Meeting with School Support Organizations

Here is a letter from the Director of Schools to school support Organizations.

In the 2007 General Assembly, a number of laws were passed that affect education. One of those laws is Public Chapter 326, Acts of 2007 which enacts the "School Support Organization Financial Accountability Act". (Another Link and a PowerPoint Presentation) This law requires local education agencies to adopt a policy concerning local school support groups no later than July 1,2008.

The requirements of the policy are primarily aimed at ensuring that groups who raise funds in the name of a school or school organization must abide by certain guidelines. A lot of talk has been generated over the past several months about groups having to be tax exempt or 501 (c)(3), as well as the other requirements.

On Monday, March 31,2008, there will be a meeting to present information about this law and the Roane County Board policy. We will meet at 7:00 p.m. in the Conference Room of the Transportation Building (located behind the Midtown Education Center on Roane State Highway). As you enter the property, go through the gate on the left and proceed around the main building to the Transportation Building. Entrance is on the end of the building beside the flag pole.

At this meeting, we will have people who can answer your questions and help you make sure that you are following the law and the Board Policy. If you cannot attend, please be sure that someone representing your organization is present so that you don't miss the information.

Bus Tour of Schools for County Commission and BOE

Here is excerpts of letter send to the media, County Commissioners and School Board Members from Director of Schools, Toni McGriff and County Executive Mike Farmer.

In response to the discussion and recommendations by the Budget Committee, as well as the full Commission and the Board of Education, we are planning a quick tour of several school sites that are being considered for capital projects.
After consulting with both our Boards, it appears that the best date for a tour of some of the Roane County School sites is Friday, April 4. We will convene at the Board of Education Office at 8:45 a.m. and be ready to leave at 9:00 a.m. Our travel itinerary is as follows.

8:45 a.m. Arrive and board the bus
9:00 a.m. Depart for Kingston Elementary School
9:30 a.m. Leave KES and go to Cherokee Middle School
10:00..a.m. Depart CMS for Rockwood High School
10:20 a.m. Arrive at Rockwood High School
11:15 a.m. Lunch at Rockwood Middle School
12:30 p.m. Depart RMS for Bowers Elementary School
1:00 p.m. Depart BES for Walnut Hill Elementary School
1:20 p.m. Depart WHES for Dyllis Elementary School
2:00 p.m. Arrive at DES
2:45 p.m. Arrive at Oliver Springs Elementary School
3:15 p.m. Arrive at Oliver Springs High School
3:45 p.m. Depart OSHS to return to Board Office.

As you will note, this is a tight schedule with little wiggle room. It is ambitious to say the least! We will have to move with purpose at all times. At Rockwood Middle School, lunch will be available to us at $3 per person. The menu is pizza, ham/cheese roll up, or a hot entree (baked chicken or turkey and gravy). All menus come with additional vegetable, fruit and starch items, and beverage.
If you wish to ride the bus, please let us know no later than Thursday, April 3 at noon. If you wish to eat lunch, please let us know no later than Wednesday, April 2 at noon. We have to have a count for lunch and have to know if you will be spending the entire day with us or will only join us for part of the tour.

Roane County School Growth

Have you ever planted new grass in your yard and covered it with straw? You watch day after day for the grass to grow and see no change. Then one day you look out and suddenly grass is growing everywhere.

Our question is, can we use this same analogy for growth in our schools? Will we wake up one morning and find that we have overcrowding? The School Board has to seriously evaluate the county’s growth and provide our County Commission and citizens with solid data on school growth so we can all be ready for the future.

To see what, if any growth the county is experiencing we’ll look at two things. First, we’ll look at economic and growth trends, and then we’ll look at the actual data in school growth and see if the school growth data mirrors the economic and physical indicators. We’ll also take a quick look at the question of school re-districting.

One doesn’t need actual data to backup the observation that the county is in a growth mode. Large tracks of land in east Roane County have been sold to developers; we have new industrial parks in the east and the west parts of the county, a new interchange at Blackburn Lane on I-40, and new developments on the lake in Rockwood and the Midway area.

