001Christmas. Good evening everyone. We're going to call to order this workshop of the College Station ISD Board of Trustees declaration of a quorum. We have seven members present. At this time, we're going to open our public hearing um over the 2026 and 2027 budget, and we're going to hear a presentation by Miss Wilson. >> Good evening, Miss Eigie, Dr. Hark Rider, board of trustees. I appreciate your time this evening as we present next year's budget for the 2627 school year. So, we kind of started this process a long time ago, and this is actually the sixth time we've talked about the budget. Uh, it's been a long process, but we started here. We started with the board budget priorities, and this is how we laid out how the plan was for going into this school
002year. And so, these are some of the ones that you guys adopted earlier in the year. We stepped it a little bit further and we built a budget advisory committee where we brought in the community. When we did that, they kind of gave us their points that they wanted us to look at as we move forward. Even if we don't look at them right now, we're setting oursel up for the future so that these are things that we can be an ongoing look at our budget. I was talking to Dr. Hark Rider early. And when you look at our budget, it's really not just a stamp in time. Yes, we're going to adopt a budget tonight, but our budget is an ongoing process. It's something that we're going to continually be looking at, looking at
003ways we can save and making sure that we're being most efficient as possible. When those things happen, we'll bring those back to the board. Uh that's really kind of happened this year as you can see with the budget amendment. So when I compare the budget this year, I'm going to compare it to the amended budget. So you can see where we made the adjustments to a point and then we'll compare this year's budget against the amended budget. uh the budget is has to be adopted legally for the general fund, the debt service and the food service budget. Those are all requirements. So when you look at our general fund and budget, some of the assumptions would be your budget pressures would be the enrollment declined. When you look at the budget tonight, um there's two
004different things because now we get some funding based on enrollment and then some funding based on ADA. Right now when they're looking at enrollment, they're looking at snapshot data and then ADA is a total year in time. So you're going to see two different numbers. And so the enrollment decrease that I'm estimating is 330, but that about 211 decrease is our ADA decrease uh going in. And that's looking at the end of this fiscal year, planning on what it's going to look like at the end of next fiscal year. Okay. Um some other pressures that we'll have is just the increase in security requirements from the state. Um we've got that budgeted in the budget. Uh there was a loss in the Adams family grant. they were helping us fund some of those security officers
005on campuses and so we had to increase that budget and cover a 100% of that with the general fund this year. Uh rising contracted cost, utility cost, roof repairs, that's another big number that you'll see tonight. It's $2 million, but it's really we set that money aside and committed that money last year or the 2526 year to cover the cost of the roof repairs. So, we're really even though that's going to be in the budget, I want you to understand that that was already committed. It's not in our assigned, it's not in our unassigned number. It's just to complete that project and it just spans over two fiscal years. Uh additional facility square footage, that's just from additional space at our new high at the high schools as well as the CTE facility and uh
006Rock Prairie Elementary. Some investments that we have put into this year's budget, it's the 3% comp compensation increase. Um in this budget, you'll see an additional million dollars that have increased in the teacher incentive aotment. I feel like that program is growing and we need to make sure we have the cost set aside to cover that even though that is a that is an expenditure increase. It's a revenue increase as well. So they kind of offset each other. And then choir and athletic trainer support. That's something that we discussed several times and some of the needs of the budget. So we try to do it in the most efficient way and that's included in the budget as well. So when you look at the budget, you're going to see a deficit budget of $8.3 million.
