001Good evening and welcome. We have a quorum this evening. Our entire board team is present. I would like to as president of the board of trustees of the San Angelo Independent School District. I would like to welcome all of you who are at present tonight at at the regular board meeting. I'll also welcome those of you who are watching the recording of this meeting online or on our public access channel. We appreciate your interest in the activities of our students and the business of SASD. All items that will be discussed at our meeting this evening have been posted as required by state law. Also, as you may be aware, our board meets a minimum of two times per month, and most, if not all items on our agenda this evening, have been previously discussed at
002our earlier pre-agenda board workshop. As members of the SASD board of trustees, we are here to set goals, listen to reports from our superintendent, approve budgets, contracts, and personnel appointments, and to make policy for the district. Please keep in mind that our meeting is a meeting of board of trustees held in public and not a meeting of the public. However, we have a public comment item on every one of our meeting agendas that allows anyone present who wishes to speak to our board team on an item not on our action agenda or an action item on the agenda an opportunity to do so. Please provide your name and contact information and the specific topic you wish to address on a public comment form located at the back of the room should you want to speak
003on an issue not on our action agenda. Please listen carefully and comply with the following rules so that we can move through this part of the meeting efficiently. Each speaker will be given a total of 3 minutes. The district will provide an official timekeeper. You will be notified when your time is up. Please respect the privacy of others and refrain from identifying students, employees, or other community members by name. Disruption of the meeting will not be tolerated at any times. Comments on any subject, whether positive or negative, must be courteous and respectful. Comments are limited to the specific topic you indicated on the form you filled out. Any speaker with a specific complaint about a district employee decision or operational issue should present that complaint through the appropriate mechanism, which is the district's formal grievance
004process. If you have a pending grievance being processed by the district, please remember you're not permitted to speak about this during public comment. Also, please understand if you speak to us on an item not agenda, the board cannot reply to you except to thank you for your comments since the matter has not been posted for discussion. In compliance with state law, these proceedings are recorded and will become part of SSD's permanent legal record. In order that the recordings will adequately reflect the proceedings, I ask that you please refrain from talking while others are speaking. I also ask, as I remind my fellow board members, to please turn off or silence your cell phones. Again, thank you for being here and for your support of SASD. We have Mike Hernandez here this evening. He's executive pastor
005at Celebration Church and he's going to help us with our invocation. Will you pray with me? Dear heavenly father, we invite you into this space. Lord, saturate us with your love. At a time, Lord, when the world seems to be divided, ask that you unite us. Let us recognize we need less of us and more of you. Lord, we know that apart from you or nothing, but being in a relationship with you allows us to have everything we need. Lord, I lift up this board to you. Give them clarity and direction. I lift up the SASD administration to you, Lord. Give them wisdom in leading the district. I lift up the faculty and staff that they would always be filled with joy and recognize they are not working for man but for you and you
006alone. I lift the student body up to you, Lord. Help this generation. Protect them. Guide them. Open their eyes, ears, and minds so that they may look, listen, and learn during these very important years of their lives. And lastly, but not certainly not least, Lord, I lift up the parents to you, Lord, for truly truly they are responsible for raising up the leaders to be. Help us all, Lord, to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry in Jesus name. Amen. >> Amen. Thank you, Mike. Now, we have some students from Glenmore Elementary. We have Crisal Placencia, David Thorne, Mayor Hernandez, and Penelopey Humphrey. And they're going to come up here and help us with our pledge of allegiance to the United States and Texas. If everyone please stand als One
007nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Texas flag. I aliance to the Texas one state and indivisible. >> Thank you all. And you come back up here because soon wants to get a picture of all of y'all and probably your parents do too. One, two, three. [Applause] >> All right. Next, we're going to move forward with recognitions. Um, and we have some great partners here this evening. They're going to help and soon is going to help us with that. And first is recognition of the desk nonprofit organization. Thank you, Sue. >> Good evening, Dr. Kingman, Dr. Moran, and members of the board. Tonight, we are honored to recognize a community partner that has been blessing and supporting SISD students, families, and schools for more than two decades. DESK. DES stands for donate
008educational supplies for kids. Since founding Since his founding in 2004 by Mr. Eric Wilson, Desk has raised more than $1 million to provide school supplies for St. Angelo ISD students. This year alone, they generously contributed more than $75,000, which directly benefited every campus in our district and ensured students have the tools they need to succeed. These incredible supporters of public education with us tonight and some who couldn't make it this evening, excuse me, dedicate their time, energy, and talents year round to raise funds for our SISD students who are in need of school supplies. We are honored to recognize and have with us here tonight some of the desk board members. When I call your name, please come forward and Dr. Moran will present you with your certificate. Desk President, Mr. Eric Wilson, Vice President,
009Mrs. Vicky Loso with First Community Federal Credit Union, Secretary Diane Wilson with McDonald's, Treasurer Jaclyn Ooa with Armstrong Beckis. and Andy Mayor with Sam's Club. Please join me in giving the desk board a very appreciative round of applause. Thank you. All right. Next, we have a recognition of the United Way partnering with San Angelo Reed's back to school pop-up event. >> Yes, sir. Our second recognition this evening is for the United Way of the Koncho Valley and their United We Read literacy initiative who continue to be valued partners with Sangela ISD and our own literacy initiative, Snangelo Reads. Last month, you heard me recognize the more than 90 community partners who made our Sangela Reads and United We Read back to school pop-up event a record-breaking success. Well, as co-sponsor of the event, the United
010Way played a key role in bringing families together at the Coliseum to celebrate literacy and kick off the school year with fun, food, learning, and more. Thanks to their support, we were able to provide the 1,200 free hot dogs to attendees, and their tables were just filled with free backpacks, books, and engaging student activities. We sincerely thank the United Way of the Contra Valley for their ongoing commitment and dedication to the families of the Koncho Valley. Your organization continues to make a lasting impact on this community that we are so proud to call home. So tonight, accepting this recognition, we are pleased to welcome Miss Ashley Ammons, United Way, the Contra Valley President and CEO. Cameron Cummings, director of community impact and engagement. If everyone could please join me in giving the United Way, the
011Kabelli a very appreciative round of applause. [Applause] Appreciate you guys. >> All right. Our next recognition is a staff recognition and Dr. Brandon is going to help us with that one. Dr. Keeman, Dr. Bran, Board of Trustees. The Texas Association of School Business Officials certification is earned through a combination of specialized coursework, school business experience, training in an area of specialization, and an active membership in the association. This evening, we are recognizing two young ladies that recently earned certification. If y'all go ahead and come up. Jennifer Smith recently completed the requirements to earn the designation of registered Texas School Business Administrator and Donna Hower completed the requirements to earn the registered Texas School Business official designation. We'd like to congratulate both of them on their achievement. [Applause] All right. Next on our agenda is public
012comment and Mr. Virgil Petti is going to come up and his topic is leadership, communication and finances. >> Hello, my name is Virgil Pacetti, concerned father. um noticed that on our POS over 20,000 that we had a $26,000 charge for cyber incident. Um we know that the registration system went down and we were told that it was a non-issue and that nothing happened and we shouldn't be concerned, but if we shouldn't be concerned, then why do we have to pay $26,000 to an out ofstate lawyer to handle the incident? I I think as a community we have the right to know what happened. What was the root cause for why it happened? Because in manufacturing it's man, material or machine. So was it headcount that did it? Was it the server that did it? Or
