001Good evening and welcome. My name is Taylor Kingman, president of the board of trustees for the St. Angelo Independent School District. I would like to welcome all of you who are present at tonight's pre-aggenda board meeting, as well as those of you who will be watching the recording online or on our public access channel. Today is January 12th. All of the items on tonight's agenda have been posted as required by state law and most items will be discussed tonight and voted upon at our regular board meeting. As a board, our work includes setting goals, hearing reports from our superintendent, approving budgets, contracts, and personnel items, and making policy decisions for the district. Please keep in mind that this is a mean of the board held in public, not a mean of the public. These proceedings
002are recorded and will become part of the district's permanent record. to help us maintain a clear recording. Please refrain from speaking while others have the floor and please silence your cell phones. Thank you again for being here and for your support of SASD. We do have a quorum and we will again begin with the first item on our agenda which is the uh which is the pledge of allegiance to United States and Texas. Everyone please stand to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for it stands nation God and >> next on our agenda is public comments. We do have a individual signed up to speak this evening. For those of you speaking tonight, please remember to follow the guidelines you received when you signed in and are displayed on the
003screen before the meeting began. Our first speaker and only speaker this evening is Mr. Virgil Pacetti and his topic is leadership, finance and transparency. Hello, my name is Virgil Pacetti, concerned father. I'd like to address the board today and specifically our president of the board. Um, you know, came trying to figure out what y'all are doing here and where you're trying to lead this city. And I'd like to say that we're not Alamo Heights. You know, seems like you're trying to make us Alamo Heights, but only certain people, only certain schools. If you want to live in Alamo Heights and you want to go and hang out with your brother and go to their board meetings, then move on back. You're not from here. You weren't born here, but yet everything has to go through
004you. And once you've decided something, there's no changing your mind because you know better than us, us little people. I see the grin. So, you know, let's let's focus on this today. Your agenda is let's close some more schools. How about our agenda is what is our biggest weakness right now? It's Bradford. It's a fourtime F. That fifth F is going to get you on the TEA takeover. How many times have we talked about the action plan for Bradford? What is the goal for Bradford? Has the principal of Bradford ever been here to tell us what we're doing to make that school acceptable? Nope. We're only going to talk about closing schools because that's all you want to do. You want to close certain schools and then you're going to be like, "Oh no, maybe
005we need to build something on the southwest side now because we closed too many schools and Lamar's already this." But when we do the red string, we're going to make sure Santaita's good. So you're going to take care of everybody over here, but Bradford, our biggest weakness, you got nothing to say. I suggest this. If you're just so determined to close schools, then set up a policy A to an A. Success breeds success. You shouldn't be able to close a school unless it's an A. And if you do close a school, those kids need to transfer to an A school. F to an F. That is not fair. So, I know today you sit here thinking, how much of a bonus can I give this guy? 327's not enough. We're going to lose him. I
006[clears throat] have to give him more money. Well, I did a poll. That's not very popular. People think $327,000 is enough. And closing schools in poor neighborhoods, that's not very popular either. But see, you're from Alamo Heights and you don't listen to the poor people. So, just continue to take care of the rich people and whatever Brad forgets they get. But just realize that it's not fair and it's not right. And that's on you. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Petti. Next on our agenda, we're going to go um into close session under personnel matters in accordance to Texas Texas Government Code 551.074. All right, we are back from executive session. We took no votes, we took no action. Um, next we're going to go on to our board updates and reports. First, we're going
007to have a summary of findings from our TEA intruder detection audit conducted by the ESC staff. M. Visa is going to help us with that. Uh, Dr. Moran, Dr. Kingman and members of the board. Thank you for your time and effort supporting S SISD this evening. Uh for the first week for the first week of January and the rest of December, we have no IDAs to report. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next, we have uh construction update and Mr. Danheim, Mr. Lopez. Mr. Lopez is going to come up and give us that update. >> Dr. Moran, Dr. Kingman, and members of the board, it's great to be back here. Let me see. Oh, moved it down a little bit. There we go. Um, we are well underway in construction and design of your 2025 bond
008projects. And I'm here to give you a monthly update. Uh according to the schedule, we're still on track to meet the deadlines that we've been showing throughout the process of the bond throughout the uh um really the beginning of the the bond advertising through now. You can see the more detailed schedule that we've been talking about since the beginning by project and by phase. and to go through each uh project. Uh currently Crockett Elementary is under construction and you can go out there right now and see uh concrete block going up. They've actually finished the outside of the kitchen and they're about to start steel construction. So they have all the steel on site and they've actually got photos of the steel on site and they're about to start putting up framing. So the uh
009the cranes out there and they're they're ready to rock and roll. So, it's an exciting time for the project and they're still uh on [snorts] track to open August uh 2026. So, that's been confirmed as of uh two hours ago for the project uh manager of the project Lee Lewis. All right. And then uh Miguel Elementary, I think you have a action item later on in the uh the meeting to discuss bids that we've received on the project, which uh is positive. We had actually uh I believe 10 pickup uh drawings, which is the most that we've seen throughout the process. It was a really good sign. And we had almost six submit bids. We had one that was 2 minutes late. So, we had five uh submit bids and uh I think Jason's going
010to have some really good uh news for y'all on on those bids a little bit later. Uh the picture on the bottom right shows it's kind of hard for me to um explain what all we're adding through that picture, but uh we're adding u what finishes out that campus essentially. So the library, the remaining admin would be on the the bottom left there. So there's a a brick portion on the closest to you on the bottom left. And then if you go a little bit to the left of that, yeah, right there is the uh the new library space that would be added and admin space. And then to the right of that would be the additional classroom wings um on the the east side there along with the music room maker space um and
