Board Unanimously Approves Budget

I need to make a disclosure at the top. I am currently running for school board this year. This substack will continue to be reporting on the board, but if you would like to follow my campaign, here are a few resources:

corymartin.com
instagram.com/cory.martin.for.wcs.d8
votecory.substack.com

Board Meetings

The Williamson County School Board held its March meetings recently.

Tony Bostic and Dan Cash were absent from the work session. Mr. Bostic also missed the voting meeting this month.

Budget

The biggest agenda item this month was the annual budget.

Beverly Purvis spoke during the public comment section to thank the board on behalf of WCEA for the 4% raise that is included in this budget.

Also, Amie Cooke and her two daughters spoke about the need to include more funding for arts teachers' supplemental pay in the budget.

A few weeks ago, the budget was set based on projected needs for the coming school year. The projected expenditures were about $39 million more than the projected revenue. That's a problem. So, Rachel Farmer and her team scrutinized each line item and cut it down so that the gap was only $20.1 million. Some of the cuts included eliminating positions that they were trying to fill. This allowed them to cut positions without anyone losing their job. They also eliminated a line item for elementary textbooks that we know we will need next year, the plan being to request dipping into our scant savings when that need arises.

Dan Cash gave an impassioned prepared speech about how valuable this school system is to our community. I recommend watching it here. He is upset that the projected revenue is not keeping up with the projected expenditures. He wants the County Commission to fully fund our schools.

During the work session, Margie Johnson pushed back against the idea of having instructional coaches. These positions are folks who mentor and coach our teachers to expedite their journey to proficiency. I think Dr. Johnson's position is that we are paying these salaries to teachers who are not in the classroom and that money would be better used if they were teachers and not coaches. As she said, she just has a philosophical difference of opinion. So during the voting meeting, she said that she wanted to combat a narrative that she doesn't support teachers. She is frustrated that more money is going into education, but it is being siphoned away from the classroom by programs and educational packages that are expensive and not helpful. To that end, she made a motion to completelyut all educational coaching positions from this budget to the tune of about $11.3 million. That motion did not receive a "second," which means that no other board member was willing to give this proposal any support. So it failed.

Josh Brown then made a motion to add the elementary textbooks back in. That would add $2.2 million to increase the gap to $22.3 million. He reasoned that these textbooks are needed one way or the other, so we might as well as for them now. It's actually detrimental to our educators if they don't have their materials early enough. That motion passed unanimously.

Eric Welch then chimed in right before the whole budget was voted on to say, "So, we voted for this. If the commission says no, are we going to roll over like normal?"

The budget passed unanimously, which means that it goes to the commission for approval. That means that the commission will have to decide whether to find the extra $22.3 million to fully fund the schools or deny the budget and force the school board to cut even more. As Jason Golden said, any further cuts would mean a reduction in services.

Skipping Class Policy

Jason Greathouse spoke during public comment about the policy change regarding skipping class. This policy change does a few things, most notably removing "skipping class" from the list of level 1 offenses and leaving it as a level 2 offense, necessitating harsher punishments. It also includes language about punishing students who encourage others to skip class. Listening to the policy meeting, here, it is clear that this is a response to the walkout protests regarding recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities. Mr. Greathouse indicated that this will have unintended consequences and will prevent student organizing.

The policy change was a part of the consent agenda and passed unanimously for First Reading. That usually means that it will be approved for Second Reading next month and then go into effect.

Candidates for 2026

Here are the candidates for the school board races this year. You can click on each candidate's name to see their info page which includes a link to their website. If I couldn't find their website, I linked to their ballotpedia page. If you have better info, please let me know and I'll update it.