013was it the software that did it? What information was compromised? You know, there's 12,000 students. Did any of that information get out? I bet parents would like to know. I mean, you have my son's social security number. You have his address. Do I need to worry about when he turns 18, he's going to have bad credit because of a non-issue, another non-issue? Is that is that the new thing? Is you just say it's a non-issue and we go away? If it was a non-issue, you wouldn't have spent $26,000. And is that just the retainer? Is that the ransom? Is there more to come? You know, we have a communication department that has a $550,000 budget and yet you don't communicate anything. What what is your obsession with coming in here and saying you're the most
014transparent board ever and yet you do nothing but hide the the truth from the parents. Tell tell us what happened. Don't be ashamed. If you made a mistake, you made a mistake. Own up to it. Move on. When it comes to leadership, lead by example. You said the most important thing right now, regardless of nutrition, regardless of the what the happened to these kids because of their lunch was that you got that 15 minutes back. That that is so crucial for them to learn. Well, you know what? Lead by example. We need our leaders here. We don't need you at Tasbo meetings. We don't need you off going to these meetings for no reason. If it's mandated by the state of Texas, go. Other than that, all travel should be canceled. And we need our
015leaders here to lead. We are in a crisis. We have all these schools failing and you're telling us that we have to do everything we can to have that extra 10 minutes with those kids. Well, we need our leaders here. Lead by example. You know, y'all have time to go off and take pictures and spend money. And I see all the reservations for the hotels and all the dinners. Stay here and lead. And when we get to a B, then y'all can go off and do your parties. But till then, lead by example. [Applause] Next, we have Miss Sarah Alexander and her topic is Lake View. It's homecoming week, so we're a little short on people. They're out doing homecoming stuff. Um, so I'm going to approach it differently this week. Instead of laying righteous
016anger at the feet of those responsible for the inequalities in our district, I'll approach it differently. My child asked me to tell you my story why I'm so passionate about public schools in equality. So that is what I'll do. I graduated from a 1A school, not a 6A like Central or even a 4A like Lake View. There were 27 kids in my graduating class. I grew up dirt poor. And by age 11, both of my parents were no longer in the picture. When they returned, they only brought chaos and instability. I never had a real home, and when I did, it was rarely a safe place to be. But my senior year, I was literally on my own, paying my bills, and lucky to eat one meal a day. Um, my calm from that storm
017was public school. While my experience with it was far from perfect, and I survived unmentionable things, it was also met with a balance of teachers who cared and saw potential in me. Long-term, the good outweighed the bad. I had teachers that could see that I was more than just a poor kid. They saw my intelligence and cultivated it. Through the gifted and talented program, FCCLA and others, I was able to find a piece of myself that I didn't know existed in opportunities that wouldn't have otherwise been possible for a kid like me. Those opportunities started early in high school. My freshman year, I was elected a regional officer in FCCLA. And it was a huge deal for a kid who had be considered homeless by today's standards. Through academic programs at that little 1A school,
018I got to go on trips across the state and even across the nation. I saw the United States from Florida to California. For the big out of state trips, we got to we had to speak to the board directly and ask for funding. Instead of staring or instead of swatting down the dreams of a poor kid, they supported it. They funded it. They cultivated it through the hardest times of my life. The potential that those educators cultivated was never lost. The long-term effects of their effort brought me a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, a series of personal and professional successes, and the confidence to know that I still have potential even if I fail. That is what I am asking you to do today. To cultivate dreams, to stop looking down on one side of
019town for being a different race or a different income, and focus on their potential as future adults. So, while we want our open campus back, it's not just about lunch. It's about equality and the opportunities that come with a board and a superintendent who support everyone. We want a lo a level playing field. I want my child to be able to join FCCLA. That changed my life. Um like I did. Uh but they don't offer it at Lake View. It's only offered at Central. So, that won't happen. at minimum offer the same clubs and organizations, class and athletics um that motivate kids to walk in the door and keep their grades up. I know it sure did me. Um be the people that cultivate these dreams for everyone. Mistakes have been made across the board.
020Parents, y'all, all of us have handled this bad. I'll admit that. But we still have a chance to turn that around. We can make a huge difference in these kids' lives by just working together. The good can outweigh the bad here, too. these kids can leave the the Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Alexander. All right. Next, we're going to um move our agenda around a little bit. Um we are going to move to action item A and we're going to consider um executive director of human resources and I think Dr. Moran's going to help us with that. >> Well, Dr. Dr. Kingman and board members, you know that when Dr. Skelton left in in spring, we posted the job and we've interviewed and we have been on the search for the right person. And
021we've been pretty patient about it because we didn't want to uh just fill it with anybody. And so in our search, we've taken our time. We've uh been thorough in finding the right person, and we found the right person. And so tonight, it is with great pleasure that I uh recommend to you AM Dr. Amy Lamaster. She served in St. Angelo ISD for a number of years. Uh and in other districts as well, but teacher, instructional coach, assistant principal, campus principal, and is a strong leader with a background that includes not only education, but higher education, instructional support, and um the military. And so we're really thankful to bring to you a candidate we know has the tools, the backbone, and the wherewithal to do this job effectively. So tonight, I'd like to uh ask
022you to consider Dr. Amy Lam Master. She's here with us this evening. And uh if you have any questions, we'll be open to those at this time. >> Any questions for Dr. Moran? >> Do I have a motion to approve the exe Uh, executive director of human resources. >> I make a motion to approve Amy Lamasters as the director of human resources. >> Do I have a second? No. >> I have a motion for Mrs. Duncan, a second from Mrs. Meisel Flynn. Any further board comments or questions? >> All in favor say I. >> All say the same. Motion passes 70. Thank you for being back, Dr. Mer. All right. So, now we're we need to go into executive session under 551.072. That's real property. Um, and we will be back. All right, we are
023back from executive session. Um, no action was taken. U, no votes. Um, we will now move forward with our agenda. We're going to conduct our finance and audit comm audit committee workshop. As just for as a reminder to everyone, this is now part of our regular agenda because we have to get um our since our postings rules are such that we have to get them um so far in advance that this is now going to part of our regular agenda. >> Dr. Cayman, would you like me to proceed with that? Go for it. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. Well, our finance and audit committee uh agenda starts on page eight. If you'd like to move to page 11, it's combi it's our combined statement of revenues and expenditures for August. If you pay attention to
024the bottom of the page, it shows our restricted balance uh funds right now of 2.574 million approximately and our unrestricted balance of $51,537,000 approx. Um some of that we've already de delegated for projects uh in this next period and so you'll see that fund drop slightly as we move forward in the next uh month or so. No questions about that. We can move to page 14 which is our statement of revenues, expenditures, and the general fund for August. Uh we're in the 12th month of our budget cycle. As you can see, revenues have surged to 94 99.4% 4% which we expected as the state continues to make us whole usually during the end of that cycle and our expenditures are at 95.4%. We've got a period 13 that we use to uh uh justify everything
025and so we've still got some expenses coming in and so that those expenses will probably slightly rise as will the revenues will probably uh get tweaked slightly uh closer to that 99 100% uh goal uh as we finish out uh this year. uh page uh if there are no questions about that statement revenues expenditures for August, we can move to pages 15 through 34, which is a check register for August. I know we've had it in our hands for a while reviewed. I'm not sure that Dr. Brandon has any questions for any of those checks. But if anybody else has questions, you might direct those questions to him because it's maybe sometimes hard to answer off the cuff what each one is is. Um, I did not see anything out of line. So, but I'm