011their um remaining classroom needs. And so that would be bring be bringing a majority of the campus all under one roof. and um and then also expanding the drive and parking and adding an additional uh drop off drive and parking on the back side of the school as well. And so um y'all will be receiving bids on that uh uh shortly. And we've also we're we're almost complete with the permitting process. they've actually given approval on the site plan to where they could actually um mobilize immediately and so we've been seeing that the the city's been really responsive lately in some of the permit process. So it's been a really good uh partnership lately with the with that process. So we're excited uh to see that move forward. Um, Glenn, we're moving forward on uh
012going from kind of a uh a block mass uh design uh and um general locations to more detailed locations of spaces and a more refined u exterior design. And so we're just working through that with the uh uh the the stakeholders and we'll be bringing in the next couple months uh design of the exterior or the the glass and brick or whichever material is uh selected for that that campus. So, it's just further refining it from kind of the the the broad decisions to the more specific, more refined uh renderings to where eventually you'll have a lifelike rendering like we have from McGill. Um, Lake View, we're continuing to also push forward on that project. Uh you can see those kind of sketchy uh masses that we have from schematic design. We'll be u moving
013those forward into actually selecting materials and actually providing a more lifelike rendering of what that would look like. Um we have uh been moving forward on the site concept and just the bus drop off drive and the access point. You can see on the uh the bottom left there towards the middle actually is is the current drop off drive at the main entry. We've added additional parking and a drop off drive to the west side over there that would allow for easier access to uh events at the gymnasiums and at the auditorium. right now a lot of people have to walk across the street uh and walk from that circular drive. And so being able to park there and drop off there uh was seen as a an added benefit uh to both the mariachi
014hall that would be added there, the auditorium and the gymnasium. And then to on the right hand side on the east side um over by the uh the JOTC building um and the classroom wing you can see we're we're adding that a bus drive currently shown with those little yellow dots there which represent buses. So you could see we can fit approximately uh eight buses over there. Um and then the orange is actually uh covered walkways between the uh the main academic building and the CTE facilities. And then lastly, this is showing some of the further refinement of what that uh mariachi hall could look like. So, uh, these are not finalized renderings, but these are iterations that we're going through to say, okay, these are some of the storage capabilities and cabinets of the
015of the space on the right there. This is the, you know, mirror wall where you can, you know, they can be looking at their uh how their face is reacting while they're playing. Um, and then some of the acoustic treatments and potential color um, and and how that interacts with the windows as well. So, so right now that's kind of where we're at along with the wood floor so that they can practice on a floor that represents kind of what they would actually be be playing on. All right. And then uh lastly, an update on uh, Central High School. This is showing the um the little bit more refined version of of where we're at. The the main pieces are still really in the same spots. And this time I did go ahead and include
016the the seats uh for each space because that's always the the big question. How many can fit in each one of those? So you can see on the the left there in the auditorium you've got a 1,00 seat auditorium. In the gymnasium, you've got a 2,200 seat uh auditorium. And then in the kitchen, you would have a uh a cafeteria. You'd have a 1,000 seat uh cafeteria. And then next to the cafeteria, you'd have a culinary lab. And then right next to that, we're showing the the health science lab. Um there's been some some slight modifications. We were showing uh two smaller corridors on flanking each side of the gymnasium. Um thinking about circulation of the students and on a daily basis. Uh it was discussed that a larger corridor in between the gymnasium and
017the cafeteria would really best serve the the students on a regular basis. and the fact that that would be kind of that main connector corridor in the future for uh the following phases whenever the campus is all combined under one roof uh would really best serve the the students and on a regular basis u on the campus. So that's some of the the refinements that we've been looking at on that campus. This is the the site plan just kind of remind you where that's uh taking place. And then uh this shows you how that floor plan overlays in that area of the campus. So you can see Tucker Hall is just right above that uh that auditorium space right there. So, it put the auditorium right on the corner with the gymnasium right behind it
018and then the cafeteria kitchen and the uh CTE spaces behind it. Then a little bit more zoomed in view of that. And then lastly, just a zoomed in view of what that uh floor plan looks like. I think that that's that's kind of where we're at. We've got we've come a long way. We've still got a lot to go. Um but we look forward to moving these forward and bringing y'all more updates as we go. Any questions? >> Any questions for Mr. Lopez? >> Is um the central that picture is it going to be I don't know much about construction. Yeah. But like is the auditorium going to be built and then the gym or is it going to be kind of just flat and just all of it started? >> Uh it'll likely be
019a majority of it will be demolished where it needs to be built and then it'll be uh all built at the same time. Um, some of the renovations might have happen after it's u the new facilities are built like some of those renovations of the uh well the culinary area where that's the existing cafeteria and kitchen would probably happen after the new cafeteria is built so that you can use the existing cafeteria and kitchen um as that's being built. But um we also are going to work through some of that uh with Lee Lewis just to see, you know, phasing wise what makes the most sense for materials and pricing. And so uh some of that might change a little bit based on their recommendations, but the the first step would be tearing down the
020existing u auditorium. Sarah Burnernhard. >> Any other questions? >> All right. Thank you, Mr. >> Thank you. >> Next up, we're going to have Dr. Moran present on long-term planning. All right, members of the board, this is uh really kind of a culmination of discussions that have been going on for a while, but tonight it's my goal to continue the yearslong conversation about the future of our district. And really throughout the presentation, you should see a a clear focus on three specific areas: academic progress, stewardship, and efficiency. Those are the three areas that I'd like for you to focus on. And I'll zero in on six factors in this presentation that impact uh declining enrollment, declining revenues, staff shortages, academic progress. We'll take a look back and finally we'll look at our future planning. First,
021let's take a look at our declining enrollment. This is a conversation that should not be new to anyone, but over the course of the last 18 months, we've had two demographers provide forecasts for St. Angelo. And in their uh presentations, the latest being Zonda, they provided an update for the board with low, mid-range, and high projections. And when you study the latest, which was just a month and a half ago, you'll notice that the low projections for 10 years from now, are 10,453 students. The midyear projections are 11,573 and the high projections are 11,747. uh to give you a little bit of u of idea of where we are now. We're about 12,300 and something. So you can see there u right now if this high projection were to take place in 10 years, it's
