KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Knox County Board of Education met on June 3 with two major points of discussion — a proposal to specifically exclude materials that depict sex from school library shelves, and a plan to build a new Farragut-area elementary school.
Monday's meeting was a work session, effectively an opportunity for Knox County Schools leaders to discuss the agenda ahead of a regular meeting when they will vote on proposals and policy changes.
The work session also comes after the school district approved its budget for the upcoming school year, which includes pay raises for teachers. The pay raises bring salaries up to market rate, and are meant to keep KCS competitive when recruiting educators. The meeting will include a report from the superintendent, a custodial staffing update and an update from the Strategic Plan Committee.
Keep reading below to learn more about two significant agenda items to be discussed during Monday's meeting, as well as an update on educator pay rates.
Knox County Schools discussed some new designs for a proposed school in the Farragut area. The designs were by McCarty Holsaple McCarty, Inc., and funds came from the school district's capital improvement plan.
The proposed school features two entrances — one for buses and the other acting as a main entrance. The main entrance leads to an administration area which then connects to a gymnasium. On the other side, the bus entrance leads to a dining space. Both feed into the same hallway that includes a media center, art space and "CDC" space. There are also rooms for music located near the dining space and the gymnasium.
The building would then have different wings containing rooms for students in each grade. There would be six wings in total, each reserved for specific classes from kindergarten through fifth grade.
The building would include parking spaces on both the bus entrance side and the main entrance side. The renderings also leave space for athletic fields. A queue space for around 158 cars is also included in the schematics.
Board member Susan Horn requested Knox County Schools consider changes to policies about library materials that would specifically exclude materials if they depict sexual activity. The changes follow controversies related to LGBTQ+ materials on high school shelves.
In April, Knox County Schools decided to create councils and committees to review materials in school libraries after an uproar over books like Gender Queer and Fun Home — both acclaimed titles. Following the controversy, KCS said it would establish School Library Councils and Sensitive Title Review Committees.
The councils are meant to give input about book decisions, while the committee would be tasked with evaluating books on sensitive topics like drugs, sex and violence. The School Library Councils would be made up of some stakeholders from grades 5-7, such as librarians, principals, classroom teachers, counselors and parents.
There would be three committees across the school district — one for elementary schools, one for middle schools and one for high schools. The committees would be tasked with reading and evaluating "sensitive titles" following a schedule made by KCS Library Media Services.
The councils and committees emerged after emails and social media posts that said high school students could access materials with sexual content — specifically naming Fun Home and Gender Queer.
Fun Home discusses the impact that coming out as lesbian had on the protagonist's relationship with her family after her father killed himself. Gender Queer is a 2019 memoir that recounts the author's explorations of gender identity and sexuality from adolescence to adulthood, showing how they came to identify outside the gender binary and as a gender-queer person whose journey of self-discovery included experiences with sex.
The books are often targeted by nationwide book ban movements, and the American Library Association tracked more than 1,200 demands to ban books in libraries across the U.S. in 2022. Many movements involve the group "Moms for Liberty."
The Southern Poverty Law Center recognizes Moms for Liberty as a far-right, antigovernment organization "that engages in anti-student inclusion activities and self-identifies as part of the modern parental rights movement." It is specifically opposed to LGBTQ+ and racially-inclusive curricula.
Currently, KCS has a process to evaluate books — the Collection Development Process. It includes four stages: a needs assessment, selection and acquisition, access and then evaluation. KCS also said books can already be challenged for a variety of reasons, such as if they're too frightening or explicit.
The policy changes proposed by Horn would say, "Any material containing images depicting a sex act(s) or sexual activity shall be excluded" from any instructional materials other than textbooks. The same language would be included in the school district's policy on reconsidering instructional materials.
Educator salary changes
Knox County Schools' new salary schedule is split into two parts — possibly causing confusion between teachers and educators. One schedule is for teachers, librarians, interpreters and counselors, setting the rate at which pay increases over time. The other schedule is for all other employees.
Teachers are also on two scales — those who have a bachelor's degree and others who have a master's degree. Teachers who have a degree higher than that can also get an additional supplement.
However, teachers' step on the schedule and their years of experience may not directly align.
"I have heard from people at the very bottom of our salary scale who have been knocked from 11, expecting to move to 12, and now they're at three or four," said Jennifer Hemmelgarn, the assistant superintendent of business and talent.
The new pay schedule considers the years that an employee has spent in their current position — not the total number of years they spent with the school district.
"A food service position or an educational assistant position, but then transitioned to a school secretary and have been in that for eight years, then they would be looking at their in their number of years as a school secretary — not the total number of years in the district," said Hemmelgarn.
Leader with Knox County Schools said they hope the new salary schedule incentivizes teachers to work for the district for longer, retaining the employees who already work there.