007And so what is that made up of? is made of a decrease in $2 million in our state funding due to the decrease in enrollment. Um that is kind of the overall number that takes account into us increasing that teacher incentive aotment a million dollars. Another thing that we're going to be able to get this year is something called a new facility aotment. There's 300,000 estimated in this number of an increase in funding just for opening the CTE. We got that approved by TEA and so those are in those numbers as well. Even though we're going to decrease in student enrollment, we also are opening a CTE facility and so those weights on those children that attend those classes are a little bit higher and so those numbers are estimated in the funding growth. I
008mean the funding declined as well. Uh when you look at our total compensation expenditure growth, it's going to grow 4.6 million. So we go a little bit like 83.4 to closer to 83.7% of our total budget is now in compensation. that is due to the 3% compens uh compensation increase uh the substitute pay increase that we did. There was also just we were a little shy of making budget and substitutes this year and so I increased that budget a little bit. Uh the t the teacher incentive aotment increase, the choir uh extra stipens just to cover those needs of the choir program, the CTE staffing additions that all makes up that $4.6 million increase. Okay. The two million is the roof project that I touched on earlier and then it really kind of nets down
009to the 8.3. We did have some savings in some categories that those are just the big numbers. And so this is the overall budget comparison that you're looking at. There are a little bit of different adjustments. So I'm comparing the per um proposed budget to the amended budget. The amended budget is a budget I'm bringing to you guys tonight to amend. There was a big adjustment in the amended budget and that was because we moved and correctly coded the instructional coaches that were in function 11 and move them to function 13. So that's reflected in these numbers above as well. Another thing that we've done with our new software when we're building the positions, we're looking at each coding of each employee and making sure they're in the correct function. You're going to see some
010a little bit adjustments through these numbers and some of that makes up those costs. For example, if you look at function 41 administrative general administration, you can see we decreased overall from one year to the other. And we did. We had a software conversion that has a little bit of startup that's gone a majority of that's gone away, which is a decrease. But we also moved a key employee from that general administration up to function 21. So you see where function 21 might have gone up a little higher than you anticipated. That's just a move within a function. Does that make sense to everyone? Okay. Another thing that we keep bringing to the forefront is just where we are within the fund balance. And so what our policy says is at least three months of
011non-spendable assigned fund balance and unassigned fund balance. So these are our numbers moving forward. Uh what I did is just laid out the current budget. I'm sorry that something got a little off when we moved it in, but the current budget we would have unassigned and assigned fund balance of 41.5. And then if you run the numbers, three months operating would be 40, uh, 318,000. Okay. Um, one thing that we have to keep in mind is 2 million of our deficit is already committed. I will move that out of committed into unassigned fund balance. So, I'm just moving the buckets, but the buckets that you're trying to maintain or you're unassigned in your an assigned fund balance. Okay. So, I will uncommit that at one of our next budget meetings to move that money. So,
012we're looking good right now. Please keep in mind that we do plan to roll money into fund balance this year that will cover this for one more year. So, we should be okay until the end of this next school year. Uh, I feel like we have a plan in place. We know what we're looking for. We're looking at capacities of the buildings. We're going to spend a lot of time this year just making sure that we can get enrollment up, making sure we have good attendance numbers and spending time on how to get kids back into College Station ISD. Um, I just want to bring this up just because when we go into debt service and look at the debt service budget, there are different ways that we can get tax pennies in a sense.
013Okay, so your general fund tax pennies is your M tax revenue and no matter what your value is, it doesn't matter. Okay. So, your no matter what your cup says, your state's going to make up the difference. So, our values go up. It's not that our tax do tax pennies get to go down. They stay flat based on our um our value. It's a little bit different when it comes into debt service fund. So, your general operating fund basically you have TEA that sets your tax rate plus your golden pennies. When you look at the debt service tax rate, it's based on your debt and it's based on the value that you can bring. So if we have higher value then we have more money to pay off our debt or we can decrease those
014pennies. Does that make sense? So our value determines what our pennies are set for debt service. So when you look at our value for this year right now our preliminary value growth is 7%. We have 40% at the beginning of the process in April, we had 60% of our total net taxable value was in an ARB review. 60% of our total was in ARB review. We are down to 40% of our total in ARB. We have already lost 588 million in value. So what I'm saying there is I really think the number that we've estimated the 3.9% is a good number going forward just for planning purposes. So uh even though our preliminary values are 7% we're estimating about 3.9 is what it's going to be when we get through all the ARB reviews. Uh
015we are also looking at refinancing and selling that remaining 2023 bond authorization. We will bring something to the board in July to look at refinancing and then possible selling the authorization, the final authorization. Now, it's going to be t dependent on the market. Uh the refinancing we want to do because that's our only way to defease debt right now because remember if we don't have actual bond payments, we can't defease the debt unless we have it on our schedule. If that makes sense. The only way we can do that is take our collable, put them into refin ref finance our collable, move them up and pay that debt down. Okay. So, that is really kind of a um one way we're going to be able to do it in the in the early right now
016till the legislation closes that loopho. So, that's what we're kind of looking at now. So when you look at these numbers um it the this always doesn't make a lot of sense in the fact that we are collecting tax revenue for a February and August payment. A February of 2027 and an August of 2027 payment. However, our budget is based on an August of 26 and a February of 27 payment. Because we changed our fiscal year, it doesn't line up. it's one payment off. And so that's what you kind of see right here. So we're estimating the 50 million in debt. Once we know more about how that turns out in the month of July and August, we will be able to come with good numbers to the board when we set our tax rate.