026only one set of eyes. So, if anybody else sees anything, please alert Dr. Brian and we can move forward with that. >> I just had a quick question. I saw multiple like there were a lot of checks to individual teachers like in bunches is like is there particular reason for that? >> Uh, usually if you see the same uh check them out to the same individual then that's coaches or sponsors setting up schedules in advance. uh so they know the number that they have on the team and they uh set those up in advance so that the checks will be ready when they travel out of town. Most of those are student meals or tournament entry fee stuff like that. But the the ones that reoccur for the same amount are normally student meals and
027then they'll adjust from that if they have an additional player lose a player along the way. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> Any additional questions on checks? >> Uh yes. Are we able to comment on the that 26k that was spent on the cyber security breach? What that was for that amount? >> Yes. So, we have I mean we have uh cyber security insurance. So, um we have um postings out to parents on the website about the fishing incident. And so more than anything in an effort to be cautious, right, and research the problem and make sure that we don't have um you know so that we understand fully if there was a breach, not a breach or how how that was affected. Uh we contact our insurance company and then they actually have a firm
028uh that handles that investigation. So we're in the middle of that investigation right now and then once we have the findings, we can bring those back to the board. Okay, additional questions. If not, we can move to pages 35 through 39, which is our August investment report. Currently, at the end of August, we had invested funds of approximately $467 million. Total interest earned for the month of August was 1.397 million. And interest rates were holding steady at 4.28 to 4.43% 43% as we move forward. Again, most of that investment fund is right now is the funding from the bonds as we uh uh had to finance in adv advance to save uh actually in the end run save the community about $80 million of that of that fund. So, which the state is going to
029hold us will uh help us hold they will hold us harmless for that amount. So, uh, that was a big boon for us if we could get all that stuff done by the, uh, beginning of, uh, September, actually the 1st or the August the 30th, then we were able to do that. So, that's where we're holding those most of those funds right now. But, it was, uh, an effort on the district's part to have to get that done so we could save that that money uh, and then and the state will reimburse us for that long term. So, it was a big big deal, a big win for SISD actually. So, anyway, any other questions about the investment report? If not, we can move to page 40, which is our July tax report. Again, we're
030always the year behind. The 2020 or 2023 collections are at 99.81%. And our 2024 collections are slightly behind at 99.09%. Uh, but normally we get into that almost 100% range as we move in the next year or so. It usually gets to be about 100% by the time we get all the delinquent taxes collected. It's about a 1% uh loss or write off as as we move forward. Any questions about the July tax report? >> I just said a quick question. You might not you might not know the answer to this, Dr. Brandon, but if we ever to refinance that bond, does that negate the hold harmless thing? >> That's a good question. Um, I'm going to say that that would not negate uh the idea of the savings of 80 million is the 30-year
031payout. >> Yeah. >> So, there if we were to >> I guess it would be offset. If we were to refund those bonds at a cheaper interest rate, we just wouldn't see it go all the way to the 30 years. Um, >> so sometimes, you know, we can just like your home, right? You could shorten the term >> or we can just shorten the interest rate, but otherwise we'll still receive the funding from the state as long as those bonds are out there. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Questions about the tax report before we move forward. >> Okay. And finally, pages 41 through 46 are our August PO report for any POS that are over $20,000. Uh there are multiple areas of uh affected by all those POS. uh too too numerous
032to mention. I'm I'm not sure if anybody wants has a question about any of those. A lot of beginning uh POS for uh the beginning of school uh and upfront expenses as we move forward with this school year. So, which starts in uh which is started technically in August, but our funding actually rolls over into uh actually our new budget year starts in September. So, with that, there are no questions about any of those POS. Uh Dr. came and that would conclude my report. >> Thank you, Mr. Dindle. Um, next we're going to move to some information items and Mr. Kennedy is going to help us with a construction update. We got most of that last week, but just for Dr. Kingman, Dr. Moran, and the board, it's good to talk to y'all. I'm second
033string because Carl normally would be doing this, but I can take care of it. Uh two weeks ago, our committees that are looking to build new schools, new additions, we went to Lok Simol and Brownfield and looked at some good uh exterior, interior designs, and we kind of put our heads around what we really want to look at. And this week, uh we looked at Glenn. Last week we looked at uh the other two schools uh Lake View Central and we've come up with about four different designs for each of those schools. And now Park Hill uh as they worked with us in this, they will design them, bring some of those those designs back to the committee, present them to y'all, and then we're going to be ready to start construction. reason Carl's not
034here right now. They're drilling holes over at McGill. Uh getting ready for the second phase of that. And uh we've already uh been with KF uh SK is >> SKG. >> SK SK. No, KFK. >> SK. >> Yeah. What? It's Kai Frankie. >> KFW. >> Yeah. KFW. All these different acronyms. Sorry. Uh we we were with Kai Frankie last week and uh we've looked at starting the design of the second phase of Fannon as well. Lots of good things. It's pretty exciting time especially for me. Uh and we're already in the process of the design build with our $22 million update on our HVAC controls and electrical. So, we're September 30, we're gonna have a full plan on what schools and the the the way we're going to attack that. So, lots good going on.
035>> Any questions for me? >> Any questions for Mr. Kennedy? >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next, we're going to have Dr. Gomez, and she's going to help us with um an academic program update. Good evening, Dr. Cayman, Dr. Moran, and members of the board. Last month, we reviewed our accountability ratings for the district and for our individual campuses. So, now that we have those official ratings and that we're no longer delayed with any lawsuits, um our timeline is on a a quicker pace um due to the former delays. And with that, um we need to talk about turnaround plan requirements. It's important for the public and our um listeners in the audience and watching to understand the requirements in Texas. Public schools are required to submit a turnaround plan if their
036accountability rating shows that student achievement is not where the state expects it to be. A turnaround plan is essentially a roadmap, if you will, that outlines the steps a school will take to strengthen teaching and learning with extra support for students, staff, and with the overall goal to improve student outcomes. It's different from the business world because in the business world, uh, you create a plan, you're going to immediately implement a plan. Well, in the state may be required to develop a plan, have it approved, but not immediately begin implementation. So, I'm going to talk about that a little further because sometimes that causes confusion with the public. So just a recap, turnaround plans allow us to identify areas where students need that additional support, set clear goals for growth and progress, and put in
037place the strategies that have been proven to help students succeed. So our campuses that will engage in this process are listed for you there. McGill, Belair, Bradford, Fannon, Golad, and Lincoln. We will bring those plans to you for approval in October, but we want you to know we're already working on this. I also want to clarify um with those requirements to develop and implement a turnaround plan. It has to do with years of consecutive unacceptable performance. So I've bolded there for you to understand the difference. Okay. So, the state says if a campus has been identified as unacceptable for two consecutive years, the campus must prepare and submit a plan. Again, I'm going to tell you, they don't technically say you have to implement that plan. However, we're going to do that because we know
038those are strategies to improve student outcomes. Okay? But technically the um the code there is when you're in your third consecutive year of an unacceptable rating, you must formally implement the plan. Okay. So what this means now that we're up to speed with the release of the official 24 ratings and we have our 25 ratings. You had on the first side your list of our campuses, but now this clarifies for you the different stages in the turnaround process. So, McGill is required to implement their approved turnaround plan. Now, as we are all aware, McGill consolidated with Austin. As part of that consolidation process, it did inherit Austin's accountability rating, which has expedited McGill in the turnaround plan process. It's just important to note that because that is what changed McGill's um plan. Golad is required
