School Board Enthusiasts Blog: May 23rd School Board Meeting

Overview
The past few meetings we’ve blogged about typically had a big issue or two that were being discussed during the meeting; however, this meeting really didn’t. The biggest ‘issue’ in this meeting and the topic with the most conversation was the calendar for 2020-2021. That said, there were some really inspiring moments in the meeting in the recognitions section, the Future Ready 2023 end of year presentation, and the consent agenda.

Recognitions
Many people were recognized as exemplars of excellence at this meeting that we could hardly keep track. We want to say congratulations to all of those recognized and thank you for being an inspiration to so many in this school system.

Future Ready 2023 End of Year Presentation
Lots of great things were a part of this presentation. From the announcement of later start times for many schools to the encouraging advances throughout the departments within the school system, our system truly is improving quickly and seems like we could be on track for the Future Ready 2023 goals. One of the departments that we found encouraging and overall really neat was the child nutrition department. There were so many wonderful goals for next year in this presentation. Here are almost all of them because they are amazing:

• More benefits for part time staff
• Pay increase for all cafeteria staff
• Increase entree portion sizes for High School Students
• Utilizing food grown in Hixson High School’s agricultural program
• Eliminating nitrates, nitrites, and artificial colors
• More student and teacher feedback
• No price increases for next year

Consent Agenda
While the consent agenda is typically seen as boring things like field trip approval and approval or minutes from recent meetings, there were some really neat things in this consent agenda that were really inspiring. There were lots of grant application approvals that seemed like they could be very beneficial to our schools. Overall, this consent agenda seemed to point towards positive growth for Hamilton County Schools.

Overall
This meeting, while encouraging, was rather boring as there was nothing big going on. There was very little discussion and the majority of the meeting was just procedural matters. This would be a good meeting to watch if you want to see how a school board meeting works or if you want to skip the discussion that can sometimes get intense and very salty.