022about 600 fewer than we have right now. Declining enrollment translates into less money to educate our students. And so you can see some historical enrollment data that is being provided and we'll obviously this presentation will be posted to the website under the sustainability plan on our website that's been in place for a few years. But it also reflects student enrollment a loss of 420 students since May of 2025. And the next slide reflects that drop. You can see from August 2024 at 13,11 to January 2026 at 12,339. So currently we're faced with a $2.1 million shortfall this school year, but in the next 18 months we project that figure increases to more than 4.3 million based on the projected losses. Because of economies of scale, we're faced with considering closing campuses. As a result, the
023current savings of closing one elementary school is over $900,000, as you can see uh on this chart. Another impact is staff shortages. Currently, we have vacancies that we're not able to fill. And this uh graph shows that manual trades, we have 27 current vacancies. We have 21 pair professional vacancies, 30 teachers, and 10 administrators districtwide that are open. And many of these we have uh filled and you're going to see in just a moment on the next slide that we're very thankful for substitutes, retire, rehires who have stepped up to help us, long-term subs, etc. But there is a cost to hiring retire rehires. The state penalizes districts by doing this. And right now, you can see that last last year we spent uh $125,000 in penalties. That was fiscal year 25. This year each
024month is about $11,000 in penalties that we're paying to hire retirees. Now, there's a uh there are pros and cons obviously, but we want good people in front of our children. And so, we've made the sacrifice of hiring retirees knowing that we're going to pay the penalty for it. But, uh we just feel strongly enough about making sure we've got good quality people in front of our students that uh that's where we are. The next slide is really the truth is nationally uh we're up to about 56,000 teacher vacancies this year alone in the USA. On the next slide, one data point to be aware of is that over the past 10 years in Texas, teacher certificates or certifications have declined by 20%. There's just not as many kids going to college to be teachers.
025Therefore, there are fewer teachers in the pipeline. [snorts] And uh so that's just a reality and we're not alone on that. We are a little more uh at a disadvantage because we are isolated here in West Texas and uh it's harder to find people who are willing to move to St. Angelo. If you live in the metroplex or the Austin or Houston areas, San Antonio, you're able to uh I think the market is a little richer, but they still struggle in those areas as well. Academic progress is something that we're really pleased with and and my hope is that within the next month or two, the board's going to hear very positive results from our midyear benchmarks. Uh we believe that the following things that I'm going to touch on are making academic progress a
026reality for our district. uh first more consistent curriculum implementation across grade levels due to larger more collaborative teacher teams. We believe strongly that larger teacher teams are important. We have a few campuses that have two teachers on a grade level team and that's a struggle especially when one may go out on maternity leave or uh if they're both rookie teachers. And so we know that if we can put four or six teachers on a team, we're a lot stronger. Also, uh the next slide, better resource efficiencies allow more money to flow to student learning. When we uh become more efficient as a district, when we close campuses, when we save resources, [clears throat] we can push those resources into these campuses and [clears throat] vacancies that we have. Thanks. Uh the next slide, greater teacher
027collaboration and more powerful or impactful teacher support uh for those teachers is taking place now with uh the amount of monitoring that we're doing with our staff, with our principles, with our teachers. We're seeing a real trend in the right direction. We're very thankful for that. And you saw that when you saw uh Buoie, Crockett, and Glenn Moore all jump two letter grades this year. That's just the beginning. It's going to get better and better. There is a look back, however, and if we'll go back to October the 17th of 2022, this conversation has been at the board level since that time. Some of you will recall the sustainability plan and conversation. And this slide was used in 2022. And you'll notice that the elementarymentaries that were discussed there on the left column were the
028keep and then you had the keep and potentially add or renovate. McGill, Fannon, Bair, and Crockett. And those three of those four have been either being renovated or will be renovated. Belair is the one that didn't make the cut on the uh facility advisory committee and bond election, but then closed and repurposed. You'll notice Alome has been closed. Uh Austin's been closed. Santo's been closed and Reagan and Buouie have been discussed. The next slide is another look at that. It's a draft ma master plan from 2022. So as our facility evaluation was conducted, these categories, and I'm going to just show the categories to you in a moment, were used to grade and score campuses. And we also looked at cost per student in those campuses. So let's advance a couple of slides there. So
029this uh this list uh yeah let's go back one. This list was used to score and evaluate campuses. If you'll just take a moment and look at that and I'll give you an example. uh Lamar, the cost for that campus is higher than average because of the special programs uh functional academics program on that campus. So, as we talk through this, we're going to lean back on those bullet points. And the next slide reflects the campus cost per student right now. And you'll notice out on the far right are the campuses that cost the district more per student. Bair, Fannon, Reagan, Crockett working right to left. The age and efficiencies drive the cost to educate students at those campuses. The next slide, you can see the functional condition needs index. And really just a quick
030glance. Uh you'll notice the the campuses that have more red. Belair is at the top. certainly has two wings there that are being considered in future uh renovations to be demoed and new wings built for that campus. And that was part of the bond discussion early. It just didn't make the cut. And then you can see uh down towards the middle Fort Koncho has some red and that's because that that building facility uh has some you know portables on campus. The cafeteria is inadequate. Uh as well as Santaorita, uh an inadequate cafeteria. That's been discussed before. And then you'll notice Buoie has some red. They have portables and a really older part that we've talked about the circular part of the building. Uh Reagan is there as well. Sanjack's still on the list, but that's