039to implement an improved turnaround plan. Belair, Bradford and Fannon are required to develop and implement and Lincoln is required to develop a turnaround plan. So these plans, the need for plans don't happen overnight. As we've continuously said, we knew we had areas regardless of released ratings, we had areas where we needed to make change to tighten up on our instructional minutes and our instructional practices. So, I want to talk to you about what's different now versus five years ago when all of this was set in motion because that's what we're seeing. We're not just seeing what happened in the 24 school year and what happened in the 25 school year. We're seeing what happened as early as 19, 20, 21. And this is the impact. So the difference now is we have aligned highquality instructional
040resources districtwide. When we implemented those resources, you couldn't have a quick swoop and say every grade, all levels is changing resources. It's too much for the capacity of change in the organization. So that's why we talked about a very strategic roll out and we started with certain grade levels. As that roll out has worked its way out, now we're consistent districtwide. Also in the education world, you work in your most productive teams when you work in professional learning communities. That's different from the business world. Professional learning communities bring more than one teacher together to plan lessons, to create lessons, and to talk effective instructional practices. You can have a master teacher, but if that master teacher isn't able to share with others, especially in the state of decreasing teacher candidates, it makes it really hard
041for teachers to have the skills necessary. We've reset and restaged those professional learning communities throughout the district, and we will continue to do so, including November 3rd in our district professional learning day. Teacher and leadership coaching. We aren't about compliance. Now we come and we talk to you for teacher incentive aotment. We come and meet the annual requirement for you to approve the list of test appraisers because it's an education code that teachers have annual appraisals. We don't do that to check a box so that we say Miss Smith received an evaluation. A one-time visit doesn't improve the practice in a classroom. Everyone needs a coach. Think about your professional athletes. Your most skilled are coaching and refining their skills. We want doctors that are current in their practices. It's no different for teachers in
042our classrooms and for our leaders that are running our campuses. So, we have district-wide teacher and leadership coaching. And then, while it's really hard, those are hard decisions that you all have to make because closing schools, it's not easy. It's not something we like to do for the sake of closing schools. But we've had to consolidate some of our very smallest campuses to increase our teachers that are certified in our classrooms. You continue to hear us. In fact, that's going to be part of the HR report this evening. We are literally shaking bushes trying to find the most qualified candidates. We don't fill positions just to fill positions and take vacancies off of the website. And that last bullet, talking about strategic staffing in situations with no qualified candidates. One of the things that I
043pride myself for being a part of SEISD is the fact that we hold high expectations for the educators in our classrooms and throughout the district and all positions. But this year, we had to make some really difficult decisions. And Dr. Dr. Moran came and spoke to all of you about the fact that we had two leadership positions we could not fill with someone we felt good looking the eyes of our parents and our teachers and the students in those classrooms and we moved in interim positions this year two directors to serve as principles at two of these campuses golad and Fannon that doesn't mean the work of those directors has gone away others of us have absorbed those responsibilities in this interim but if That's what it takes so that our students have the most
044qualified educators. That's what we're here to do. So, please know, we don't take this lightly. We're we're not here saying everything's perfect because we know it's not. That's why we've been engaged in some very drastic changes the last several years. We're ve very well aware of the sanctions that come if a school is in an unacceptable rating for five consecutive years, including a board of conservators or closure. And none of us want to stand up here and have that. Also, it's important to note that a D-rating is not acceptable when it comes to school improvement. And that's the situation with McGill. That's part of the reason, as I stated earlier, that McGill is in the situation where it is. Until we have a C or higher rating, we don't reset that. We also aren't just
045here engaged in this and alone reporting to you and to the public that we just have it all figured out. We are also working with our local education service center and their staff. They're coming in, too. So, it's not just us reporting to what's happening in our classrooms and the changes we're making and reporting to the Texas Education Agency. We have them. We have other organizations throughout the state. So, we just want you to know that's part of our transparency to all of you that we're committed to making the improvements and it is a comprehensive effort from all levels, from our community, from our parents, and from our staff to get students up to speed and to close the gaps we have. So, that's just kind of the overall. You're going to hear more. You
046will hear about those plans. What happens next? A part of the school improvement process is stakeholder feedback. Every campus in SISD has open house next week. So if a campus is engaged in the school improvement process, that will be part of the openhouse information that's shared with those families so that those families can provide feedback to the campuses. and we use that feedback when we create the plans that we present to all of you um and ultimately to the Texas Education Agency for approval. >> Any questions or comments for Dr. Gomez? The only comment I might have is just for the public, the the schools that are on improvement and their rating, the rating comes from for elementary just from the star data. >> That's exactly correct. >> Okay. High school is different. >> Correct.
047>> Middle school is just the star data. >> Correct. So, high school has your uh CCMR and graduation. >> Okay. And I will say um the first bullet about the aligned high quality instructional resources, how I've watched that kind of um unfold and it's it's amazing how it has unfolded and the steps that y'all took to make sure because like you said, if every grade had gone there, we would have had gaps. So, the fact that we worked in elementary and now we're unfolding it, and tell me if I'm wrong, in middle school, it's so important because if you change everything, a child is going to have gaps because they may have missed. So, that I applaud y'all because that is hard to do. And we're doing it um across the district for me. Maybe
048I might be speaking for the first time a Lake View, a Glenn and a Lonear child in seventh grade class are all doing the exact same thing. And I think as a district that is huge for our kids that move for communication, just just to say, you know, what are you doing? What are you doing? And we're all doing the same thing. So, um I see all of this working in such a positive direction and I think that in itself will bring our um scores and our ratings up and there's no doubt in my mind that the people leading and the teachers every campus are doing everything they can. So, um I ask that we support, we encourage, and um we stand not behind but beside these people and let them know that we appreciate
049them. >> Any other board comments or questions? >> Doc Dr. Gomez, I know that we've been uh that we have not just now started on this today. We've been working on this for the past two or three years and as we find out uh this uh this a lot of this data will help us identify those subgroups of the population that are uh that are struggling. And so that helps uh not only the administration but this board and how they allocate resources moving forward to uh to help uh move the needle in all of these campuses, not just not just the ones that are struggling but in all campuses. And so as we identify these these uh subopul groups, it really does uh the data is worthy to uh to act on. And I know
050we've been working on that again for the past two or three or four years to to uh again to align the curriculum as Miss uh Miss Duncan says, she's a lot more eloquent with the teaching language than I am. But uh I know I know that uh you you know as well as I do that this board is going to stand ready to if we can help in any way especially uh uh with with finance we will definitely find that and make sure that that gets to our students to make sure they get improved. >> Okay. Just so I'm understanding correctly, um the turnaround plans after two years that a a campus is underperforming, that's when a plan is developed. It's not implemented. It's just developed. >> Okay. It's not >> We go ahead and
051implement it, Miss Cardinus. But from the state, it's not required until the third consecutive year of unacceptable performance. >> Okay. And of course, each plan is um unique to each campus, right? Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. So, and just so the public and myself knows, when you implement these plans, how often are is leadership or administrators um you know, reviewing and seeing if these changes are helping at >> at a minimum monthly. So, it depends on the individual strategies. >> Um but there are formal reportings including with the campus supervisors each quarter, but depending on the individual strategies, some of those strategies are done weekly. So it all depends on the strategy and the plan. >> So after so long if if it's not working uh do you change the plan or >> you modify accordingly?
