001Good evening. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Temple ISD Board of Trustees held here on June 9th, 2025 beginning at 6 PM. First item is to call to order. The second item is the pledge of allegiance. Would everybody please stand and face the American flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I aliance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one indivisible. Item three is public comments on agenda items. Monica, has anybody signed up tonight? Okay. Item four is superintendent recognitions. Uh members will become in front of the dis Our first recognition in ESC region 12 BESA recognitions. Dr. Adams district [Applause] Good morning. [Applause] Next
002item is serve honor roll please. Tonight. Congratulations. [Applause] Next we have the Baylor tip scholars. Come over [Applause] scholars are Seventh grade students. They earn this distinction by taking a testim. to earn as a tailor as a tip scholar. [Applause] Mom and dad's pictures. Our [Applause] next item is the TSY media honor roll. We are pleased to announce that we have two local media programs associ Alexander Valley. [Applause] and then the TAZ business recognition Dapper and Dash. rely on you. [Applause] Item five is executive hires a introduction of new principal of Hector P. Garcia school, Laura Lopez. Dr. Ward, how you doing? World Yes. Come on. [Laughter] Our [Applause] [Laughter] [Music] next is introduction of new principal for Thor Elementary School, Tiffany Vestal. Okay, so um not yet. Okay, so Miss Vesto graduated from Texas
003A&M University in 2005 with a bachelor of science and interdisciplinary studies and she graduated from Lamar University in 2010 with a master of education in educational leadership. Uh Miss Vestal joined the TIC family in 2011 as a math and science teacher also at Hector P. Garcia Elementary. Since then, she has served as an instructional coach at Jefferson Elementary and assistant principal at Western Hills, the coordinator of assessment and data management for the district, and she is currently the principal at Western Hills Elementary, where she has served since 2019. Prior to working in Temple IT, Miss Besl worked as a math and science teacher at Hearn ISD and College Station ISD. Um, Miss Bessel and her husband Ian have been married for 16 years and have two daughters, Tegan and Audrey. Tegan will be a seventh
004grader at Bonum Middle School next year. And Audrey will be a fifth grader. Have we decided where yet? We're still fighting. We're still Okay. Um, but we know it will be in Temple. Miss Vesta will always cherish the relationships built at Western Hills Elementary. From the students who inspired her to the staff who became like family. While saying goodbye is bittersweet, she is excited to begin her new role as principal of Thornon Elementary and looks forward to continuing the traditions and excellence that already exist on the campus. So, it is with great pleasure that we introduce you to Miss Tiffany Vestel. [Applause] So, I just want to extend my sincere gratitude to the board and to Dr. uh for entrusting me with this opportunity to lead Thornton Elementary. I'd also like to thank my husband
005Ian Must and Tegan and Audrey for being here and your unwavering support and understanding. I'm especially grateful to my new Thunderbird family for being here to support me tonight and super surprised and appreciative of my Western Hills family that's here too. Thank you guys for coming here. It is a true honor to serve this distinguished school community. I look forward to upholding the rich traditions and continued excellence that define Thornton Elementary. [Applause] I want to thank Michelle Rhodess for leaving Thornton. Mrs. leaving Western Hills in this shape that she has. We really appreciate both of you and Tiffany. We are so grateful that you have gone over that. Facebook. Okay. Item six is board president report. A future items discussion. Members, anything you wish to bring up at a future meeting issues to discuss? Okay.