017But this is just basically to adopt our budget for now until we know how the refinancing goes and then we get closer and we have real numbers to to budget that tax rate. However, with all that being said, our tax rate will not go up in debt service. Okay, I can promise you that. This is just a historical look of our tax rate right now. I'm just estimating it declining just a tad bit from 9753 to 9668. Of course, that will be based on the final numbers that come into that are certified in July. Once those numbers are certified, we have to submit them into TEA. TEA will tell me what my maximum compressed tax rate is and then I add my eight golden pennies for that. The other number in this that makes up
018this total number is that debt service tax rate that's at 279 right now. Okay. So, when you look at the food service budget, we are looking at a loss of the supply chain grant funding. That's something that we have been blessed to receive since COVID. It is a it's been it has allowed us to keep our costs down. Uh as you can think inflation in the groceries have gone up and we have not raised our our um meal cost for lunches since 2019. Okay. So we haven't raised the cost. We know inflation's been go has been going up. We had multiple years there that the federal government was going and supplementing us and paying 100% of our meals for our students. Then we went back to our normal way, but then we were still receiving
019these grants allowing us to keep our meal cost down. All of that has gone away. And so what we're suggesting tonight on the board meeting is to increase the lunch price by 25 cents. I do want to just take a time just to show you what the historical look of our meal cost increases. You can kind of see the small increases there are 10 cents, but you can also see from 2019 to 201920 all the way to this year, we haven't had a single increase in meal cost and this is the food service budget and it's a balanced budget. Okay, so some of the key takeaways here, we are bringing a general fund deficit of $ 8.3 million budget to the board tonight. 2 million of that, of course, is the roof project that we've
020already committed that will uncommit. In the budget, there is a 3% compensation increase. It includes all of the new staffing for the career and technology, includes the requirements for security. Um, it includes the decrease in enrollment for students. uh it maintains fund balance within the board target levels and then it the tax rate is expected to remain stable or decrease depending on final values. Do I have any questions? Maybe just one thing back on the compare comparison where we are for our 2026 and you said you're comparing that to our amended budget. >> Yes, ma'am. Um, and I maybe there's some I can see pros and cons in my mind to comparing it to the amended budget, which is where we ended up, but also to where we um but also to kind of the
021original budget uh where we started in the year. So, um, you maybe just touching on why you compare it to the amended and as opposed to where we start at the beginning of the year and then >> absolutely I think this year we have spent a lot of time and trying to take any fluff that we possibly can out of the budget. So we have watched our health insurance, we've watched our subs, we've watched our extra duty, we have built position control where we have one to one, we've monitored it back to the finance budget and we have literally taken the fluff out of the budget. The way the reason why I felt that was something that we needed to do going forward because we do have to make hard decisions right now. Um, we
022don't know if we will get additional funding going into the next legislative session, but I feel like if you're making hard decisions, you had to you need to have the most solid numbers as you can possibly have. And so, even as we've gone through the year, I have released contingency as I felt comfortable and tried to get a good comparison number that you have a good number feeling like and then you have reasons to explain why you're seeing a difference. And so anytime I saw a difference in the comparison, I would go back and research shunt, why am I seeing this difference? What it what triggered it? What's making you know what I'm saying? So it just gave me a good number to kind of base the budget off so that we could feel comfortable
023moving forward. And then I feel like it's a living document. I feel like uh because we do have it so tight, it's a living document that we'll kind of monitor through the year. Uh the big number is going to be at the beginning of next school year when we find out where our enrollment numbers are. We know that over 200 kids right now have been approved for uh the voucher program. That does not mean we don't know if those were our kids before. Now they're homeschooled. So we're just monitoring every piece of the puzzle so that we can get a good reading on what we can anticipate our revenue to be. And and obviously I do think that's fair, right? because it's where we have you have worked the budget down to where we are
024today. Um I I when I look at it, the one number that does stand out that has changed a lot is the instruction number, right? And that is one that we started last we started our budget at 93 um million, right? So and then we ended up with 88 million and then so now we're going to be somewhere in between there just for perspective which is >> so some of that was just going into this year when we built the budget. We did go in with a high contingency in function 11 and salary and as we felt more comfortable with being able to back that number down. So when we took the two numbers and compared we there was a big gap but we wanted to make sure we felt comfortable before we took that
025out of the budget. So we kind of left it and as a contingency till we felt more comfortable then we removed it. Another is just the reallocation of the copier lease. And so what happens with a copy release and a some of our software subscriptions. So if you look at the technology budget on the data services, you see a half a million dollar jump where it says, "Oh, okay. The uh budget went up a half a million dollars." That's not really the case. It's because I went ahead and made that adjustment going into the final amended budget to move those numbers for the sabidas and the leases to the debt service. But when you think about when you build your budget, we want those part of the departmental budgets. And so we leave them as