052>> Okay. >> Yes. >> After how how much time? >> It all depends on the strategy because um if you say for example if you have small group instruction and in 3 weeks you're not seeing a change that can be too quickly to change the student out of the group. So typically that's on a six week basis. So it's it's hard to say without talking the specific strategy itself. There's not like um a magic window, but we don't wait a year to say, "Well, that didn't work." Okay. >> So, but you can't change after a couple of weeks to see if there was enough time. >> All right. >> Um I was curious to know about the professional learning communities. I know we've been talking about these for a while, but now that the district
053is fully aligned, I was wondering if the professional learning communities go beyond like go like from Lake View to Central High School. So, do all of those English teachers and science teachers work together in both schools to exchange ideas or >> That is a great question. So, um you all on our district calendar, you approve what we refer to as instructional planning days. In fact, this past Monday was just an instructional planning day. And so part of our changes for this school year was the implementation of district-wide PLC's on those instructional planning days. So for example, on Monday, I spent the majority of my day at Austin where we had all elementary. Now, all of our secondary teachers were engaged as well, just at different campuses. For space and capacity, we can't fit every teacher
054at one location. As you know, Austin is not being uh unused. We've repurposed those facilities for a professional learning center. And so it allows all of the teachers. So for example, for from 1 to 2:30, we had every second grade teacher that teaches RLA together in that PLC internalizing based on their pods for the elementary campuses. Uh English one throughout the district were all together in a PLC. That goes back to the consistency districtwide regardless of the campus. It also allows us to use our human capital for our instructional coaches. As our instructional coaches are supporting in content specific areas, they're working with those teachers during that time. >> I love that. Thank you very much. >> Yes, ma'am. Um, I I want to elaborate on that because that was a Amy, that's a good
055question. And I think if we take a minute and and we go back to the teacher who is the one doing this and that we trust that they are highly qualified. All right. So, they they will PLC. But the great thing about the day that y'all just had is just getting to know who the teachers are at every campus. And I know when I was at Glenn, um a teacher at um Lincoln became one of my really close friends and we would meet after school and collaborate. So these teachers are so crafted and they're looking for anything to help their kids. So they're going to collaborate not just in the PLC hour and um Carla you were talking about the plan and um Farah don't isn't a big part of that plan and adjusting looking
056at the MAPS testing how our students are growing and >> well it all depends but yes that's a component map is districtwide regardless that's one of our superintendent board goals but aside from MAP NW MAP for the grade levels with it. Looking at regular assessment data from a variety of checkpoints, unit assessments, so forth is yes, a component. >> And the unit assessments now are districtwide. >> Correct. >> And so, um, as a teacher skilled in your craft, if you're giving an assessment and you look at the data, you break it down and you see a child that's didn't um, master it, that's where your small group goes. So the teacher is really the I I don't I don't let me say I don't want to compare this to a doctor because a doctor does
057healing but we heal the child. We heal what the gaps and the um what they're missing and we have to trust and the parent um communicates. We trust the teacher sees that and that's where the admin is watching and making sure that that's all happening. And when that happens, sometimes we find um that a child isn't learning a certain way. And I'll just use this example. I had children that for the life of me could not learn the multiplication facts. So you start another way. Maybe they can learn it by doing multiples. Or maybe they I remember buying a rap song and one of my little boys finally learned them doing rap. But that's where we stand back and we trust but we watch that the teacher is doing their job. >> Any other board
058comments or questions? Dr. I just want to thank you. I know we have turnaround plans. I know we have um things and all of a sudden we got three ratings in three weeks. Um but that doesn't change the fact that the data that has been um rearing its ugly head for the last several years that led to changes in our curriculum and our districtwide and all the things you just outlined. Um that those haven't that work hasn't been being done. And so I appreciate the work you and your team are doing and have been doing for >> four years now. Yes, sir. to get to get us to where you know I'm going to use algebra because it was it's an easy one to remember from but our algebra data we were finally aligned on
059algebra and we got more growth this year than we'd ever gotten and that was one of the early ones we aligned we got more growth in algebra than we'd ever had in the district and doesn't mean we're good enough yet but it means that um we have data points that show that the hard work our teachers our curriculum instruction coach and our and our coaches and our principles are doing um that those it's working. So, I just want to thank you and your team for everything and obviously our teachers and our principles, but the the heavy lift that everyone is doing to make this happen. I just want to say thank you. So, >> one last kudos to Dr. to Dr. Gome as we found her in a prek class uh subbing and teaching for
060the last couple weeks. So, I mean, you go where you're needed. And so, uh, we have a team that, uh, is dedicated to the kids and wherever they wherever they wherever they're most needed is where they're going to show up. So, thank you, doctor. >> It's not just me. We all we all do what'sever needed. >> And I have a box of Kleenex for you and and wipes. So, you got >> We had a great donor that gave us a lot of Kleenex. They're coming into great use. >> Thank you very much. All right. Any other questions for Dr. Gomez? All right. Thank you, Dr. Gomez. Next, we're gonna have Miss Patty Griffin come up and give us an update on personnel. >> Thank you, Dr. Keeman, members of the board, Dr. Moran, Dr. Gomez,
061Dr. Brandon. Thank you. Um, I am very happy to represent the district's human resources team tonight and we provided to you a lot of data. uh data that included each elementary school enrollment by teacher as of August 29th, the number of elementary classroom instructional aids by campus, the number of retirees that we have employed, and the estimated cost of the teacher retirement system search charge uh for employing those retirees, the number of teacher vacancies at the elementary and secondary levels, and information about substitute teachers assigned to those vacancies. ies. We also provided to you a a great amount of information about teacher certification and the status of certification uh by campus. Since there are multiple status types in certification, it can be very complicated or sound very complicated. In the narrative portion of the report,
062we provided clarification and an explanation that I hope helped you. The report also included the number of educators enrolled in alternative certification programs and we gave you an explanation of what that is, the number of RAM residents that we have from Angelo State University serving in our district and about our partnership in that program. the number of clinical teachers who are in our classrooms this semester. And you probably know clinical teachers uh as best as student teachers and what that program includes and information about our grow your own program. Uh we have several programs that we explain to you in the narrative and the number of district employees participating in each of those programs. At the end of the narrative portion, our report included information about the state's requirements for teacher certification in the future,
063which is going to be very challenging. Uh, and it's a challenge that's ahead of us for all public schools in Texas. As you probably know, all districts across our state are experiencing increased challenges in recruiting, hiring, and retaining certified teachers. I'm in contact weekly with my professional network of district HR professionals leaders across the state and they're experiencing this challenge just like we are. Just yesterday, our team and I participated in a call with the Texas Education Agency and we learned that it last year in 2425 of all the new teachers brand new to the profession teachers hired in the profession in Texas, 56% were uncertified. So, I'm going to let that just marinate for a minute. 56% of the new teachers to the profession hired statewide last year. That's a lot. So now, let
064me give you a little bit of good news about this district and about what this team has done. This team, this team, the team that's not here tonight, we employed 31 teachers new to the profession this year. 77% are certified with 23% of those 31 in the process of earning certification either through an alternative certification program or awaiting approval for their outofstate certification to be approved in Texas. That that's a good number. SISD hired 95 teachers total for this school year. 91% are certified. 9% are in the process of obtaining certification. They're in different stages of that program of of receiving their certification. We have total in this district approximately 790 teachers serving students. 96% of those are certified and 4% are in the process of obtaining certification. It's very evident that districts and tea
