School Enrollment Bouncing Back

 Sumner County Director of Schools Del Phillips updated the School Board on enrollment numbers in light of COVID-19, according to a recent story in the Tennessean:

Phillips said that Sumner County Schools had 29,177 students enrolled during the first 20 days of the school year. That is roughly a thousand students less than last school year.

“Approximately 1,450 students chose to home school,” Phillips said. “In comparison, that's usually around 150, so a pretty sizable number chose to homeschool.”

 

Phillips also reported that 4,100 students have enrolled in the Sumner County Virtual Academy, with 2,600 of those students being K-8, during the first nine weeks of the school year. About 550 of the K-8 virtual learners are returning to the classroom after fall break, he said.  

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Approved

By a vote of 17-7, the Sumner County Commission last night approved a budget and certified tax rate. The measures included a $4000 pay raise for all teachers. If the Sumner County Board of Education approves, the raise will go into effect in January.

The new budget and tax rate will also fund an SRO in every existing school (hiring 15 new SROs), add funds to the highway department, and begin a construction project in Gallatin to include a new courthouse, parking garage, and jail module. The Sumner County Jail has been overcrowded for at least nine months and Sumner County's courts are scattered in multiple locations. The courthouse on the square is unsafe for employees and visitors.

11th District County Commissioner Jeremy Mansfield spoke in opposition to funding teacher pay raises and the other items paid for by the new funding. Speaking for nearly 30 minutes, Mansfield ultimately offered no alternative solutions. He mentioned several ideas for alternate funding, but never made an actual motion to amend the recommended budget. While he claimed he is "for teachers," he failed to offer a way to fund the raises he supposedly believes they deserve.

Additionally, Mansfield proceeded to insult the intelligence of Sumner County's educators by repeatedly referring to them as "pawns" who had been duped into supporting a tax increase that wasn't actually necessary. His own inability to offer a viable alternative funding source exposed his charade as little more than a failed filibuster attempt.

Likewise, 1st District Commissioner Moe Taylor offered a budget and tax history lesson devoid of many facts and then moved to amend the budget and then voted against his own amendment. He later admitted he was "confused."

Of the more than 40 individuals making public comments on the budget, the speakers were 2-1 in favor of raising the tax rate and approving a budget that included money for roads, SROs, teacher raises, and other needed improvements. Still, a small group of speakers affiliated with Kevin and Laura Baigert's Sumner Taxpayer's Alliance spoke in opposition. Many wore stickers calling teachers "pawns" and suggested that while they supported teachers, they didn't support the mechanism for funding their raise.

Kevin Baigert himself compared teachers wearing red to soldiers in Communist China who were just doing what they were told.

Many of the anti-tax/anti-raise speakers seemed to have no memory of the history of budgeting in Sumner County. None acknowledged the budget crisis of 2012 brought about by a previous County Commission that spent all the reserve funds and dipped into the hospital fund proceeds. Instead, the anti-tax crowd suggested spending all the reserves and using the hospital fund (one-time money) to pay for teacher raises (a recurring expense).

Apparently, few in this group remember the actions that led to nearly eliminating all portable trailers in Sumner County, eliminating many student fees paid by parents, planning for a new school campus (Liberty Creek), beginning the hiring of SROs for schools, and improving pay for classified employees across the district. As a result of a slow, deliberate, methodical approach, all classified employees in Sumner County now make at least $10 an hour. Pay for substitute teachers has also improved dramatically.

Additionally, during the 2018-19 budget cycle, Director of Schools Del Phillips indicated he was asking the School Board to fund one round of classified pay raises in 2018-19, adding in all remaining classified in 2019-20 (current budget cycle), and then moving forward with a significant raise for teachers.

The point: The idea that a pay raise for teachers is some sort of surprise is simply -- to borrow from Commissioner Mansfield -- "a false narrative."

Ultimately, 17 County Commissioners voted in favor of fiscal responsibility, low taxes, and much needed improvements in county services. Meanwhile, 7 voted to kick the can down the road -- to support a philosophy of spending all the money with no planning for the future.

Here's how they voted:

Voting YES:

Geminden, Hinton, Driver, Foster, Schell, Ring, Sullivan, DeWitt, Echols, Rhodes, Tucker, Chris Taylor, Goode, Krueger, Langford, Guthrie, Nipper

Voting NO:

Hyde, Becker, Wright, Tinsley, Graves, Moe Taylor, Mansfield.

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Phillips Pushes Teacher Pay Raise

Sumner County teachers could see a $4000 boost in pay in the 2020-21 school year if a proposal from Director of Schools Del Phillips wins the support of the Sumner County Commission.

Phillips presented the plan at a study session of the Sumner County School Board on August 6th. He plans to take it to the Sumner County Commission Budget Committee on August 12th.

The move would bring Sumner County teacher pay in line with surrounding counties such as Williamson, Rutherford, Robertson, and Wilson.