026part of the departmental budgets and reclass them at the end of the year to that debt service. And so it just keeps with their department for budgeting until the end of the year and then we make that reclass. Sometimes you could go ahead and build debt service in everybody's budgets, but it just kind of muddies the water and it's hard for them to understand that we're reversing it out of here, putting it here and things like that. So, some of that is the debt service that was adjusted to the million, but some of that was in function 11. It was about half and half. >> Any other questions? I I do and I apologize because I'm not processing something correctly. So last month when we discussed compensation and I looked back at the presentation just
027to so to make sure my memories serve me correctly. I'm looking at an estimated deficit budget of 25 before we discuss compensation and compensation package that we approved cost the district additional 31. That was the number we discussed >> 31 or 32. >> Okay. So 5657. Mhm. >> And and so tell me tell me where things moved between then and now. >> Okay. So between then and now there were a few things that happened. So we we pulled in there was some additional um um extra duty stipens giving given to the teaching and learning department that weren't in the original budget. it was about a h 100,000 and those are just those just uh extra duty stopins given to the high school for the lead some of that was in that number um and some
028other things that they have brought to to us to fund so that's a little bit there another was there are some one-time what we thought was one-time curriculum uh for sped that ended up being software and so with the software it's a it's a continual cost and it was about $160 60,000. So that's some of it. The other number was 44,000 was uh was just the athletic trainers that weren't in the other numbers, but we had to add them to this number as well as the choir. We had to do a little bit extra for choir uh stipens just to cover their need because we didn't add those additional staff. So we had to cover the needs. Um I do feel like this number will kind of go down. Um, but then also when when
029I'm analyzing just the extra duty stockins as we get through June as well as the substitutes as we get through June, then that's a portion of that too because we didn't make our substitute budget this year and then we increase subs. So even though the compensation the compensation didn't include that number that we were given did not include an increase to the substitutes of the $15 per day. So that's the rest of it. So in theory 57 it's 63 not 83 because the roof is in there. Correct. So we have to carry it as an expenditure but we were accounting for >> that out of the fund balance to begin with. That correct? >> The numbers that we were using to do all the planning I went ahead and moved that to committed so that
030we didn't have we didn't take that in consideration. >> Okay. So >> just to be fair I didn't want to >> Right. Right. So, okay. So, 63 has less sticker shock than 83 in in my opinion, but I understand it's how we have to work the books to to to to make it >> work, but we were accounting for that 2 million out of fund balance for the roof repairs >> to begin with. >> Yes, sir. So the to the uh less accounting mind such as myself, it almost it it it look a lot nicer if we increase revenue by two from the fund balance, but that's not how it works. So Okay. >> Right. Um but on a positive note, um when you have to build a budget in June and take it to
031the board in June, you have the current employees in the budget. So I've accounted for all the positions with a current budget with a salary increase. That makes sense. However, we have retirements of higher paid positions and then we fill those sometimes with lower paid positions. That is not in these numbers. My higher numbers are in these numbers. But I don't want to come back. I would rather come back to you guys in August and then decrease the deficit. And I feel like we will do that. But I can't, you know, until we have all of the information in. That's not something I can do at this point. >> Yeah. I think it's just important that we as a group understand we were discussing around the 57 mark and it's more 63 which I get
032and the 83 is the additional 2 million really has to do with some movement around the fund balance for the roof repairs we were already accounting for. Mhm. >> So that 57 is really a 63 understanding the roof situation. So I'm I was just trying I need to hear myself say it. >> No. And that's why I kind of pointed it out several times and then when we got that additional funding from the roof, I knew that it was going to be expensed in this year. So I committed it so that when we were making decisions going into this year with compensation, you were looking at unassigned and assigned fund balance that did not include the 2 million in those numbers. And so now we're going to uncommit that, roll that into assigned, unassigned. So
033now instead of the the number that I showed, you actually have two million more in unassigned unassigned, which takes care of the roof that actually the revenue we receive in 2526. We just don't expense it until 2627. So I tried to do it at the cleanest way possible and then keep the numbers as >> can on the committed. So I understand it'll go from 16 to 14 or whatever. What what are can can you give me just a couple of things the the 14 they're what are they committed to or designated to >> one of the largest thing I have committed in fund balance and that's just so that we can stay on top of what happened last year. So when we changed our fiscal year from August or September 1 till July 1st, we
034got that one-time infusion of revenue, but it's not really cash. It's not really revenue. It looks good on the books, but it's really something that we have to keep in mind as we make decisions. That's a large portion of that commitment. >> Got it. >> Is two less months of expenditures. Yes, sir. Basically. Okay. >> Yes, sir. There's that and then any projects like if we have we know we we don't have all of our roofs under warranty right now and so you might I have some set aside for those projects and other little things as well. >> But the big portion is just the change in the fiscal year and just to hold that back as a commitment so that people understand when they're making decisions that's not cash on hand. >> Thank you.