065do not have all the answers and I don't have the answers. This team doesn't have the answers. Dr. Moran doesn't have the answers. However, I do know this. St. Angelo ISD remains fully committed to ensuring that all students are taught and supported by highly qualified educators. And as I share with district staff all the time, um we're all ed we're all recruiters for public education and I hope that you will join us in being recruiters as well. I want to publicly thank our HR team. Uh, actually, they're all here tonight. This is your team. This is your HR team. And I want to thank them publicly for their passion, for serving, for their heart for education, for their dedication. I get emotional over this. And commitment to this district and the difference that they make
066every day. This is a hardworking team. And so thank you. >> And that is my report and we will take any questions that you have and try to answer to them. >> Any questions for Miss Griffin? >> I'm just going to say thank you, Miss Griffin, for stepping up and coming back and helping us while we were in this interim. >> My pleasure to serve. >> Um, you you've been a part of SASD for a long time. Yes, sir. I think you told me you were like seven of our superintendents, but >> a lot. but >> all the way back to 1985. So, >> so, but I I just want to thank you for just coming in and being a calming uh voice in our HR department and being someone uh that can that a
067whole HR department can look up to and knows the work ethic that you have and so I just want to appreciate everything you've done coming in and helping us out. >> Thank you. It's my pleasure to serve. Thank you for the opportunity. >> Mr. President, may I say something? And Miss Griffin, I say this publicly to you directly. Thank you for the job well done over the past few months. Um I know Lee Livingston has a bus route for you if you still want to work for us. >> I intentionally did not get my seating ever. >> But I want you to know how much I appreciate you. You stepped in uh in the door and it was a plug and play. You came in and hit the ground running. the staff responded well to
068you and you've done some things for us that we desperately needed and I know that you're going to provide support to us through uh for Dr. Lamaster in her new role and the department. But I just want to say publicly thank you so much on a job well done. >> Thank you, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. [Applause] >> All right. Next, we have Mr. Colinbach coming up to give us an update on campus enrollment. Uh Dr. Kingman, uh Dr. Moran, members of the board, just a uh quick um just a picture of our current enrollment. So over the next few months, we're going to be uh talking about enrollment at our schools um so that we can start looking at the staffing issues in terms of um consolidations or whatever needs to happen. So
069this is just kind of a preliminary um of where we are today with our enrollment. So uh and we're going to look at the the historical enrollment. Um this first chart is the is by grade. And so, uh, you've seen this chart once before when we were in, um, in the bond preparation. And, um, what it I'll just kind of go back to that just as a reminder of when you see that diagonal, those green, um, coded, uh, numbers are the peak for that grade level. And so when you see that diagonal um you can see how it is the uh incoming class in kindergarten that was smaller every year after that. So as the as that kindergarten class if you look at the kindergarten class of 2014 is the the first kindergarten class that
070was smaller. And as that class moved through the grade levels, so you just follow that all the way down, um that number didn't really change. Those kids that were in our system that year stayed in our system all the way through. Um but they were smaller than the previous classes. And so every year after that, we were adding a kindergarten class that was smaller and we were graduating a class that was the size of the other ones from the previous years. So, um, uh, I I kind of made a couple of highlights. That's the, uh, if you look at that number, uh, going down, uh, the students and, and then this is, uh, I added 2025, that's our current enrollment number. So, that's what you hadn't seen yet. And, um, those so those students that
071are that were in kindergarten in 2014 are juniors. So, and you kind of have to look it the high school numbers are a little bit um not confusing but they're different because of students who have not earned the credit yet for that grade level. So some of those kids that are age appropriate to be a junior have not gotten their credits yet. So that's why those numbers look like that. But it's important to note that that group are juniors. So there's one more year of that declining in enrollment from that that will happen. So what's important now though is to look at the kindergarten class from this year and it is again down from where it has been. And so what we can expect is that as that kindergarten class moves through, we will still
072continue to see as as graduating classes graduate, there's going to be some declining enrollment still. Uh what's interesting about that number is that those those kids that are in kindergarten right now were born between September 2019 and August of 2020. That's when COVID hit. So this the next few classes are going to be the students that were born all all during COVID. So we don't we don't really know that. We do know that the birth rate in St. Angelo is matching the birth rate in the country which is dropping and so um and and worldwide. So, we're not seeing something that is, you know, uh, particularly unusual when it comes to the country, but um, but it has a significant impact on our district and the structure of our district because if you look, we
073we were at a peak of I think about uh 15,1 155 and right now we're at 12,000 and that's a much different looking district. That's a lot of students. So, um it's just for your information, we're going to we're going to visit this every month in terms of um where we go. How do we restructure? How do we get to our our schools to where we're maximizing those teachers that that have those uh that have that experience and are our expert teachers, um the more spread out we are, the less that we're able to do that. And so, um, that's by grade level. Just want to show you just, um, and this is the last slide for tonight, but this is by this these are the elementary campuses. I mean, and we'll be talking more
074over the next few months about, um, the the the historical patterns of the elementary schools. So, elementary schools really kind of drive uh, a lot of what eventually happens in middle school and high school because of the feeder patterns. And so we won't we're not going to dive into the feeder patterns tonight, but we will in the next uh few months. But um this is this is by campus and we kind of split them up because when they were all on one um chart, it got lost. So the the campuses that have experienced the most significant decreases. A couple of things to note about these numbers on here. These numbers do not include any special program that is assigned to a campus. So those prek that we don't we don't have at every campus, they're
075not those are are not based on the attendance zone that that lives in that area. So we took those out of these numbers because that would inflate or deflate the number uh of the sort of the actual kids that live in that zone, that area. Um because uh just as an example um a uh we look for campuses that have enough space for a a prek program, but that doesn't mean that all of those students live in that zone. So we took those out of the number for this purpose. Uh the other thing to note um is and we we're not going to dive into this tonight, but there are those those numbers represent the students that are actually at those schools and when we talk through transfers that will affect those numbers. Now a
076lot of our schools transfer out about the number that transfer in. So, the numbers don't change a whole lot, but there are a few campuses that have a lot more students that that transfer in, but we'll we'll talk about that at a future day. But just wanted to give you sort of a historical thing. Um, you know, the you can see those campuses that we combined are the big jump in enrollment. That's the explanation for those on that last chart. Um, but that's that's the historical. Just want you to have that as we talk the next few months going forward um with making some really big decisions for for our district in terms of um declining enrollment. So I'd be happy to answer any questions about that. >> Any questions for Mr. Colinbach? >> I
077was going to ask Mr. Colin, can you send us this this little thing you got? >> Yes, we can like on Friday facts or something. Okay. Thank you. Mhm. I have a question. I'm curious. Um, just like academics when there's a decline after two years or so, so if there's a decline in enrollment, is there a plan in place by the district to, you know, try to recruit or or just engage in the community to try to get them to enroll back into public school? Um I don't it's it's reflecting this is reflecting on um the the students that live in those zones the attendance zones. So in terms of recruiting efforts of knowing you know if there are any students that live in a zone that are not going to our school. Um we
078know the students who enroll. So we we can tell if they're at um one of our other schools on a transfer or something like that, but we we wouldn't know if there are students that are living in a particular attendance zone that are going to maybe a private school or that are homeschooled or or whatever. But um I mean I don't know if anybody else wants to jump in on that as far as um >> recruiting but yeah and this is really based on my experience uh that a school's success is its best recruitment tool. And so as we become better and better academically, as we continue to offer strong CTE and extracurricular programs, uh parents who are are either in private school or homeschool charter could make the the decision to come, but it's
