you know, he said that— I asked him, I said would it require action from our board, he said ‘Yes, there’s a specific spelled-out plan of what you plan to do with it.’  So, I don’t know.”

 

“So,” Chapman said, “we need to have our building plans, how much it’s going to cost, and how much the debt service would be on it and so forth?”

 

“He wasn’t talking about all that,” Smith replied, “but before we go to another meeting like we did with the education committee and building committee and all, you know, we’ll have to have all that.  But what he was talking about was just incorporated towns that, you know, we intend to go to and ask for their part.  And like you said, it would all go 100% to schools and so on like that.  If that’s what we choose to do.  Me, personally, I’m not for a sales tax increase of any kind, for anything.  There’s so many people in our county now, that, the largest majority of our schools are on free and reduced lunches.  That means they’re barely making it, most of the people are.  These people, retired people on fixed income, with gas, utilities and everything the way they’ve gone up.  I understand, we need money, but they need money, too, and the situation, with increases the way they’ve been lately, a lot of people’s not making it.  Not barely making it—they’re not making it.”

 

“The only thing is, if it’s a quarter percent, which, I don’t think—” Chapman began.

 

“Half percent,” Smith said.

 

“Huh?” Chapman asked.

 

“Half percent,” Smith replied.  “Nine and a quarter to nine and three quarters, that’s half a cent.”

 

“Is it a quarter, or half?” Chapman asked Lacey.  “You’re saying a quarter, he’s saying a half.”

 

“I thought it was a half,” Lacey said, though he had several minutes earlier “corrected” Chapman and told him it was a quarter and not a half.

 

Smith said, “It’s nine and a quarter now in McNairy County, in Jackson it’s nine and three quarters.  Which, nine and three quarters is the max.  A half cent sales tax.  The half cent sales tax we talked about would generate $700,000, probably.  Not the quarter cent.”

 

Chapman moved on. “I don’t think the county commission’s going to give us any more money any time soon.  I don’t know that’s a fact, but the beauty about asking for a sales tax is that the people decide it.  If they don’t want it, of course, you know, they can vote against it.  So I don’t see where anything is going to be hurt by doing that.  Other than the fact that somebody might say some of us are for a sales tax increase, which, I guess, when you put it that way, I am.  I’d like to see it used for our schools, because, only because I think that’s the only way we’re going to make any improvements, or build any new schools.”

 

Lacey said, “And when you look at over the past six years we’ve gone from 68% of the county budget down to 46% of the county budget.  I don’t know where we get the money from.  Mr. Miskelly has to be commended for getting the most with the least.  So I think as a board it’s our obligation to come up with a plan for funding, and submit those plans to the, not only the county court but also to the citizens of McNairy County, and show our ideas to them.  I’m not for any tax increase ever either, but unfortunately, if there is going to be a tax increase, I would much rather it go community than to the state of Tennessee.  That’s just my opinion.  I don’t think we need to give any more money than we have to to the state, because they seem to find ways to give to school systems, they reward school systems that are doing poorly, and they seem to punish those that are doing good.  In my opinion, that’s the wrong way to do things, but that seems what they do.  I would like for us to schedule, in the next couple of weeks, a building meeting, and we can discuss this further at that time, and I would want to suggest that.  But I do know that what Mr. Smith said is going to be required.  We will, the board will have to approach each municipality and be sure we have commitments from them.  And I don’t know how that commitment is done, that they will surrender that, if the county voted to increase the sales tax.”

 

“We would have to get the city councils, or city boards, or whatever, to agree to that?” Chapman asked.

 

Lacey turned to Kennedy, who muttered something unintelligible, then Lacey said, “Well, and it was brought up the other night, but no one could say, remember ever having agreed for any of their other things that’s been done.  Again, I think it’s a burden that we have to bear, and go out and do it.  I’m more than happy to do whatever is needed, but—”

 

Chapman interrupted. “I do think, though, that we need to have an understanding, and meet again with the county commission to make sure that, hopefully, we’re at the bottom of cuts in the percentage that we get from county funds, because I don’t know how we can keep on operating with them every year giving us a less and less share of, to operate the schools.  Because schools I think are the most important things that we operate.  And we, over the last ten years, had a program to build our roads, which we need good roads, too, in the county, but I think we need better schools than we need how many roads and so forth.  I think number one priority needs to be our schools, and I don’t, I hope that’s the number one priority of our county commission, also.”

 

Lacey then asked Miskelly, “How long before a meeting do we need to advertise?  Ten days, before we can have a meeting?”

 

“A called meeting,” Chapman clarified.

 

“Could we,” Lacey asked, “could y’all meet on Monday evening, the 16th?"

 

“What are we meeting for, now?” Blakely asked.

 

“Building plan,” Lacey replied.  “To gather.”

 

“To gather what?” Blakely asked.

 

Lacey replied, “To gather up a building plan, to, first of all, I think we review the building plan that we have in action, and then also look, work towards doing a building plan for the future.  Because from what I understand we’ve got to do is sell our need for money to the community and the board members of the county court.  And if we take the plan that we’re unified with, what I heard the other night was they’ve never turned down any request, and don’t intend to.  That’s to be defended.”

 

“Are you saying that they would give us money other than a sales tax increase?” Chapman asked.  “In your opinion?”

 

“Well—” Lacey began.

 

“No,” Smith said, “what I heard was, like 2011 was going to be the next opportunity when some of the debt service payment was paid off.  That’s what I keep hearing from—  That’s about right, isn’t it, Bobby [he was addressing former commissioner Bobby Murphy, who was in the audience], on debt service payments that will come off?”  Murphy’s answer was unintelligible.

 

“But if we had a plan today,” Lacey said, “there wouldn’t be money needed for a year, eighteen months.  So you can’t wait until 2011 to have that plan in place.  We need to go ahead and have our ideas, that we can get shored up, and we need to present that—”

 

“Well,” Smith interrupted, “unless we get something like we did before when we redid the buildings last time, all we paid was interest for a year or two there, and then we had some debt service paying off.  I don’t like to do that, but rather than a tax increase, there is other options like that.

 

“Yeah,” Miskelly said, “I think that’s the other option.  And if you remember Mr. Oldum, that has come a couple of times and talked about restructuring the debt payment, reextend that payment—”

 

“But,” Lacey interjected, “all that isn’t worth anything if we don’t have a plan, and that’s why I think we ought to get together and if we have plans we can, that’s five-year progress, and we have several different building plans to choose from, but we’ve not been able to be unified on any of them.  And I’d like us to give a strict and concerted effort to move forward and be unified and take it to the different communities, talk to them much like they did the road program, and we can go forward from there, because I, you know, we’re going to discuss it a year, that’s 2009, then you’re looking at 2010, ‘11, before you really ever get anything built.  I mean, we’ve got school buildings and facilities that need improvement right now.”

 

Smith said, “If we can get that building plan worked out, though, like you’re talking about, and by the time it gets fire-marshal approval, and get, you know, started, especially if we start a new school like we was talking about here in Selmer, I mean it could be 2011 before you need that first payment.”

 

“Right,” Lacey said.  “But we’ve got to get our part.”

 

“I agree with you,” Smith said.

 

The board members eventually agreed to hold a planning meeting at 6:00 p.m. on June 17, then the discussion continued.

 

“I’ve got to tell you,” Blakely said, “I’m sympathetic to some of the arguments Mr. Smith is making about the sales tax increase.  If there’s any other realistic means of funding the things that we to do, then I think we need to look at that.  I read somewhere, I think I’ve got the numbers right, that it costs $82 more now to fill up a mini-van with gas than it did maybe a year and a half ago, and $82 a month, and, you know, that’s— Half a cent doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re trying to put gas in the car—”

 

“It’s $700,000,” Lacey said.  “That is a lot of money.”

 

Smith observed, “When you stand in the grocery line and some of these people put groceries back because they don’t have money to pay for them, you know, it’s obvious things are pretty tight.  I’ve seen that happen—”

 

Chapman said, “I would be in favor of doing it the way Mr. Smith said, too, over a sales tax increase.  But I just thought, the only way we have to do that, and I’m looking at the state coming in, the possibility of them coming in and taking it anyway, and I just think that’s a good possibility.  And I’d hate to see them come and do that next year, and then us lose out on a chance to get that money locally.”

 

“I don’t—” Smith said.  “That may happen, but I just don’t see that happening.”

 

“You don’t think that’ll happen?” Chapman asked.

 

“I don’t think so,” Smith replied.  “If we had a crystal ball and could say that, I’d be all for it too, Tony, but I just don’t see the, that would be like, you know, taxing a tax, kind of, to me, and I just don’t see that happening.”

 

Lacey said, “What I understood from the meeting the other night—please correct me if I’m wrong, I’m wrong a lot.  I don’t mind being corrected.  But what I understood the budget committee to say was that when we paid for whatever we did, then they’d keep that money and do something else with it.  And, you know, if that money was going to be forever dedicated to the school system, you know maybe people would go for it.  But if it’s going to be dedicated to the school system to pay a debt and then it goes somewhere else, I don’t know …”

 

Smith said, “I don’t think they can take that money from us, because if there’s—”

 

Chapman interjected, “If it’s voted in for one thing, it has to be used for that.”

 

“Well,” Smith continued, “however we spend it, it’s money they give us.  If we spend it on school buildings, that’s what we’re spending on, right?  I may be wrong about that, but would that not cut their maintenance of effort?   That’s, if we could get that money?

 

“Would have to maintain the maintenance efforts,” Chapman interjected.

 

“Or,” Smith continued, “are they giving us that money and, or does it actually stay in the county general and never coming to us?  It’s in our budget, so I would assume—”

 

“Like Mr. Miskelly said,” Lacey interrupted, “it wasn’t exactly what I anticipated either.  It was very wordy, and part of that was my fault.  I thought it was clear what we were coming to visit with them was.  I guess it wasn’t clear.”

 

“Well,” Miskelly said, “I think the bottom line is, whatever is done, the school system’s going to pay for it.”

 

“It’s our responsibility, yes, sir,” Smith said.  “That’s right.”

 

“Like I said,” Miskelly continued, “from talking to a couple of people, we’ve had, we’ve gone over it, restructuring our debt is a possibility.”



Miskelly’s “Final Word”


After reminding everyone of the Monday afternoon reception (June 16) to recognize the long service of school system employees Wanda and Johnson and Bea Kaiser, Miskelly said, “Final word, then I’ll shut up.  I would like to thank you for your support tonight.  I would like to tell you that I appreciate the employees and the people of the McNairy County school system that sometimes even make me look good, and that’s hard to do.  And I appreciate the job that they do.  We’re finishing another outstanding school year.  Three of those people are here tonight are not usually here, and I appreciate them being here.  Didn’t know they were going to be here.  Ms Kaiser, and Ms. Graham, and Ms Vice.  And they do an outstanding job running the central office and helping me, and I appreciate that, appreciate them being here tonight.”  After listing several other individuals, he said “I appreciate what they do.

 

“I can also tell you that I get up every day with one job, and that’s to [he hesitated for a moment before continuing] help the McNairy County school system be the best it can be.  I can tell you that if I survive the next three years that you’ve recognized me with tonight, that it will be my last term as director of schools.  And I hope that I can leave this place a better place than it was when I got it.”  Miskelly’s remarks were greeted with silence.



But Wait!  There’s More!


“Any other board members?” Lacey asked, after Miskelly finished speaking.

 

“Where are we at on the building additions at Michie,” Smith asked.  “What stage are they at?”

 

Miskelly replied that they were “about 50%,” and he added, “Bethel Springs and Ramer, Mr. Vaughn told me the other day, about 50% completion of building plans.”

 

“Any other member of the audience—” Lacey began, but Blakely signaled his wish to speak “—I’m sorry.”

 

“I hesitate to mention this, but do we have an agreement for this weekend?” Blakely asked, referring to the Cars for Kids activities, which were to be held on school property.

 

Lacey and Miskelly looked at Kennedy, who said, “What?”

 

“A signed agreement for this weekend,” Blakely said.

 

“A release?” Smith asked, and Blakely agreed.

 

“No,” Kennedy replied.

 

“Have we ever had one?” Chapman asked.

 

“Well, no, but—” Blakely began.

 

“That doesn’t mean too much, does it?” Chapman said.

 

“What about a letter of insurance?” Smith asked, looking at Kennedy.  “A letter of insurance, do you think?”

 

Kennedy shook his head.  “There is a statute that says if it’s being used for certain things, that the board cannot be liable, or any member of the board cannot be liable, but, again, that’s one of those thing that probably should have had some follow-up.  I don’t know if they even asked for permission to use it.  They used to come in and ask for permission to use it.  I’m not even sure they’ve done that in the last several years.”

 

“Any other board member?” Lacey asked, trying to wrap things up.

 

“What do you think we need to do?” Chapman asked, ignoring Lacey’s attempt.

 

“I think we need something signed,” Blakely said.

 

“I think we need something signed,” Smith agreed, “or a certificate of insurance, is what I think.”

 

“Well,” Kennedy said, “it’s this weekend, so I’m not sure you’re going to get that done.  I think it’s this weekend, isn’t it?”

 

“Yeah,” Chapman confirmed.

 

“Do we need to do some kind of public announcement,” Lacey asked, joining in the discussion, “saying that anything that goes there needs to meet the school board—”

 

“Well, you got— “ Kennedy began.  “Here’s the problem.  You’ve got all kind of things.  Just think of this.  You’ve got Relay for Life going on.  Nothing’s signed for that.  And that’s just a school.  What about every school, you’ve got people using the ball fields to play on or to practice on and do other things, and we don’t have anything from all those folks either, so—

 

Lacey added to the list.  “We’ve got the Little Theatre this weekend, with a play they’re going to do. Arts in McNairy is doing a—”

 

“They should have an agreement,” Chapman observed.

 

“They usually sign an agreement,” Miskelly confirmed.

 

“—with the school,” Kennedy said.  “But I’m not sure whether it pertains to what the board does.  So, again, I go back.  You don’t need a policy to try to cover all this.  I’m not sure how you’d ever draw a policy to do that, in conflict, to cover all of those things.  But again, there is a statute that affords some protection from a liability standpoint.  But, you know, we have an issue always of [lists several events, most of which are unintelligible], it’s probably one of those things that should have been signed.”  He concluded by saying,  “The only thing that’s been done anything signed, is that field by the Dixie building, the Dixie building football field at McNairy Central.”

 

Blakely said, “I think we need to add that to the agenda for Tuesday night if we have time, to work something out.  We’ve got to do something.”

 

“We need a policy,” Chapman agreed.

 

“What if we sold the land?” Lacey asked.

 

“What?” Blakely asked.

 

“What if we sold the land to the city of Selmer,” Lacey replied, “and let them [unintelligible word] that burden.”

 

“I wouldn’t sell that land,” Chapman said, forcefully.

 

“What are we going to use for the kid’s playground?” Blakely asked.

 

“There’s a,” Kennedy began, “I had talked, I had talked with, there was some concern about the insurance company, what would they say.  I’ve talked to Harold Henderson, at TSBA, told him what we were doing in terms of that particular property.  He seemed satisfied with that.  [To Miskelly:]  Did they ever call you about that?  [Miskelly shook his head.]  He said if there were any problems with that he’d have his boss, and I forget his name—[Miskelly said, “John Evans.”]—John Evans call Mr. Miskelly.  But he just said he appreciated us thinking about that, that we was thinking ahead.  But again, let me give some thought about what takes place at the, at that field as well.  But again, you’ve got the city of Selmer using that for activities, [unintelligible word] and other things.  So there’s got to be, maybe some thought given to that."

 

Kennedy paused for a moment at this point, then he said,”I have one other thing, too.  At the end of this month, I will have represented this board for eighteen years.  It doesn’t seem possible.  It’s a long way from 42 to 50, I grant you.  And think that our firm, or an attorney from my firm has represented this board for over forty years.  I appreciate very much that opportunity, but all things must come to an end.  I think it’s time that I step aside as council for the board.  I plan on resigning as of the end of the month, and I tender that resignation to you.  There are two other, or one other, I guess two thinks if you count this issue about the property that’s out there.  We also have a little matter involving a classified employee that’s going on, and I’ll be glad to continue to do that, if that’s the board’s wish, and try and take care of that.  But I do thank you for that.”

 

Lacey again asked, “Anyone in the audience have anything?”  This set off a discussion of the need to replace the gym floor at the high school.

 

“I’m always for doing the improvements we need to,” Lacey remarked, “but kind of like we told the budgetcommittee the other day, we’re almost bleeding from every orifice we have with needs for these schools.  Without some help, I just don’t— I mean, I’m for doing it.”  He concluded by saying, “I need to be told where we can get the money.  If y’all can tell me, I’m for it.  I need to know where the money is.”

 

Chapman said, “I think we need to put it on the list and see where it falls in priorities and try to do it if we can.”

 

“Well,” Lacey said, “I think the gym floor is probably, probably one of the most used classrooms in school.  Has more classes on it, probably, than any other classroom out there.”

 

After more discussion, Chapman asked “What’s the estimate?” to which one person in the audience responded, “The low bid was one-oh-three-five”—that is, $103,500.

 

“Any other member of the audience?” Lacey asked once again, and Bobby Murphy responded with some further remarks about gym floors before saying, “I have one other comment.  I was a commissioner for eight years.  I’ve heard a lot of talk here tonight about spending money.  There’s about thirty public here tonight.  I guarantee you, the only way to raise revenue in the county is to raise the property taxes.  I guarantee you if we took a stock vote tonight, most of these folks would say no.”  He concluded by remarking on the need to educate the public.

 

Lacey had the final word—yes, the meeting did finally come to an end—of the evening. “And I think the board agrees that we’re going to have to sell whatever program we come up with to each community and each area,” he said, agreeing with Murphy’s observation.  “Any other comments from the floor?  If not, I would like to echo what Mr. Miskelly said a while ago.  We’re concluding a 2007-08 school year, and our administrators, our teachers, our staff, our support staff, bus driver, cooks, all of them, the parents, the children, again, had an outstanding year.  It’s something that McNairy County can be very proud of.  I think we have continued to impress, nationally even.  People see how little we do— how little we have to work with, and yet the great amount of education we do in this community.  Again, our ACT scores are great.  You heard tonight how our GED scores are outstanding.  We’ve got two high schools to be very proud of, and several K-4 and K-6 and K-8 schools that we’re very proud of, and I think y’all really need a pat on the back, and I just wish we could do more there.  I think Mr. Miskelly, we would all like to thank you for the job that you’ve done every year since you’ve been here, [unintelligible word] the balanced budget, and continuing to keep our fund balance where needs to be.  And again, thank y’all for coming, because it’s interested citizens like yourselves that make this board work right, and make this board do the things that are necessary.  Saying that, I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn.”

 

 

 

 

May Board Meeting 

8 May 2008

The May meeting of the McNairy County School Board began with the presentation, by Education Director Charlie Miskelly, of certificates of recognition to half a dozen seniors at Adamsville and McNairy Central high schools.


“We sort of started a trend last year,” Miskelly said, “of trying to recognize our seniors, graduating, that have scored a 30 or above on the ACT.  We don’t have quantity that we had last year, but we certainly have the quality.  Not quite as many, but again, from where I sit, this is quite an accomplishment for this school district to have as many students as we have that score at this proficiency on the ACT.  So I have asked those students to come tonight.”


“The first person that I have on my list is Aaron Ashe.  Is Aaron here?  [He wasn’t.]  Aaron is a senior at McNairy Central, has a score of 34 on his ACT.  Just to refresh your memory, some of you that don’t deal with that every day, a 36 is a perfect score on the ACT.  But 34 is an outstanding score.


“Next student that we have is, from McNairy Central, Brandon Duff.  I would ask Brandon to come forward just a minute.  Brandon, we certainly, again, want to congratulate you for the efforts that you have shown as a student at McNairy Central High School.  And if you don’t mind, just tell this board a little bit about what your future plans are and where you’re going in life.”


“Upon graduation,” Duff said, “I leave for boot camp in the Marine Corps Reserves.  Then, after I get out of boot camp I’ll register at UT Knoxville.”


“And I apologize, Brandon,” Miskelly added, “I don’t think I recognized your score.  It was a 32.


“Our next person that we would like to recognize is Colton Teague.  Is Colton here?  Colton has a score of 30.  This is a composite score.  Again, just an outstanding score for an outstanding young man.  Colton, congratulations to you, and would you tell us a little bit about maybe some of your plans?”


“Yes, sir,” Teague replied.  “After this summer I hope to attend college this fall, possibly at UT Martin, where I want to major in biology.  From there, I hope to attend med school in Memphis, and I want to specialize in oncology.”


“Fantastic,” Miskelly said.  “Our next student is Alexandria Hamm.  I don’t believe Alexandria is here tonight.  Next, from Adamsville High School, we have Lauren Aristorenas.  Lauren has a ACT composite score of 32, and I can tell you I’ve seen here at a lot of banquets and a lot of things being recognized as an all-around student and we certainly congratulate and commend you.”


“Thank you,” Aristorenas replied.  “I am going to attend the University of Notre Dame this fall, and I’m going to major in business and then, after I graduate, go to graduate school.”


“Our next one,” Miskelly continued, “from Adamsville High School, is Lacy Hampton,” who was not present.  


“Again,” Miskelly summed up, “I can’t stress to you how outstanding that score is that they have completed on the American College Test, and they have represented McNairy County and the school system well, and I know they will continue to do that.  So, again, we applaud you for your efforts and thank you for being here tonight, and we just wanted to recognize you because it is an outstanding honor and we appreciate what you’ve done in high school.”

 

* * * 


And with that board chairman Frank Lacey proceeded with the regular agenda.  “Item number three [numbers one and two were the “call to order” and Miskelly’s presentations] is our certified personnel report.  Item four is the classified personnel report.”


At this point board member Johnny Blakely spoke up.  Item C in the classified personnel report referred to the employment of Mandy Blakely as assistant bookkeeper, and Blakely told the board that “Mandy Blakely, in full disclosure, is my daughter-in-law.  She holds an accounting degree from the University of North Alabama.  She’s been working in the Corinth High School in the accounting department for five years.”