006Uh second is important dates and Dr. O. Okay, month of June, so there's not many, but we have a summer job fair in a few days. June 11th at Temple High School, 4:30. Feel free to stop by and encourage teachers that they're in the right place or uh candidates, I should say. Uh and then we have a special board meeting the following week on the 18th, and that one will cover revenue, expenditures, and the comp guide. Um and that one, just pay close attention. We're going to start that at 4 because it is a special board meeting. And then obviously we have a holiday June 19th and the policy committee on the 25th. Our final raise your hand Texas advocacy cohort session uh will be with Amy and that will be at 9:00 a.m. on
007June 26th. There'll be no Zoom option to that. I guess she's going to facilitate it uh here with us without plugging into the headquarters. And then that same day, right at or later that day at 4 pm, we have the board facilities committee. And then June 30th, we adopt a budget. Um, and um, I'll have more comments at that time, but I will tell you I'm very proud of the work of the senior leadership team. It has not been easy by any stretch, but I think you'll be very pleased. The other thing I want to draw your attention to is uh in your packet, you have three pages that are uh filled with summer programs, uh academic programs, STEM, athletic camp, summer feeding schedule, and so forth. It's all lined up there. And feel free
008at any time to stop by. Uh I know I'm going to be at Thornton tomorrow morning for summer school for a little bit. If you have a chance, stop by, encourage our students, and see what our staff is doing in the summer. That's all that's all I have. Okay, thank you Dr. Hot. Item seven is consent items A through E3. What is the pleasure of the board to deal with these items? I make a motion that we approve 7 A through E3 all together. Motion by Mr. Gains. Is there a second? A second. Seconded by Mrs. Cook. All in favor signify by saying I. I. The same sign to oppose. The eyes have it. The motion passes. Thank you. Item eight, action items. A, human resources. Dr. Ward. No items tonight. Item B is academics.
009Uh, one grant award for dyslexic training. Dr. Adams and Dr. Rogers. I guess we're just Dr. Rogers. Yeah. Good evening, Dr. Mr. Posey and members of the board. Temple D has secured a grant from the San Marcus Civic Foundation for one of our new dyslexia therapists to attend the the Dyslexia Center of Austin's dyslexia therapy training program. And so this $3,200 grant will enable our new dyslexia therapists to receive specialized training as a certified academic language therapist, also known as a cult. And that um grant that we've received requires board notification and so I get the pleasure of notifying you of our receipt of that grant. So I have nothing further for you unless you have questions. Any questions? That's always good to hear. Thank you. Item two is a CTE update. As we welcome
010Sarah Bartlett to the podium, I want to make a few comments. You know, she's been with us, I guess, about 18 months, uh, is that right? Year and a half, almost two years. Um, and has done a really good job with the CTE program. And, uh, I've had a chance to actually look at the presentation. It's really good. So, I'm very excited to hear it. But we really appreciate you and your hard work and look forward to hearing uh the update. Thank you. Thank you for those kind words. Good evening, Dr. Aught, Mr. Posey, and the board. Thank you for your time this evening to share some highlights from the CTE department and look at some future endeavors. I'm Sarah Bartlett, director of CTE. I know we have at least one new board member, Mrs.
011Alexander. So, I'll give you a brief overview of CTE and what we what we tackle every day. I'm sorry. Ah, lovely. I wish I had an alligator suit or brought pom poms, but I'm going to try to make this exciting for you guys. Thank you, Dr. Try that again. Okay. Really? It's on now. Okay, this evening we will do an overview of the goals and design of CTE, student organizations, service-based learning, industry based certifications, programs and partners, and our celebrations and accomplishments. Our vision is to engage, prepare, and inspire students. We want to engage students in hands-on learning in the classroom as well as within our student organizations. When we engage students, we know that they will be prepared and inspired for their future. Our mission and purpose are displayed on the screen. And I
012will give you just a moment to review. Our model is for students to learn about work, learn through work, and learn at work. We actually provide 13 of the 14 programs of study identified by TEA. The only one we do not currently have is the energy program, but if you were to go to West Texas where oil and produ oil production are very common, you would find many programs of study strong in oil production and energy. Has there been anybody reaching out to you about that at all only about solar? Okay. And that that would be probably in a three to four year plan potentially. We are really proud to announce that over 90% of CTE I mean I'm sorry 90% of Temple High School students are able to participate in CTE courses. If they
013want to take a CTE course they can enroll in one or more. We offer 250 students each year gain industry certifications and over 250 students advance to state and national competitions in their area of expertise. Our student organizations are a key component to a strong and thriving CTE department. As you see on the data on the screen, our student opportunities for I'm sorry, our opportunities for student engagement have almost doubled tripled in the last four years. Involved students are successful students and we see an increase each year. What What do you attribute this to? It's a huge increase. That's a great question. I think we attribute it mainly to our teachers being more comfortable with being sponsors of programs after hours doing things on the weekends traveling with students and then the popularity as well.