031because this graph was developed prior to its closing. The next slide reflects the age of the campuses being discussed. Now, we all know there are different buildings on those campuses, some newer than others, but this gives us kind of an uh 30,000 ft view of those campuses. You'll notice three have an asterisk beside them, and that's McGill, Crockett, and Fannon. And that's because they're being renovated now. And so, uh even though they're they're graded as older, they will be much newer [snorts] in the in the short time. the following slide. The campus capacity is an important consideration in planning as well. And so what we did is we've taken uh you'll see current campus capacity and the blue line represents the number of students at that campus and its capacity. So you'll see for instance
032bottom is at 103 capacity 103%. And [clears throat] we've talked about prior at 90 or 95% if you're growing that's your red flag to expand or do something to change that because really 90 to 95% is is full. There's always a few classrooms or a few spaces that are used for other purposes. Uh but if you see a school at 106% they're way over full. You can see Crockett uh 48% that's because of the new movein space will allow some opportunity there. But you can just work your way through that graph and see uh where we're at. You notice a lot of them have a very low current capacity. The next slide is going to show you the enrollment in red and c campus capacity in blue. Uh just another visual so that you can
033see that in another way. The following slide in spread spreadsheet form you can see the predicted enrollment. Now this is a very important slide because this is looking uh five years out you'll notice that in the middle column enrollment 2030 and then 10 years out enrollment 2035. If projections hold uh as they are, we've projected those enrollments out and we've also looked at the capacity in the second column and we've >> [clears throat] >> um given you on the far right column the open seats in 10 years that we will have in our elementary schools if we remain at 14 elementaryaries and we leave as is. Now below that you can see with two elementary closures you'll have 1185 empty seats in 10 years with three closures 761 and with four closures 316. And the
034the point there is that uh this is just mathematics. It doesn't it doesn't factor in necessarily the reality of using a building a building. But if it's pure math and it's just black and white objective look at this, the truth of the matter is if we continue with our enrollment decline in 10 years, if we look at 12 elementaryaries, that's two less now. You could still close two more in a few years and still have empty seats. [clears throat] It just depends on what we want to do as a community and as a board. The next slide reflects the average scoring of the elementary campuses according to the categories mentioned earlier. And you'll notice that each column provides a scoring average for those um indicators that we mentioned earlier in the presentation. The lower the
035score, the poorer it is graded. And the next slide is a table ranking of the elementary campuses from weakest to strongest in the scoring criteria. The following slide is a reminder that the facility advisory committee considered the right sizing projects of elementary schools to consolidate and prepare for declining enrollment in the future. And you'll notice uh in that second column there's a couple of twos next to the next to the bottom not the bottom you'll see elementary right sizing that's Bair replace two buildings with those that house classrooms library and special ed and Hollowman add four classrooms that did not make the cut in the bond election the one above that did and that's why you see Fannon McGill and Crockett receiving attention there and then the Next slide is just a reminder that uh
036the board heard the facility advisory committee's uh presentation and it it was based on a declining enrollment and right sizing not providing brand new campuses because we're growing and the community approved that in a Maya bond election uh that the board called last February. Uh so with that in place we need to talk about future planning and so uh the first thing is we have talked about moving forward talked about closing some elementary campuses. So, our future planning involves recommending to the board the closure of elementary campuses that so we can mitigate the impact of declining enrollment so we can properly staff our classrooms so that we can meet our budget needs. Um, I've mentioned to the board that uh [clears throat] because we've talked about the fall of 2027, we're going to be looking
037most likely at a budget deficit. We'll be looking at short staffing again next year and the challenges will be great. We did however feel like even though there are pros and cons uh of moving forward more quickly out of respect for our community and the reszoning process that will have to take place. We felt like it was the right thing to do is slow it down and recommend to the board closing elementary schools, then getting involved in a reasonzoning process, which is the next slide, uh, to talk about attendance boundaries and make those effective July 1, 2027. So, it really depends on what the board and the community want to do. [clears throat] A wise man once said to me, and I've never forgotten it, [clears throat] that it's your community. It's your buildings, your
038students, and your money. We're here to to steward those. And my responsibility is to provide options for the board that allow you to be good stewards of the money, the students, and the facilities. Um, my my admonition is if we don't take action, we're going to circle the drain, which some would argue were already there. when you're when you're overstaffed and underbudget and you start dipping into savings to live, it's only a matter of time. And so, uh, that's my presentation. I'm willing to take any questions or discuss anything you'd like at this point. >> Any questions for Dr. Moran? So, just to be clear, the two schools that you're wanting to to bring forward to us is Reagan Elementary and Buoie Elementary. >> Well, the way it's scored, those are the two that scored
039the worst. And so, it'd be up to the board to decide which elementaryaries, but according to the score sheet, those are the two that scored the worst. >> Okay. >> What were the other two on that? >> Yeah, we can roll back to that slide. It's the scoring. Campus scoring. Keep going. Right there. Go. Go forward one. Yep. Uh now go forward to the end two. Yep. Right there. All right. So you can see the uh lowest scoring campus was Reagan. Next was Buoie Sanorita and then Glenn Moore. And that's based on the condition of the building, the age of the building, the expandability, uh, all of those factors that were mentioned at the beginning, which include, and I don't mind repeating those because I think it's it's important to get that All right. [clears
040throat] I may have overlooked it. Yeah, I'll have to find it. But, uh, that that particular list outlines Uh, roll back a little bit more. Maybe we can find it pretty quickly. >> Yeah, it's a bulleted. Yeah, keep going. >> There you go. All right. So, you can see the cost per student, facility condition, age of facility, capacity, expandability, special programs, educational adequacy, and spatial adequacy. Those are the the uh criteria for scoring. So, do we have the year built of the the the perimeter of Reagan because you only list 1909 and I'm assuming that's the the main building, right? >> Right. The perimeter building. I don't know the age of but we can find that. We've got it in our facility evaluation. >> I just mentioned that because I've already been a part of
