DR. SANDY JOHNSON, CHIEF INSTRUCTIONAL OFFICER

New Pre-K Classrooms

On Monday, October 3, 2005, MNPS will open eleven new Pre-K classrooms at no cost to the students. The new Pre-K classrooms will be located in the following schools: Hattie Cotton, Tom Joy, Paragon Mills, Haywood, Glengary, Bellshire, Cumberland, Alex Green, Inglewood, Amqui, Old Center. Students will report for a full day on Monday, from 8:00 until 2:00. Breakfast and lunch will be provided at each school site.

In order to participate, students must be four years old on or by September 30, 2005. Parents must provide proper immunization/health information and proof of residence. Students that participate in the free and reduced lunch program are eligible to register for the new Pre-K classes.

These programs are provided as a result of the State grant received by MNPS schools. No community based agencies were able to provide the matching funds and participate in the program so MNPS has located all 11 classes in our schools.

LANCE LOTT, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT FOR TECHNOLOGY AND STRATEGIC PLANNING

This is report card generation week for schools and we had some difficulty early in the week on grade entry by teachers. There was an attempt to accelerate the completion of grade entry to allow more time for printing report cards, which last year proved to be the most time consuming and resource intensive activity in Chancery. This created slowness and system disconnects for teachers as everyone tried to accomplish this task in a short window of time. Despite frustrations of school users on Monday and Tuesday, we have completed this task and are making great progress at generating final report cards.

There are three strategies to improve things for the next six-weeks. A new software release has just been received from Chancery that will be installed in mid-October. This release addresses several performance issues in the software. We should see some relief from this, although additional improvements are still needed from Chancery. Secondly, we will discuss the report card generation schedule with school personnel and develop an improved schedule for these tasks. Lastly, the district is expanding its bandwidth for data transmission from the central office to the schools. This proved to be a constraint on Monday and Tuesday and caused some of our problems. This upgrade should remove this as a source of concern in future processing.

CHRIS HENSON, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT FOR BUSINESS AND FACILITY SERVICES

Joe A. Edgens, Executive Director, Facilities and Operations

Land Acquisition for New High School in Antioch Cluster – A recommendation to pursue the purchase of property on Old Hickory Blvd., northeast of the intersection of I-24, was made at the September 27, 2005 Board Meeting. Several questions were raised  about the site, and the recommendation was deferred until the October 11, 2005 Board Meeting. Some of the questions raised and applicable responses are as follows:

1. Location of TVA Power Lines – We are pursuing the purchase of approximately 50 acres of a 240.168-acre site that would have frontage on Old Hickory Blvd. There are TVA lines
   and easements across the remainder of property that we are not pursuing. A schematic site plan was presented in your information packet at the September 27 th Board Meeting
   about this project. While the plan is only representative of a potential site layout, it shows the school building located along the property line closest to the remaining property, which contains the easement. Still, the closest any corner of the building, shown on the schematic layout, comes to the easement is 650-700 feet. By contrast, a TVA easement at Kennedy Middle School exists approximately 300-350 feet from the building in an unused side yard of the property. The location of easements has not resulted in problems at Kennedy.
2. Gas Line on Property – There is an easement for an underground gas line owned by Colonial Pipeline Company on the front portion of the property. This easement is located in an area proposed for athletic fields, and no structure can be built over the easement. The closest this easement would come to the building location on the schematic plan is 1,100-1,200 feet.
3. Sewer Access – There is a sewer easement along the northeast boundary of the property and access to a manhole very close to our proposed property line. The close proximity to sewer availability is very desirable.
4. Distance From County Line – Along Old Hickory Blvd., this property would be approximately 1-1 ½ miles to the closest point of the county line. This particular corridor, Old Hickory Blvd, close to the county line, is the area of significant residential development and the preferred area for a school.
5. Land Still Available for Residential Development that has the Potential to Generate Significant Numbers of Students – On September 28, 2005, I met with the Planning Commission Staff to discuss the impact of a proposed plan amendment that would be considered in December, 2005. This plan amendment would revise the zoning to allow greater diversity in the types of housing in and around Maxwell Elementary and extending toward Old Hickory Blvd. While the plan amendment is not expected to accelerate the development of this area of the county, the Planning Commission recognizes the rapid growth and impact it will have on roads and schools in the near future. They could not identify a specific number of parcels remaining to be developed; but knowing the gross availability and development patterns, they are projecting an increase of approximately 800 students in the current Antioch High School zone in the next 15 years.

Possible Relocation of the Maintenance Department – For a number of months, we have been working with the Real Property Services Division of the Metro Finance Department about the potential to relocate our Maintenance, Hands-on-Science, Warehouse, and Food Service Departments to a new facility leased and managed by Metro Government. The property is being called Metro Southeast and is located at the old Genesco Shoe Manufacturing Building on Murfreesboro Road. It includes a large number of square feet in a one and two story building behind the main Genesco Office Building. Numerous departments of Metro Government are having plans developed in this facility for their specific use, and we are considering proposals for the above listed departments.

In the particular case of our Maintenance Department, it provides an opportunity to be relocated in more appropriate office and shop space and would contain adequate parking. Our present facility located on 2 nd Avenue, South, would not be described as adequate in either of these areas. Metro Government has a strong interest in purchasing that property for construction of a facility for another Metro Government Department. This could be a real estate transaction that would be beneficial to both Metro Schools and Metro Government.

When more information is available, a recommendation will be made to the Board.

RALPH THOMPSON, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT FOR STUDENT SERVICES

The Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools District is aggressively collecting and analyzing data relative to discipline concerns. Our intent is to utilize the data to guide and identify our strategies for overall improvement in the area of safety and student discipline. The Student Services Department has embarked on a proactive preventive approach to finding answers and resolutions to the district’s discipline concerns as well as continuing to seek the desired goal of developing a safe and secure learning environment for all of our stakeholders. Some of the initiatives that have been implemented include several meetings with the Metropolitan Nashville Juvenile Courts and the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. These meetings will be ongoing throughout the year. Police officers dressed in plain clothes are making random visits to our schools. We are increasing student loitering sweeps and conducting more random weapon searches that focus primarily on the middle and high schools. We are contemplating the possibility of implementing an undercover operation. Metropolitan Nashville Police Department and the staff members of the Student Services Department will continue to make school visits as a team. Regular staff meetings will positively sustain the implementation and maintenance of various discipline enhancement projects. In addition, we are exploring other new research-based programs that will promote our improvement initiative. We want to caution that improvement will not occur overnight, however, the Student Services Department will bestow our full attention to endorsing and maintaining a safe and secure environment for all of our children, personnel and community members in the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools District.

PEG/ap