“In regard to that,” board member Larry Smith asked, “did we as a board, did we vote to establish that position yet?”


“No, we have not,” Miskelly responded sharply.  “We talked about it, and I asked you for your recommendations and support, and told you that I was going to pursue that, and you did not say a word.”


“You indicated we were going to do that,” Smith said.  “I don’t see it until the next budget year, is the way I understood it.”


“It is,” Miskelly replied.


“But the board,” Smith began, then he started over.  “What’s the salary going to be?


“Well, we’re working on that,” Miskelly responded.  “Mrs. Blakely has indicated that she probably prefers to work part-time.  She has a degree from the University of North Alabama, has five years of experience, and probably is going to be somewhere in the range of $18,000.  Eighteen to twenty.”


“Did we advertise the position?” Smith asked.


“We typically don’t advertise those positions,” Miskelly replied, “except word of mouth and for what we’ve done.”


“Why would you not?” Smith persisted.  “You know, I’ve had some people ask me about it, who were interested—”


“And I’ve had several applications for that,” Miskelly said, “and I’ve talked with several people.”


“You know,” Smith persisted, “we talked about this position for twelve years, that I know of—”


“You’re exactly right,” Miskelly interrupted.


“I agree that we need the position,” Smith said.  “I’m not saying that.  But, you know, I think something, a position of that significance—I’m not saying anything about the lady, don’t know her—but I would certainly like to have seen it advertised, and—”


“Did you express that, that night?” Miskelly interrupted.


“Well,” Smith responded, “I assumed that it would be advertised—”


“Did you express that, that night?” Miskelly petulantly interrupted again.


“We didn’t have a vote on it, Mr. Miskelly,” Smith replied.  “We just voted to establish the position.”


Miskelly demanded, “I asked that night, did I not?*  I said, I am asking—”


Smith continued to press for an answer. “Why would you not advertise it the same as you would any other position—”


“We don’t,” Miskelly interrupted, his voice rising, “I don’t ever advertise for a—"


Smith interrupted in turn. “A position of that significance, you don’t advertise?”


“No sir, I don’t,” Miskelly replied.


“Well,” Smith said, “I think you should develop a policy in regard to that.”


“Then I’ll take your input,” Miskelly said, somewhat ambiguously.


“You’ll work on one?” Smith persisted.


“Okay,” Miskelly said, dismissively, before repeating, “We had several quality applicants, and talked to several.”

 

* * * 


Lacey brought the tense exchange to an end by calling for a motion to approve the consent agenda.  The motion was provided by Tony Chapman, seconded by Blakely, and passed by a unanimous voice vote, as did a motion (made by Jean Jones and seconded by Lynn Baker) to approve the list of teachers recommended for tenure.


The next agenda item was the 2008-2009 Federal Projects Consolidated Application.  Miskelly explained that “this is our, what we call our consolidated plan for our federal dollars and for the title programs and where they will go. There’s people that have worked on this.  You see those names on the front of that sheet, there.  It’s allocating dollars for each school, and how they will be appropriated.  It’s a consolidated effort.  There’s not one person or one school.  Dr. Marti Thweatt is the one that heads that up, and they have done a very outstanding job, in my opinion, to submit that consolidated plan, and I submit it to you for your approval.”


And approved it was, by a unanimous voice vote on a motion by Chapman, seconded by Jones.


“Now, item C,” Lacey continued, “Policy Changes, second reading.  Separation Practices for Tenured Teachers.  Separation Practices for Non-Tenured Teachers.  Separation Practices for Non-Certified Employees.  Military Leave.  Director of Schools Recruitment and Selection.  Any discussion on these?  If not, I’ll entertain a motion.”


The motion was provided by Smith, seconded by Jones, and passed by a unanimous voice vote.


Turning then to “Custodial Supplies Bids for 2008-2009,” after a short discussion the board voted unanimously (on a motion by Smith, seconded by Baker) to “approve the low bid on each individual item, regardless of vendor.


The next item was “Garbage Pick-Up Bid for 2008-2009.”  Only one bid having been submitted, the board approved it unanimously on a motion by Smith, seconded by Jones.


Lacey then asked for a motion to table the next agenda item (6.F.  Ask County Commission to Call for a Referendum on the 1/2 Cent Sales Tax) “because I was under the understanding we were going to have a meeting with the budget committee.”  The motion, made by Chapman and seconded by Jones, passed unanimously.

 

* * * 


Lacey then turned to Miskelly for the director of schools reports.


“7A is your revenue report,” Miskelly began.  “I think you’ll find it in pretty good shape.  I have spent a good deal of time over the last few days working on the budget for next year, and should have that, maybe, for a presentation in the next week or so.  So if some time somebody wants to meet and discuss and look at the budget and talk about some of the items that we’ve talked about, and we’ll certainly entertain that thought.  7B is your school financial reports.  7C is your nutrition report.  A couple of items that I apologize for.  [These are items which had not been included on the printed agenda.]  Nobody’s fault but mine.  One thing I’m going to ask you to do, or entertain, is that Ms. Walters has submitted a list [of items to be declared surplus], and also I’m adding to that list a 3000 Ford tractor at Adamsville High School.  I’m asking you to declare those as surplus, and for us to take sealed bids on those things, because, in my opinion, I think we could gain a lot more than just selling them at auction as we generally do in June, of surplus items, and I think these items would benefit the schools and the school system to take sealed bids on these things….  My request is that you declare those as surplus items.”


Responding to a question from Chapman, Miskelly said that the system could reject any bid that it thought was too low, and the items were unanimously declared surplus on a motion by Smith, seconded by Jones.


Miskelly continued.  “The other thing that I would like your approval of is the Selmer Dixie Youth approached, just in the last few days, about adding a canopy—did each one of you get a picture and copy of that?—at the ball field down at the city park.  You see a picture, I think it’s twenty-four by thirty-six, pavilion, I guess you’d call it.  They have described it, their purpose, the location, and who is going to be paying for it.  I just told them that the school system owned that property, and it would be in best interest if you approved them building that.”


“It’s going to take up part of the parking lot?” Chapman asked.


“No, it’s at the side.  You remember, last year we gave them permission to build that field three for the four-year-olds, and I’ve heard a lot of positive comments from that.  That’s one of the biggest jobs they’ve had.  I think, you know, the concern is, they just don’t have anything to get under on hot days, or rainy days, or anything between games, or whatever.  So, like I said, they approached me and I told them that if they’d draw it up and submit it I would ask you for your approval.”


Chapman made a motion to approve the request, which was seconded by Jones and passed by a unanimous voice vote. 


After a brief mention of the graduation schedule, Miskelly asked, “Does anybody have questions of me?”


Smith did.  “These building additions that we were talking about.  Where are we at on those?”


“Michie school has a concrete pad poured,” Miskelly replied.  “Bethel school, talked to Jeff Vaughn, in fact I talked, he came by about six o’clock.  He was on his way to Savannah.  He said he had been to Bethel today to measure and get a more accurate description of some things, developing the plans for those.  And still some discussion about Ramer.  And that’s where we are.”


Lacey then reminded the board members to turn in their evaluations of the director of schools by the 15th.  “We will have a review of that with Mr. Redmon at the June 12 meeting.”


Then, returning to the referendum item which was tabled earlier in the meeting, Lacey said, “I also would like to, I guess we need to set a meeting date, with this board and the county mayor and the budget committee, and if you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Miskelly, if you will get with the county mayor and the chairman of the committee and y’all come up with a good time that we can meet about this thing we tabled.”


Miskelly agreed to do so, and shortly thereafter Smith asked, “Are we going to meet again on the budget?”


Lacey replied, “If y’all would like to meet again on the budget, we can set that date in conjunction with the county mayor and the budget committee.  That will be fine.  We’ll just allocate a little more time for us to go over that.  Any other comments?”


“Yeah,” Smith responded. “I have another request.  If we’re going to have something like Mr. Petty, the principal, I’d like to know about it.  [Rusty Petty was named principal of Ramer School the previous week and was pictured in the Independent Appeal with Miskelly and Johnny Blakely]  I don’t know about the rest of the board, but I’d like to know about it myself.  Have the opportunity to attend, and what not, when something like that’s going on….  I’d like to know before I read it in the paper—”


“Well,” Miskelly said, huffily, “in response to that, if you’re referring to me, I didn’t set the thing for Mr. Petty at Ramer School.  The faculty set that.  In fact, they invited me.”


“I’m just making a statement of fact,” Smith said.  “I’d like to know—”


Miskelly interrupted Smith abruptly: “I’m making a statement of fact to tell you that I didn’t set it.”


“I didn’t say you did,” Smith responded, accurately.


“I’m just telling you,” Miskelly said defiantly to Smith (who, with his fellow board members, will be submitting evaluations of the director of schools by June 15).


Lacey said,“Let’s be sure that our principals know that we, and have our phone numbers and email addresses, and maybe we can get a better system of communication.”


“Most of us have faxes and different things like that—” Smith began, only to be interrupted by Lacey.


“If you’ll let me finish.  And then maybe we can try to get our communication lines established more efficiently.  I do think it’s important that we are communicated with, but I think there’s a responsibility on both ends, and if they don’t have them, maybe we should make sure that they do have them.  If we don’t have an email address or a phone, I guess we need to tell them the best way to get in touch with us.”

 

* * * 


Lacey then ended the discussion.  “Any other board member?  Anyone in the audience?  Yes, sir?  Could you step forward, and if you don’t mind, state your name?”


Kevin Lott identified himself and then asked, “Will this be the only vote on tenure of teachers?”


“I guess,” Lacey replied.  “Until next year.”


“Until next year?” Lott repeated.  “Could I find out who recommends teachers for tenure?”


“I believe it’s the time served, and the principals?” Lacey said, looking at Miskelly for confirmation.


Miskelly said, “Principals recommend to the director of schools, director of schools recommends to the board.”


“My wife,” Lott continued, “she started at Adamsville three years, this is her second completed year at Selmer Middle School, and her name was not on the ballot [referring to the list of teachers who had been approved for tenure earlier in the meeting].  I didn’t know if that was the reason, that she changed schools, but she’s not on there?”


“It wasn’t on there,” Miskelly confirmed, shortly.


“What I would recommend is,” Lacey suggested, “when you have time, come up and visit with the director of schools, and he can—”


As Lacey was speaking Heather Lott came up beside her husband and said to Lacey,  “I didn’t hear what you’re saying.”


“What I would recommend is,” Lacey repeaded, “when you have time come up and talk to the director of schools, and he can explain how the decisions are made, or what’s made, the way tenure is recommended is the principals at the schools make recommendations to him, and then he in turn makes it to us.  If it wasn’t made, you can present it to him and he can give you—”


Mrs. Lott asked, “But it just means I don’t get tenure, is all that means?  Called out tonight?”


Miskelly responded. “The only thing I would say is that, I’m not correcting Mr. Lacey, the principals can make recommendations for tenure.  They could do it at any other time.  Typically it is done tonight.”


“So I can still get tenure?” Mrs. Lott asked.


“Well, there would be a possibility,” Miskelly replied in a tone that lacked encouragement.  “Have you had a conversation— I’m sorry.”


Lott said, “Well, her last conversation was this afternoon,” then he asked, “Is it solely up to the principal?”


Miskelly repeated, “It’s up to the principal to recommend to me, who recommends to the board.”


“Thank you,” Lott said, and then his wife asked, “What do I need to do to—”


Miskelly replied, “One thing I would suggest is that you have a conversation with your principal.”


Mrs. Lott asked, “And there’s paperwork that needs to be filled out by him, or is it word of mouth kind of thing, that—”


Miskelly interrupted. “There’s evaluations that have been done on you.”


“All my evaluations have been positive—” Mrs. Lott began, only to be interrupted again by Miskelly.


“I’m not going to discuss that,” the director of schools said.  “I’m just going to say, you asked about paperwork, evaluations have been done.”


“But besides that,” Mrs. Lott persisted, “I’m talking about for the tenure—”


“Recommendations,” her husband interjected.


“—recommendations—” Mrs. Lott said, only to be interrupted one last time by the impatient director of schools.


“Recommendations come from the principal, to me, to this board of education,” Miskelly repeated.


“But there’s nothing I need to do, paperwork and such?” Mrs. Lott asked.


“No," Miskelly said, tersely.


“Thank you,” Mrs. Lott said, then she and her husband returned to their seats.


The meeting then adjourned on a motion by Chapman, seconded by Jones.


*[Here is the entire exchange, from the April meeting: 


Miskelly resumed.  “One other thing that I would point out, or ask, also in the budget process.  I think we’ve discussed this before.  I think it’s a known fact that there is a real need for an assistant bookkeeper in the central office, and I’m going to work to try to secure someone for that position and include that in the budget for 2008-2009.  The workload continues to mount.  In fact, I met with the auditor today, and everything that’s being added to that plate, we just continue to struggle to meet the guidelines from the state.  And so I would ask your support there, as—”


“How many do we have now?” Chapman asked.


“Well,” Miskelly replied, “we actually have Ms B., Ms Wanda Johnson works one, maybe sometimes two days a week part-time, but she has told me that this will be her last year.  We have Ms Connie Henson, through Mr. Redmon’s office, after school, that comes and helps pay bills occasionally, every hour, or every few hours every week, not much.  And I think the point is, I don’t know, some of you may know other districts and whatever, but—”


“We have five people,” Chapman interjected.


“Well,” Miskelly continued, “that’s what I was fixing to say.  I went to a meeting last week, and there were several districts that brought four and five people there.  So I think we have been lucky, we’ve been fortunate, whatever the right word is, we’ve gotten by as long as we have with one dedicated individual employee, and I think, I think she needs some help, and think she probably recognizes that at this time she needs some help.  And so I ask your support that we secure a person to help in that office.  Anybody have a question or comment about that?”


“It will be in our new budget?” Lacey asked, to which Miskelly replied affirmatively.

 

 

April Board Meeting

10 April 2008

School Board Chairman Frank Lacey began the board's April meeting by calling on Patsy Fuller, the school system's gifted coordinator, for a report last month's spelling bee, sponsored by the Jackson Sun.

"Thank you," Fuller began.  "I'd like to thank Mr. Miskelly for inviting me to come to this meeting tonight.  A few days ago I went and shared with Mr. Miskelly the news about the Jackson Sun Spelling Bee, and I was so excited about it that he asked if I would come tonight and speak to you about it.

"The boys and girls of McNairy County schools just continue to amaze.  This year we had five students that went to the Karl Perkins Civic Center to be in the Jackson Sun Spelling Bee….  There were forty-four students that participated in the spelling bee, and five of those students were from McNairy County."  Two of those students, Christopher Dove from Ramer Elementary and Preston Shackleford from Selmer Middle School, were present and briefly described their experience.

"Our students just did a fantastic job," Fuller said, summing up.  "I was just so impressed with them.  Thank you," she said to the two students who stood there beside her.

"For next year," she continued, "we plan on starting something in the after-school program, so that we can work toward this over a longer period of time, and maybe even have a competition between schools.  Continuing this, but have a competition between schools.

"And, before I forget, let me tell you that the winner of the competition going to Washington, D.C., from this was a former Michie student.  He was at Michie for four years.  So McNairy County really did do well in this competition, and I foresee many winners from McNairy County.  Our students did a fantastic job."

* * *

As Fuller and the two students returned to their seats, Lacey observed that Director of Education Charlie Miskelly had a presentation to make.

"I think most of you are aware now," Miskelly began, "that Dr. Martha Glover is with us tonight, and Dr. Glover is going to be inducted into the Tennessee Teachers Hall of Fame on April  the 26th in Nashville.  We have asked, I've asked Dr. Glover to come tonight.  We want to present her a certificate.  Also, I believe it's Monday, there's going to be a film crew here to recognize Dr. Glover and take some film of McNairy Central High School, and Dr. Glover there.  And then on Wednesday, the 16th, we plan to host a reception for Dr. Glover out at McNairy Central from 3:30 to 5:00, and all of you are certainly invited to that.  But we just want to say thank you for the recognition and the outstanding job.  I never had a chance to work with Dr. Glover, but I've heard many, many stories and many good things about her excellence in McNairy County, and what she did for education.  So at this time I'd ask Dr. Glover to come and say a few words, and I'd like to present her with this certificate on behalf of the board of education."

"First of all," Glover said, after accepting the certificate, "I want to give thanks to McNairy County for, in 1963, inviting me and my husband to come home to teach.  We were in Fayette County, and we were making something like $2,800 a year.  And just to be able to come home and live close to our parents and all the people that we'd grown up with was wonderful.  And Terry Burns was in my first class that I taught.  He got me on a good footing.  He and Ronnie Teague.  But, again, all of this recognition should really go back to, I think, probably the most wonderful faculty that I ever had the privilege of working with, and that was McNairy Central High School from the, in the 'eighties and the 'nineties.  And you just couldn't find a group that enjoyed working together more, or enjoyed working with children.  And put the children in the top category of their dedication.  So they deserve this, with me, and they're the ones that nominated me, so I'm going to have to give part of this to them.  So, thank you."

* * *

Lacey then proceeded with the regular order of business. "Next on our agenda we've got the certified personnel report, that's for your review.  The classified personnel report.  And we've got the consent agenda.  Is there a motion?"  Jean Jones made the motion, which was seconded by Larry Smith and passed unanimously.

"Hey, Frank," Tony Chapman said as Lacey prepared to move on to the next item, "don't we need to mention the non-renewal of non-tenured teachers?  For the record?"

"That used to be a requirement," Johnny Blakely observed.  "I don't know if it is now or not."

"It wouldn't hurt anything," Chapman pointed out, so for the next three minutes Chairman Lacey read aloud the names of those non-tenured teachers who had not been renewed for the following year.

The board then unanimously approved, on a motion by Chapman, seconded by Jones, a request by Bethel Springs Elementary School for a new copier, before turning to the first reading of policies regarding Separation Practices for Tenured Teachers, Separation Practices for Non-Tenured Teachers, Separation Practices for Non-Certified Employees, Military Leave, and Director of Schools Recruitment and Selection.  The first readings were unanimously approved, after minimal discussion, on a motion by Chapman, seconded by Larry Smith.

* * *

There was clearly more to the discussion of the next agenda item, "Evaluation of Director of Schools," than met the eye.  In fact, to understand the discussion it is necessary to recollect what took place at the board's meeting on 11 May 2006, which was reported in some detail in an article by Russell Ingle which appeared in the 17 May 2006 edition of the Independent-Appeal under the headline, "School board divided: Board members split over Director of Schools evaluation process." Here is the article:

 

On Thursday, May 11, the McNairy County Board of Education met in regular session at the McNairy County Courthouse.

Though there were other items on the agenda, the Director of Schools contract took center stage.

On Wednesday, April 14, 2004, a story was published in the Independent Appeal titled “School Board takes first step to begin annual evaluation of Director of Schools”. As of Thursday, May 11, in the two years since that meeting, the board had not yet evaluated the Director.

The subject came to light when the Director of Schools contract was brought up for renewal.

School Board member Frank Lacey made the motion that Director of Schools Charlie Miskelly’s contract be renewed starting July 1, 2007 and expiring June 30, 2009. Board member Johnny Blakely seconded the motion.

Board member Larry Smith raised a question concerning the evaluation process of the Director of Schools.

“In regard to that, as we discussed last time, we talked about the evaluation process at that time,” said Smith. “We laid the road map out to what we wanted to do in the system in 1999 before we had to appoint the first director of schools.”

In regards to the evaluation process, Smith said, “We have that in policy, we passed an evaluation form and we passed the criteria. I don’t have a problem with the job Mr. Miskelly does; however, as a member of this board, I think we need to follow board policy in whatever we do and that evaluation form is a part of board policy and it has not been done.”

Smith went on to say he wanted the evaluation process to move forward before extending the Director’s contract and proceeded to offer copies of the approved evaluation form for the other board members to look at.

Board member Jean Jones said, “I was on the board at that time and we worked very hard going from an elected to an appointed superintendant. We had to follow state guidelines and state laws. We made policy according to state law, and I am going to abide by state law and I’m going to abide by policy.”

According to the contract agreed on between the Board of Education and Mr. Miskelly, an annual evaluation would take place. In section 10, entitled Performance Evaluation, of the actual agreement, the contract says, “Annually the Board shall review with the Director the Director’s performance as Director of the McNairy County School System; Director’s progress toward goals established by the Board and the Director; the working relationship of Director with the Board, the staff, the students and the community at large; and any other matters relative to the employment of the Director”.

‘I think we need to follow policy, too. I agree whole heartedly,” said Board member Frank Lacey. “ However, I don’t think Mr. Miskelly has been derelict in his duty, I think this board has been derelict in it’s duty. We’ve discussed this many times. If we are going to hold someone accountable to what we approve as policy, then we need to do it.”

Lacey then expressed his displeasure with the board’s ability to work together.

“I’ll be quite honest with you, I have been very disappointed in this board and the lack of being able to work together,” said Lacey. “We have known for six months this contract was coming up. Yet we have had time and the ability to do it. I don’t feel we have treated him [Miskelly] fairly by waiting this long.”

“If you want to do an evaluation, which we need to do, should do and have talked about, but we are good at talking but we are not good at following with our actions, we need to do it,” said Lacey. “We need to sit aside all of these personal agendas and try to act like a board. But it is not his [Miskelly] fault that we have not done the evaluation.”

Jones responded by saying, “I wanted to do an evaluation. I pleaded, I begged.”

“In ‘04 we passed out the forms and tried to evaluate him, but nobody would do it,” said board member Alvin Wilson.

“You’re exactly right Mr. Wilson,” replied Mr. Lacey. “We did go through it in ‘04 and nothing has ever come of it. ‘05 went by and now 06’.”

Board member Johnny Blakely asked if an official motion had ever been passed that would require the Director to be evaluated. The board reminded Blakely that Chairman Tony Chapman passed evaluation forms out during a past meeting, but were never filled out.

“The point is, we evaluate every certified person in the school system,” said Smith. “In keeping with the same mind-set, if we don’t evaluate the Director of Schools, if we ever have an issue come up we’re not going to be able to do anything about it because we never presented the problems to him.”