The Roane Alliance recently stated that there were eighteen different Chamber grand openings last year and 277 new jobs were created for new and existing businesses. The Alliance also stated that new businesses are expected to bring more than 600 jobs to the county within five years. Two of these companies are already in operation, three have begun construction, and the last three are in the design phase.

The availability of water in east Roane County and the Midway area has contributed to the surge in building permits and the encroachment of west Knoxville can’t be ignored.

Census data shows that Roane County has grown by 13,000 people since 1971 (39,828) to 2008 (52,889). More importantly, Roane County has grown by an average of 250 residents a year for the past five years.

Of the four cities in the county, Kingston has increased by 239 residents since 2000 while Harriman, Rockwood and Oliver Springs have a net growth of zero. In 2006, the population of Kingston passed Rockwood as the county’s second largest city.

In the last census, the Midway community grew 27% and east Roane County grew 19%. Other areas of the county experienced growth rates much lower.

So the intuitive data and the raw census data seem to say that there is growth in the county and that growth is centered in the south and east.

Our challenge now is to compare what the data and observations seem to say with data, that we know is correct, since it is our school enrollment data for the past five years. Enrollment data will help us determine if the new jobs created in the county are actually Roane residents and where the additional 1,000 people live that the census says we have gained in the past six year, but aren’t showing up in the city counts.

Our schools’ enrollment has increased 200 students since 2003. Of this growth our elementary schools have grown by 156 students, middle schools minus 11, and high schools 55.

On the surface, this growth seems moderate, but further analysis shows something quite different.

In the past five years, Harriman schools have lost 113 students or 13% of their enrollment. Since the overall enrollment in our schools has a net growth of 200 in the same time period, the data shows that school growth in the other areas of the county is actually up 313 students.

Kingston area schools have seen a 15% increase in enrollment in the past five years followed by a Midway growth of 7%.

In summary, actual school data mirrors the census data in that the growth is significant in the eastern part of the county. Data also shows that even though the Midway community is experiencing significant growth, school enrollment has seen a modest increase – lending support to the general belief that much of that area’s growth is retirees.

Kingston schools are at 99% classroom capacity and Kingston Elementary School, already at 104% capacity, expects an increase of 45 students next school year. The number is high because they will be losing their smallest class this year, which is the 5^th grade. It will be moving to Cherokee Middle School.

What can the School Board do about this shifting of growth in the county? The question of re-districting comes up. It would seem like an obvious short term solution to move some of the Kingston zone to Harriman, since their classroom capacity use is 74%.

But re-districting is not the panacea it appears on the surface. Let’s suppose we re-district 300 (100 for each high, middle and elementary school) children from the Kingston district to Harriman. The students going into the high school and middle school would fit nicely, but Kingston middle and high schools are not at a space crunch at this time. The immediate problem is elementary schools.

Moving 100 elementary students from Kingston to Harriman would result in Kingston Elementary still being close to 92% capacity, but Bowers Elementary school in Harriman, the closest elementary school for Kingston zoned students, would then be at 125% of classroom capacity. Do we then re-district Walnut Hill and Midtown Elementary Schools? What about Oliver Springs and Dyllis? We immediately begin to see a domino effect each time re-district.

Roane County elementary schools are 411 students short of being 100% capacity. Middle schools are within 289, and our high schools in pretty good shape at 897 short of capacity.

No easy solution for the imminent overcrowding facing Roane County schools. But we do know that the growth indicators we all see and feel for the community can be validated by actual numbers. Growth is here and we must act quickly to avoid an overcrowding crisis.

Here are references to the data included in this analysis:

City population growth:

U.S. Census data - http://www.census.gov/popest/cities/SUB-EST2006-4.html

Growth of Roane County http://www.census.gov/population/cencounts/tn190090.txt

The population data showing growth in east and south Roane county came from data supplied to the county redistricting committee (one used to set representation on school board and county commission) by CTAS. This committee is required to meet at the end of each census in order to determine if election boundaries change due to population changes.