041one school closure with Sano and along the way things have changed. So, these two schools here, yeah, they've been listed since 2022, but along the way things have changed. So >> yeah, >> those that could have changed too. Yep. >> You know, with Saninto, the the main building >> being demoed, you still have the very nice perimeter buildings and they're being used. >> The students in that neighborhood could have very well still been in those buildings. Nonetheless, they're being used. So, I've just been trying to think, man, how can we avoid school closures because now my family will be a part of a second school closure within the last, you know, couple of years. >> It's very hard. >> Very hard. Especially with the the demographics of the families in of [clears throat] these two
042schools. What if we just took care of the problem which is the main building and still was able to keep the the buildings on the perimeter because that will still house students and there's a lot of land to to build if you know that that came to it in the future. You're looking at Bradford just you know a couple of miles away that's over 500 plus students. We could very well you know split the enrollment there. I'm just thinking ahead and our main goal, everybody's main goal is to take care of the students. Everybody in here, that's our main goal. >> So, I would like to look at possibly other options, right? I want to know what the savings is of maybe moving administration into one of these buildings. Edison or the freshman campus is
043a beautiful building and it's not going anywhere. earlier. I, you know, that's why I asked for where we're at with capacity. Why why why can't we look at exhausting all other options before uprooting these families once again and the same families at that closing schools, you guys know, you know, it brings brings a lot of troubles and hardships on families. This will be my second one. So, I'm trying my best to think of all other avenues before we go, you know, forward with just >> Well, you're not alone on that. And and we recognize it's a it's a difficult thing. It's for whoever's impacted. It's going to be a difficult thing and the reasoning process will be very difficult as well. Um, so we are doing our dead level best to look at every option
044as well. And you know, I don't mean to interrupt you, but that's another um question that I have. Where's the plan? You know, if we do close these schools, where are those kids going to go? I would like I think it's, you know, a little bit more responsible if we have that plan presented to us first before we say yes, we need we need to close two more schools. >> Well, the reasoning process is a monthsl long process. It will be much like the facility advisory committee process. And so the the committee is charged with coming up with options, working that until they come to consensus on one to give to the administration to provide to the board uh for guidance. It's really this board's u decision point. if if the board felt like uh
045going through the resoning process first to figure out where we could draw lines depending on which elementaryaries closed that's possible. Uh it's a lot cleaner for the committee if they know which elementaryaries are going to close so that they can do the work of resoning but that certainly is a decision of the board. So, one thing I was just thinking about, you know, at one point in time I was asking about I was asking R.J. about the Crockett thing over and over again about when [clears throat] could we be finished so we could be possibly in it, right? And the reality is like what kind of started striking me is like to your point, we're going to move these kids two maybe three times if we if we push it too quickly. And you know,
046I've always I know that this community really wants to have as good an educational program as can and they also want to us to be good stewards of their money and be balanced budget. I mean, we've since we've been we have been one of the few districts that's been able to come out of COVID, etc. with a balanced budget and those things. And but when looking at it for our community and for those schools, if we wait and we do possibly not giving anyone free pass here, but if we did possibly go into fund balance for one year with a plan of how to get out of fund balance by to Dr. man's point like having school closures already lined out then all of a sudden you can tell your community like yes we we
047understand we're spending money we don't we have because we've been good stewards along the way but it's not a continual ask to be going against the budget because we have a plan of how to get out of that and the only way to do that though is to actually delineate who what schools we would close so that we could then actually have real numbers to the budget and then also to to the people that we will ask just like and you served on the facility committee. I mean for the bond like we're going to go ask a bunch of um a cross-section of St. Angelo to help us come up with a zoning that probably affects every single person in town in some way. It would definitely affect every elementary school in town in some
048way. Um how do we get that done to where they come up with something that is lasting for St. Angelo for the next 10, 20 years. Just like the bond is lasting for hopefully the bond construction is longer than that. But you know, like as far as something that is lasting that they can say, "Hey, we as a community got together and we decided that this is the best use of our assets. Um, but by giving them what schools we think we're going to close, I think that gives them the ability to do that. Now, I guess the facility committee, even if we said we were going to close two schools, could come back with a recommendation that the they looked at the boundaries and those boundaries didn't work. I mean, they they can give
049us any recommendation they want. >> Um, but uh the but as a board, I think giving it's our job as a board to make that tough decision about which schools would close. Um, and that's not that's not their um they they shouldn't be have to be taxed with that decision cuz that's that's not what they got elected to have to make that decision. You know, we as a board got elected to have to make those tough decisions and that's on us. >> Yeah. So, how are we are we electing those committee members? How are we finding them? So, we're working right now to identify a representative group from all of our communities so that we can make sure that we've got good representation from parents, from business owners, people that live in attendance zones, balance
050those, and then uh and then we're going to invite those people to be a part. We've got to get them to commit to about five to six evenings this spring. And um so that's our goal now is to if this all goes through, we'll hit the gas pedal and start working and >> [clears throat] >> um bring a facilitator in to make sure it's done right and cleanly and um and that we can bring this board something that we can all live with and and be successful with. You know, another another um opportunity I think for the district to save money is I mean we we mention all the time what surrounding areas are doing and a lot of schools are opting for 4 day school weeks. That would save the district a lot of
051money also. I don't know if we've looked into that deep enough or not, but I'm telling you, this will be my second school closure, and I'd really like the board to consider looking into these other options a little bit deeper before we say, >> "Yes, these two schools are closing now committee decide, you know, what we're going to do." >> A lot of different things. Even enrollment, you're talking about the most popular schools, elementary schools in in Sano with higher enrollment with the exception of Bradford >> that are at that number because of transfers. If you took those transfers away, they would some of them would be at 30ish. >> Well, I think the goal of this this whole process is to set attendance boundaries to fill schools up with kids that live in the