Smith felt the evaluation process would be in Miskelly’s best interest because it would allow him to work better in his position.

After more discussion of past attempts to set goals for and evaluate the Director, a vote to move forward on renewing the Director’s contract was called for.

The Director’s contract was renewed by a vote of 4 for, 1 against and 2 passes. Voting in favor of the contract extension were Lynn Baker, Johnny Blakely, Tony Chapman and Frank Lacey. Alvin Wilson voted against the contract extension. Jean Jones and Larry Smith did not vote based on their belief the board was in violation of state law and board policy.

After the vote, the board again began discussions concerning the evaluation of the Director of Schools. It was also said the Board itself should be evaluated. Mr. Lacey made a motion that the board set aside a time to get together with a mediator and set up short and long term goals for the school system. Lacey also suggested that a date be set annually for the Director of Schools to be evaluated during that meeting.

When Chairman Tony Chapman asked for a second to the motion, no one spoke up. It should be noted that this issue ended in the same manor as the 2004 meeting of the same topic. The Director’s contract was renewed, but no time table for an evaluation was set.

Former Governor Ned McWherter mandated the Director of Schools position be appointed instead of elected as part of the state’s Education Improvement Act in 1992. Miskelly was appointed McNairy County’s Director of Schools by the school board in the spring of 2000. 

 

Fast-forward back to this month's board meeting.

Frank Lacey, now the chairman of the board, read, "'Item 6.C., evaluation of director of schools.  I'll entertain a motion to start that process, as we did last year."

"We didn't do it last year," Larry Smith* said.  "We haven't done it in three years."  Several minutes of discussion followed, during which Chapman also stated that no evaluation had been done the previous year.

"We didn't do one," Blakely repeated.  "We made the motion, and we seconded the motion, and we passed the motion, and the deadline passed and we didn't do one.  That's right, because some people superceded that motion one night I was unable to be here, and passed another motion to have the TSBA do it.  That's how it come about."

"Your motion was to have one every year in March, I believe," Jones said.

"Well, now," Blakely replied, "I mean, that was superceded by whatever y'all did."

"I thought we voted on this, to have it every March," Jones repeated.

After a pause, Lacey said, "I have a motion by Mr. Blakely, seconded by Mr. Chapman, to use the standard TSBA evaluation form.  Get one to each board member, [who is to] give it back to Kevin Redmon.  Mr. Redmon will tabulate the results and get it to us in a report.  Any other discussion?"

"Time line?" Blakely asked.

"Probably have that out by the end of the week," Lacey said, "and then have them in to him by May the 15th.  Have our surveys in, our evaluations in to him by May 15th.  Suit everybody?"

After some further discussion, Lacey asked board secretary Terry Burns to read the motion back to the board.

"Motion was made by Mr. Blakely, seconded by Mr. Chapman, to used the standard form from TSBA to evaluate the director of schools and to, get Kevin Redmon to tabulate the results and have it— to give it to Kevin Redmon to tabulate the results, give it to him— by the 15th?" Burns asked.

"We turn them in by the 15th," Jones confirmed.

"—May the 15th," Burns continued.  "And he will return it to the board.  By the June meeting."

The motion carried by a unanimous vote.

* * *

Lacey then called on Miskelly for the director of schools reports.

"7.A.," Miskelly began, "is your revenue report.  I think we're in decent shape there.  Our property taxes exceeded our estimate a little bit.  Still, some of those are a little bit down.  But, over all, I think our revenue report is in good shape, should be in good standing by the end of the year, but I'll answer any question anybody has about the revenue report.

"7. B. is the bid that we're, re-bid on the four-classroom addition at Michie Schools.  I think I contacted all of you, and made you aware that those bids were, I believe it was $18,100 more than the original bid.  It wasn't any one item; it was just about every item was a little bit more across the board.  There was a couple, or four or five of them that were the exact same, but most of them had gone up a little, and I think that figures probably somewhere around 4-1/5, 4.6 percent, something like that.  So, the increase probably isn't running as much as I even anticipated.

"7. C. is just information there—"

Lacey interrupted to say that "it sure would be nice" if there were "more McNairy County bids….  I know we can't make them bid on it, but I sure wish they would."

"7. C.," Miskelly continued, "is just the information we had talked about, differentiated pay guidelines, and this one is, it's my understanding after our meeting the other day, that this one is the only one that had been submitted to the state of Tennessee and approved, or it was at that time.  This one basically involves a plan of action for professional development."

"7 D. E. and F. are award winners for national competition at Adamsville and McNairy Central High School, to make you aware of those young people."

"7. G.  There was a suggestion to have a work session about the budget.  April 29th, I believe, is a Tuesday night, is one of the dates that was suggested."  After some discussion the board agreed to hold the work session at 7:00 p.m. on April 29.

"7. H.," Miskelly continued, referring to the agenda item headed Budget Discussion, "and these are just some things that I've included in the packet that have come up that deal with the budget.  Obviously, we've talked about buildings.  You see some reports in here, and some requests, from McNairy Central, from Adamsville High School, from Selmer Middle School, about gym, gym floors, bleachers, little theatre.  I guess it is my hope that maybe that we could build some of these things into that budget and look at April 29th, and I don't think we need to take action on them right now.  Obviously, timing is going to be a very important part of that, because when you start dealing with gyms and bleachers and the little theatres.  So we're going to be behind the eight ball a little bit, but I would hope and think that we would study these and see if, first of all, if this board thinks they are, I don't know the right word, not legitimate requests, but requests that are worthy, that we could address in a budget for next year.  Obviously, some of these items are very expensive, and some of them are very needed.  And we've talked about some of them.  But these are things that I would ask you to evaluate and look over and bring your thoughts too on April the 29th to see if you would support or want to try to incorporate these in the budget for capital outlay or whatever building projects or whatever for next year.  Anybody have a particular question about any one of those things?"

"Do you have an H.4?" Chapman asked, referring to the absence of any material in his packet relating to item H. 4., "Little Theatre—MCHS."

"I did not have an H. 4." in the packet, Miskelly replied.  "I've asked Mr. Ryan for a rate, to help me with some of the things that we've talked about over the year.  He seems to have maybe some idea of what maybe the little theatre would need to dress it up and to give it a face lift for that particular [unintelligible word, door?].  I do not have anything, he has not gotten back with me yet.  Also, while I'm there, let me mention that the state is requiring our cafeterias, four of them, I don't know that I can close them all four right now, but to undergo some remodeling with exhaust systems and fans, and those are going to be quite expensive.  Obviously, they will be paid for out of cafeteria funds, but what we're going to try to do there is to try to get Jeff Vaughn and his mechanical engineer to maybe draw up the plans for all four of them at one time, and study those and get everything prepared, and then probably, the state has given us three years to get those four cafeterias addressed.  So we're going to ask Jeff and his mechanical engineer to come up with a plan to do that and have everything in order to address that next summer.  So I'll just simply make you aware of that.  That obviously will be a very expensive issue.  Probably each one of those exhaust systems, and remodeling those cafeterias, are probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 apiece.  And on top of that the plans, and what have you.  I just wanted to make you aware of that."

"Can I ask you a question about the gym floor?" Blakely asked.  "Or make a comment.  Frankly, I was a little confused about what I was reading about here.  It appears that the gym floors are blamed for injuries.  But the doctor didn't say that.  What he did say, I'm not sure I understand.  So maybe you or somebody can help me.  He says, 'While there is no clinical evidence to prove that shock-absorption floors would prevent injury, there is belief that the proper floor with ample shock absorption can reduce the increased incidents of potential injuries.'  I read that about six times, and I still don't know what it says."

"I think there's two sides to that issue," Miskelly said.

"I think," Blakely began, then he started over.  "Have there been any injuries on Adamsville's floor?  Have there been any injuries on Ramer's  or Michie's or …"

"I think the point is," Miskelly began, then he, too, started over.  "I respect what you've read there, and respect what you've seen there, but obviously I think, I have seen and heard reports that, over the years, that—I certainly hope no one takes this wrong, but, again, there's two sides to that issue, that evidently ladies basketball, girl's activities have increased, and the activity maybe has increased to the point that young ladies have not, physically able to meet the demands, and there's been an increase in injuries nationwide because of that increase in activity and strenuous demands.  So I think, obviously, there are some sides to that, two or three sides to that issue.  I think that's probably why he wobbled a little bit when he said that, would be my opinion.  But again, I'm not a doctor."

After some further discussion, Miskelly moved on. "7. I. is your Tennessee Risk Management Trust trustee.  Mr. Lacey has served in that capacity, and I would ask support his re-nomination, or reappointment to that board.  If anybody has exception to that, or has something else.  But I think Mr. Lacey has done a good job with that board, and I think it's an honor that we have somebody locally here to serve on that board.  So I would just ask for your support for his nomination back to that board.  Anybody have a comment about that?"

No one did.

Miskelly resumed.  "One other thing that I would point out, or ask, also in the budget process.  I think we've discussed this before.  I think it's a known fact that there is a real need for an assistant bookkeeper in the central office, and I'm going to work to try to secure someone for that position and include that in the budget for 2008-2009.  The workload continues to mount.  In fact, I met with the auditor today, and everything that's being added to that plate, we just continue to struggle to meet the guidelines from the state.  And so I would ask your support there, as—"

"How many do we have now?" Chapman asked.

"Well," Miskelly replied, "we actually have Ms B., Ms Wanda Johnson works one, maybe sometimes two days a week part-time, but she has told me that this will be her last year.  We have Ms Connie Henson, through Mr. Redmon's office, after school, that comes and helps pay bills occasionally, every hour, or every few hours every week, not much.  And I think the point is, I don't know, some of you may know other districts and whatever, but—"

"We have five people," Chapman interjected.

"Well," Miskelly continued, "that's what I was fixing to say.  I went to a meeting last week, and there were several districts that brought four and five people there.  So I think we have been lucky, we've been fortunate, whatever the right word is, we've gotten by as long as we have with one dedicated individual employee, and I think, I think she needs some help, and think she probably recognizes that at this time she needs some help.  And so I ask your support that we secure a person to help in that office.  Anybody have a question or comment about that?"

"It will be in our new budget?" Lacey asked, to which Miskelly replied affirmatively.

* * *

The next item discussed at the April meeting was not on the agenda, but it was familiar to those who have followed recent meetings—the fairground/saddle club situation.

"The only other thing I have," Miskelly began, "Mr. Ray Prather is here tonight.  I just got, Mr. Kennedy [Board Attorney Craig Kennedy] couldn't be here tonight.  Mr. Kennedy called me this afternoon and said Mr. Prather had talked to him, and I shared the copy of the agreement that Mr. Kennedy had drawn up.  Actually, I have not seen that agreement until tonight, but I shared it with you, and I think Mr. Prather has a concern, is that fair?"

"Right," Prather agreed.  "Item four, there, if you will.  We agree with everything in it, and we appreciate the use of it.  Like I said, we've been out there forty years, for you people who weren't here last month, and we do appreciate the use of the fairground and the arena, and being able to have our horse shows out there.  The item number four, though, the last sentence there begins, 'The McNairy County Equine Association understands and agrees that anytime the gates are left unlocked because of the failure of the Equine Association or its members to lock the gate, that the Association [will need??] to lose the right to maintain its locks on the gate.'  Now, our problem is, I would hate to be the person who left the gate unlocked, because the rest of the group not be able to ride out there and have our shows.  So, we intend to leave it locked every time we leave there, but people being people, you know, sometimes we get so busy with stuff and forget to do something.  But, anyway, our intention is to keep it locked, and we'll be dealing about that, and so forth, but if we could change that sentence there to—  I'd hate to lose the right, anyway, to meet there, because we left it unlocked one time, so if we would just strike that sentence out, because the sentence before it, 'shall have the responsibility and obligation to lock the gates after each use of the property' should be sufficient.  But otherwise, like I said, we do appreciate the use of it, and we have been careful about keeping it in good repair, and whatever, you know, keeping it clean."

After some discussion of the number of locks and keys and who had access to them, Larry Smith observed that there was nothing in the agreement regarding when it started or its duration.

"I noticed that myself," Prather said.  "But we understand that we can meet out there and have our shows and whatever, at the discretion of the board, and any time that, reasonable notice, that we expect to give it up."

"I think that needs to be in there," Chapman said.

"My next question is," Smith said, returning to an issue he had raised at earlier meetings, "what are we going to do when somebody else wants to use for, another equipment auction or something like that, in the way of rent, and so on?  Obviously, I didn't see in here where there's any rent to be charged, or any kind of fees—"

"There's not," Prather acknowledged.

"—so, what are we going to do in that respect when somebody else wants to use it for whatever might be the reason?" Smith concluded.

"Well," Miskelly said, "I'm not, certainly not speaking for Mr. Kennedy, I can't speak for myself, much less him.  Am I off base that Mr. Kennedy maybe had two jobs?  One was to get an agreement with these people, and then, two, I think that's a different situation, was to come up with some type of policy and procedure for what you're talking about."

"I understand that," Smith replied, "but this has no monetary thing in it, and as we talked about in a previous meeting, if we charged the boy that had the auction out there the other day, then we have to charge these folks, or vice versa."

"Again," Miskelly replied, "I'm saying Mr. Kennedy would be the one that needs to answer that question, and he's not here tonight."

"I don't have any problem with an agreement," Smith persisted, "but I'm just saying we're going to have to do the same thing for every body, the one we do for the others."

"Well," Prather offered, "we helped clear the fairgrounds, and made it what it is, and so I guess that was our payment, you know, back when, so—"

Chapman interrupted to offer his support. "Well, I think you can probably grandfather one group in, and then, kind of, you know, something where you can charge, future, would be my understanding."

"I'm talking too much, here," Miskelly said, before talking some more.  "Like I said, I only received this, I got a phone call from Mr. Kennedy, five o'clock this afternoon, he said that he could not be here.  He said that he had had conversation with Mr. Prather.  Mr. Prather had concern about one of the things in this agreement.  I simply ran off the agreement to share it with you. My personal opinion would be, that you would study this, and we would continue to operate like we're doing until next month until Mr. Kennedy was here to give you an answer to some of those questions and concerns that you have."

Chapman added, "I think we probably need to ask him to look at this sentence that Ray has a problem with, and see if we can change it or modify it somehow."

"One other point," Prather interjected.  "We have got the insurance and provided certification for the million dollar policy, naming the school board the beneficiary.  Or, beneficiary is not the right word, but, anyway.  But you're covered."

"I'm in agreement with Mr. Chapman," Blakely said, "or whoever said that, because I think we need to have a time frame.  A year, or two years, or whatever, so that if you decide, you can come back and say 'We're not satisfied with all of this or part of this,' we would rework it or throw it out or whatever."

Chapman replied, "I would think that we could put in there that, at our discretion, since we own the property.  Anytime.  If you put it in there that it can be broken at any time, by either party.  You could, if there's no monetary, other than them paying for the water and electricity.  I would think you could just break the agreement any time."

"That's not much of an agreement," Blakely observed, dryly.

"Well," Lacey said, "I think that's what we're missing.  The term here, this is an agreement, is it a lease, is this a rent, is it anything other than an agreement.  And you might could say, a gentlemen's agreement.  So I think we need Mr. Kennedy here to explain exactly to us what's involved in the agreement.  How much liability, or how much, how tied are we to an agreement."

* * *

After some further discussion of what Kennedy needed to cover at the next month's meeting, Miskelly said, "Last thing.  One other thing.  A few months ago we passed a policy that had basically been handed to us from the state, addressing school support organizations.  Had a meeting, had a gentleman come and address our principals, and [completion??] clubs, and different organizations that operate in the school system, addressing that issue of school support organizations.  Basically, to me it boils down to, number one, either those groups will turn over their funds to the schools and those funds will be run through the schools, or those organizations will apply for a 501(3)B or whatever it is, charitable organization, and adopt some guidelines which the state says they must adopt.  That law, right now, is still being tweaked in Nashville.  There's some debate about how much [unintelligible word] they're going to hold those organizations to.  But that does go into effect July 1, so if you hear—  My point to those organizations and those people that were here, we're not doing anything, or forcing anybody to do anything.  It's not Charlie Miskelly, or it's not the McNairy County Board of Education.  We're simply following the law that has been adopted to go into effect July 1, 2008.  And, so, you know, I think some people have some concern about it, and obviously we do to, but, again, all we're trying to do is follow the law and follow the policy.  Does anybody have a question, or something I haven't addressed that you'd like to note, or ask?" 

The meeting then adjourned, on a motion by Blakely, seconded by Chapman.

*The speaker of these words was incorrectly identified in the original report as Johnny Blakely, who brought the mistake to my attention on 16 April in an explanatory email, which is reproduced below. 

Mr. Townsend

FYI- The remarks attributed to me "-- we havent't done one in three years--" were actually spoken by someone else.

Further- Regarding your comments and insertion of the May '06 article from the IA; at the next meeting of the Board, I moved that "we proceed with the Superintendent evaluation and move on it no later than July 1, and to conduct an evaluation of the Superintendent each year thereafter by June 15th, and to use the model approved in 1999 with a CPA tallying the results if necessary. Make results public. It will be done by individual appointments. Results will be compiled and averaged."  Smith seconded and motion carried. This meeting was held 06/08/06.

 Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was unable to attend the meeting in July '06 and the Board modified my motion to allow the TSBA to conduct the evaluation. This was completed and Randall Bennett with the TSBA presented the evaluation findings to the Board on 10/12/06, which were positive in nature. As this was completed so late in the year it would have probably been counter-productive to do another 6 months later so we are now on the yearly timeline schedule. 

 This is what I was referring to in my comments on 04/10/08. If I misspoke (sounds like any one of the three Presidential candidates) and left the impression that I thought we never did one I regret it- I think (relying on my memory only) that what I was referring to when I said "-- we never did one--" was the point that we never did what my original motion said concerning a local CPA tabulating the reults but instead hired the TSBA to do the evaluation.

 I hope this perspective will shed some light on the comments made and if you find it worthwhile will make some modifications to your report.

Thanks for providing a needed service to McNairy Countians (even if I sometimes disagree with what you write)

 johnny  

 

 

March Board Meeting

13 March 2008

The March meeting of the McNairy County School Board began with Johnny Blakely in the chair.  "In Chairman Lacey's absence due to critical illness in his family," he explained, "I will be sitting in tonight."  Also absent was board member Alvin Wilson.  

Blakely proceeded immediately to the first agenda item and called on Liz Redmon, for a presentation on "Project Success."  

"One of the things that I've tried to do over the years," Redmon began, "is kind of work with the schools to see what their needs are and then try to find funds to meet that change.  We've had the after-school program at six schools, and then Adamsville Junior and Senior High School has a LEAF grant, which is a year-by-year grant.  And McNairy Central has never felt like they needed an after-school program.  But back in the winter I happened to notice a grant application for dropout prevention, and I knew that they were concerned about graduation rate, and that it was going to be going up, and so forth.  So I went to them, and I said, 'What about this?  Is there something that, is there something we can do to help you help this student be more successful and to graduate?'  And Christie King and Molly Cheshire said, 'Oh, yes.  Oh, yes.'  And so we started brainstorming as to what we could do, in relation to this grant called 'Project Success.'  And this is a one-year type thing.  It's just from now until the time school's out.  But it focuses on seniors, and what we did, we decided that a lot of times what they need is just a cheerleader.  Well, what works better than a coach?  You know, everybody likes a coach. Well, this is their coach. [Indicates the person beside her.]  Would you try harder for this coach?  This is Jan Gaddis.  Jan did a maternity leave for Melissa Williams last year, and did an excellent job working at McNairy Central, and so as we were brainstorming who might be that graduation coach we just all three came up with the same name at the same time.  Well, she first told us that she was committed to working at QUINCO part time, so we just let it slide until we actually got the grant, and then I told them, 'I'm going to try one more time.'  So I went back and I said, 'Ms Jean, I think you're the one that we really need,' so she's working part time as the graduation coach.  But this is, that's kind of what I've been trying to do, is just to find money to meet the needs to help more of the girls be successful.  And so this is our latest thing that we've done."  

Gaddis then spoke briefly, saying that school officials had "identified about, I'm not sure of the number, twenty-eight to thirty students who just have a little bit of something, maybe one credit recovery class, one English paper, one something.  I mean they're not way far away from graduating, by any means, but, one student had a baby, you know we want to be sure she finishes, we want to cheer her on, so, that kind of thing.  Twenty-eight to thirty students, and I've met with most all of them.  I've been to the high school twice in the last two weeks.  So I'm going to meet with them once a week, every Wednesday if I can, and see as many as I can.  So I'm looking forward to it.  I love kids this age, and I feel like it's very important.  Sometimes it's just, one girl this week, she said 'Ms Jan, if I could just get this one, how to put the page numbers on that English paper, I can get this grade in and [unintelligible words] be right on track.  So we went to the library and we figured out how to put page numbers, and she was just overwhelmed by that.  So it's little things, you know?  Anyway, that's what I'm there for.  Whatever it is."

Blakely then listed the personnel reports and read through the items on the consent agenda (Minutes of the February 7 meeting, Financial Report, and Expenditure Report).  Jean Jones moved that the board approve the consent agenda and her motion, seconded by Tony Chapman, passed by unanimous voice vote.  

"Item number six," Blakely continued, "textbook adoption. You have a copy of the report of local adoption committee's handout there.  What's the will of the board?"  Larry Smith moved that the board approve the list and his motion, seconded by Jones, passed by unanimous voice vote.  

The board then unanimously approved (on a motion by Chapman, seconded by Jones) a request by the Director of Schools' office to enter into a new copier lease.  Director Charles Miskelly said, "I think the price that we're paying right now is approximately $120, so it will be about $32 a month increase, but obviously it's a little upgrade, all the buttons and things that come with new machines."  

There was a bit more discussion on the next agenda item, the 2008-2009 School Calendar. "It's pretty well basically the same format that we followed this year," Miskelly said.  "I think we've had a good calendar.  From my conversation with people across the county, they've expressed pleasure with the calendar, and basically it's a good calendar.  There's always 'whats,' 'ifs,' and 'ands,' but obviously it boils down to trying to meet the number of days and try to get a balanced calendar with a first semester and second semester that's pretty close, and work in the things that always fall in.  But it's pretty well essentially this year's calendar."  