014Skills USA is growing as an organization and the news about CTE is out there. Is this just an increase in participation in existing programs or do we have new Right. So last year we actually started a robotics club which was the first year we did first robotics. We had about 12 students involved with that. So it's a combination of both. Service based learning opportunities are also on the rise. If you look and compare the data from 2021 school year to 2022 all the way to this last school year, these opportunities have tripled as well. Service based learning opportunities are things like pets falls if you bring your animals or um running the blue plate and the blue cup. Anytime a student is learning at work, that is a service-based learning project. We also build lots
015of trophies for the community. Some like those, some don't like designing trophies anymore. We are proud to say that the class of 2025 graduated with 372 industrybased certifications. This means that these students can go to work right now in their field of interest. These certification represent certified medical assistants, certified nursing assistants, pharmacy technicians, cosmetology license, and even some machining and welding certifications. We have many celebrations to celebrate with you tonight and highlight for you. So, if you'll look at the screen, this is Madison. Madison Karovski is a spectacular young lady. She won first in state state champion, first in precision medal at the Skills USA competition. She has will be the recipient of a uh resolution written by Mr. Buckley's office and that'll be presented to her to celebrate her accomplishment. Madison is also just
016now finishing her sophomore year, so I can't wait to see what is in her future. It is incredible. We have three district officers for Skills USA. That's also a first time in school history. Um, many of you have seen things posted online or on the news about the VITA program. These students volunteered to do income tax assistance with uh the help of the United Way. We helped we helped do over 250 tax returns and then helped those individuals receive over $300,000 in refunds. That was about 40 students that was were involved in that process. They were how much they were actually they received some payment too, didn't they? They did. So through the workforce we end they volunteered in the beginning and then the workforce was able to set them up with a grant and
017so if they met specific qualifications, some of them were able to get paid $15 an hour for that work. That's amazing. It was incredible. Yes, sir. Uh, our BPA students recognized or I'm sorry, our BPA students um showcased our Temple ISD students at the National Skills USA competition in the BPA and the Business Professionals of America. It works sometimes. It has a mind of its own. Okay. our culinary department. So many of you know Chef Hernandez joined our team and he has increased our culinary catering opportunities tremendously by almost 75% in just one year through his connections within our community. Our students even had the opportunity as you see in this picture to cater in Drayton Mlan's airplane hanger. We served Baylor College of Medicine students and faculty as well as our own sports banquetss
018and ROC banquetss within the district. it is. And along with those 32 catering events, they continue to run the blue plate and the blue cup, resulting in over $42,000 in revenue. That revenue goes straight back into an account that they can use for field trips, fun activities. They were able to go to uh the first food show our students have ever been to this year and experience that. agriculture science students placed uh first in leadership development at our most recent district competition and then nine students for the first time in school history made the premium auction at the Bell County Youth Fair. That's always it is. It's different than any other event we've talked about tonight for sure. Requires a different pair of shoes. It does. And I made that mistake. I won't do that
019again. I drive around with a pair of boots in my trunk of my car now. So, I'm learning learning on the job. We currently have two tiny houses in progress. So, as you may know, we completed one last year. These two are unique because the first one we bought blueprints. The second and third, our students actually use the CAD process to design unique blueprints, meaning that there will be no other homes like these on the market. Um, students are involved in every step of the process of building. They even call local local vendors to order materials. They do quote comparisons to make sure that we're doing the best business deal and and that way we can get a good revenue off of these these tiny homes as well. Automotive and collision repair exceeded our expectations
020at the Skills USA state competition in Corpus Christie. They brought home 18 blue ribbons and 10 second place silver ribbons. In graphic design, Eulene is one of our strongest students. Um, she received many recognitions in our own wild flour publication at the high school. She hand sketched this design you see here on the screen, imported it into Photoshop, and then finalized. Very talented young lady. I'm sure we'll see her work in the future. Cosmetology, we had eight students compete at Skills USA. All eight brought home blue ribbons. That's the state's highest honors. Seven competed in hair design. One competed in nail art. Um, and they did a fantastic job. These are unique competitions because they actually work on it at school and then take it with a binder and a presentation um to the competition.