052attendance boundary. >> Yes, I understand. >> That's the goal. >> Yes. >> Yeah. And um yeah, so >> no, I understand and I think that's that's why it would be a little bit more responsible or a lot more responsible of us if we let the committee do their job, present ideas to us, and then we move forward. That's from a parent that has gone through the closures. I don't know if anybody else has or not. I I haven't but I'll just speak on you know this is such a huge picture of everything and for me it all comes back to the teacher and that's where the shortage is. So we can have buildings but if we don't have a teacher in the building it's not going to matter. So, um I think that we the
053teachers that we have, we as a community, and I've said this before, need to support them, encourage them. We've have to find ways to keep them in the job they're doing by doing that. Um because me as a parent, my girls are gone now. I have grandchildren. But a building is a building. I get that. My girls went to Buoie and the thought of closing Buoie, my daughter tells me she's going to come up here and sing the Patriot song. I get that. But I also know I would drive way away to put my girls in a school where there are great teachers. We can't have buildings that are falling apart that we don't have certified teachers in. So I say that and it's just a huge complex picture and we have to look at
054enrollment. Um you know why why is our enrollment falling? I [snorts] I have lots of ideas on that. Why do teachers not want to come here? Well, if I'm 22 year years old and single, I probably I'm not going to move to St. Angelo. That's just reality. Nothing against St. Angelo, but you know, as far as being single, there's so many different, like I said, it's it's a huge spreadsheet to look at the resoning, teachers, enrollment, keeping teachers, a building. It's not just one thing. So, we have to I appreciate all of this information because it's going to take looking at every single detail to get it right. And um and I think I don't think I know that our administration, Dr. Moran, the people out there that are giving us this information. This takes
055a lot of time and a lot of energy, many, many hours. And I appreciate this because like I said, we're going to have to look at every detail, dot every eye, look at everything. And when we make a decision, it'll be it'll be right. It may not be what my heart wants. It may not be what [snorts] this wants, but it's going to be what's the best thing for a child because we're in the business of educating children. That's it. We're in the business of educating children. We're not in the business of a building really. I mean, I always say a child can learn in a tent. We don't want that. But it's who's teaching the children. So our schools have to be good. Our teachers, we have to have certified teachers, teachers that know
056the craft in their doing that. And with that declining every year, there's just it's a big picture. So I see what you're saying. I think that we're all looking at that, but we have to be careful that we're looking at every part of this huge equation. Yes, Pam. I I respect everything that you said and I understand. I get it and I get that you would drive across town for, you know, your students to learn from the best of the best, but we're talking about Reagan Elementary and those families don't have, you know, that opportunity to drive across town. So, yes, it is just a building, but it's about the location also. And I'm glad you bring up teachers because when you close schools and you know you know this you're a teacher for 30
057plus years. I think you have the the best voice of all of us up here. When you close a school you're disrupting the academics and that's our main goal right now is to you know provide better academics for our students. So closing schools will definitely disrupt that. That's that's what I think. No disrespect at all to what you said, but this is somebody you have your experience and and I have mine also. >> And just uh you mentioned one thing earlier, Miss C. I just want like several years ago and I'm going to lean on some people who have been here longer than me. There was discussion about 4day school week um before the 2022 stuff and it just so because I know that predates Dr. ran and but there was discussion about what what
058are other districts doing in our situation and at the time um the board and you know was felt in thinking about the community that the same our community and with so many working parents that a 4-day work week for elementary kids just isn't a reality of where St. Angelo is. um that the communities that are making that work are all of a sudden having a daycare program for the working parents on Fridays, you know, and and we just are the percentage of our parents who are working two jobs that that that just didn't work. So like do you want I just want like those some of those discussions have been happening over time. Uh just and they may not have been part of this presentation, but they they did happen and they have been happening.
059It's just it wasn't felt that that was the best direction for the district. No, I I definitely wasn't here during that time, but that was 2022. This is 2025. Just like we're giving them >> a year or soish notice of school closures. Maybe we can, you know, just see what that would look like and say, look, in two or three years, that's what we would like to, you know, to adjust to. These are just options. And I'd really really appreciate you guys if we can look into these things. See how much we can save by moving administration to one of these other buildings instead of our kids and our families. Why can't we as adults move to one of these other buildings that are accessible for for all of us here? I don't think anybody
060here would have a problem with that. I'd like to know how much we could save doing something like that. Well, and I'll I'll just say to the board president and the board, if if you as a board tell me to launch an um an investigation and moving admin, I'll do that. But uh I want to be careful that we don't create a lot of work because uh moving admin out of this building to another building poses the question what do we do with this building and uh what spaces are we going to and why would we do that? I I don't I don't support that move. A 4-day week is not something that I would entertain uh for a lot of reasons, but mainly academics. Um taking a day off of academics is not going
061to be good. I don't know of any school our size that has done it academically and been successful. Um you know, as an athlete, I I I guarantee you the football team wouldn't take a day off. And so, uh that's not something I would do. But if this board as a whole tells me to do it, I will do it. >> I I just think it's worth looking into other avenues and just anything and everything that we can do possibly to try to avoid school closures or like I said, maybe partial getting rid of the building at Reagan that's, you know, in the worst condition because like I said, you can still fit the student population in the surrounding buildings, I believe. I'm not sure. Maybe we can get that info also. >> Yeah, the
062newer building wouldn't be uh part of the demo, I believe, if that campus were selected. >> It would be the oldest part. Just like with Sanjack, we would use the outer buildings for something productive. And we've tried to do that like when we moved special ed out of Sam Houston over to the Oaks >> and those [snorts] seven 70s something employees are there officed in the Oaks upstairs. and that seems to be working pretty well for them other than the elevator issue we have. But uh outside of that, we're in pretty good shape. But yeah, none of the newer buildings would be demoed. Other questions for Dr. Moran? All right, let's go forward with our proposed agenda for our January 20th, 2026 regular board meeting of the invocation, the pledges, and the recognitions. Um, public