"Everybody indicated they liked it?" Chapman asked.  

"Well," Miskelly replied, "98-99%.  You know, like I said, there was one or two comments back, asking a question why we did this, or why we did that, or something about one of the days, but I think we explained that.  We've had good feedback about the calendar."

 Chapman then made the motion to adopt the calendar, which was seconded by Smith, but before the vote Blakely said "I've got one question.  We are getting out at the end of the year a little earlier that we used to get out, and I think we're trading that for the beginning of school starting earlier.  Is everybody willing to accept that we may have hot weather again this year like we did last year?  Because it's a reward of getting out of school earlier, I guess, is what I'm asking." 

 "I've never heard that comment again [sic] this spring," Miskelly replied.  "I've never heard that discussion.  It is a little bit earlier, but again it falls, trying to work it out before Memorial Day and do the things that we do, is the reasoning behind that, but yes, sir, I'm aware, and I think most of us are, that it will be hot again in August." 

 Smith observed, "But if you change it, you can't change it more than a week or so—" 

 "That's right," Miskelly agreed.  

The motion passed by a unanimous voice vote.

 Miskelly then reviewed the various Director of Schools reports, beginning with the "Revenue Report. I would point out, the first line there, the property tax, is at 96%.  That's about, that's a little bit more than this time last year we had collected….  Overall, the revenue report is in pretty good standing.  I think we're in decent shape for these final few months.  Obviously, diesel fuel is one of our expenditures.  It's not on the revenue report, but obviously it's one of those things that runs a red flag, and we'll probably end up somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-five, forty, forty-five thousand dollars over." 

 "What about gas?" Smith asked.  "Natural gas?" 

 "Had the highest bill that McNairy County has ever had last month," Miskelly replied.  "Total of all utilities was a little bit over a hundred thousand dollars." 

 Miskelly also had news about an item that has been on the agenda of most recent meetings. "Let me skip to 7.H., first of all, the turning lane at McNairy Central that we've discussed.  Pickwick Electric has agreed to move the power pole that's about 300 feet up from where the turning lane would end or start.  And so they have agreed to move it over so it would let us make that turning lane about, probably 500 feet, give us more efficiency there for a turning lane.  And they've agreed to move that.  Mr. James Martin, Monday morning, flagged the line so that we can be sure that we do not move onto someone else's property.  I've asked Mr. Harvey Neal Smith to review that, and I've asked Mr. Kennedy to meet with the landowners to see if there are any concerns before, obviously, we do anything.  Probably, and I'm just thinking out loud, probably, if Pickwick Electric would move the pole during spring break, if that could be worked out, … but probably it would be summer before we would actually get the lane built.  Because obviously I don't think we should do it during school time, and traffic right now." 

 "If we're going to extend it," Smith said, "it will probably be a little more expensive than what we originally …." 

 "Well, obviously, yes, sir," Miskelly replied.  "I don't have a figure on that, either, but I don't think it would be that much more."

Another frequent agenda item has been school construction, and it too was on the March agenda.  Miskelly reminded the group that "we had talked at our meetings about some building plans, a week ago, about Ramer, and about Bethel.  Mr. English faxed me today just a response about Bethel's class rooms, because we had sort of discussed where those class rooms would be located, and we'd talked about two or four or a combination.  I've shared that sheet with you he sent me today.  We're also talking about four at Ramer, he did not respond to that, yet.  We've talked about maybe where that location might be at Ramer." 

Michie, in particular, has been a problem, and Miskelly had some good news there.  "And, I guess, I think that everybody kind of knows now that Michie is probably ready to talk with Mr. English, and I'm sure he's contacting the bidders that bid on that property to see if they're still in agreement with what they bid on those four classrooms, and he said he'd get back with us soon about that.  Question?  Comments, about the building program?"  

The board members had both comments and questions, and the discussion continued for some time.  Eventually, Larry Smith asked, "If we choose to go ahead with some of this, will there be any, there'd be a little bit of money left in that $475,000.  At least."

 "There could be," Miskelly replied, "if the prices haven't—" 

 "Prices haven't changed?" Smith finished for him. 

 "Do we have the funds to go forward with this project?" Jones asked. 

 "Well," Miskelly replied, "Mr. Smith alluded to, there, there's approximately $475,000 in the county money.  We're talking about, what, approximately four hundred and forty-two five for the Michie project, and then you have [unintelligible words] four hundred to five hundred thousand dollars, approximately." 

 "The problem is," Smith said, "like Charlie and I have already talked about, if you don't get started it's going to be, you know they're not going to be ready for school next year." 

 Blakely joined in. "And now this is, what, the second year we've talked about Michie?  Now it's halfway clear."

 "You're talking about this Bethel part?" Jones asked him. 

 "I'm talking about Michie," Blakely replied

 "I thought Michie, they'll start moving dirt," Jones said.

After some further discussion of costs, Chapman remarked, "But if we're going to do anything with Bethel and Ramer both, we're going to need to go to the county commission for that."

Miskelly replied, "Probably we're going to do both.  It's—" 

"If we don't get that $450,000 we will," Blakely said. 

 "Well," Miskelly said, "they've agreed.  That, that money is set aside in a separate account, drawing interest, that we have already, they have already obligated, or whatever the word it would be, to the school system, that we can tap into and use.  That money is appropriated for school building." 

 Miskelly then posed the question of the evening. "I guess the question tonight for me, somebody else can correct me, the question tonight, would, I think we've made a commitment to Michie, and the question would be, would we entertain the thought of Mr. Vaughn going ahead with drawing plans for Michie, and for Bethel, and Ramer.  And just putting them out for bid, and seeing what the cost is.  Then at that point in time, would we want to make a commitment and go through with it?" 

Smith responded affirmatively, and Jones agreed.  Blakely then said, "Motion by Mr. Smith, second by Ms Jones, that we put the school projects out for drawings and bids to see what comes in, and see if we want to go further from there."  The motion passed unanimously. 

The board then spent more than a quarter of an hour discussing the fairground situation, with input from board attorney Craig Kennedy and from Saddle Club representative Ray Prather from the audience, without settling anything. 

The regular meeting was then recessed to allow the board to discuss a legal matter.  When the board reconvened, a motion was made by Jones and seconded by Smith to develop a list of "neutrals" and return one if needed, and upon the motion's passage the meeting was adjourned. 


February Board Meeting

7 February 2008


February's meeting of the McNairy County School Board, moved up a week to February 7 to avoid conflicting with Valentine's Day, was long, informative, and long.  In addition, it was long.

[Apologies in advance for the length of this report.  Rather than risk getting it wrong by paraphrasing and condensing, I'm presenting this one pretty much verbatim.  And before you complain about how long it takes to read it, just think about how long it took for me to transcribe it!]


Vocational Report Card

The first item on the agenda was a presentation on vocational education by Ronnie Teague who discussed in detail the school system's performance on "the vocational report card."

"We're teaching 87% of the kids in career technical classes in McNairy County," Teague began.  "The state only teaches 58%.  So what that tells me is that we have a large amount of our kids that are in this program."

Teague then walked the board through the report card.  "The first part here talks about Perkins III.  We're not under Perkins III any more, but still that's where my report card came from this year….  This Perkins III used to be based on the skills that we taught our kids, whether it was computers, or carpentry, or welding, or whatever it was.  But I'm afraid that some of this new legislation, and the way we're going to be measured, it may not measure those things any more….  That first one, that 1S1, that's just how many kids were concentrators and graduated.  And a concentrator is a kid that takes three classes.  McNairy County had 146 of those last year, which is pretty good.  We made an A in that.  The second one's about the same thing.  And then that 2S1 at the bottom is completion, and that's the ones that actually came to graduation, I guess you could say, that's the way they used to measure it.  On that next page, page 3, the first one there is placement, we actually go through and 146 of those kids I have to tell if they're in the military, if they're in post-secondary, if they're in jail, if they're wherever they are.  And right now is when that's going on.  I've got to like March 15th to report this year's kids.  You see there we had a 98% report on that part.  And then those others, I don't really understand why it's there, but it is.  I don't, this federal legislation requires us to report what they call non-traditional.  How many girls do you have in boys' classes, and how many boys do you have in girls' classes.  So, they, I mean, you think 'Big deal.  That doesn't really matter.'… That 4S2 about the middle of the page, that 38 number.  We had 38 kids that got a non-traditional certificate, which is really significant.  Had about five or six girls that were welders, that finished out three years.  Some of them auto mechanics.  A few boys in health science, that plan to be doctors and everything.

"Page 4.  This is the new one.  And notice it says Perkins IV, and that's the new legislation that we're under right now.  I might say, too, that the President did not appropriate any money for us this coming year, so I don't know what we're going to do.  Notice what that first thing says.  1S1.  Academic attainment, reading, language art.  What that is now, where, like I said a while ago, where we used to measure how much skill our kids have, as far as technology, now my part of this report card is going to be based on how many of those concentrators pass English 2 Gateway.  And when I go to people like Kenny Roberts and Wes Johnson and them that teach welding for me and I say, 'Listen, boys, y'all are going to have to teach some English,' they're like, 'Yeah, right.'  I'm like, 'No.'  We've got to teach some English and some writing, because that's what our report card is going to be based on.  And then the second one is almost the same.  It says mathematics.  We're having to teach mathematics in the CTE classes, is what it boils down to.  And this new high school reform thing is going to get worse and worse.  So I don't know whether they're just keeping us around because they know we keep kids in school, or whether that we're going to get to a point where we're not even going to teach those skills.  I'm not sure, in all honesty, what's going to come on that part.

"But you see, we did make yearly progress on it, which is really good.  Because if you look at the state, you notice that statewide they didn't.  So we had an excellent report card.  It's not Ronnie Teague's doing, I've got some really good teachers that worked real hard for this, and I'm real proud of them.

"All right, then, the next page is, and I didn't make you all a big copy, but I hope you know that the state of Tennessee has just passed this 29 page high school reform bill.  And, you say, 'Ronnie, I don't see how that's going to tie into your program.'  Well, it's going to tie directly into my program.  Even though I'm in charge of career and technical, we're in this thing all together.  And I think you saw that from what the report card is going to start measuring, and everything.  And I highlighted a couple of things there.  This little fine print.  Everybody look at that….  I want to talk about what classes are going to be required to do this new thing.  Twenty-two units to graduate.  Well, how many units can a student get in McNairy County now?  Well, if they take a class every period, and they don't take any PE, or any basketball, or anything like that, they can get thirty-two.  So we're still sitting in pretty good shape.  I just hope that those other ten that they take are in my program area.  But what they've added here, is they've added an extra math, and technically they've added an extra science.  They've added a personal finance class that's going to have to be taught separate and distinct by itself.  But the big impact is the next one right here at the very bottom, where it says 'a focused elective.'  Every kid going through McNairy County schools, starting with this year's kids who are in the seventh grade, will have to have an elective focus.  That means three classes that either focus on a career and technical area, and I hope that's what they do, or, three classes in another area.  Like they can major in math, but do you know what that means for us?  We've got to teach three math classes above Algebra II.  We can't do that.  We've got to teach three science classes above physics.  We can't do that, unless we go to some type of internet, or whatever.  So what we think's going to happen is that all of our kids will run, will go through the career technical focus area.  And that would be fine.  I mean, if we've got kids that's going to be doctors, I think they ought to be taking some nursing classes.  Probably the only exception may be fine arts.  When you have some people who are going to go through some art classes, maybe tie band into that, and those type of things.  Anyway, a lot of the stuff I'm talking about hasn't even come to fruition yet, even though this is the law now.  Nobody knows how this thing's going to shake out.

"This will be some good reading, right here on this page, right here at the bottom, where it talks about students who enter the ninth grade, says they must take Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II, plus one additional course above Algebra I.  What's happened on this, and I, Mr. Miskelly [Education Director Charles Miskelly] and I have talked a lot, and I know Dr. Gary Dickson who drew this up.  He told me this three years ago, and I never thought he'd get it passed, but he did.  And it's nothing but Gene Bottoms's philosophy of education, which is 'High Schools at Work.'  I think that's going to help us.  Because we've been in this 'High Schools at Work' network for about twenty-five years.  So, where a lot of school systems don't even know what it means, we've at least done a lot of the things that are in here.  I don't know how we are going to do these math and science classes, but I'm sure that we'll figure out a way.

"It is stupid, when you think that every kid has to take these classes.  I just, Mr. Miskelly and I talked about this this morning too.  On the next page it talks about—"

At this point board member Johnny Blakely interrupted.  "Let me go back, let me go back to something you said.  I'm a little slow here tonight.  I try not to be.  You said, courses above Algebra II, and 'We can't do that.'"

"That's right," Teague responded.

"I didn't understand exactly what you were saying," Blakely said.

"Well," Teague responded, "right now, you know, we teach, we have a lot of foundation classes, we have, and what we can do—  What Gene Bottoms wants to have done, is he wants everybody in the ninth grade to start Algebra I.  They're not ready for that, but that's what he, he believes that.  Put them in Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, the Calculus, some of those others.  If a kid comes, that's in the seventh grade right now, and that's the group that's going to be in to, this will be first impacted on, if they come to McNairy Central, in '09-'10, and they start in Algebra I, and this kid says 'I want to be a mathematician.  I want my career focus, my electives here to be those three credits in math, what that means is that we're going to have to be teaching, besides all these catch-up classes, we're going to have to teach Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, Calculus, then you've got to put three on top of that.  I don't even know three names.  I guess, probability, statistics, those other types of classes.  And I told him, Mr. Miskelly, today, I, the only way—  Granted, we've got some teachers that can teach this, but can we teach a class for four kids?  You know.  And I think we're going to have to look at online stuff.  I mean, we're going to have to go back to those, the days that we did that.  A lot of schools are doing that virtual, those virtual classes, and pulling those things where they are actually doing those types of things.  The same thing would be true of the science program areas.  This is good on paper, and if the state of Tennessee pulls it off it will be fabulous.  But I, I just think it's an accident waiting to happen.  I mean, it's way too early for it.  I hope I'm wrong.  I hope we live up to this thing, but—"

Blakely interrupted again, asking, "And what's going to be the revenue, when they have all these schools across the state failing?"

"Yeah," Teague agreed.  "I mean, look at the ones we've already got, and the situation they're in.  I don't know.  And you know how close we even were last year, and we've got a good school system.  I mean, we really do.  And I'm out there every day or two, looking at stuff that goes on in other systems, and I see it.  And I know we've got a good system.  And, like I say, we're holding this together.  We've got to get these kids educated, and I don't know how it's going to fall out for us, just in all honesty."

Tony Chapman then asked, "I didn't understand that the electives were—  On some things I've seen, it just says electives, three.  Electives, three.  So, I didn't understand it says you have to offer seven math classes to a kid—"

Teague responded, "Well, he's got to satisfy two qualifications, because you've got to have four math, and you're going to major in math, it's going to have to be above those four."

"Let me clarify something, Mr. Teague," Director Miskelly said.  "I'm not debating what you said, but going to Mr. Blakely's question, we could offer … trigonometry, pre-calculus, calculus.  There are classes there.  The problem is going to be teaching, and learning, and the numbers that would be involved—"

"That's what I mean," Teague said.

"I wanted to clarify that," Miskelly replied.

"They do exist," Teague continued.  "The classes exist.  When I say it, I always think the money end of it.  How much it would impact us.  The implementation of it in the program.  By that, that's what I meant that we couldn't do it.  We can do it."

Chapman then observed that "Some of the thinking behind this, the way I understand it, is that a more rigorous curriculum prepares them for college.  Because, you know, a great percentage of students when they go into college have to take remedial courses.  And that's the thinking behind this, is that if you offer it in high school even if they don't make the greatest grades in it, that they're going to be more prepared for college.  And I agree with you.  I don't know, you know, what's going to happen when we're having to meet No Child Left Behind and then teach all these higher level courses at the same time, we're just going to have a bunch of—"

"I agree we've got a challenge," Teague interjected.  "I've always thought that.  But somebody who's doing two divisions, two stage divisions, whatever you call it, two number divisions, cannot move into Algebra just because you'd like to put him in Algebra.  Those are the things I would worry about.  And even on the other side of that, are we going to wash this curriculum down so much that, yeah, everybody's taking Geometry, but it's really sixth-grade Geometry.  I worry about that side of it as much as I worry about the other side of it, honestly.  But I don't know how that—"

Board Chairman Frank Lacey broke in to say, "We're going to have to look at—  I actually have a seventh grader right now, and Algebra in the ninth grade sends chills up my spine.  But we actually have to look at, right now, preparing for next year, the eighth graders, if they really need to be in some type of foundation class, in the eighth grade."

"Well," Teague explained, "there's at least three paths that they can start implementing, that they hope that those are going to be diagnostic tools that they can use, so everybody will be taking the [unintelligible word] I think in the eighth grade, and then the Explorer, and then the ACC.  So those are supposed to be able to, where they can actually gauge.  Because Gary Dickson, and I've heard him say this before, he said, you know at Blackmon High School, everybody there was on the dual path.  And he said we have 96 percent of our people pass the Algebra I test, and they go into, as a matter of fact they got accelerated, and then they go into Algebra II class, they've got Ms Jones in the first semester and they make an F, and that mother's comes up and says, 'My son was accelerated in Algebra one.'  He says, 'He was accelerated on that test, but the cut score was so low he really wasn't.  So that's being here focused on this thing.  Like I say, he's really getting into Gene Bottoms on this."

"And then down at the bottom of the page, there, examinations, we're actually doing away with Gateway, but we're going to have exit tests in everything.  Just about.  And even in career and technical.  This year we're supposed to start having end-of-course test in Health Science and Marketing.  And those are things down the road.  You know, that could be good or bad.  That could be good.  That could make, you know, people a little more responsible for—  I thought it was interesting, that last page there, that number three where it says, basically, what this number three here says, that I highlighted, I think is that when the teacher's score and the score on the final test vary as much as ten to twelve points, then there's going to be a problem.  And I don't worry about the other side about of it, like, a kid that makes 30 in your class and then takes the test and makes 96, that would be super duper, but what about that kid that makes a 96 in your class and then when he takes that test he makes a 30?  That's the one where, you know, we're probably going to have some concern about.

"Okay," Teague said, finally wrapping up.  "That's enough for you to worry about."

"Let me just say one thing there," Miskelly said.  "I have to point out something.  Again, that law, and that rule, is a shift from the state to the local.  It puts the pressure on the local system and the teachers and not the state.  It keeps [unintelligible] a Gateway test, or a state mandated test.  It's again to put the pressure back on the local system and the local teachers."

"I agree," Teague replied.  "A couple of things that do relate directly to my program.  I'm still serving on a committee to do away, to look at moving— Oh, I put those clusters on there just if you want to look at them.  Next year Tennessee will be looking at going to the seventeen career clusters.  Of course, we won't be able to teach all of those, but we'll probably handpick one or two of them in each program area, and those will be our emphasis of what we actually do in the career and technical part.  We're, our committee met Monday and Tuesday, we were in Nashville, we recommended to the department that we no longer give keyboarding credit in high school.  So what's going to happen, is we're recommending that keyboarding credit be given in the seventh and eighth grades, that it be CTE funded, which means that I can basically still use my Perkins money to put the labs in that we'll have to have for that.  So that doesn't impact our bottom line, which is kind of what I always look at on any of this stuff.  It's just that no longer will keyboarding actually be taught in the high schools.  And the reasoning behind that is, kids are learning keyboarding in the second and third and fourth grades, you know.  Why take up a nine-week period, or a semester, especially with all this coming down the pike?  So we hope they start at a higher level when they get there.  They won't actually be keyboarding, but they can do the next courses that are, as they go into that.  And that's going to be real important for real small schools.  So that they won't have, like, the one teacher.  Say, even at Adamsville, we don't have but one teacher to deal with that class, and so much of her days is spent teaching keyboarding she couldn't teach any of the other classes.  So that's coming down the road.

"The other thing is, we met with the governor, and all the [unintelligible word] people up there this week," Teague continued.  "Back when Lamar Alexander was governor they took fifteen million dollars out of career and technical to train the Nissan employees when they put the plant in up there.  That money was never put back into our budget.  So last year we started trying to get some of this money back, and the legislative group many times confuses us with what happens at the tech center, and so we went to [unintelligible word] and Rinks [Representative Randy Rinks] and those people and told them we wanted some money.   They're saying, 'But we gave you twenty-two million dollars last year.'  No, you didn't.  You gave it to the technology center….  So what we done, is we've gone back and we say, you know, 'We want some of this money back.  Give it to us.  We need it."  I hope what happens is that some of this money comes down, and we get— There's 96 counties it the state, 96 directors in the state of Tennessee that do the job I do and they do it less than half-time.  Which, I don't know how they do it, there's so much paper work now.  So we're wanting some money that can be put there.  So it might be some money that could be put there to recoup part of my salary, but the big thing I want to come out of this is, I want to be able to say to Hardeman County, 'Here's $100,000.  Put in that lab you want, and don't come back and ask me for any money next year, because it's going to go over here to Shelby County, or it's going to go to whatever.  So we hope they kind of set that thing up where it's going to rotate around.  That will give us a chance to put in some labs that really are state of the art, and where it would take us a long time to put together the money to actually put in those types of things.  So that's what we want to do with this.  Rinks asked me what was the bottom line the other day, I told him we couldn't settle for less than eight million.  So if you see any of those people, tell them that the CTE people need some of this money for, outside the budget."

Miskelly then said "I would have to add one thing to what Mr. Teague has said here, and we've listened to tonight.  I think the real issue, and we have a teacher and a principal in the audience [Wanda Chapman from Ramer and Linda Walter from Michie] and they certainly can disagree with anything I say.  If you don't believe what I say, certainly stand up.  The problem is, in my opinion, all this is great on paper, and all this is wonderful, but somewhere somebody with some common sense is going to have to be, in Nashville or somewhere, because if you divide an eight hou—, seven-hour day, from 8:00 to 3:00, and expect Ms Walters and Ms Chapman to do all the things that we expect of them, and continue to add on their plates Character Counts, and community service, and computer science and technology and music and lunch and financial planning and breakfast and whatever, then somebody will do a great job in McNairy Count and in this state of Tennessee to get all of this in."