Currently, teachers in Sumner lag behind teachers in those communities in pay.

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Phillips Proposes Schools Budget

At a non-voting work session yesterday, the Sumner County School Board heard Dr. Del Phillips' proposal for the system's budget for 2015-16.

Here's what Phillips had to say about it in an email he sent to system employees today:

On Tuesday afternoon I presented the 2015/16 budget to our School Board.

 

This represents the earliest we’ve presented the budget to our School Board in many years.   It is my hope that our School Board will adopt this budget during the May 19th meeting.  If the budget is adopted by the Board of Education, I will present the approved budget at a joint work session of the County Education and Budget Committees on May 20^th.

 

I’m thrilled to say the budget is a balanced budget with funding priorities that positively impact our schools and classrooms in a number of ways.

 

First and foremost, this budget continues our efforts to increase funding for classroom technology by adding another $250,000. This brings the total amount we are spending annually on classroom technology to $750,000.  This is a dramatic improvement over the $20,000 per year we had budgeted for technology in the 2011/12 budget.  These funds go directly to each school based on student enrollment. The principal at each school decides how best to utilize these funds to increase the effectiveness of teaching and learning. 

 

This budget also continues our School Board’s efforts to eliminate our district’s dependence on voluntary fees paid by parents. We’re doing this by eliminating student fees in elementary and middle schools and by raising our district’s instructional allocation for classrooms. Over the past four years we have raised our district’s instructional allocation by  $1,125,000.  These funds go directly to the schools in four spending categories: Office, Instruction, Library, and Guidance.

 

Also included in the proposed budget are pay increases for all employees, which continues our Board’s commitment to try to provide a cost-of-living adjustment every year.  The budget also includes range increases for our district’s bus drivers and custodians that will amount to a $1.00 to $1.55 per hour raise for these employees. This increase represents the third year of our Board’s four-year plan to bring the wages of our classified employees more in line with the market wages paid by the private sector.

 

And finally, and maybe most importantly, the proposed budget includes a $1 million undesignated fund balance to help provide fiscal stability for future budget years.

 

 A copy of the presentation I made to the Board of Education, as well as a copy of our proposed budget, may be found on our BoardDocs site by following this link:

http://www.boarddocs.com/tn/scstn/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=9WCEEQ1B661A

 

And here's some analysis of the budget from local grassroots advocacy group Strong Schools:

 

Today, Director of Schools Del Phillips presented his balanced budget proposal to the School Board at a non-voting work session.

Here are some key highlights of the proposal:

• The elimination of school fees for grades K-8
• An increase in the instructional allocation for schools -- from $34 per student last year to $54 per student this year
• An approximately 2% raise for most teachers and school employees
• The addition of 50 new part-time interventionists -- certified teachers who will provided targeted instruction through the RTI2 framework
• The additional staffing needed for the opening of William Burrus Elementary
• The addition of school nurses to improve the nurse to student ratio from 1:1211 to 1:1054

This budget represents another step forward for Sumner County Schools. It eliminates K-8 school fees, gives employees a raise, adds key staff, and provides additional classroom resources.

In addition to the base raise for classified employees, the budget includes a range adjustment for bus drivers and custodians, who will see an increase of between $1.00 and $1.55 an hour. This is designed to keep our system competitive.

While there is much to applaud in this budget, the comparisons to other neighboring systems make clear we have more to do.  For example, while this budget proposes the addition of 50 part-time interventionists, Williamson, Wilson, and Rutherford counties have an average of 48 full-time interventionists.

When it comes to school nurses, the proposed budget would allow us to improve our ratio by a reduction of over 150 students, our ratio will still be one nurse for every 1054 students. Neighboring counties average one nurse for every 854 students.

Our School Board, in cooperation with the County Commission, is digging out of a deep hole. For too long, parent fees and budget cuts were the norm. School Board meetings were focused on where to cut and what purchases to delay in order to function at acceptable capacity.

It's worth noting that both the County Commission's Budget Committee Chair and Education Committee Chair attended the budget presentation at the School Board. That's a new and welcome level of engagement by our County Commission.

And it should be mentioned that in the budget crisis of 2012, Strong Schools called on the Board and Commission to start the budget process earlier in order to allow more time for feedback and adjustments. This budget, presented in May, will avoid the crisis budgeting and last minute cuts of the past.

Our School Board and Dr. Phillips are to be commended for carefully and methodically digging their way out and pushing our school system forward.

As budgets like this year's become the norm, Sumner County Schools will continue on the path to building the excellent schools our community deserves.

For more news on Hendersonville and Sumner County, follow @HvilleNews

 

School Board to Hold Budget Workshop

The Sumner County School Board will hold a budget presentation and workshop on Tuesday, May 12th, at 2:00 PM at the School Board Office located at 695 East Main Street in Gallatin.

The workshop is designed to give Board members a chance to review Director Del Phillips' budget proposal and request any changes before an anticipated vote on Tuesday, May 19th.