063comment, we'll have a audit report presentation. Um, and we will get that audit report on Friday. >> That's right. >> Okay. >> I think I Bailey's probably got that or we'll get that to Dr. Brandon pretty quickly. >> Okay. And then we'll have bond construction update and Dr. Dr. Gomez update on academic programs will be >> I apologize that I was ill the last board meeting. Um I know I sent that presentation in Friday facts. Um but I had planned to go through that in person unless you all tell me you'd like that to be something else and I can adjust. Um I know that you have the information but it is a lot of information to take in. So I was prepared to do that. >> I think that would be good. I mean,
064I know it wasn't prior facts, but and you've been sick one day in the 12 years I've known you, so we're going to give you we're going to give you some grace on that one. Okay. Um [clears throat] All right. Consent items of donations or minutes. We'll have a library book list that will be posted and on our website or already posted. Um and then, um Mr. Henry, you want to give us our adder for our trans maintenance, transportation, and miscellaneous? >> Absolutely. Thank you for having me tonight. The original maintenance, transportation, and miscellaneous supplies RFP allows for additional vendors to be added throughout the bid process or during the bid term with board approval. The recap proposal has been reviewed by the purchase department and qualifies as an approved vendor. Vendors will be used
065to secure supplies, equipment, and services. Any supplies that cost 10,000 or more are required to be accompanied by an attempt to secure three quotes. This contract period is for November 1st, 2025 through October 31st, 2030. On the next page, you will find the recap of the company Z company that has been requested by maintenance to be added. Do you have any questions? >> No consents. We'll keep it on consent. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Um Dr. Moran, I guess you've already kind of given us your um presentation on [clears throat] identifying elementary campuses for closure. Do you have anything to add for that? That's really up to the board on what we do. >> It really is. And you know, you got you all need to know. I'm I'll do whatever you
066want me to do. I We're just doing our best to make sure that we are not extending ourselves financially, which we are right now. We need to get back right. And we also need to make sure that we're staffed. the staffing may be the biggest concern of anything because not having uh teachers in our classrooms long term, even if it's a a long-term sub or a teacher who's retirey hire, we're thankful for that, but that's not the solution. And we've got to get to a place where we can staff our classrooms appropriately and and retain those teachers. Um so, you know, we we've presented everything. There's really no more for us to give you except that you've got the list with the ranking. Whatever the board decides, we will do. >> All right. So, we
067will have to take action on this. I think it's important for our community to understand that um when we hired Dr. ran. A lot of these things that are being done are things that we the B board at that time really said, "Hey, these are things we need to figure out how to be a fiscally responsible district. We need to figure out how to improve our academics. We need to figure out um what we're not doing to get us to a better place." And so I I do think it's important that our community understands that, you know, these recommendations are coming from administration, but they're coming from years of work from board and previous boards about how to get to this point. And so, um, just that's just my take on that. And so, >>
068Dr. Kim, I'm sorry, just to confirm, >> if consolidation does happen, the classroom sizes will increase. Well, so the question is will they increase or not? And it depends on the campus. And if you have a current first grade classroom of 15 kids, then it could go up to 20, but it would be appropriate and they will not be overcrowded. And we've I think there's a commitment on our part to make sure that at every campus there's a few grade levels where the the teacher has said, "Hey, let me keep 23 kids because I I got it. I can do that." But we're not talking about overcrowding. We're just talking about filling classrooms with kids and putting a great teacher in front of those kids. That's our goal. I look at um pickup lines like
069at McGill and Fannon and they're they're um they're pretty busy. They're pretty busy and those classrooms I'm assuming aren't overcrowded, but those were schools that were consolidated. One last thing um I know you're talking about, you know, a different administration or different board team before Dr. Moran arrived. You know, one thing that I really liked that Dr. Detloff did was he, you know, hosted the different town hall meetings at the different schools and I attended every single one of them. So, I I learned a lot of information there and that's why I was so adamant about keeping Sanderson o open because of the information that I learned. Is that something that maybe you'd be open to >> when we Yes, I'm open to anything we can do to help our community and when we get
070to um the attendance boundaries and the discussions, it'll require me to get out and visit campuses, communities, and do do exactly what we did with the the bond election. Really communicate heavily. Yeah. This this may not be a question you can answer today and I don't want to get too far in the weeds, but is there more likely that that those schools get closed, those children will be just, you know, sort of I guess um the attendant zone will be split and kind of split to different schools or are we talking basically redoing the entire zoning for the entire? >> That's a good question and I don't think I should answer that at this point because that really is the work of that committee. Um there there's a lot of different ways to do that.
071Um, I think the goal, having gone through the resoning of elementaryaries before, the goal is to disrupt the least number of families and to draw the boundaries with major roads, rivers, intersections so that they're clean and do our very best to serve our community by making common sense decisions to to move groups of people together so we're not, you know, disrupting. at it. Uh that's the goal. >> Yeah. >> Thank you, >> Dr. Cayman. One last thing. Some of these decisions actually uh are a result of stuff that predates actually most everybody on this board. A lot of uh schools were remodeled in 2008 of which I'm not sure if Mr. Dieos was mainly the only one on the board, but with that intent in 2008 with none of us being here, the result is
072that we are uh a pawn to the situation where we have some schools that were were developed uh for an expansion that are still waiting for something like that to happen because uh in 2008 the board was even at that point I think the board was looking at some of the older schools to try to get kids into some newer facilities. And so again, we're we're we're dealing with some of the the cards that have been dealt for any of us that that uh not even we had a hand in at that point, too. So, >> Dr. Kim, if I can just add on to something you were mentioning before. Um I see on social media a lot of people blaming Dr. Moran, quote, blaming Dr. Moran for the work that's being done right now.