Wanda Chapman interjected, "It can't be done."

Miskelly continued. "I guess my point is that it's pretty disgusting sometimes to read all the things that just continue to come from Nashville and come down the pike, and for us to expect our teachers and principals and people to do them all, and then, as we say, our report card, and then all of a sudden we're a failing school because we can't get them done, and it's, uh."

"Well," Lacey observed, "we certainly can't if we keep cutting our county budget."

"We can always mandate it," Tony Chapman said.  "It's unfunded right now.  I mean, they're telling you to do it, but they're not providing you any funds to do it with.  It's like No Child Left Behind."


Director of Schools Reports

After approving the consent agenda by a unanimous voice vote (on a motion by Jean Jones, seconded by Tony Chapman), Chairman Lacey moved on to "Director of Schools Reports."

"7A. is your Revenue Report," Director Miskelly began.  "I think you'll find that in good shape.  If you have questions concerning that.  7B. [State Department—Differentiated Pay Plans], I simply put that in to remind you that it's something, again, again it's one of those things that— And I'm sorry.  I don't mean to sound like I'm negative tonight, but if you read here, we have been asked to come up, I told you, with a differentiated pay plan for teachers and employees.  There's some guide lines here, there's some background here.  Again, I guess my concern is, I don't know the answers, I haven't talked to anybody that knows the answers.  I'll give you a couple of examples.  Shelby County schools is going to offer a sign-on bonus for math, science, and special education teachers next year of $5,000.  My question is, if I've been teaching math in McNairy County for twenty or twenty-five years, and all of a sudden this pretty young thing next to me is making $5,000 more, I'm not going to be real happy about it, just to be honest with you."

Chapman spoke up. "I think, reading over this, I saw one item on page two of this, down at the bottom.  'Retaining effective teachers.'  And the item is, 'other programs, such as but not limited to reduction in class loads, or class size.'  I think that's probably the most equitable thing that we can do.  And that meets the criteria for differentiated pay plans, as far as I can tell.  By reading over all this, and they put it as the last item in the entire article, like it's fine print or something, but I think that would be the best way for us to go, is to try and reduce the class sizes so that teachers will have better morale, and not as many kids, and try to meet it that way, propose to meet it that way."

"I agree with you," Miskelly responded, "and I think that we have done that.  So I think we may have the plan, if we can come up with how to word it to make everybody on an equal playing field, so to speak.  I think that we have done that.  Some other systems have talked about staff development, making teachers, or encouraging teachers to go through certain levels and hoops of staff development with a concentration on particular areas, instead of this shotgun approach.  But I think you're right.  I think there is some, some, would be some support for what you're saying.  But I think it's open for discussion, and obviously have to be negotiated."

Chapman then offered another suggestion. "I think another thing we could do is maybe have some tutors, you know, teachers who do nothing but tutor throughout the day.  As far as, you know, regular mainstream children at each school.  Kids that are having problems in class, and maybe are causing the entire class not to get the instruction that they really need to the other students, maybe.  Especially if we're going to have to start teaching Algebra I in the ninth grade, we could have something where, you know, if we offered Algebra I in the eighth grade, or the foundation in the eighth grade, we'd have somebody helping them.  You know, you could do that at each school with Algebra I for the kids that were having problems.  Because we're going to have a lot of kids that are going to be able to do foundations math in the eighth grade.  It's just an idea."

"Make sure that everybody understands that even if you take Algebra I in the eighth grade you still have to have the four years of math beyond that," Miskelly said.

"Right," Chapman agreed.

"And," Miskelly continued, "I think that goes back to what I said a while ago.  Maybe I didn't do a good job of explaining.  The key for being successful in math, science, English and reading, is spending more time on it.  And so, that's my point.  We're dividing the day and the pie into so many pieces that we can't be successful, because we're not spending enough time on math in the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades.  And so I think we're going to have to be careful, but I agree with what you're saying."

"Well," Chapman asked, "do you see us possibly having to get off the clock system?  Would that help us any?"

"No," Miskelly replied.  "I think, again, it's the elementary grades.  It's the three through eighth grades that are going to have to be attacked with a plan to spend time on math, or reading, or whatever.  I think the block schedule is going to lend itself to these requirements, because there are people now that are on a six-period day, they're going to have to do something.  They can't stay on a six-period day and meet these requirements.  So they're either going to have to go to a seven-period day, or block schedule, or a combination."

"We have to implement this at the beginning of—" Lacey began.

"Have it in place for next year," Miskelly replied.

Lacey then asked, "Do you think it would be wise of us, then, to get a committee together that would report back to the board with their recommendations.  Some board members, and you, and a couple of teachers or principals get together over the course of the next few months and work on this and then give us as a board one or two options?"

Miskelly agreed.  "I think it's going to have to be, yeah, it's going to have to be set down and hashed out.  I think supervisors and board members and some principals and teachers are going to have to be involved in this."

Lacey asked about the composition of the committee. "So, maybe two board members?  Mr. Miskelly, and who else do you think needs to be?"

"Oh," Miskelly replied, "I think our negotiating team, Mr. Burns and Mr. Massey right now.  A couple of principals.  A couple of teachers.  Why don't you just put the board members you want, and maybe Mr. Burns and Mr. Massey right now and then after, we'll sit down and talk and appoint representatives across the county.  Will that work?"

"We'll call this the differentiated pay planning committee," Lacey said.  "With Mr. Chapman volunteering, do I have another board member that would like to be involved in this? [Pause.] Don't all speak up at one time."

"Second," Johnny Blakely said.

Lacey interpreted Blakely's somewhat ambiguous remark as an offer to serve as the "second" board member on the committee. "Mr. Blakely.  Mr. Chapman and Mr. Blakely along with, and, uh, Mr. Chapman, if you don't mind, I'd like for you to be the, the board, you set the meetings up and kind of get it in action.  Report back to us in our April meeting."

Miskelly then resumed with his reports, calling on Terry Burns to update the board on developments in the One-to-One program, and then reminding the board members that the "Day on the Hill" would be held on February 26: "If any of you would like for us to register you, if you'll contact the office we'll get that in for you."

"And then F. is a letter about the support bill for the lottery funds, and what they can be used for.  Capital outlay, special accounts—"

"What's the downside on not doing this?" Blakely inquired.

"Not doing the letter?" Miskelly asked.

"Well," Blakely responded, "not doing what they're talking about doing.  Allocating these funds to be used, well, not allocating, but permitting them to be used for capital outlay?  What's the negative about that?  Why would we not want to support that?"

"I don't know," Miskelly said.  "Does anybody else?  I don't know."

"It sounds pretty good to me," Blakely observed.

"It does," Miskelly agreed.  "I don't know—"

Chapman asked about the amount involved: "$720,000 worth?"

"Seven hundred and fifty, something in that neighborhood," Miskelly replied.  "A hundred and eighty dollars per pupil."

Chapman added, "I understand through the grapevine, from one of the representatives, what they're wanting to do is to maybe allocate it for, or designate it for community conservation program,… actually building brick and mortar."

"But that's not what this says," Blakely observed.

"Yeah, I know," Chapman agreed.  "But they're saying it's kind of split down the middle between the two parties."

"You're right, Tony," Ronnie Teague interjected, from the audience.  "I think they added safety, too."

"Safety," Chapman continued, "and actually doing an energy savings program, to what would be classrooms."

"I don't know why they would not want to use it for classrooms," Board Member Larry Smith observed.  "With everything they've asked us to do.  That's what everybody that I've talked to, that's what they need."

"Well," Blakely said, "if we do what Charlie [Miskelly] suggested a while ago and use this money that they're, if we go that directive, to identify the functions that they want us to identify, and Tony says classroom size, then obviously we're going to need more classrooms.  And now you're saying that they won't let us build new classrooms with money, even if we get it."

"I just heard that from a legislator," Chapman said.

"Are any other school systems supporting this, by way of this resolution?" Blakely asked.

"Yes," Miskelly replied, and Chapman agreed, saying "I would say that everybody supported it, because everybody can use classrooms."

"We've never voted on the resolution then, have we?" Blakely asked.  "I move that we make the appropriate resolution, whether it's this one or another one."  The motion, seconded by Smith, passed by unanimous voice vote.

Miskelly then resumed with his reports. "7G. [Local Option Sales Tax]  Help me, correct me if I'm wrong.  The local sales tax is nine and a quarter percent.  It is a maximum of nine and three-quarters percent in the state of Tennessee, which means that our sales tax could be raised half a cent if this board wanted to do that.  Approach our county commission.  Our county commission would have to approve to put it on the ballot for the next election.  Mr. Lacey has talked about this.  Mr. Lacey, do you have any comments?"

"The way I understand it," Lacey replied, "this percentage here, we can raise it, you can raise sales tax to be used for education.  And what it would do, what it gives us, is an annual income based on this half percent, I thought it was point two five [.25] percent, is it a half?"

"It's a half percent," Miskelly replied.

"It's a half," Lacey continued.  "Most other counties around us in the state of Tennessee have already taken that half percent, they're at 9.75 already, and there's been some talk the last couple of years in the legislature for the state of Tennessee to raise that half for their own, for the state's business, and we have an opportunity I guess, before that happens, not saying it will, but they've been trying to do it, before that happens, to raise ours to nine seventy-five, and with that half percent coming straight to the board of education's budget.  If we don't— and we have to approach the county commission and ask for this half percent.  They have to say they'll put it on the ballot, it's voted on by the general public.  Of course, I would want us to do our homework and present it to the general public in the right light, or at least educate them on what the money would be used for and how it would be used.  It's a way to generate a huge total amount.  I've been given two or three different figures."

Miskelly said, "I have talked to several different people, trying to come up, finally the last suggestion I had was to call the office of the office of revenue in Jackson, Tennessee, and I have not done that yet.  The best I can ascertain, that it's probably in the neighborhood of somewhere around $125,000 to $150,000 a year."

"Going into the education budget," Lacey pointed out.  "All, I think, all we can do is, of course, to ask the county commission to put it on the, on the next ballot.  Which would be the fall of '08 ballot, and people can either vote for or against it."

"The city of Selmer just had that resolution," Chapman pointed out.  "Just had that on the ballot, what, a year ago?  When they tried to get it for parks and recreation?"

Lacey 4752: "The way I— Like, the city of Adamsville has raised their—  But this isn't just the city, this is, would be the county sales tax revenue, I know part of the city's comes into it, but the city of Adamsville raised theirs a few years ago and it goes to tourism.  But it only applies to certain things.  If you get a hotel room, there's a percent added to it.  If you eat at a restaurant there's a percent, you know, a certain percentage added to it.  So that money comes in to tourism.  This money here would be based on, from what I understand, I may be wrong, would be based on the total dollars of sales tax in McNairy County for the year.  So, I believe last year McNairy County had $256 million in sales— two hundred and fifty-six something in sales tax generated, with the county getting, what, we get 2% of that?  Two point two five percent?  For the county.  So the county would continue to get their 2.25%, but now the school board would get .5%."

"How much would that give us?" Chapman asked.

"We get $1.8 million in sales tax a year, basically," Miskelly replied.  "We get fifty percent, which would make about $3.6 million, evidently, that's collected.  So, if 9% is generating that three point six million, then that's [unintelligible] thousand dollars a month."

"It's a difficult formula," Lacey observed, "because I've tried to understand it and make those figures—"

"Increase that much," Miskelly resumed.  "Three hundred thousand a month.  But you divide that, again, the best I can figure, we would probably get somewhere around $125,000 to $150,000 a month of that tax percent."

"It was recommended to me that we ask for this," Lacey said, "because we're the only group that can ask for it, to prevent, if and when the state does take that, we will already have it, it would be coming to the schools.  Of course it goes back to, there is a public referendum, the public has to, I think it's a, I forget the percentage that they have to pass by."

"But if we ask for it," Smith observed, "it doesn't mean the county commission has to approve putting it on the ballot."

"Right," Lacey agreed.  "All we would do—"

"They wouldn't," Smith pointed out, "the last time we dealt with them about it."

"—all we would do is ask them," Lacey finished.

Chapman asked, "The city of Adamsville, do they have this .5?"

Lacey replied, "Well, Tony, I really don't know.  I know there's a percentage of sales tax of those things, of hotels and restaurants, that goes to their budgets."

"Is this the same .5 that the city of Selmer was trying to get?" Chapman asked.

"I really don't know," Lacey replied.

After some further unilluminating exchanges about the Adamsville tax, Blakely brought the discussion back to the issue.  "Well, here's the problem I have with your theory.  If we do that, and the county passes a half-cent tax increase, what would keep the county commission from cutting our budget that much, because we've got that half-cent earmark.  Just say, you've got that money coming in, we're going to cut that much out."

"Well, obviously, nothing," Lacey replied, "because we got more BEP money this year and they cut our budget."

"So, in effect," Blakely responded, "we would have no more money, but we'd be tarred with raising taxes."

"Could be," Lacey acknowledged.

Chapman added, "I think we just need to have an understanding that that would be extra money, because, like Johnny says, anytime you put a tax increase, I mean, I don't like to increase taxes myself—"

"I honestly believe," Lacey interjected, "and I'm sure each one of y'all read in our Tennessee TSBA magazine this past time, where there are like twelve counties that abused the state increase, and McNairy County was one of the twelve, in reducing the allocation based on what we got on the BEP.  The state is actually looking at taking action to, I don't know if y'all read the article, taking action to make sure counties don't do that, because the intent wasn't to cut education funding.  Just like I would hope that with the push the county commission right now is doing, with hiring a new economic development guy, and how they keep stressing the importance of education, I would hope we would help educate our county commissioners on the importance and value of education, and this would give us another opportunity to try and do that.  But what is to prevent them from tarring, you know?  Nothing.  I don't know, you know, how you can, of course I have to watch—"

"I'm not talking about them," Blakely interjected.  "I'm talking we'd get tarred.  'They raised taxes—'"

"And we'd be labeling that it was the schools," Lacey finished for him.  "And in my mind, as a citizen of McNairy County, I can't think of a better place for my tax dollars to go than education.  But I know that everybody doesn't think like I do.  And, I think, when I came on board, we were at 68% of the county's budget.  Now, were at 46%.  So obviously—"

"I'd say that's a trend, wouldn't you?" Blakely observed.

"Well, here it is, Lacey responded.  "But in most other of these, there's 96 counties, I guess there's eighty some odd counties that didn't cut their schools budgets this past year.  So we're in an extreme minority.  But, if y'all want to do that, that's fine.  I'm glad we brought it up.  That's an option.  It will have to be done during an election year when we're going to have a ballot, and you have to do it so many days, it's 60 days, I think, before the ballot's cast.  If we want to in the future, we can remember that.  If we don't—"

"I'd say let's think about it a month and talk about it again," Blakely said, and the matter was dropped.

Miskelly then mentioned the school nutrition report and observed that the draft of the next year school calendar had been prepared and would be brought before the board for adoption in March.  Then he said he wanted to "mention the storm we had the other night.  The only damage we had in the school system was at Ramer, a tree that blew over on the playground fence and damaged it and some playground equipment and on.  And I appreciate the community people at Ramer that helped with the clean up there.  I don't want to call any names because I'd leave somebody out.  As always in McNairy County, the people responded and helped with the cleanup there."

Miskelly's next topic was science labe.  "I've asked Mr. Teague to maybe head up a committee with two high school principals and some teachers and bring forth a recommendation to us.  I think it's been talked about in the past that we need some renovation and help with the science labs, and then obviously will be some of these things that are coming down the pike.  Our students are being, I don't know the right word, cheated, I believe in science in our schools because of some antique science labs and what have you, and if you remember we had about $100,000 left over from the new money we were given this year.  I would like to see this board allocate some of it or part of it or all of it to helping with the science labs at our high schools to make our science department a little more up to date."

"Which one on of those is in the worst shape?" Chapman asked.

"That's a good question," Miskelly replied, before Chapman provided his own answer: "It's a toss up."

"They're both pretty out of date, I guess I would say," Miskelly agreed.

Chapman then asked whether the $100,000 would be sufficient for the task, to which Miskelly replied, "I don't know.  I think it would make a good dent in it.  I'm not sure that it would solve both of them.  I think what we will do, after Mr. Teague and the principals and a couple of teachers at each school do the, maybe Jackson, the new school in Jackson, and another school that have done some science work over the last couple of years, get with that company and actually let them tell us what it would do as far as helping our science labs.  Anybody have a comment or thought about that?"

"Looks like we're going to need it," Lacey observed.

After some further discussion, Blakely asked if the board needed to take any action regarding the science labs.  Smith suggested getting some quotes, and Chapman proposed that the board "go ahead and say, you know, if we have $100.000, we have a dire need, we need to go ahead and tell them that they've got the money, and then figure out what to do.  In my opinion.  I mean, I don't know how far it will go, but go as far as it will go with it.  That's what I'd like to do."

Lacey said, "Well, I'll entertain a motion that we do that."

"I make that motion," Chapman said.

"And I'll second it," added Jones.

Lacey said, "Mr. Chapman has made the motion, and Ms Jones seconded it, that we're going to earmark that money for science labs," and the motion passed by unanimous roll call vote.

Miskelly suggested that the board hold "a work session that might go along with the pay scale and the building committee," and the board agreed to meet for that purpose on March 4.

At which point, the agenda having been completed, the meeting almost adjourned.  Almost.


Legal issues

Before the board and several members of the audience could escape, board attorney Craig Kennedy rose to his feet and began the legal portion of the night's entertainment.

After briefly commenting on the continuing impass on the Michie signature situation, Kennedy said "I have two matters I need to bring to the board's attention.  One is the, I think we may have the turn lane issue, hopefully, worked out.  We're going to get Harvey Neal [Smith, of the county highway department] to go out and flag what's going to be, what we're going to do, and I think once we get that done and notify them, I think we'll be okay.  I think they've conceded, pretty much, that the line comes through [several unintelligible words].  So, hopefully, we'll get that resolved."

"Second thing is, we had a request last time about the use of the fairgrounds, and today I happened to be in town, and there was a flyer that they're having an auction March the 8th at the fairground, sponsored by the Selmer Jaycees and the American Auction Company. So, I said to Mr. Miskelly, I said, 'Maybe I missed something along the way.'  But in any event, y'all asked that I look into that.  There is, the Jaycees actually, we deeded a portion of the property to the Jaycees…. The rest of that acreage, 24 acres or so, was, is leased to a corporation called the McNairy County Fair and Livestock Show, Inc.  That corporation has been dissolved since 1985.  But apparently they, the Jaycees pretty much took that over at some period of time and were still putting on the show.  Their lease is for 99 years, but they only get it for three weeks out of the year.  That's the week before the fair, the week of the fair, and the week after the fair.  The rest of the time the property is under our control, the board's control.  There is, so we have the issue of—  Forget just a minute about the McNairy County Livestock Show Incorporation, where it is originally or what's going on there.  Whether it exists or doesn't exist, or whether that's been assigned to the Jaycees or hasn't, and to my knowledge it has not [unintelligible words] and they couldn't do it without our okay.  We still control it 49 weeks of the year.  So, without the board's okay they shouldn't be doing anything out there.  That applies to a lot of the things that's taking place.  Any time that any group uses it, for horse show, saddle club uses it, nobody's given them that authority that I know of.  Maybe there's something that I don't about, but in terms they have to come to us to get the okay to do that.  Just like this auction's taking place.  Again, they can't do that without this board's okay.  I don't care who's the responsible person.  So the problem we have again, is that's been lax, apparently, and maybe some confusion on who had what and who could do what, but because of the liability issue that we've seen locally in the past, we need to stop some of that stuff, or at least set up some sort of a process, every thing that they've got to do if they want to use it, and to establish criteria for those who do want to use it in terms of what they've got to do, and if they have to have insurance in terms of liability and whatever they want to do.  So, I guess the immediate concern is the auction that's taking place on the eighth.  And their ties.  Obviously the flyers…"

Kennedy pointed out that "There has been no— I have not spoken to anybody with American Auctions, or Mr. Moore [auctioneer Keith Moore].  And to be honest with you, I just saw that today, and I thought I would bring it before the board first."

"Who asked us," Blakely began, "I mean, where did we come into it last month?"

"Mr. Moore had sent a letter," Kennedy replied.

"Yeah," Blakely responded, "I know who it is, but I mean why would he send a letter and then not wait on the reply?"

"I don't know," Kennedy replied.

"Maybe we need to find out," Blakely replied.

"I think at this stage," Kennedy continued, "because of the date of the auction, I think quite frankly the question for the board here tonight is do we stop them from doing this the 8th or not."

"Yeah," Smith agreed.  "I think that's what we need to decide."

Kennedy said, "I think that's a decision that you as a board has to need to make.  Whatever you say is obviously what we'll do."

"He never contacted you since the last board meeting, at all?" Smith asked.

"No," Kennedy responded.  "I said something to Mr. Miskelly, he may have came by his office but he didn't say about the auction."

"The bigger picture," Chapman said.  "Can we get that property back from, now that nobody has a lease on it?"

 "Well," Kennedy responded, "there's obviously an issue in terms of, again, I don't know what happened in terms of whether that agreement had ever been assigned or not, I don't know enough about that to tell you, other than that I couldn't find anything that shows it has been.  I don't think it has been.  But whether, again, whether it has or hasn't, March 8th isn't the week before, during, or after the fair."

In response to a question from Jean Jones regarding the board's potential liability, Kennedy said, "Well, I just think that, again, whatever happens out there, if we know it's going on and allow it to happen, then we're opening the door."

"That's why I was asking," Jones said.

Kennedy continued: "Now, you know, for all these years, things have been going on, nobody's got hurt that's got back to us, that doesn't mean it's not in the future.  And I'm not saying that you don't do this auction.  I just think that we need to have, again, some procedures in place, in terms of people want to do things out there and what's going to be involved.  And I know that the saddle club has used that for years and years and years, and I don't know who they contact, or who they go through, or how they do that, I don't know the answer to any of that."