079usually a very small percentage of the whole. When you talk about homeschool, um, and I don't want to speak for the the majority of homeschool parents, but the ones that I know that I'm related to even, uh, those individuals made that choice because they believe, uh, deeply that that's the best decision for their family. And so, um, you know, you might see some come and go, but most of those that really are, uh, insistent that that's the best decision for their family, they're probably not going to change that. Private school, the same charter, you get kids that come and go, but um, the decline that we're seeing based on birth rates really can't be fixed by anything. The only way we're going to gain students, I believe, is by improving the quality of academic program
080and again extracurricular CTE options for kids. But um uh typically you don't see an influx based on a campaign to recruit. And I would just add to that that um on our last demographic um report which we will we'll be having another one so we'll have more a um current um demographic information but the last one that we had and I don't know exactly the number but it was in the high 90s of the percentage of the students that live in our attendance zone that we educate. So it's in the it's the high 90s like Dr. MR said it's a small percentage of our students that are school age that live in in our attendance zone as a district, our whole attendance zone. We're educating 90 I I don't want to say the actual what
081it but it was in the high 90s already. So so the students who are not in our schools, it's a small percentage anyway. Um and and you know it's one of those it's one of those things like it some of our neighborhoods you can see the patterns are just aging. they're just aging. And and when the demographic report comes out, we'll know exactly how many school-aged children live in a in a specific zone because where like young families move makes a a big difference in this or um and we were talking to some other districts that just this past week that um people they're aging so they don't have small children anymore and they're not moving. Well, that's going to that's going to decrease your number in that particular uh attendance zone. So, there's a
082lot of factors, but um ultimately it's where people are choosing to live or where people can afford to live. I mean, there's there's quite a few um factors in that. So, >> um I think the greatest Carla, the greatest recruitment we have are kids talking to their friends and we um we just had our kids, you know, talk about all the ways that we're smart and our um public relations department does a great job of showing those things on social media. And what I would hope is that a kid that's not in our system that maybe could be sees that and says, "I want that." And then they'll come. Even if we were to get all of them, we're still maybe back up to where we were in, you know, in 200 whatever that was
083back then. Maybe a little more than that, but that's if we were to get all of them. So, we can look at that and definitely we we we have I don't uh almost 300 students that transfer into St. Angelo ISD from out from the smaller places. Um but and we can definitely, you know, we can put effort into that and and we obviously want to put effort into being great. Um but we've got to we've got to consider the fact that we're just not have we just don't have as many children in St. Angelo year over year. Yeah, I think as we look at this like one thing to kind of from a board perspective is we want to make sure that we're doing the right things, you know, all bringing us that information, but
084we also want to make sure that we um know what the capacity is on our campuses um so that we know that Goladag was built for a capacity of 700 kids even only 500 kids. we know those numbers as well looking forward because I you know we don't want as a board I think we want to make sure we are >> understanding reality but also not making decisions that will hamstring our community or our future board um and the kids because we don't have that we don't have space and so I think understanding what the capacity is of each of our campuses in the future um on top of what their enrollment is even if it's a increase in enrollment campus what is that actual capacity is important to know >> and that's that's something
085that we have planned to discuss in the next several months um about capacity and which which campuses can hold and and but yeah it's an important discussion for sure. >> All right. Any other questions for Mr. Colbong? >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Now we're going to move forward with our consent items. We have consent items A through F. It's our donations or minutes from our August 11th and August 25th meetings. Uh bid 20-014 which is an add-on for curriculum instruction materials. Bid-25-0 which was a carpet and installation. Bid 25-011 which is paper towels and toilet tissue. And um bid 25-013 uh which was uh security audit. Any um board comments or questions on the consent items A through F? Does anyone need anything pulled from consent? Do I have a motion
086to approve consent items A through F? >> I'll make a motion to approve. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> A motion from Dr. Mills and a second from Mr. Dindle. Um any further board comments or questions? >> All in favor say I. I. All again say the same. Motion passes 70. Next, we're going to do um action item B, which is our bills, accounts, and financial statements from August of 2025. It's on page 78. >> Any board comments or >> Dr. Kim, we reviewed these earlier this evening uh pretty thoroughly. Uh anybody has any questions? Also, if the public wants to review these reports, they're on our website in our effort at financial trans transparency down to our checkbook. And with that, I'd move to approve the bills and account financial statements
087for August of 2025. So, I have a motion from Mr. Dindle. Do I have a second? >> A second from Mr. Gyos. Any further board comments or questions? All in favor say I. >> All say the same. Motion passes 70. Next is bid 25-019. Mr. Henry's going to help us with the that. Thank you all for having me tonight. St. Angelo has solicited proposals for qualified firms specialized in K12 demographic analysis, enrollment forecasting, and planning support services. This selected firm will serve as the district's demographer providing comprehensive reports, presentations, and ongoing consultations to the district administration and board of trustees. The primary objective is to develop reliable data to support long range facility planning, potential attendance boundary modification, and strategic decisionmaking. We received two proposals from firms capable of performing this type of work. The
088scoring criteria was applied and Zonda Demographics proposed the lowest cost and received the highest score. The administration recommends awarding Zonda Demographics of South Lake with the contract for the total of $32,000. Are there any questions? >> Any questions or comments? So this >> when was the last demographic we did? >> It was right before the bond. >> Did we use these guys already or >> No, it was a different company. >> It was a different company. >> Yes, sir. Okay. >> Any other question? And this is this is a on as opposed to the bond which was I think a one time dem demographic say this is an ongoing. So they'll work with us for the next three to five years to make sure that we continue to get updated data so we can make
089decisions in the future. Correct. >> Yes. >> Any further board questions or comments for Mr. Henry? Do I have a motion to approve the demography study in Zonda demographics? >> Dr. Dr. Kimman, as we move forward through this difficult process of declining enrollment in the future, we uh as we see students move from populations of students move in and out of neighborhoods, uh we need the best data that we can to serve our students as as we move forward, especially as we uh again as we lose as we lose students, the the obvious fact or the hard fact is that we lose funding. uh the less students we have, the lower our funding is the way the state uh does their uh their funding. So, um the the best the the the best information that
090we have is going to be uh good so we can make the most solid decision in things that we we do in the future concerning uh our neighborhood schools uh our secondary campuses too as well as our high schools. So the the best way to place our resources may be uh with the information that this demographic study uh provides us with. So with that I would move to uh employed demographics uh for their survey in the amount of $32,000. >> I'll second. >> So I have a motion from Mr. Dindle and a second from Mr. Gagos. Any further board comments or questions? All in favor say I. >> I. >> All against say the same. Motion passes 70. Next we have bid 25-016 uh which is Sam Houston demolition. Uh before Mr. Henry gives us
091this report, is there any board comments or questions regarding this demo this before Mr. Henry makes his report? um after um visiting the campus um Houston I just feel that there's an opportunity there at that campus for maybe a community member to to make an impact there in in the body. So, I I'd really like to ask the board to consider tableabling this idea at least for a even a short amount of time. That way, the public can, you know, have an opportunity to check it out for themselves as well and see if it's a property that they're interested in. >> So, I have a motion for Miss Cardinz, and I'll second her motion to table this. Um, and that will allow um we can bring it back at a future meeting. is just being