For more on news from Hendersonville and Sumner County, follow @HvilleNews

New Principals Named at Hendersonville Schools

Sumner County Director of Schools Del Phillips has named new leadership at some Hendersonville schools.  The new principals are:

Hendersonville High School -- Bob Cotter (currently principal at Hawkins Middle)

Hawkins Middle School -- Mitch Flood (currently an assistant principal at Gallatin High)

Beech High School -- Kenny Powell (currently principal at Knox Doss at Drakes Creek)

Merrol Hyde Magnet School -- Todd Stinson (currently an Instructional Coordinator with Sumner County Schools)

Liquor Money to Flow to Schools

After a mini-controversy involving Aldermen and the ability or willingness to read audits, it seems that a mistake is being corrected and Hendersonville will make payments over 5 years to the Sumner County Schools to make up for liquor-by-the-drink revenue not previously paid to the school system.

The agreement was reached by Mayor Foster and Director of Schools Del Phillips.  Some on the Board of Aldermen initially expressed skepticism or opposition (Matt Stamper, Mark Skidmore), but the final vote showed broad approval for the negotiated repayment plan. 

Going forward, the City of Hendersonville will pay the money to the schools as it comes in.  The agreement means the schools will receive $200,000 a year from Hendersonville for the next 5 years.

Long Again

After one year of not serving as School Board Chair, Don Long has been re-elected to the role. Andy Daniels will now be the Board's Vice-Chair.  Long and Daniels replace Ted Wise and Beth Cox, who held the Chair and Vice Chair roles this past year.

Long led the search for Sumner's current Director of Schools, Del Phillips.  Last year, Wise and Cox were chosen to lead the Board for a year. 

Long and Daniels are both up for re-election in 2014. 

That's one way to put it ...

County Commissioner Jim Vaughn is "applauding" the wisdom of Schools Director Del Phillips because Phillips is not asking for more funds for schools in this year's budget.

In short, Vaughn is gloating that after two budget cycles, Phillips has gotten the clear message that the County Commission (at least in its current form) won't be funding excellent schools.  They seem content with portable farms, low faculty and staff salaries, and supplies funded by PTOs and fundraising drives and supplemented by teachers. 

So, Phillips has taken better than expected numbers from the BEP and some county revenue growth and made the most of it, utilizing funds in a way that keeps schools going without asking for a start on the investment necessary for truly excellent schools.  The alternative was yet another fight with the County Commission that likely would have seen that body ignore the will of the public and continue to under-fund schools.  Layoffs mid-year would have likely followed.

Also, to say the budgets for all departments are passing early is a strange way of speaking.  The fiscal year begins on July 1st and budgets should (and can) be passed by that date.  In other words, this is the first time in a long time the County Commission has managed its business well enough to get their job done on time.  I'm sure if Jim Vaughn had an employee who completed work on time once very six years, he'd keep him on -- or even give him a raise? 

Sumner Schools 2013-14 PROPOSED Budget

Last night, Director of Schools Del Phillips unveiled his budget proposal for 2013-14.  The budget was unveiled in a presentation to the Board and members of the public who wished to attend.  The event was dubbed a workshop and allowed for a Q&A session before the formal vote on the proposal scheduled for Tuesday, May 21st. 

Here are the highlights:

The budget will require NO NEW REVENUE from the County Commission in order to be fully funded. 

This is for several reasons:  local sales tax revenues are up, increasing the money available for schools, the state BEP allocation was higher than normal, the state allocated SOME money for purchase/upgrade of technology, and the Administration has been conservatively managing existing resources. 

It's worth noting that the budget is NOT the "ideal Sumner Schools budget" and there are still gaps in technology, teaching positions, salaries, etc.  BUT, the budget adds 11 new teachers (long overdue) and increases allocation to technology beyond the state allocation.  It also includes a pay range adjustment for bookkeepers which will mean an average increase in pay of about 50 cents an hour for the system's bookkeepers. 

Other jobs will need range adjustments going forward.

All employees are slated to receive a 1% raise.  Again, not enough ... but a forward step after many years in which there were no raises at all.

The budget does ask the County Commission to cover roughly $3.4 million in capital costs, including the purchase of buses and textbooks. 

If dollars are appropriated wisely, there should be no need for a tax increase to fund this budget. 

Certainly, future years should see proposals that will ask for additional funds to move the schools from an "adequate" budget to one that no longer includes student fees for basic course materials, excessive fundraising to pay for essential supplies, and a lack of access to technology.  This budget takes a small first step in that direction. 

Tune in May 21st for the Board's vote and then watch the County Commission process starting in June to see if this basic, sound budget passes OR if there's yet another budget battle. 

A Little Bit of Rezoning

sure, it only impacts 13 students.  But, it is a start.  Moving the kids from one crowded set of schools to another.  Not exactly earth shattering, but it seems sensible.