Jones asked, "If they have insurance, and then something happens and they've used all their insurance, then will they come back to us?"

"Well," Kennedy replied, "again, it depends on what's there.  It depends on whether it was something that we should have known, did know and didn't correct, or should have known and didn't know.  It just depends on what happens."

Smith asked, "Have you put together any kind of scenario, or proposal since the last meeting?"

Kennedy replied, "No, to be honest with you I have not."

Lacey then asked, "Who's actually going ahead on this, Selmer Jaycees on this?"

Kennedy replied, "I don't know whether Mr. Moore has spoken to somebody at the Jaycees and the Jaycees said 'Yeah, well do that.  You can use it.'  I don't know.  I talked with one former Jaycee member today.  I'm not sure the Jaycees even know what they've got going there."

Smith observed, "They talked about dissolving this past year, you know, before the fair and all."

"What's your recommendation?" Lacey finally asked the board's lawyer.

Kennedy replied. "It's you all's decision, obviously."

Jones persisted: "What do you suggest?"

"Well," Kennedy finally replied, "I was concerned from the liability standpoint.  But it's gone on all these years, too, so I don't how you whether to balance it or not.  The auction has gone on all these years.  But I think it needs to apply across the board.  Whatever you do, if you're going to do it for one group, you do it for everybody.  If you're going to make someone who does an auction do certain things, I think the saddle club should do these things.  I think we've got to be consistent in what we do."

Blakely brought up another issue.  "I'm not sure, that there may be a bigger difference, but when we get into something like this does it branch out into school-sponsored activities, having wrestling, or donkey softball or basketball game.  Is there a difference is what we're talking about here?"

 "There would be a difference in defense," Kennedy replied, "and obviously any time, well, if there's a business the school sanctions, you're going to be okay because you've got insurance that covers that.  You see what I'm saying?  You’ve got coverage for that.  We're not going to have coverage if somebody, we're probably not going to have coverage if somebody gets hurt at this auction March the eighth.  Probably wouldn't be any coverage if somebody gets hurt riding, you know, falling off a horse at the saddle club.  Somebody gets hurt doing whatever.  And that raises another question.  Let's suppose at the fair, during the demolition derby somebody gets hurt.  Well, in years past we've all though, well, Jaycees have got that.  It's leased to Jaycees.  [Unintelligible sentence.]  We hope they have insurance.  But, you know, now, that land doesn't belong to the Jaycees, it belongs to the [several unintelligible words]…"

"We probably need to regain control," board member Alvin Wilson observed.

"Well, I just—" Kennedy responded.  "Lawyers are paranoid.  I was paranoid before I became a lawyer and I'm even more so now.  But I have, obviously I have some concern about what happens out there.  You're talking about big equipment, somebody getting hurt.  I don't know.  Now Larry [Smith] has been to more auctions than I have, equipment auctions, and he may say, 'Craig, you've lost your mind, there's nothing to be worried about.'  If it's safe, and nothing to fret over.  I don't know.  I've never been to one.  But I just know that there's construction equipment and logging equipment and all I can see big pieces of machinery and people maybe get hurt."

"Good question," Smith observed.  "You never know."

Kennedy continued. "I just don't know, to be honest with you, why take on some—  It's no benefit to us.  I don't mean that to sound—  We don't get anything out of this.  Why would we take on that, want to take on that risk, every how small it may be, knowingly?"

Lacey said, "Why don't you set up a meeting with Mr. Moore and secure insurance covering the board?"

"And also," Smith added, "the issue should be resolved with the Jaycees, you know, as far as the land is concerned, if we're going to continue to let them use it or not, you know, under the current situation.  I wouldn't want to do that, as Mr. Lacey says, without insurance."

Kennedy replied, "And obviously, that's the second, you know, because I'm sure that they may have plans for the fair themselves.  If they don't intend to do that, let them know.  Well, why don't I do that, notify him that if they don't have the insurance, tell them they can't do it.  That's what I understand the board's saying to me?"

After some discussion about insurance coverage, Miskelly asked, "Would it be in our best interests if we had a sign erected and put out there.  'This property belongs to the McNairy County school system, and any use, or something—'"

"Well," Kennedy replied, "I think that one of the things that probably needs to be done is the fact that we probably need to secure it some way.  Because it [unintelligible word] easy to go out there and use it for whatever purpose."

After Kennedy said that he would get in touch with Mr. Moore and tell him that they will have to get insurance for the event or the auction cannot be held, Lacey said, "I would also want to find out the nature of the auction.  We're not going to do live demonstrations—"

"Well, yeah, they would," Smith said.  "I guarantee you….  Would you want to buy a piece of equipment you couldn't see it run loose?  I wouldn't.  I guarantee you they're going to see it work."

Lacey continued. "I would want to know exactly what their intention was, and, if those put life at risk, and then insurance would have to be purchased."

Lacey asked if the 99 year lease is still in effect, and Kennedy said he would think that it is not, at which point Smith said, "I would suggest also that you sit down with the Jaycees, because most likely the ones that's in charge now don't have a clue.  They probably think they have a legitimate lease to it, and a legitimate right to do this."

But, Blakely observed, "somebody knew enough to approach us last month, and then they went ahead without waiting on us."

And on that inconclusive note the marathon school board meeting finally came to an end.




January Board Meeting

10 January 2008


PreK-4 Report

The January meeting of the McNairy County School Board began with a presentation on the school system's PreK-4 program by program facilitator Sherry Carroll and home school coordinator Kaye Donaldson.

"Implementation of the PreK-4 program started in August-September of 2005," Carroll told the board, "with three classes placed at Adamsville, Michie, and Selmer.  A total of twenty students can be in each class.  There is a teacher and an assistant for each class.  We served 67 students by the end of the first year.  At the beginning of 2006, three additional classes were placed Bethel, Ramer, and Selmer.  So now every school has a PreK-4 class for its youngest students.  A hundred and nine students were served in that second year."

The program has continued to expand, she said, and "we now have seven classes with a total of 126 students being served to date."  Carroll explained that "the premise behind PreK-4 is that not all children are coming to kindergarten ready to learn.  They are at risk from the very beginning.  Now Ms Kaye and I both have backgrounds in kindergarten and PreK," she said, and "we saw these children struggling, along with their families, to play catch-up each year, and in an effort to target these most at-risk children and families, our program strives to provide a quality pre-school experience for all these at-risk students, so that they can they can develop the necessary school-readiness skills by the time they start kindergarten."

Carroll explained that to be eligible, children have to live in the county and be potty-trained.   "When planning for the program, it was decided by Mr. Charlie [Director of Schools Charles Miskelly] and the council committee that parents would provide the transportation, primarily as a safety factor.  This turned out to be a very good decision not only for that reason, but, this daily communication and parent-involvement opportunity has turned out to be a big component of our program, and at the beginning of this school year Mr. Charlie hired Ms Kaye Donaldson as the home school coordinator.  She works on a full-time basis, and all of the teachers, the assistants, Ms Kaye and myself that are involved, and Ms Patsy [Pearson] and her staff out at the adult ed center that are involved in the program welcome each and everyone of you to just go by and visit one of these PreK-4 classes, and you can see for yourself what PreK-4 does for our children."

Kaye Donaldson then explained her involvement in the program. "At the beginning of the school year, when I accepted this position, one of the things that Mr. Massey [Mark Massey, Assistant Director of Schools] and Mr. Miskelly stressed to me was the importance of getting to know these parents, being very visible, being a liaison person between the home and the school.  And so, in order to feel like I was doing that, and doing a good job at that, I am trying to be at each school at least once a week at arrival and at dismissal.  And this way I get to greet the parents as they come and see them in the afternoon as they pick the child up.  I'm also getting to meet caregivers and grandmothers and grandparents and aunts and uncles.

"I've learned a lot of new faces and made a lot of new friends.  I try to stress to them, for one thing, my love for their child, and my, that I want it to be a good beginning, because a good beginning is so important.  They know that I'm a long-time kindergarten teacher, and how important it is to become involved from the very beginning.

"We all know, as educators and as members of this board, how important it is to have the parents involved, what it means down the road to that child's success.  Those parents need to be felt, need to feel like they are welcome, and those teachers and assistants do a wonderful job at that.  They are very quick to greet those children, and greet those parents and grandparents and tell them funny things the child has said and done, and just make them feel very welcome.

"One of the things that we have done this far this year, and plan to do two more sessions, we have planned two parent-involvement sessions.  And we plan those sessions, with the exception of Selmer Elementary, we tried a nighttime session once and that didn't work, but we plan those sessions at 2:00 in the afternoon.  Parents come anyway at 2:30, and so we have planned those sessions that we know they're coming, it's just get them there a few minutes early.

"I have truly enjoyed meeting with those parents.  The last one we had, I had some fun activities, with some Fruit Loops, and some colored toothpicks, and some plastic knives, forks and spoons, and I just tried to show those parents some of the fun games they could be doing at home with very little.  You know, very little cost, very little time, and stress to them if they could do some of these things ten or fifteen minutes every day what a difference it would make in their child's education.

"Another thing that we stressed early on was sign up for Imagination Library.  Ms Pam Vandiver, from the Family Resource Center, was very helpful in getting that off the ground, and we have beat the bushes trying to get children signed up for Imagination Library, stressing to those parents, giving away books as door prizes, stressing to those parents the importance of those read-aloud sessions.  The bad thing about, I guess—one not bad thing, but one minus for those Imagination Library—is that if children wait until they get to PreK-4 to sign up, then within a few months they're turning five, and they don't get those books any more.  So besides those children, we're trying to give those parents pamphlets to take to their neighbors, to take to church with them, to take, you know, wherever they can take them, for younger siblings, and cousins, and things like that, trying to get the word out about the importance of reading, and the importance of those books.  I've recently submitted a grant that I hope we're going to be able to buy some books for each child before the beginning, before the end of the year, since a lot of them are not getting those Imagination Library books anymore.

"I guess one of the things that has been the most rewarding for me, after a couple of the parent-involvement sessions, and I found that, you know, I want everyone to come, but I found that the most meaningful ones have been when there have only been four or five parents and four or five children that I could sit down with.  But they are so receptive to what you have to say, and so appreciative of your thoughts and your ideas for things they can be doing at home."

"You know," Donaldson continued, "parents are the best teachers, but sometimes parents need someone to teach them, someone to help them.  But then, like I said, they've been very receptive.  Pam Vandiver has also shared some of the Literacy Bags at the resource center, and these are just big bags with books and everything you might need to illustrate that book.  They have puppets, and they have some of the things that the book is about.  And so I have been able to share those with the PreK-4 teachers, and they can then let the parents check those out.

"I enjoy so much getting to still work with those PreK-4 student.  They're such happy places.  If you've never been in one of those classrooms, please do that.  Please do that.  Every school has one, like she said.  Selmer Elementary has two.  But that's just one of the bright spots of my week, is to be able to get to go into those classrooms, and those children know me by name, now, and a lot of times I try to share a book with them, or do something fun with them, and let the teacher have a few minutes of quiet.  But if you haven't done that, I would really urge you to.

"Another rewarding thing is, those teachers know that Sherry and I have both been in the classroom a long time, and so they are very quick to ask our opinion about things, and to ask 'What ideas do you have for how I could get this skill across,' that sort of thing, so she and I both are really enjoying that part of our job.

"And, last but not least, I try to help Sherry.  She is so knowledgeable, because she has been with the program, but she is so knowledgeable about all the things the state requires, about all the paperwork there is to do, all the emails that need to be answered, so, you know, when I'm thinking that there's going to be a quiet day, and then she gets to the office and there's a whirlwind and we start all over.  But I am very appreciative, and like I said, if you are interested at all give one of us a call and we'll be happy to give you a PreK-4 tour."

"Thank you, Ms Donaldson and Ms Carroll," Director Miskelly said when Pearson finished.  "And I'd just like to say that we've been very fortunate to have these two ladies and the expertise and experience that they bring about kindergarten and PreK, and as any new program there's always a few bumps and humps and questions and issues, and they have helped us build those, and we think the PreK-4 is something that has been very positive for McNairy County School System, and I think down the road we'll certainly be benefiting from that, and so I appreciate those two and what they have contributed."

Board Member Johnny Blakely asked if there was "any objective way to measure progress" of the students in the program.

"I'm glad you asked that," Donaldson replied.  "We are currently, [aside, to Carroll:] what would this be, the first ones are in the second grade now?  Or third grade.  Any way, they take the TCAP for the first time in the second grade.  They also do end-of-year kindergarten screening, and they do the DIBELS assessment [Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills], and now they're doing it in kindergarten, first and second.  So we are in the process of thinking about how to do that.  When we visited Wayne County, they were actually doing some assessments, but I think Vanderbilt is coming in and doing some of that for them.  And we can just do something on a very small scale, and we anxious to.  That's something Mr. Massey just mentioned to both of us."

Carroll continued. "After the first year, when we only had the three classes, I went to every kindergarten teacher that I could get to, and just asked, within the first six weeks, and I asked them 'How are these children doing, compared to regular kindergarten?'  And they said, 'Oh, I wish they'd all been there!'  I see their growth daily but, as you say, some ways you measure, there's the Gantt, there's DIBELS, and then there's end-of-year kindergarten and the first grade.  There's several different things that we're looking at.  Hopefully, they can be in place."

"One of the things we did early in the year," Donaldson added, "we had a 'Child Find' effort, and we had some addresses for four-year-olds, names and addresses, and so we spent a full day going to homes that children were not, they were not enrolled in Head Start, they were not enrolled in PreK-4, and as kindergarten teachers we knew that those children that were not enrolled in any of those programs, what they were going to come to kindergarten.  And so we went on a 'Child Find' effort, and we did find some children, and we enrolled a couple of those.  But the lack of parent initiative is really high."

"There are two pending at Ramer and Selmer," Carroll added.

"We're still getting some students," Donaldson added.  "Another thing that we're available for, and I'm specifically available for, is home visits, and we have done three or four of those.  And the teachers and the principals know that.  The PreK teachers do that at the beginning of the year, but if there's a problem, if they feel there's a need for us to go back into the home, then we can do that."

* * *

The board then proceeded with its regular business, unanimously approving all reports on a motion by Board Member Larry Smith, seconded by Board Member Jean Jones, and unanimously approving the second reading of the Emergency Allergy Response Plan on a motion by Jones, seconded by Board Member Lynn Baker.

The next item on the agenda was the "School System/School Compliance Report," which, Director Miskelly explained, "is a report that we have to turn in annually that we are in compliance with the rules and regulations of the State Department of Tennessee, according to Statute in the Tennessee Codes Annotated, and you will find those, and you will find that our principals have signed off that we have addressed those statutes.  And so I present those to you for approval."  The report was unanimously approved on a motion by Johnny Blakely, seconded by Jean Jones.

Miskelly then advised the board that the Career and Technical Program Monitoring Report for both high schools was "overall, very good."  He reminded the board members of the "Statement of Disclosure of Interest" and said that the "Day on the Hill" would be on 26 February this year.  He also informed the board that two members needed to be appointed to the "Teacher of the Year" selection committee, on which Smith and Jones served last year.  Board Member Tony Chapman was absent, so Chairman Lacey named him as one member and put himself down as the second.  Both Smith and Jones agreed to be reserve members, should Chapman or Lacey not be available.


* * *

Miskelly then mentioned several matters that had not made it onto the agenda, beginning with a visit he had received earlier in the day.  "Mr. Keith Moore came into the office this afternoon and requested the use of the McNairy County Fairgrounds on March 8 for a proposed equipment auction.  The fairgrounds are under the direction of the McNairy County Board of Education except for three years out of the year….  We might ask Mr. Kennedy about the liability and responsibility.  Mr. Kennedy, do you have a comment about that?"

School Board Attorney Craig Kennedy discussed liability and insurance issues regarding that particular request, and Johnny Blakely broadened the discussion, saying, "I would suggest that we need a comprehensive study and a policy concerning the use of that year round."

After some further discussion, Blakely moved "that we authorize our attorney to research this issue and do every thing he thinks he needs to do to get the lease straightened out, anything else he knows about."

Jones seconded motion, which Lacey restated thusly: "Motion by Mr. Blakely to authorize the attorney to examine and make recommendations at the next board meeting concerning not only this, but fifty-two weeks in the year," and it passed by unanimous voice vote.

Miskelly then presented the board with some preliminary drawings for four additional classrooms at Bethel Springs Elementary and Ramer Elementary, and he reported some tentative progress toward clearing up the deed situation which had been delaying work at Michie Elementary. "There has been some contact with the lady at Michie whose signature is needed for that property.  Ms Walters has talked to her a couple of times, I have talked to her once over the phone, so that makes us feel a little better that maybe something is going to be worked out, hopefully in the near future, about Michie."

Johnny Blakely then asked Attorney Kennedy whether any progress had been made toward clearing up the legal issue delaying the installation of a turning lane at McNairy Central.  Kennedy explained that a survey would probably be necessary to clear up the matter.

Next, Board Chairman Frank Lacey pointed out that the board's February meeting was scheduled for Valentine's Day, and the board decided to move it up two days to Tuesday, 12 February.  [This will be at the same time that the Selmer Town Board meets, so the report of the February board meeting in this space will be written from an audio recording of that meeting and will probably be less than precise in identifying the speakers.]  [Note: The date of the meeting was advertised in the 30 January issue of the Independent Appeal as 7 February, not 12 February as stated at the January meeting.]

Finally, Miskelly told the board that "over the next month or so that we would be in good stead to have a work session and maybe discuss some of our building issues and things and see if there are some of them we want to proceed with.  Maybe at that time we'll have a little more information about the Michie project.  Maybe we can take some of this, and maybe some other things that we've looked at.

"At that work session also I would like for, throw out to you and you be thinking about, and I'm almost hesitant to mention this, because I don't know that I have any answer to questions, but one of the responsibilities that we're going to have for next year as a board is to come up with—I'm going to use the word 'differentiated'—differentiated pay scale, or an incentive pay scale, bonus pay scale.  I don't know the right word.  I don't even know if the state knows the right word, because, again, in my opinion I think they're wading off into something that's going to create some real issues and problems for us.  But, according to the law, we're going to have to do something to address pay for positions that are hard to find, hard to keep.  But, anyway, that's going to be an issue, and I think we're going to have to sit down and put our thinking caps on and see what this board wants to do.   I see that creating some real problems and issues for school districts, to reward—  And the point I'm trying to make is, what is hard to find this year may not be hard to find next year.  And then to reward one group may cause concern with another group, and that group may be some of your best employees, teachers.  I just see a lot of questions, but it's something we're going to have to address between now and budget time, so I ask you to be thinking, and thinking about that, what we would do there."

Larry Smith asked, "They're going to mandate the hard to find, hard to keep jobs, is that—"

Miskelly explained.  "They're going to mandate that each district come up with their own plan to differentiate a pay scale, based on what we think is hard to find, hard to attract, hard to keep positions, if I understand it right.  And then the few superintendents that I've talked with about it, I think we all have some real concerns about that and how that's going to work, and I haven't found anybody that really knows the answer to that.  What I need to do is find somebody that's a lot smarter than me and has got a lot of time.  But I just think it's going to be a real, but it's going to be a challenge for us, and I think we're going to have to come up with something that will bring, we're differentiating our pay scale for certain positions and certain groups, and whatever.  So I just throw that out for you to be thinking about, and maybe that would be also something we'd address at a work session."

"How's that going to play out with our negotiations?" Smith asked.  "Because most of the hard-to-find positions like that are certified people that…"

"That's been discussed back and forth," Miskelly responded, "and I haven't heard the final answer to that.  Some brains say that it's not going to have to be negotiated, and some say that it is.  You get into negotiations, you're going to have to negotiate that, which is, so.  I still think there're some questions there that I don't know the answers to—"

"Is this going to be in the form of an ongoing pay scale," Blakely asked, "or is this going to be in the form of a bonus, or, I mean what's going to happen five years down the road when the jobs change, and now all of a sudden the hard to find and hard to keep are in abundance because they want that extra money?"

"Exactly," Miskelly said.  "And I think that's one of the issues that I have, and one of the questions that I have.  There's going to be plenty of questions about how this is going to be pulled off.  And, again—"

Smith interrupted to ask, "Who's going to pay for it?"

"There's a lot of questions, like I said.  I just throw it out to you tonight."

"Sounds like we've got a lot of questions to answer in that work session," Smith observed.


December Board Meeting

13 December 2007


As befitted the season, there was an abundance of good news at the December meeting of the McNairy County School Board, with the best news coming from Ramer Elementary School teacher Emily Crabb.

"Santa came early to Ramer school," she told the board, "in the form of $60,000 from the 'Hope for Education' Foundation."  Crabb explained that the Foundation, which was started by Magic Johnson and the Samsung Corporation, presents an annual award for the best essay of 100 words or less on a technology-related topic, which this year was: "What is the single most significant benefit that technology can provide in the classroom?"  Anyone can enter on behalf of any school, and Ms Crabb entered the following essay on behalf of Ramer school:

"Any journey takes planning—not only for a destination, but how to travel.  The single-most important part of the trip is the vehicle available to aid in travel.  As educators in rural America, we have an itinerary—often a state-mandated curriculum, but lack the necessary 'vehicle' for travel.  The availability of computers, digital/video imaging devices, and other technology will allow us to provide virtual 'travel' to other lands, to see through other windows, and capture images to broaden horizons and help students to learn far beyond what textbooks can teach."

Crabb said that keeping her essay under 100 words was "more a challenge than I thought it would be."  She learned that her essay had been awarded the 2007 Grand Prize in a phone call "back in September, and I've had to keep this quiet, and it's the hardest thing I've ever had to do."

Half of the award will be used to purchase HDTVs, camcorders, monitors, and similar equipment for the school, and "the other $30,000 will come in the form of Microsoft software, preselected, and we're not really sure what that will be.  I know there's the question of how this will impact the school, or the children, and quite honestly it's like there's an open door, and we have no idea.  We've not had this opportunity before, and we're looking forward to it being great things.  We can see things, we can capture images, we can experience things we couldn't have without it."