073And um I just want to remind the community that when Dr. after debt left and one of his last meetings I think he talked about how he because of the work we had been doing leading up to that point that he recommended that we close two three or four elementary schools. So this is nothing new that just started you know the the day that Dr. Moran walked on the onto SIC's campuses >> and and to your point it was actually part of our bond proposal to get it >> right >> to do right sizing. Um, so, okay, that'll be fun next week. Um, next we're gonna do miscellaneous supplies. Mr. Henry, annual. Annually, campuses and departments have needs for miscellaneous supplies that are not on our regular supply bids. This bid will secure vendors for
074items such as clothing, groceries, electronics, housewares, small appliances, refreshments, novelty items, and other miscellaneous supplies used in the education process. In trying to secure vendors for the above items, a catalog bid was prepared. The vendors were evaluated on their ability to meet the district's needs and past relationship with the district. A variety of vendors responded and are recommended for approval on the following bid tab. The administration recommends approval of the catalog vendors listed on the following bid tab. Do you all have any questions over this? >> Anyone have a problem moving that consent to consent? >> There's no one not anyone listed on there. I don't think that has recused themselves. So we'll move that to consent, please. All right. Next, Mr. Henry. McGill Edition phase two. >> The McGill Elementary Edition phase two was
075one of the proposed bond projects in the 2025 bond. With its passage, the district began working on plans and specifications for the 26,54074 square foot edition. With the assistance of Park Hill Architects, an RFP was prepared for companies qualified to do this type of construction. Bids were received from five companies qualified to perform the work needed. References were checked and subcontractor lists were reviewed. The scoring criteria was applied and Collier Construction not only received the highest score but also had the lowest price of $12,350,000. The administration recommends contracting with Collier Construction for the for phase two of McGill Elementary. Do you all have any questions over this? >> The the rough estimate for phase two on the bid documentation when we went to for bond for the bond was 15 14. >> I believe it
076was 125. Well, >> I'd have to double check. Construction budget is 135 >> 135 135 >> for construction budget. >> Okay. So we're a million under that >> million under. Correct. >> Miss Henry, do we have any recent history with K construction? >> We do not have any recent history. We did uh call a few people. ASU has used them and they're and uh Park Hill Architects is also very familiar with them. I know they did a large project downtown. I think about 70 million for uh Shannon as well. >> Okay. All right. We'll keep that on regular. So, um and let's have you present that again next week. >> Thank you. >> Um All right, Mr. Henry, what about the Rio Vista abatement and demo? With the movement of Head Start out of Rio
077Vista and our declining enrollment, it has left the old Rio Vista campus vacant and no longer needed. With the assistance of King's Consultants, specifications were drawn to produce documents for abatement and demo. Right now, these are just a placeholder for the next meeting. We have received bids. We received, I believe, six bids. We're working on uh scoring them. We have a few questions that we need to get answered before we can bring you a full uh recommendation and we'll have that for you next meeting. >> If we're going to vote on that next week, can we get that in our Friday facts? If it's not going to be ready by then, let's plan on pulling that until the next meeting. It will absolutely >> if if it's not there >> unless anyone else has a
078we can still pull it if we decide we want to pull it but that way we have it beforehand. All right Dr. Brandon we will have the audit report soon. >> Yes sir. May maybe even tomorrow. We're going to we'll send we'll email it to you. You'll have a link to the full audit report. If you have any questions uh before the next board meeting, please feel free to send those to us. will get the answers for you and they will present on that as well next week. ID Bailey will be here. >> Yes, ID Bailey will be here and will present uh on the on the 20th. >> Dr. Brandon, is ID Bailey indicating any red flags on our procedure for this year? >> No, no, no major findings in the >> Okay, good.
079>> Thank you. >> All right. So, just so I make sure I have it right for they'll present when it's coming at the information item. >> Yes. >> portion. Let's let's just >> you want to move that action. >> Let's move that action item up so that they don't have to just move it to the top or >> you know >> the audit. Yeah. Since they're coming from out of town and >> there's no reason they should have to >> and m Mr. President, if you don't mind, we can leave that as the first action item and then at the meeting you can just uh pull that up in the agenda if that's okay. That way it's listed. Make it as action item number one. >> That's what we'll do. >> Yep. >> Okay. All
080right, Dr. Gomez, the non- business days for public information act. >> So, we will send this to you in Friday facts. Um, it's listed as an action item. Um, we've done that a lot of different ways. This is only about the third year this has been a requirement. Really what it stems around is the calendar options that you've already approved. Once you approve that calendar option, it's for the difference is the calendar options for a school year when this is for a calendar year. So some of it has already determined because we've done through January 26 through the summer, but then we have to identify any days beyond that. So, um, in full transparency, there's not a lot you can do with that once you've approved the board calendar, but if you'd like to keep
081it as an action item, I certainly understand that. Um, we we have to have this because we post it so our community knows um what days have been defined and that um is also posted outside our communications office. So, it's however you all would like to proceed. I think since it is public information, we should put put it up on the screen and make it a regular. >> Absolutely. That's my take unless someone Okay. >> All right. And then the sanction of an educator certificate for abandonment contract. Um >> I'll just give you a quick comment on that. We had a a teacher, a middle school teacher, I believe teaches math, sent us a resignation on Christmas Eve claiming two weeks notice. So, in other words, when our kids came back, they didn't have a
082teacher. And um we're pretty we're pretty forgiving if there's a true reason like if there's a critical illness or a change in uh the household that required maybe they have to move or something like that. But in this case, that was not the case. There was true abandonment. And so to be consistent, we'll bring that to the board and if you approve it, we'll send it to TEA. >> And who will be presenting that? >> Uh, human resources will be presenting that. >> Just add that to the >> Yep. Okay. All right. Um, we are actually going to go into close session again under midyear superintendent eval which is 551.074 still personnel matters. Um, and we'll be back. >> Yep. That's right. That's our world. >> All right. We are back from uh closed session
083and we have took no votes, took no action and with that we are adjourned.