All school data was provided by Roane County schools.

Results of school Board meeting March 20, 2008

Conference room was about 2/3 full. Many principals, some teachers and parents were present.

In the hearing of delegates were three persons. One person was interested in trying to get schools to adopt bowling as a TSSAA sport. Bowling was sanctioned about three years ago by TSSAA and has seen significant growth state-wide. Generally, if our schools have interest and can find a coach they will apply to the TSSAA to have a bowling team. The process the school would have to go through to field a bowling team would be the same if they wanted to form a golf, tennis, or other sport sanctioned by TSSAA.

Another person presented the Board survey results from a questionnaire that addressed dual-credit and AP courses. There are lots of twists and turns in this process as far as funding and state requirements. Like so many things, there is a lot more than meets the eye when making these offerings. A meeting has been scheduled to discuss this with the person submitting the request, the Director of Schools and the Secondary School Coordinator.

The third person to address the Board was Cope Associates about the services they offer for school building.

In the Reports section of the meeting it was reported that on March 31^st at 6:00 p.m. there is a meeting scheduled for all student support groups in our school system. The intent of the meeting will be to discuss state mandated changes on how these groups have to work with fund raising in the schools.

A special presentation was made to the Board by the director of food services for Roane County. The Board learned that over the course of a year over 1,000,000 lunches are served -- 5,123 a day on average. It was also announced that parents can now pay for their child's cafeteria over the Internet for a small handling fee.

A tentative date was set for a bus tour of selected facilities for County Commissioners and School Board members. That date is Friday, April 4^th. Visit to seven schools is on this tentative agenda. Details will be released to the media as they become available. The purpose of the tour is to show first hand some of the facility issues that we face in the county. After the tour, a date will be set for a facilities workshop between the Commission and the School Board.

In old business, 17 policy changes were approved on second reading and one new policy was approved on second reading.

The policies were:

1. Approval of revised Equal Opportunity Employment Policy # 2.02 & 5.01 (2nd Reading)

2. Approval of revised In-Service and Staff Development Opportunities Policy # 2.10 (2nd Reading)

3. Approval of revised Central Office Personnel Files Policy # 2.12 (2nd Reading)

4. Approval of revised Drug-Free Workplace Policy # 2.14 & 5.04 (2nd Reading)

5. Approval of revised Qualifications and Duties of Teachers Policy # 2.16 (2nd Reading)

6. Approval of revised Teacher Evaluations Policy # 2.24 (2nd Reading)

7. Approval of revised Interim Employees Policy # 2.31 (2nd Reading)

8. Approval of revised Retirement of Professional Personnel Policy # 2.37 (2nd Reading)

9. Approval of revised Health and Dental Insurance for Professional Personnel # 2.39 (2nd Reading)

10. Approval of revised Family and Medical Leave Policy # 2.41 & 5.22 (2nd Reading)

11. Approval of revised In-Service and Staff Development Opportunities for Support Personnel Policy # 5.16 (2nd Reading)

12. Approval of revised Time Schedules and Extra Duty for Support Personnel Policy # 5.17 (2nd Reading)

13. Approval of revised Overtime Pay of Support Personnel Policy # 5.18 (2nd Reading)

14. Approval of revised Emergency Closings Policy # 5.29 (2nd Reading)

15. Approval of revised Substitute Teachers Policy # 5.35 (2nd Reading)

16. Approval of revised Health and Dental Insurance for Support Personnel Policy # 5.38 (2nd Reading)

17. Approval of revised Compensation Guides & Contracts for Professional Personnel Policy # 2.13 (2nd Reading)

18. Approval of Recognition of School Support Organizations Policy # 4.33A (New Policy, 2nd Reading)

Also in old business, the school calendar for 2009-2010 was approved (which has a fall break).

In new business there was approval given to surplus technology equipment from the Special Education Department and approval of a Budget Amendment for Title IV Youth Violence and Drug Use Prevention Grant.

After some discussion, approval was given to convert the old Central Elementary school into a school furniture storage facility.