The web address for the foundation is http://www.hopeforeducation.com, and anyone can enter the contest on behalf of the school of their choice.  "Any parent, any student, any grandparent, any friend, and they're all addressed equally, across the nation, so I would suggest that maybe people take it back to their schools and say 'Here, apply.'  Ramer can never win again, so that's it for us.  But you can, so you can enter for any school in the county."

Crabb invited the board "to come to Ramer after Christmas, sometime, when it's all delivered.  I think that should be interesting.  It's $60,000, and we're proud of it."

"We're proud of you!" Board Member Jean Jones told Crabb, speaking for everyone present.

* * *

Board Chairman Frank Lacey called on Adult Education Supervisor Patsy Pearson for more good news. "I did not know that we were going to receive this award," Pearson said, until she arrived at the Adult Education Supervisor's summit in Gatlinburg earlier this year "and they passed this out and I found my name on the list and I was so excited.  We met all the goals that they set, that the federal government set in the levels of adult education that we teach, that we have in our building, and we surpassed many of them.  And so we were presented with this certificate of award, and as you can see I think there 93 programs in the state of Tennessee and there was about twenty of us that were able to meet those.  So we felt good about being able to help that many people, and to meet our goals."

When Pearson finished, Board Member Johnny Blakely mentioned that Pearson's daughter, Julie Ann Skinner, had also been honored recently, and Pearson explained: .  "She called me this morning and she said, 'Momma, WBBJ has just been in my room,' and I said 'For what?'  And she said, 'I won Educator of the Week for west Tennessee!' and she was so high!"  A former student teacher who had worked with her in her 4th grade classroom at Michie had written the nominating letter, which was also signed by Skinner's students.

* * *

Still in the "Good News" department, School Health Coordinator Shelva Moore presented the board with an overview of McNairy County's Coordinated School Health program.  Moore explained that Tennessee is the first state to implement such a program state-wide, and she said the program's mission was "To improve students' health and their capacity to learn through the support of families, communities, and schools."  She passed out a brochure which set forth the eight components of the program: comprehensive school health education; physical education; school health services; school nutrition; school counseling, psychological and social services; healthy and safe school environment; school-site health promotion for staff; and family and community involvement in school health.  "Basically, just knowing that if a child comes to school hungry, it's going to be hard for him to learn.  If they come to school with asthma and have a hard time breathing, they're going to have a hard time sitting in the classroom, listening to the teacher and worrying about learning.  Just trying to address all the needs of the students, and make them where they are ready to learn.  And, when I started that this year, the job, I looked at that and there's no way that I can know everything about all of these areas, and what I'm finding is we have a lot of people in place in the county that are expert in each area, that are passionate about each area, and my hope is to work with them, use them as a resource, let them use me as a resource, and things that we're learning through the state-wide program that we can bring to them and all work together and be a resource for the teachers in the school system to take these things to the students.  Things that we are involved with, we coordinate with school health and that we're doing, we're working with some of the existing programs, like the Character Counts program, the Get Fit program, things that are already in place in the county, we're working closely with those."

* * *

The board dealt with a number of other items in the regular order of business.  The various reports were approved by unanimous voice vote on a motion by Blakely, seconded by Larry Smith, and the board likewise unanimously approved (on a motion by Smith, seconded by Tony Chapman) the first reading of an "Emergency Allergy Response Plan."  Education Director Charles Miskelly explained that "This is a policy that is required by the state to be approved.  It is going to bring some challenges.  Ms Carol Ann Woods and myself and some others will probably be dealing with this over the next few months to make sure that we think is in place for procedures to deal with this policy.  But I, I need to tell you up front that I think it's going to bring some challenges with it."

The unanimity of the evening was broken on two items, both involving Adamsville High School, as Board Member Larry Smith voted no to accepting a bid of $105,000 from Jackie Hamm Construction for initial work on the fieldhouse, and no to accepting a bid of $2,000, also from Jackie Hamm Construction, for dirt work related to the project.

As the meeting drew to a close, Smith enquired about the status of projects at other schools in the county, and Miskelly stated "It's going to be my feelings, and presentation to you, that … we probably attack this in steps, and that we do some of these, what I'm going to call smaller projects, by adding on some class rooms at Bethel and Ramer and Michie, and improvements at other schools, do those in a phase, I think those are necessary, and then down the road with Adamsville Elementary and Selmer Elementary, I think we're going to have to sit down and decide what we're going to do there, and then move on."

School Board Attorney Craig Kennedy updated the board on two pending matters, saying that they were still one signature shy of clearing up the Michie deed matter and, regarding the turn lane at McNairy Central, that "we still have not been able to find evidence of a right of way at that particular location."

The board then went into executive session to confer with its attorney on an undisclosed legal matter.  When it went back into open session Chairman Lacey once again expressed the board's appreciation for the good work of Shelva Moore, Emily Crabb and Patsy Pearson, and then the meeting was adjourned.

 

November Board Meeting

8 November 2007

The McNairy County School Board began its November meeting at the Courthouse Thursday evening with a thirty-minute presentation by staff and students on the school system's One-to-One Initiative, the thrust of which was that the program has been successful and ought to be continued, and it ended with a twenty-minute presentation on the school system's performance on the 2007 Report Card, the thrust of which was that the system is doing quite well.

In between, the board moved rapidly through most of its agenda, unanimously approving all items up to "6.B. FIELDHOUSE REQUEST—Adamsville Jr./Sr. High."  When Board Chairman (and newly elected Adamsville Alderman) Frank Lacey asked if there were any questions about the request, Board Member Jean Jones opened what proved to be an extended discussion by observing, "I didn't understand that we were going to be asked for funds."  Her remark was occasioned by the fact that the proposal submitted to the board called for the board to provide $30,000 for phase one of the three-phase project, and Jones said she had been led to believe that Adamsville High School was going to raise its own funds.

"That was my understanding, too," agreed Board Member Alvin Wilson.  "When the presentation was presented it was for permission for them to build a field house and the board would not be involved."

[In fact, at the school board's September 11 meeting Education Director Charlie Miskelly had reported that Adamsville High School had received a proposal from a contractor for "the field house that they had approached us about back in the spring.  They have approximately $41,000, give or take a few dollars toward that project.  They received a proposal from Mr. Freeman about ordering the building, pouring the concrete, getting the building erected, that was around $105,000.  Mr. Jackie Hamm has agreed to do the site work, prep work, and get the foundation ready for a minimum cost of $2,000.  I think Mr. Jackson, Dr. Jackson, for the Adamsville contingency would like to do that, to get that ready, with the feeling that once people see the site work completed there may be some more interest would be spurred, and maybe some more donations and fund raisers would follow to help toward this $105,000 which obviously wouldn't complete the project but would get it in very good standing to move on with volunteer labor and do some things and things like that."  No mention was made then of any requirement that the school board contribute any funds to the project.]

The ensuing discussion revealed a clear division in the board, with Lacey and Chapman, backed up by Miskelly, pushing hard for approval, and Jean Jones and Larry Smith questioning the wisdom of spending thousands of dollars on another field house for Adamsville High School when other schools in the system don't have adequate classroom space.

Jones began by pointing out that Adamsville's "current field house was built in 1991, and the field house at McNairy Central was built in 1973, and I do not see McNairy Central coming to us asking us for $30,000."

"I'm for progress," Jones said, "but I think if we give them $30,000 that we should turn around and give McNairy Central $30,000 also."

"And I would hope we would," Lacey remarked archly, "if they make a request."

"Well, I'm sure they will," Jones replied.  "At the next meeting."

Larry Smith then asked the obvious question.  "Where is this $30,000 supposed to come from?"

Miskelly replied that "It would come from money, just like last year, that we had left over from line items, where we put $400,000 plus in the fund balance last year, Mr. Smith, and, uh, there's approximately $1.6 million in the fund balance now, so it would come from those funds."  He did not explain why that surplus was not available to meet the school system's wide-spread need for more classrooms but was available to buid a second field house for Adamsville High School.

After some discussion about amending the budget, Miskelly summed up the request in terms that differed somewhat from what he had told the board in September.  "I think the point is, is that Adamsville High School has raised forty-plus thousands of dollars, they have in their funds another $50,000 that they are willing to commit to a building that will help the students at Adamsville High School.  They've come to the board with a letter here asking the board to commit $30,000 of this project to get a building, get a pad poured, the dirt work, to get a building erected, that would take under their wings and finish, and commit more time, and progress, and booster clubs, and people to commit to, volunteers to finishing that project.  I think in the long run the building will benefit not only the football team but, at some point in time, hopefully the whole student body for physical education and other things.  They're simply coming and making a request for that, which, we've had other schools, and I think that's one of the reasons we're open to helping schools, because that's where we help young people.  And, so, that's what we're doing tonight is, they have submitted a plan here to get a building up on their campus.  I think we've all discussed in the past the need for space, the need for buildings, and the need for help at all of our campuses, and that's what they're asking for."

"Is this money to be spent on classrooms?" Jones asked.  "We need classrooms today at Bethel Springs.  Today."

Chapman dismissed Jones's question with a snort: "You're not going to build a classroom for $30,000," leading Jones to shoot back, "But we're not going to build a field house for thirty-thousand, either.  The field house is $440.000?"

Lacey asked for a motion to approve the request, but Chapman said he'd like to hear from the principal or the football coach "who are going to be using this most, and why they need a new building, and what the future holds as far as us being requested to provide any more funds on phase two and phase three."

Adamsville High School Principal Brian Jackson was there to oblige. "The current facility that we're using on campus is certainly in good shape, and we are using that.  It is, the primary concern, as already indicated, is the need for space.  And we have in excess of forty students that are using the facility for weight training, weight lifting, conditioning purposes.  Those of you that visited our campus the other day with the tour, you saw how cramped those facilities are, that we have that need, and that is the primary reason that we are making this request.  And as far as the second question there, Mr. Gray, as the coach, has been very instrumental in working with the individuals who are committed to this effort, that have given us their assurance that they're going to help with phases two and three.  They are people that work in those various different areas, and they're quite willing to see that that happens.  And that's what we're requesting here with our proposal."

Chapman then asked, "And, do you think that some time in the future, during phase two or phase three, that you would be asking us for additional funds, or, what's your feeling?"

"At this point," Jackson replied, "it appears that we have the resources in place.  A couple of things that are possible, that we're certainly looking at, the $40,000 that was raised was from a Cardinal commitment program that took place there in one evening, with the assistance of Hardin County Bank, and that is individuals, not that we're going out soliciting this from businesses.  But those are individuals that are committed to making this happen.  And so, re-tapping into that, through our booster effort, they have three major fund-raising events each year that they are willing to commit funds from that.  With their gold-card sales, their golf tournament that takes place, the booster boards that we have on the field, they're willing to commit funds to that annually to see that this project is brought to completion."

Johnny Blakely then asked, "how much are you estimating the total cost of the project to be?"

Jackson replied, "It's hard to determine, Mr. Blakely, in knowing that various individuals are trying to help with this, and, for example, with the HVAC, individuals who say that they may help us get things at cost with that, and then some labor would be donated in some of the laying the blocks and that sort of thing, so it's really hard to put an estimate on what the total price will be.  We do know, from the estimates that we've received, to get the building up where we can actually do some of those sorts of things it's going to be in the neighborhood, as you see there, of $120,000."  [At the September board meeting Miskelly had put the cost at $105,000.]

"And have a useable building at that time?" Lacey asked.

"Yes, sir."

Blakely then asked, "And what are the plans for the building.  Total plans.  I mean, have you made plans for dividing into weight rooms, and changing rooms?"

"Yes, sir," Jackson said.

"And how will that free up the other building?" Blakely asked.  "What will it be?"

Jackson replied, "That will allow us opportunity, right now that facility of course is used with our junior high program, it's used with our high school program, it's used with the baseball program.  Softball's currently having to use the indoor facilities in the gym for their work.  It opens up more possibilities in using the existing facilities for some of the other programs where we're having to double up with that.  When visiting teams come in, with us, they are having to use the facilities in the gym."

Blakely then summed up his feelings. "I've got to tell you where I am on this, Mr. Jackson.  I am sympathetic to your cause.  This board, I think, has a pretty good history of helping schools that help themselves.  I see Mr. Hollingsworth back there; he's donated many countless hours and money of his own, helping Ramer school and McNairy Central, and I appreciate all that volunteers do, and I would look with kind ears toward your request.  But on the other hand, I would have to say this.  When I was over at Adamsville the other day I saw several other areas of concern to me.  The bleachers on the home side, particularly, and so I must say that if I vote for this tonight I will have a hard time turning loose any more money this year for things like that.  I mean, that's where I'm coming from."

Smith then raised a question about the use to which the proposed building could actually be put at the end of phase one.  "My concern with it is, a couple of concerns.  One, you can't use the building to its full capacity until you get a certificate of occupancy, and you're not going to get a certificate of occupancy until the last piece of finish work is done inside, according to the plans that were submitted to the fire marshal's office.  In other words, you can use it, but you can't have classrooms.  You can't have structured classroom time in there.  You see what I'm saying?"

Jackson agreed with Smith's summation.  "Yes, sir.  And we held a meeting recently with our architect, Jeff Vaughn, and Pat English, and we have submitted a change order to the fire marshal's office, related to the construction purposes for the building, to work with that."

"That change order," Smith continued, "will cover the fact that you can only use it for certain things, like maybe weight training or something like that.  You can't use it for an accredited P.E. program, is that correct?"

"Yes, sir," Jackson agreed, "that is correct."

Smith also expressed a concern that rising costs of materials, as well as possible changes that might be required in order to secure approval from the state fire marshal, might ultimately obligate the board to far more than the initial $30,000 requested. "If we have someone else come in in the fire marshal's office and ask us why has this building not been completed yet, a year and a half, two years down the road, it may put this board in the position where we have to come up with that kind of money to do that.  And I don't know where we can come up with it, and justify it to the public, because of the" shortage of space that other schools in the system are experiencing.  "$30,000 is one thing today, but the three-hundred plus thousands dollars, a year, two years down the road, is another concern that I have.  Because once we start the project, they come in and say it needs to be completed, you know, the board is obligated.  The board is going to have to do something with it.  And I don't know where we could come up with that money."

Jackson said that he thought that "the proposal that has been submitted through the state fire marshal would assist in not having to meet those requirements on the basis that, on that timeline basis that you're referring to."

"But," Smith persisted, "we're not going to get a certificate of occupancy until it is completed and approved by the fire marshal, correct?"

Lacey then took over for Jackson, repeatedly attempting to side-step Smith's point that fire marshal approval would ultimately be required for the building.

"No, sir," he said, dismissively.  "The fire marshal wouldn't be involved.  According to the conversations that we have had, he will not be involved if we build this building right here."

Smith: "Well, according to my conversations with Jeff Vaughn—"

Lacey interrupted: "If you're going to use it for classrooms, you're going to have to get the fire marshal involved to get it approved for classrooms."

Smith: "If we're going to have an accredited P.E. program in there—

Lacey: "You're exactly right."

Smith: "—every piece of finish work would have to be complete inside the facility."

Lacey: "That's right.  And that's what we discussed."

Smith: "And that's what the long-term goal is."

Lacey: "You're exactly right.  And that's what, why it's broken down in phases—"

Smith: "I don't want to put this board in a position where we are obligated on this, and then we have to come up with that kind of money.  I know that at McNairy Central this year they spent some $7,000 on repairing their field house.  And the booster club sponsored it. And a lot of that was commodes, bathroom facilities, dividers, air conditioning units, and so on like that were done.  I've had several calls today as far as that money being spent.  As I understand, over $7,000 was spent up there this year."

"Just for ordinary things," Jones said.

Smith: "Maintenance items."

"Yeah, maintenance items," Jones agreed.  "And the roof still leaks."

Lacey again asked if there is a motion regarding Adamsville's proposal, but Smith persisted.  "Do we have approval from the fire marshal to go ahead as the proposal states here?" he asked.

Lacey: "We do not need approval from the fire marshal to build what is proposed here."

Smith: "Well, why did you request a change, if you didn't have to have approval?"

Lacey: "Because they were going to build this under the specifications—"

Smith: "We're not building it according to those specifications.  We're building it with changes."

Lacey: "No, sir.  We're going to build it according to the specifications in the original drawings.   We're not going to occupy the building for classrooms at the end of phase one."

Smith: "You still have to have a letter from the fire marshal approving it."

Lacey: "According to the fire marshal we don't."

Smith: "Well, according to Jeff Vaughn, you do."

Lacey again asked if there was a motion, and when there was no response he made the motion himself, which was seconded by Chapman.

"Let me say something," Miskelly said at this point.  "I think the question is, there's some things that has to be ironed out, I think the question is, what Adamsville High School is in question, do they know that this board will support $30,000 to get them phase one.  Now there's some things that has to be approved.  There's the fire marshal, architect, engineers, all the different things, for it to be constructed like they have drawn it.  I think that's the question.  The proposal is, do they have support for $30,000 from this board to get this building ordered, erected, to this point."

Lacey then called for a vote, and Chapman, Lacey, Baker, and Blakely voted yes, with Wilson, Jones, and Smith voting no.

Blakely initially voted yes with a qualification, saying "I vote yes, with the provision that we undertake to make sure that all regulations and concerns are addressed concerning the state, and that we have some kind of a understanding that we're not going to be responsible for more money."   When informed that such a provision would have to be presented and voted on as an amendment, he changed his vote to a simple "Yes."

Smith said he was voting "No, because I'm afraid you're going to put this board in a situation where we will be required to come up with more money that we don't have that needs to be used for classroom space"

The balance of the board meeting was unremarkable, with the board unanimously approving all other agenda items.


October Board Meeting

11 October 2007

It took the McNairy County School Board exactly 47 seconds to dispose (with no discussion) of the first page of its 1-1/2 page agenda—and that included time for a unanimous voice vote (on a motion by Tony Chapman, seconded by Johnny Blakely) approving the minutes of the September board meeting, the financial report, and the expenditure report.

Another 37 seconds was all it took (again, with no discussion) to consider and approve (by unanimous voice vote on a motion by Jean Jones, seconded by Larry Smith) the report of the Textbook Selection Committee.

It was not until item 6B on the seven-item agenda (TURNING LANE—MCNAIRY CENTRAL HIGH) that any information was produced beyond the printed words of the agenda.  "I believe this is to ease the traffic problems," new Board Chairman Frank Lacey said, turning to Education Director Charles Miskelly.

"There's just a lot of congestion here, especially in the mornings," Miskelly said, referring to High School Road.  "People who are trying to get to work and school at the same time."  Miskelley said that he had spoken with McNairy County Mayor Jai Templeton about the problem and that road department supervisor Harvey Neal Smith had gone out and looked at it.  The problem area, Miskelly said, was the part of the road "about at the top of the hill" by the high school.  Neal told Miskelly "that they can construct approximately a 400 foot, actually it's would be an extra lane there, the lane that's there now would actually be used for the turning lane into the school, and the other lane would be used by cars to bypass that lane, to relieve some congestion.  He says the approximate cost would be about $8,000.  He has asked, or suggested, or wanted the board to share in the cost, which I'm a little concerned about, but I do think it would be a very beneficial item for us, and traffic and all—  So I would ask you to consider that, and ask questions or voice opinions on how you feel about it."

Lacey asked, "The $8,000, is that going to be divided, or is that our part?"

Miskelly replied that, "The total cost is eight thousand, and we would share it equally in portions.  It would cost us approximately $4,000."

Miskelly explained that the congestion is worse approaching the school from Hwy 142 than it is from Hwy 64, since cars coming up from the south have to make a left turn to enter the high school property.  "If people are trying to turn into that entrance it would be a left turn, and they're having to wait on traffic on the hill coming that way, and so this would alleviate some of that because the cars could go around and move on towards 64."

"Would the county, McNairy County highway department, do this work?" Jean Jones asked.  When Miskelly replied in the affirmative, Jones said "I appreciate the county paying this share of it," a sentiment she repeated later in the discussion.  "I think we would benefit from it more than anyone else, and I appreciate them paying for half of it."

David Baker asked whether the county would be responsible for maintaining the turning lane: "That's another good question," Miskelly replied.  "I would think that we would want to have that understanding, that they would maintain it, because I don't think we need to get into the business of maintaining …."

Blakely asked how far cars are currently getting backed up, and when Miskelly said "they have backed up in the morning up past the maintenance building," Blakely observed that they would probably still be backed up beyond the proposed 400 foot lane.

"Well, sometimes, yes," Miskelly responded, "depending on how many are actually turning left."

Larry Smith pointed out that "There's some kind of electrical pole, TVA pole, or something, that couldn't make it as long as you wanted to because of that, is that right?"

"That's true," Miskelly said.  "Through my conversations, it would be very expensive to get that pole moved, and it would be up to us to pay for that."

"That's the reason it wouldn't be any longer than it is, though," Smith said. "It really needs to be longer than it is, but it can't be because of that fact."

"It would be beside the existing road?" Jones asked.

"Yes," Miskelly said.  "It would just be another lane."

Jones moved that the school board proceed with adding the lane, and the motion, seconded by Lacey, carried unanimous on a roll-call vote.

"Item C is school budgets for 2007 and 2008," Lacey then said.  "Any questions about it?"  There were very few, and the budget was unanimously approved on a roll-call vote on a motion by Tony Chapman, seconded by Smith.

Lacey then turned to the next agenda item. "Item D is first reading of the policies:
2.202 - School Support Organizations
3.402 - Scheduling and Routing
6.308 - Buss Conduct
6.303 - Interrogations and Searches
6.316 - Suspension/Expulsion/Remand
6.317 - Student Disciplinary Hearing Authority
Any discussion on these, first reading of these policies?"

Miskelly responded, "The only one I'd want to make a comment about is that first one, School Support Organizations.  This is a law that was passed in the last legislative session.  There's a lot of questions, there's a lot of concerns, but it does mandate us to pass this policy."  However, Miskelly said, "before we do anything with this policy I'm going to ask Williams and Jerrolds or some CPA organization to come in and give us some clarification.  There's some things here about this policy.  I just want to make you aware that across the state I think there's some concern, I don't know if concern is the right word, but questions about this.  But it is in the law that we have a policy on the books.  But before next year, when we actually have to start enacting this policy, that we certainly seek help from our CPA."