021We have two students this summer who are able to do internships at MTC, one of our local business partners. These are actually paid internships and this is certainly an area of growth for our department to offer more of these. Oh boy, this is one of my favorites. So, I think I think one of the things that makes our department unique and special is our service to the community. When you see students and the internal growth that happens with some of these opportunities like the one displayed on the screen, it's it's really a miraculous process. These young ladies and one young gentlemen were given the opportunity to do hair, nails, and makeup for the first ever Diamond Divas pageant with a local church church here in town. And so, as you can see, the very young
022lady on the right side of the screen was shocked that she won the competition. But our kids were so happy and proud to be a part of that. And when asked, they just said that they know that giving back to the community means something. Additionally, in the spring of 2024, our first tiny house was dedicated and we had a ribbon cutting. Students and teachers were present for this. This was also a a project that was a recipient of a resolution from Mr. Buckley's office. students were present and they could you could feel the energy of students giving back to the community and helping uh give safe living quarters to a family in need. On the right of the screen, oops, if I don't do that, on the right side of the screen, this is a
023house this fall that we will begin to help refurbish in partnership with Leadership Temple. Our students are going to be doing the siding and some of the brick work and then some of the interior wall paint and spackle. This house will also be used for transitional housing for student or for families in need in our community. All of these accomplishments and exciting things we have going on would not be possible without our business partnerships. These that are displayed on the screen pour into our programs immensely. They keep me up to date on industry needs and they donate their time and their resources to help benefit the students of Temple ISD. We are immensely grateful for these business partners. Are we in the process of adding parters to the partner? Yes, sir. So, one one of
024the we ran out of room. That's a good problem to have. lobbyology. Um, there could be, but we currently have it going above the current um wall of partnerships. Yes, sir. Um, and I think we added seven new partners since since I joined TISD. So, looking ahead, there are many things I want to do. In fact, I find it very hard to even narrow it down to just a few. But first and foremost, I revamped this last year the middle school recruitment efforts. Upon my arrival, students were given about an hour presentation about CTE, 13 different programs, and what was available to them. Um, it was not so entertaining. So, the first thing I saw was, let's make it hands-on, let's make it engaging so kids can get in there and get a feel for
025what they're doing. So eighth grade students actually got to choose the programs they wanted to learn more about and then engage in hand hands-on experiences with our high school students leading the way. With that being said, I think there's still room to grow in the 6 through 8 education of parents and students. And so we'll continue to work with middle schools to increase those educational opportunities. We have so much to provide. I could put it in front of families five or six times before they have a comprehensive understanding. We want to continue our efforts at the elementary school. Again, when I arrived in TISD, there wasn't much in regards to K12 model, specifically elementary and CTE and career experiences. And so this year we identified student ambassadors, our stellar students in each program of study,
026and they they created touchandplay activities and went to every elementary career day and actually engaged the students in all 13 programs that we offer to kind of get their brains generating those ideas. That has been a great um we've gotten some great feedback on that and it's been a great opportunity for our students as well. We look forward to providing more mentorship opportunities in the future as well as some lunch and learns and things like that just so they can see our students. I can tell them all day long but they don't want to hear from me. They want to hear from other kids. CTE is ever changing. It's like everything else in education. But our programs pathways and programs are always changing trying to meet the needs of the local labor market. So, it
027is really imperative that I continue to collaborate with counseling teams to make sure that everyone knows exactly what our programs and pathways are and the industry based certifications aligned with those. So, I will continue to strengthen that collaboration and this really starts next week with our first strategic meeting with high school, middle school counselors and our CTE team. They're generally the first ones who are on the scheduling front lines with parents and students and so they need a really comprehensive understanding of what we provide. As I mentioned previously in this uh presentation, we have two students currently doing summer internships at MTC. I would like to see those opportunities increase and so I'll be working closely with our business partners. Think that the value of an internship truly is immeasurable. So the more of those