092tabled, but it will allow for any community members who might be interested in that property to reach out to the district. Um, and then we can move forward with this in the future, uh, depending on what comes from that. Any any comments or questions before we vote on tableabling that motion or tableabling this item? All in favor of tableabling say I. >> All say the same. Motion passes 70. All right, Mr. Livingston, you're uh I know you look forward to purchasing school buses and travel buses every year. >> Good evening, everybody. Yes, I come uh bring two travel buses uh to replace our aging uh travel fleet. I'll be back up here next month with the uh proposal for the yellow fleet going forward in the next spring. So, we are uh wanting to purchase
093two more of the 46 passenger Bluebird buses. Um they are brand new, but they are um demon uh not demonstrator units, but stock units um purchased by the dealer. They are sitting in love as we speak and they're waiting for us to vote tonight and they'll start getting them ready for us uh tomorrow. So, um if you have any questions, I'll I'm happy to answer them. >> We have two of the bluebirds currently. >> Currently, yes. >> And those are the newest ones we p purchased after the coach liners. Correct. >> Correct. Yes. >> And we've been happy with those. >> We've been very happy with those. Yes. >> They can be worked on locally. >> Yes. The air conditioners work >> actually. Actually, one of them works very very well. I have to put
094a jacket on in it. >> And they're And you just want to because I know we've been doing buses for a long time, but they're also roughly 100 grand cheaper than the coach liners per year. >> Um, probably actually a little bit more than that. They're about half the cost of the >> the coach liner. Okay. Any board comments or questions regarding the purchase of two travel buses? >> Are we going to be retiring any travel buses or we just adding these to the fleet? >> No, we need to retire some of the van holes. >> Yep. I had had the pleasure of driving one to uh Abalene three weeks ago and I fought it the whole way and when I got back I said I was as a driver I wouldn't want to take
095the responsibility of dealing with this and they they just they need to they're tired they've served their purpose. >> Thank you. My question is that did they finally did the I guess the bus industry did they finally catch up after um because I remember we were ordering buses a year before and then we'd order a bus again waited for these two to come in or whatever. Did did all that catch up? The industry finally catch up with the with the demands I know they'd fallen behind about two years ago. Um, when you order one, they are probably 8 to uh 8 to 11 months, they tell you. >> Uh, the nice part about these two, like I said, they are sitting in love as we speak. So, >> good. >> If we if we wanted
096to do more than that, we'd have to order them and they'd be probably 8 to 11 months out. >> Mr. Livingston, currently we have four of the coach luners and four of the Bluebirds now will be in our fleet. There's five of the coach liners because we bought that we bought that one good this spring. So, >> um there's five of the coach liners and this would make four of the bluebirds. Yes. >> Okay. And and we are still running a couple of still a couple of ants. >> We have there's still eight sitting over there. One is not running and two more of them are really not very reliable at all. >> Yeah, I know. We've been replacing it at a fast pace the last couple years, but optimally we need to get to
09712 to 14 >> buses to correct >> complete our fleet. So hopefully if we can stay on this path of replacement, uh we should be back in goodstead maybe in a year or two as far as having enough fleet >> again. Maybe not on the most popular weekend when everybody travels. >> Correct. Uh but that will certainly uh help us long term with uh and then and we get a replacement cycle with with the uh travel buses as well as our yellow fleet to to put us back in a good position as we continue to move throughout West Texas, put a million miles a year on our buses somewhere in there. >> Correct. >> Thanks. >> Do I have >> with that Dr. Kingman? Yeah. >> Yeah. I' I'd move to buy two student travel
098buses from AZ bus sales. The recommendation includes two 46 passenger travel buses, type D buses with diesel engines not more than $285,000 per bus. The total buyboard onetime fee $800 and purchase price for the units will be $564,91828. Do I have a second? I'll second. So, a motion from Mr. Dentle and a second from Dr. Mills. Any further board comment or questions? >> Are we positive on that 28 cents? I just want to make sure we're close. >> If not, I probably have it in my pocket or in the car or something. >> If we're short, let me know. Yeah. Sure. >> All in favor say I. >> All against say the same. Motion passes 70. All right. Dr. Gomez and you're going to give us approval or consider a class size waiver compliance plan.
099We discussed this in the pre-agenda and I just wanted to give an update on where we stand as we monitor this uh weekly. It's a reminder that the Texas Education Code uh requires that no class in preK through 4th grade exceed a 22:1 student teacher ratio. If enrollment surpasses the ratio, the district must request a maximum class size exception waiver from the agency. As a condition of the waiver submission, TA requires districts to develop a compliance plan outlining steps to reduce those class size numbers to meet the statutory requirement. So um while the weight the requirement from the agency is prek through fourth grade, we have in our local policy fifth grade because fifth grade is on our elementary campuses. So I just want to clarify that because we go over and above. So what
100we wrote specifically in our plan and that we plan if approved by you all this evening to submit with our waiver is we will continue to recruit and hire as we have highquality staff to put in those classrooms. Some current data we have 12 clinical teachers for the fall. Six of those approximately have indicated they're interested in staying in St. Angelo. So potentially as they go through and finish their student teaching requirements and uh could they be recommended for a position then that's one way we could potentially fill in these classrooms. Um again as we've stated throughout the evening we aren't going to fill just for the sake of filling. You all approve a waiver for classes that are over the ratio and that's paid out by semester. And then lastly, we continue to monitor
101our enrollment and make adjustments. And we've made those adjustments since the school year began. In fact, we're in current conversations about adjustments uh and other areas of support from special education that don't include the regular classroom teacher, but are we providing adequate special education support? and that could mean potentially moving a special education staff member from one campus to another due to minutes outside of this. So, we monitor those trends on a regular basis, not just to meet this class size exception waiver. In the pre-agenda meeting, I reported to all of you, we have approximately 299 preK through fifth grade classrooms on our elementary campuses. As of the pre-aggenda meeting, we had 12 classrooms that exceeded the ratio from anywhere from preK through fifth grade. Um, with the current week's enrollment, we're up to 13.
102However, of those 13, only nine are in the statutory grade levels of preK through 4th grade. Specifically, we have one kindergarten class at Reagan. We have three third grade classes, one at Bonham, two at Fort Cono. We have uh five fourth grade classrooms between Bradford and Lamar and our fifth grade classrooms that are over our local ratio of 25 to1 for fifth grade are all at Bonham Elementary. So officially in our plan, we will list the criteria that I outlined to you. will continue to recruit. We'll continue to monitor those enrollment trends and we'll continue to pay the stipen for any teacher that exceeds that ratio both in the fall semester and the spring semester. But officially as of this time, we would have nine to submit on the waiver. >> Any questions for Dr.
103Gomez? >> Just a quick question. How does this compare to previous years? >> Actually, it's down. >> That's kind of a thought. It's down from last year. >> Good. Thank you. >> And I can I can provide in Friday facts the exact numbers for that, but this is a lower number of nine than we submitted last fall. >> Any other board comments or questions? >> The classrooms that are um have more students, do they have additional help? So they do have instructional pair of professionals on their campuses. It's part of their staffing and part of the report I believe that Mrs. Griffin and HR provided. And so the campus principles schedule that support uh in those classrooms. Yes, ma'am. >> Do we have the waiver? Are we able to see what the waiver says? >>
104Am I missing it? No, we don't have the waiver yet because before I can submit the waiver, it requires board approval of our compliance plan and then I go in and submit the waiver to TEA. >> It's an online waiver. Yes, ma'am. >> Yeah. So, TA just wants us to we have to approve the three plan the three bullet points that are Dr. Gomez's plan for the waiver and then she makes then they apply the waiver. Um, any other questions or comments? All right. Do I have a motion to approve the proposed compliance plan to meet TA submission requirements? I'll move to approve the approve approve I'm sorry approve the district's class size waiver compliance plan for submission to the Texas Education Agency in accordance with Texas Education Code 25.112 >> motion from Mrs. Misel
105Flint. Do I have a second? >> I second. >> Second from Mrs. Duncan. Any further board questions or comments? I have just one comment to to your question about the waiver and I haven't looked at it in a year or two, but typically you just go in and you select the campus, the grade level, and you're saying that that is your overage and that's really it. There's there's no it's not like a a contract or anything uh extravagant. It's pretty basic. >> Yeah. And all in favor say I. >> I. All gonna say the same. Motion passes 70 and zero. Announcements. We'll have a pre-agenda workshop on October 6th and a regular board meeting on October 21st, both at 5:45. And with that, we are ajourned.