Lacey remarked, "I would assume that we need to educate those organizations."

"That's the whole point," Miskelly replied.  "There's going to have to be a lot of education, communication, input, you know.  The problem is, is that a lot of these organizations don't have accountants, or CPAs, or people to do their bookkeeping for them or people that are trained to do bookkeeping, and so I see some concern there, I see some questions that we need clarification on."

Chapman then said, "So we'd like to get all of them to use, if they don't already have a written cooperative agreement, to enter into a written cooperative agreement."

"Have to do that," Miskelly agreed.

Jones then moved "that we approve the first reading of these policies," and her motion, seconded by Smith, passed on a unanimous voice vote.

The board then unanimously approved "Food Service Policy Updates" on a motion by Smith, seconded by Chapman, before moving on to a more contentious item.

"Item F on the agenda," Lacey read, "to seek bids for paving on Hughes Street in Adamsville."

Miskelly explained that all he was asking for at the moment was authorization from the board to get bids on paving Hughes Street in Adamsville.  Right now, he said, "we're simply seeking approval to see how much it would cost to pave that street."

Lacey explained that "This is on the land that the city of Adamsville has leased for 99 years.  And the way I understand it from the last time, I think we all agreed that we should have had the language in the lease agreement for them to maintain the road, but we didn't have the language in there, and I think the city has gotten bids, and their bid was around eleven or twelve thousand dollars, and they want the road paved and they're willing to pay their part.  If they pay it all, they'd like the property deeded to them, but we don't want to deed it to them.  I really don't know why they want it deeded to them.  They've got a lease longer than any of us will be alive.  If we get an estimate of what it is, maybe we can come back and offer them a 50-50 or 25-75 spread on the cost of getting that road paved.  I think we ought to at least get some cost estimates."

At this point Board Attorney Craig Kennedy clarified that the so-called 99-year lease is actually a lease which is renewable annually for 99 years and "automatically renews itself" annually "unless we take some action to terminate it."

"Well, maybe we want to terminate and modify it," Lacey said.

Smith said, "I'd like to see us get bids," but he thought that the board needed "to see if there's anything that needs to be done, like culverts, ditching, drainage, and so on like that, before we get bids."

Blakely moved that Miskelly be authorized to get bids and the motion, seconded by Smith, passed on a unanimous voice vote.

Lacey then "move[d] to item seven on the agenda, Director of Schools Reports."

Miskelly briefly mentioned the possibility of the future addition of new schools at both Selmer Elementary and Adamsville Elementary and asked that the board members get back to him with their thoughts on the subject.

"Also, I'd like to share a letter with you from the University of Memphis, Dr. Louder."  Miskelly said that the U. of M. professor was "very complimentary at our [One-to-One] initiative and what's going on and complimentary of Mr. Burns and his work.  So I share that with you, and I commend Mr. Burns for that program."

Burns told the board that Dr. Louder "was just overwhelmed by how much success, how much progress we've had, we are making, with this initiative."

Miskelly then returned to the second item on the agenda, which was "Parent - Lloyd Watkins," explaining that "Mr. Watkins could not be here tonight," but that he was asking that G.B. Plunk Road, between Airport Road and Old Stage Road, be added to the Selmer school bus route.  Watkins child, Miskelly explained, is the only school-aged child on that road, which is not currently on either a Selmer or an Adamsville bus route.

After extensive discussion Larry Smith moved that Mr. Watkin's request be approved, and his motion was seconded by Johnny Blakely.

"I would like to remind us," Lacey said, "that we said the last time that we did this we would probably be opening a can of worms.  I would only caution that, do we really want to look at every one of these that are coming in to us, so…  We might not have another one for five years, but if you get into this you, we start doing this, are we going to be opening a larger can of worms, will we have more and more of them?  But, saying that, I have a motion and a second."

Kennedy asked whether the motion was "to do it to his house or the entire length of the road?"

Smith said, "I'd say leave it up to Mr. Miskelly and the transportation supervisor, how they want to draw the line."

The motion passed on a unanimous voice vote.

Lacey then adjourned the meeting, and as the members were rising Kennedy informed them that he had acquired three of the four signatures needed to clear up the deed problem at Michie which had been discussed at previous board meetings.



After the meeting Frank Lacey, who last week was elected to the Adamsville Town Board, was asked about the possibility of conflicts arising out of his sitting on the Adamsville Town Board and the McNairy County School Board at the same time.  The paving of Hughes Street which had been discussed a few minutes earlier was a case in point.  The town of Adamsville had previously expressed a willingness to pave the street only if the property were deeded over to the town, and the school board had previously expressed an unwillingness to relinquish title to the land.

Lacey said, "I was on the Adamsville city board when the issue first came up, and we said we're not doing it because it's a county road.  Now the county has come back five years later and said we're not going to do it because it's school property, not county property.  Well the school property belongs to the county.  But anyway, they're not going to do it.  The city wants to do it, but they wanted the road deeded to them.  My preference would be, the city pays half and the school system pay half."

He was specifically asked about "the potential conflict if you are sitting as chairman of the school board and an alderman.  Are you going to continue in both positions, and if so are you going to recuse yourself?"

"If I needed to," Lacey said,  "I'd recuse myself.  I'd have to talk to my lawyer.  I'm going to push, I've got to see the agreement that they have, I'm going to push, because, bottom line, whoever pays for it it needs to be done.  The principal there, well, two principals ago were asking for it, and every time the commissioners told us they'd get it done, but it's never happened.  Maybe this time it will.  We'll see."




September Board Meeting

11 September 2007

Because this year's fall district meeting of the Tennessee School Board Association was scheduled for September 13, the September meeting of the McNairy County School Board was moved up two days from its usual meeting date of the second Thursday of the month, which put it in conflict with the monthly meeting of the Selmer Town Board, which is held on the second Tuesday of each month.

Being unable to be in two places at once, I attended the town board meeting, and for our coverage of this month's school board meeting I have had to rely on an audio tape recording, which is not very satisfactory since, among other things, it is not always possible to identify who is speaking.  With that excuse made, I present the following admittedly substandard report of the school board's September meeting.


Credit Recovery Program

The September meeting of the McNairy County School Board began with a report on the school system's Credit Recovery Program, presented by Adamsville High School Principal Brian Jackson and McNairy Central High School Assistant Principal Christy King.

Jackson explained that the program was designed to improve the graduation rate at the county's two high schools by making it possible for students who had not successfully completed classes in the regular course of study to make up those classes and "recover" the missed "credits" in order to graduate on time.  (The program is only available to students who have failed to make a passing grade in a subject, so it does not replace regular classroom instruction and it cannot be used to acquire new or additional credits.)

In approaching the problem Jackson said "we wanted to take a proactive approach" in looking at graduation rates and the progress the schools are making, and to that end they reviewed at a number of state-approved models and found that the Chester County School System had received a good response with a program it had implemented a year or two earlier.

The computer-based program ultimately adopted for McNairy County is open to students who achieved grades of from 50 to 69 in any of the 35 subjects that are covered by the program.  Students and their parents must participate in the application process to get into the program, and the students must enter into a contract with the school administration.  Since the program is computer-based, students may work at their own pace whenever they have free time during the school day and even before and after school.  They are required to maintain notebooks documenting their progress through the courses they take.   After working through the tutorials on the computer, the student takes a practice test and then a mastery test.  The student must achieve a minimum score before moving on to the next lesson.  The student's final score is a combination of the grade the student achieved in the regular course, the grade achieved on the student's notebook, and the "mastery grade" the student gets at the end of the program.

Jackson said that the program benefits both the student and the school, in that students who complete the program develop a sense of accomplishment and avoid having to take the class over again (possibly delaying their graduation), and the schools avoid problems of scheduling and larger classroom sizes that would result if the students had to repeat the courses.

McNairy County's Christy King expanded on some of the points made by Jackson and reported that the program got off to a shaky start at McNairy Central when it was introduced in January of this year, partly because students enrolling in the program thought it was going to be easy.  Of 40 students who enrolled in the spring semester, only 17 completed the program.  But, she said, things picked up considerably over the summer, when 32 of the 39 participating students successfully completed the program.  "We are very pleased" with those results, she said.  As a result of the Credit Recovery Program, three 12th graders were able to graduate with their class in the spring and twelve 11th graders were able to move into the 12th grade with their classmates.

Jackson reported that Adamsville High School had offered 17 different courses and enrolled 49 students, who took a total of 74 classes (some of the students enrolled in more than one course).   He was "very pleased" to report a success rate of 92%.  He said that research shows that students who fail to perform adequately at the freshman level are at the greatest risk of dropping out, and for that reason the program concentrated on freshman, enrolling 29 freshmen who took 43 courses in the summer session.  Those students received credit for 41 of the 43 courses taken, "and all of those students have gone on to grade ten."  Jackson said that the four seniors who participated in the spring earned a total of seven credits, enabling them to graduate with their class, which they could not have done without this program.  Also, one other senior completed work this summer which enabled him to be counted as an on-time graduate.  Jackson said that he had had "very positive responses" from both students and teachers working with this program.  Also, Jackson pointed out that without the program his school would have come close to not meeting state graduation requirements.

Jackson said that the school had tried to identify all students who were eligible for the program and encouraged them to participate, and King said that she had met with every student that was qualified.

Improvement of graduation rates has a positive impact on the community, Board Member Johnny Blakely said, observing that one of the first things that companies like Toyota look for when deciding where to locate their plants is the high school graduation rate.


One-to-One Program

There was then some discussion regarding the One-to-One Program.  Terry Burns, the school system's technology coordinator, explained that there were sufficient computers on hand to add an additional classroom to the One-to-One program.  He reported that he had sent an e-mail to all teachers informing them of the availability of training for that classroom position, and that only one teacher had responded.  That teacher,  Michelle Bowen, had completed the training, and Burns recommended that she be given the new class.  In the considerable discussion that followed, board member Larry Smith stated that he had been given to believe that other teachers were discouraged from taking the necessary training.


Primecare

The next agenda item was a "Request from Prime Care [sic] to access their facility from Selmer Middle School entrance."  Education Director Charles Miskelly advised the board that he had received a request from Primecare Medical Center "to create a driveway from our driveway at Selmer Middle School into the parking lot to be used for the employees."  Miskelly said that he had expressed some concern about the increase in traffic and questions about losing control over who had access to the school  "Obviously as director of schools I'm always concerned with the amount of traffic on our schools, especially Selmer Elementary, Selmer Middle, in that area."

Primecare representative at the meeting advised that Primecare was going to expand the clinic and on the south side, which "would extend the employee parking lot further south toward Hwy 64, closer to the drive that goes into the Middle School now."  He explained that the planed expansion "would take up probably 50% of the employee parking lot now."

Asked about arrival times at Primecare, the representative said that "employees get there between 7:00 and 7:45" and they leave between 5:00 and 6:00.  "And certainly we would be willing to enter into any kind of an agreement for maintenance for any kind of wear and tear that would be created by our employees' traffic on the school property."  He added that even if the board were to approve Primecare's request it still would not be certain that Primecare would act on it.  "We're trying to take one step at a time.  We've got to negotiate with the hospital, of course, getting the land to build the driveway on, and that might be a much harder task to do than getting the board to approve our use of the driveway."

Responding to one board member's question, the Primecare representative said that only employees would use the driveway, but he acknowledged that there would be no way from keeping the general public from using it.  When one board member suggested putting up a gate with "an employee card system," the representative responded, "We possibly could do that.  We're trying to keep down expenses."

There was also some discussion about how they could determine how much wear and tear is being done by whom, and the board eventually decided to have school board attorney Craig Kennedy look into it.


Adamsville

Education Director Miskelly then called on Kennedy to explain situation regarding Hughes Street in Adamsville near the elementary school.  Adamsville has agreed to pave and maintain the street, but only if the title to the land the street is on is conveyed to the town of Adamsville.  One board member stated that the city of Adamsville has a 99-year lease on the land, and so it should pay for paving it, and Kennedy himself said he was concerned about giving up control of the land (which is owned by the Board of Education, not by McNairy County) to the town of Adamsville.

Miskelly also reported that Adamsville High School has received a proposal from a contractor for "the field house that they had approached us about back in the spring.  They have approximately $41,000, give or take a few dollars toward that project.  They received a proposal from Mr. Freeman about ordering the building, pouring the concrete, getting the building erected, that was around $105,000.  Mr. Jackie Hamm has agreed to do the site work, prep work, and get the foundation ready for a minimum cost of $2,000.  I think Mr. Jackson, Dr. Jackson, for the Adamsville contingency would like to do that, to get that ready, with the feeling that once people see the site work completed there may be some more interest would be spurred, and maybe some more donations and fund raisers would follow to help toward this $105,000 which obviously wouldn't complete the project but would get it in very good standing to move on with volunteer labor and do some things and things like that."


Michie

One board member asked Miskelly for an update on the building project at Michie, and Miskelly said, "Mr. Kennedy might want to address our deed issue." Kennedy replied, "We're at the same place we've been for months." The deed has been located which conveyed the property to the board, he explained, "but the folks that made that deed to us two years earlier had made a deed to their children that included that piece of property.  That's why we've got to go back now and still get these other deeds."  Kennedy has been trying to work with the family to resolve the issue, but he said "there are strong disagreements within the family."

One board member asked, "At what point do we file legal proceedings.  I know we voted last month to do that."  Kennedy replied, "Well, I think some time before next month's meeting we'll have to.  I hate to do that, but …"


A Plan for the Future

Miskelly reported to the board that "I have heard this year probably more comments about the start of the school year and the success that we've had—besides the heat, I don't know who to blame for that—we've had a great start, because of people like those out in the audience," indicating school employees who were in attendance.  "Thank you to the employees of the McNairy County School System for the great job that they do."

Miskelly then went on at some length about the need for the school system to have a plan for the future.

"I think at some point in time we're going to have to go to the people of McNairy County, what do you want your schools to look like in 2015?  Where do you want, Selmer Elementary?  What do you want added on at Adamsville, or Bethel, or Ramer, or Michie?  I think the issue is, our enrollment is up about 70 students this year from last year.  Well now that's not a major jump, but it's done that now for about three years in a row.  We continue to add a few students here and there, we continue to add a few programs, we continue to add pre-K-4 programs.  I think that our challenge is going to be to put a plan in place in the next year or two, or somebody to have a plan in place, that's going to address the needs of the McNairy County School System, and I think that's our responsibility, I think that's our challenge, I think that should be our mission."

 "I think we ought to go to the communities not with what we did last time where we opened up a can of worms, and they want to be, well, they haven't got enough of this, or they don't like this or they don't like that.  But I think the question has got to be answered, what do you want the McNairy County School System to look like in two thousand, say, fifteen?  It's going to take a couple of years to develop a proposal, a plan.  By the time you start, you go through all the hoops and joints that you go through."

"We need to sit down and agree over the next year, everyone, to say this is what we hear from our communities, this is what we hear from our citizens, and this is our proposal to answer that for the next ten, fifteen years down the road.  Because I think we fail ourselves, we fail our students that somebody will serve, and I take it as a major responsibility, even though some people have often criticized that I don't care about the McNairy County School System, but let me tell you—I care.  And I want the day that I leave here, I want it to be in better shape than it was when I came.  And I think that we need to have a vision for the next 20 or 30 years."

There was some discussion among the board members, one of whom asked Miskelly if he would draw up such a plan.  Miskelly replied, "Well, I would try, but I would like to hear a voice from this board that says we would like for you to arrange some meetings to hear that the public wants some new buildings, or they want new construction, or they want a new facility, or they want something…."

One board member said "we need to have a select committee or something like that to advise us.  I'm all for it," and Miskelly said that he would find a date for the board to meet to do something after October 10.


Other Business

In other business the board elected new officers, with Frank Lacey becoming the new board chairman and Johnny Blakely the new vice chairman; unanimously approved purchase of computers for Selmer Elementary School; unanimously approved donation of computers to the Selmer Community Center; and unanimously approved "Extended Contract Proposal" for 2007-08.




August Board Meeting

9 August 2007

The McNairy County School Board met at the courthouse Thursday, August 9, before an audience of six people, all six of whom were evidently reporters or employees of the school system.

Hot Weather


The sparse attendance may have been due in part to the hot weather the area has been experiencing, and the weather came up during School Director Charles Miskelly’s report to the board.  “It’s very hot,” Miskelly said.  “We’ve asked our principals and our coaches to be sure to do everything that we can to be sure that the student athletes, to the best of our ability, are taken care of.  It’s a very dangerous situation out there.  We wouldn’t want anything to happen to any individual.  We are taking steps to try to minimize problems like this.  It’s a very difficult matter.  Very dangerous.”

Board member Larry Smith asked how the school system’s air conditioning systems are working.

“Not well,” Miskelly replied.  “I’d say not well.  The chiller that contributes to it [to the cooling] has been down and worked on at least twice this week I know of.  There’s some issues there, I guess.”

“Holding its own?” board member Johnny Blakely asked.

“Holding its own,” Miskelly said.  “But, like I say, when that chiller goes down …,” he trailed off, before resuming.  “If the chiller is on it can be made cool, but then the next day when that chiller goes off it’s very warm.  But the maintenance people have worked on it, like I say, a couple of days, and we think we’ve got it headed in the right direction, so maybe we’re going to be okay there.”

The problem is system-wide, Miskelly said.  “We’ve had air conditioners down all across the district.  It’s hard, as many rooms and as many air conditioners as we have, to keep them all going, especially when it’s a hundred degrees.”  Miskelly had praise for the schools’ maintenance workers: “They’ve done a good job, and I appreciate the job that they do.”

Smith asked if any consideration had been given to shortening the school days to deal with the problem.  Miskelly said that he hadn’t given it any consideration but that he didn’t see it as a solution: “I don’t know how you escape it, even if you shorten the day.”

Off to a good start


Hot weather aside, Miskelly reported “We’ve had a good start to the school year,” and he expressed his appreciation for all of the hard work of the teachers and other school employees.

Smith asked “What about all the new money and all the new teachers and all the new classrooms?  Have we got teachers, and have we got space for everybody?”

Miskelly acknowledged that “in some places it’s limited space.  We’ve been very innovative.  People have done a good job.  We do have a lot of new faces and new additions and new programs and new things going on.”

On another positive note, Miskelly said “if you noticed, in your budget there’s a little over $100,000 there left over to carry over or to come up, as Mr. Blakely asked at the last meeting, to come up with some really innovative ideas, something to really create some opportunity for our young people.  So I think there needs to be some talk and discussion about maybe a program or a science lab or something.”

Getting back to Smith’s question, the director said, “Yes, in answer to your question there are a lot of new faces, a lot of energy out there, and there is a place for all of them right now.  Some of them are sharing and some of them are doing some pull-out things.  A lot of good programs and a lot of good people.  We’re trying to improve the achievement in McNairy County.  Probably one of the most difficult summers we’ve had, in trying to nail things down and get people in place and keep our highly qualified status, get them rooms, get availability.”

Summing up, the school director said he and his staff think “that we are on the right track.  I’m excited about this year.”

One-to-One Intiative


Another non-agenda item that received some attention was the school system’s “One-to-One Initiative,” which, according to its mission statement, “is dedicated to providing students with one-to-one learning with the most effective technology possible.”  The program makes laptop computers available to students “to educate, motivate and improve students in the use of technology and research,” with the goal that “each student involved in this program will be better prepared for continuing education, the business world, and technology challenges in everyday living.”

Board member Frank Lacey spoke highly of the program.  “I just want to encourage not only the school board here, but also our county commissioners to take a moment to go in there” and observe the program in operation.  “The kids are very eager,” Lacey said, and “already they seem to be grasping news ideas and new ways of learning.”

Lacey’s comments were seconded by board member Jean Jones, who said that Nadine Nichols, a teacher involved in the program, had told her “it was the best program that she had ever been involved in.  She wanted the board to know.  She said it’s the best one, and she’s been teaching for twenty years.”

Janie Stutts, a second-grade teacher at Adamsville Elementary who has a child who is participating in the program (and who was one of the six audience members), said that both she and her child were delighted with the program.

Other Business


• The minutes of the board’s meetings of July 12 and July 17 were unanimously approved without discussion on a motion by Lacey, seconded by Blakely.

• On a motion by Lacey, seconded by Baker, the board approved the second reading of the Non-Resident Teachers Policy, which will “Allow children of non-resident ‘out of state’ teachers of the McNairy County School District to attend a school in the McNairy County school system without tuition charge.”  Voting no were board members Alvin Wilson and Larry Smith, both of whom had argued against the policy on financial grounds when it was proposed at the July 12 meeting.

• Unanimously approved, on a motion by Lacey, seconded by Jones, increases in substitute teacher pay from $38 to $42 a day for classified personnel and from $50 to $55 a day for certified personnel.

• Unanimously approved the 2007-2008 school budget on a motion by Lacey, seconded by Smith.

• Farmers and Merchants Bank has for some time been providing financing for the building of houses by Adamsville High School's building trades program.  This has been done until now without any specific agreement, but Board Chairman Tony Chapman advised the board that “the auditors asked that we draw up an agreement.  The attorney has done so, and they ask that we approve it.”  The board did so unanimously, on a motion by Smith, seconded by Jones.
 
• Each year the Cletis Kiser Award is presented to the outstanding board member, chosen by ballot by the board members themselves.  This year the balloting resulted in a tie between Johnny Blakely and Frank Lacey.  As preparations were being made for a run-off ballot, board member Jean Jones asked Frank Lacey if he had previously received the award, and when Lacey responded that he had not, Blakely withdrew his name and the award was presented to Lacey.

• After going into closed session for about ten minutes to confer with board attorney Craig Kennedy, the board went back into open session and Jean Jones immediately made a motion “to authorize Mr. Kennedy to take any action he may deem necessary to secure the deed to the Michie school land.”  The motion, seconded by Lynn Baker, passed unanimously.

Because the TSBA fall district meeting will be held in Decatur County on September 13, the McNairy County School Board’s September meeting has been moved to Tuesday, September 11.