028we can provide, the better off our students will be. And last, but certainly not least, we will be strengthening our instructional programs and in sorry strengthening our instructional strategies within the classroom to best benefit students. You guys know we have a beautiful facility. We have incredible lab spaces. We have wonderful classroom spaces, but we need to capitalize on every single moment that we have those students in in our classrooms. And so I'll be working on those instructional strategies with the teacher understanding. We have many teachers that come from industry and don't have a teaching background. And so educating them on instructional strategies will be a key component. As you can see, we have a lot going on. I find it very hard to put all information in one slide deck. I appreciate your patience with
029me as I grow as a leader and talking in front of people. Um, but at this time I would like to take any questions that you may have. Members, do we have any is there any questions? I just want to say that I hear out in the community here in Temple. Great things about our CTE program from the partners, from the community. They recognize what's going on. But I was recently up at Waco region 12 uh with some board, you know, area board members and superintendents and our program came up several times. And so it's known not just here locally, but it's known regionally and probably beyond region, I would think statewide. It's a great program. Everybody knows the great things we're doing here besides the facility, but but you know, the programs themselves. So,
030thank you so much for what you're doing. Thank you for that feedback. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Item C is facility operations and no items tonight. Uh D, finance 2016 bond refunding update. Mrs. Stanford. Good evening. So, I don't have beautiful pictures of kids. I don't have all the statistics that um CTE has and I'm very proud of our CTE program. Sarah, you've done a great job. Um but I do want to talk to you about the recent bond refunding just to kind of give you a recap of what actually happened. I know we talked about it at the long range planning, but we didn't really get into the details, but we're going to keep it short, I promise. Um as a reminder, um municipal bonds are typically issued with an
031optional redemption date, also known as a call date. um prepay. Basically what this means is you can prepay it without penalty generally around 10 years from the first date of issuance and the optional redemption provision enables ISDs to refinance outstanding bonds um with the aim of securing a lower interest rate than what we originally had with when the bonds were issued. Um, and basically what this allows us to do is maintain a lower INS rate and also have the ability to go out for additional bond elections later on for capacity. The reason or we came we came to you guys in April asking for pricing delegation and the reason why even though these bonds are not technically callable until August 1st is there was a lot of uncertainty in the market. Several factors in influencing
032the mun municipal bond market for the second quarter of 2025 include um elevated issuances due to concerns of future legislative restrictions and right now there's favorable rates. Projections for the second quarter of 2025 indicate that this may be the second largest bond issuance season ever in the United States. Significant infrastructure needs in the US made um municipal bond issuances crucial for financing these necessary developments. There's been a lot of market volatility stemming from the increased supply then of the municipal bonds. And then there's been uncertainty regarding the interest rates based on ambiguous future decisions by the Federal Reserve. I'm sure you've heard it um by a lot of community members. They're constantly watching what the interest rates are doing if they've just recently bought a home in the last two years. And there's then there's
033always been this ongoing political discussions in Washington this year about proposed tax exemptions increasing and tariffs. And then there's been a decrease in federal aid due to federal cost cutting initiatives and concerns regarding the actual fiscal health of the US. And so despite all of those recent instabilities in the financial market, we were able to experience a very successful day in the market last Wednesday. So in your on the screen in front of you at the very left hand side um at the top is our original bond series that we refunded. So this was issued in 2016 and it had different maturity maturities from 2026 up to 2041. The reason why is they are issued in different series to allow um bond investors to select 10 years of bond certificates up to 25 maturity levels.
034And so the next thing next to the maturities says interest rates. It says 4% up to 5%. The reason there is a range is in order to um intrigue bond holders to want to carry or hold a bond for up to 25 years, we have to issue a higher interest rate to make them want to hold on to it for that long because that money that they've they've invested, they can't just get out. Um the and the current outstanding total as of August 1st is 43.9 million and they are callable on a August 1st. So we came to you early because we were afraid of the market and we wanted to time it exactly right for the benefit of the district. So below that is the actual summary of what occurred last week. So the
035new outstanding principal when we close on these bonds on August 1st is now 40.2 million instead of the 43.9. the true interest cost of bonds because there is that interest rate range of 4% to 5% actually came in at 3.896. So underneath 4%. And then the total debt service savings it is 3.6 and we'll get into the details in a minute because when we move to the right hand side it's going to look a little different. Um and then the bottom two numbers those are basically the net present value calculations that is used for audit purposes just to determine the current worth of future cash flows taking into the account of time value money and other factors such as um inflation as if it was today of what we save over the next 25 years.
036So moving to the 2025 or to the right hand side of what what we're projecting out the first year is this next year and we are going to make a defecence payment that goes towards that year. Even though we're going to make it in June, it fall it falls into the debt service year on there. And so the savings aren't really reflected because we are making a payment. And so it's not true interest cost savings yet. But what that does is that frees up um bond capacity. and that you guys already authorized when we adopted the budget last June. Then if you look at 2027 all the way down to 2040, you will notice that there's approximately $300,000 in interest savings that we're going to save every year from this refunding that we would have
037paid otherwise. And then in 2041, it's slightly less savings on that final year because it is the last year and it is a higher interest rate. So the actual total savings was 4.3 million but we are paying down 725,000 in defecence to close and then we're going to pay down another 725,000 for fiscal year 2026. So total savings if we take out what we prepaid we generated 3.6 million in savings. So then how does this compare with what we were projecting back in um April? Here's a sideby-side comparison from what we preliminarily estimated at the April board meeting versus what happened last week. So the first box says par amount. This is the face value of the bonds. So we were hoping to reissue 40.8 million and we actually came in at 40.2 million. We
038were hoping for 3.2 million in savings, but we were able to generate another $428,000. So almost half a million in savings. And then that bottom box, the true interest cost, we were hoping for just slightly under 4% and we were able to come in at at about 3.8%. So hopefully this sets us up for a successful bond election coming up because it shows our taxpayers what we have been trying to do. Um, we could have waited until August to go out in price, but thankfully you guys delegated pricing authority, so we were able to time it just right last week to generate even more than what we were hopeful for. Any questions, members? Any questions? This is uh this is great news. Especially the savings for our district and we're extremely proud of how the
039market went. Yeah, this good job. Thank you so much, Brandy. Thanks for your all your hard work. Really appreciate it. Thank you. E is student services and no items tonight. F is board committee reports. The May 28th policy committee meeting was cancelled, but the next committee meeting is Wednesday, June 25th, 2025 at 4 p.m. Facilities Committee meeting minutes May 29th, 2025. Mr. Gaines. Thank you, Mr. P. Meeting was called to order at 4:03 p.m. Um, Dr. I discussed the long range planning process while Mr. Boyd and Mr. Perez discussed future potential of projects and Mr. board presenting an update on the current bond 2022 bond construction projects. By the end of the summer, 18 of the 28 bond projects will be complete completed. Uh projects at Bonum, Scott, Western Hills, Meredith, Dunbar, and Temple High
040School. Work at the operations center and transportation will continue into the future. The meeting was adjourned at 5:39 p.m. Our next meeting will be held uh June 26, 2025 at 4 pm. Thank you, Mr. Gaines. With been no further items tonight, we are journed. Thank you very much for attending.