035>> Other questions? Hey, we really appreciate um all of your work on this and um just the explanations and we'll move forward the best we can. Um and but thank you for the work that you've done. >> Thank you guys. I really appreciate your support. >> Okay, I believe we do not have any public comments, so I'm going to close um this hearing for the 2627 budget. Moving on, we have uh no hearing of citizens and we're going to go to our community advisory committee report. Mr. Dunen, Miss Ward, thank you, President Eigy, members of the board. It's always uh a privilege and an honor to to be able to to bring to you the the work that we're doing in the communications department and specifically here with our community advisory committee in its first
036year. If you recall back in August, you all approved this advisory committee to form. So, this is the first year that we've had this committee, and we had a great time getting to know committee members, talking through the topics that they wanted to discuss, and ultimately coming to uh a couple recommendations that came out of the discussions and the work that we had with the committee. So tonight, we're going to walk you through what the committee looked like, the mission of the committee, the topic that the committee identified that they wanted to discuss this school year, some themes around those conversations, the recommendations that came out of our work, and what the committee is going to look like next year. Uh, this committee was facilitated by myself and Melanie Ward. We had starting out about
03760 committee members. I think at our last meeting in May, we ended up with a little over half of that original um committee membership, which is great. Um dis uh parents, staff members, community members, retired educators from across the district representing different schools. And so um I'm going to turn it over to Miss Ward to kind of walk you through what that committee looked like this year and we'll answer any questions um after the presentation. >> Awesome. Thank you, Austin. Um well before I dive in I want to give you uh take a moment to talk a little bit about what made this committee different because it was a little bit different than a traditional committee. Um because I think it matters for understanding the work that came from it. So from the beginning um
038Austin and I were very intentional about building something genuinely collaborative. The goal was not to brief people and send them home. Uh it was to create a space where committee uh community members, staff, uh families where we could all sit together, we could build real relationships and we could have o um open and honest conversations. And that foundation that we set really shaped the work that the committee did all year. Go the next one. Uh so one of the first ways we did that was we actually um had the committee create a social contract. So before we got into any content, members spent time talking about um how they wanted to work with each other, how they would listen to each other, how they would handle different opinions, um and really the environment that they
039wanted to create together. And that investment really set the tone for everything that we did. We were also thoughtful about who was at the table. Uh members represented different parts of CSISD. They included uh families, staff, and community members. And they all had um different connections to our schools. And then most importantly, we prioritized building relationships uh before diving into the work. And let me tell you that time was not wasted. Um it really helped to create the trust needed to have open and productive conversations. So the committee's mission is to strengthen collaboration between CSISD and the broader community to serve as a representative voice to promote transparency and to help the district celebrate what's working and then build on that. Um they showed up prepared, the committee members showed up prepared. They showed up
040asking thoughtful questions. um they really approached every conversation with a genuine care for students, staff and just our the broader community um and they really really took that mission seriously which was which was really nice. So this year the committee chose to focus on teacher support and that focus came from committee members itself um through feedback opportunities through early conversations where members really kept us returning to the same question um how are we supporting teachers and what could we all do more? The committee wanted to explore those questions honestly and constructively. they really wanted to um understand what's already happening and then where are their opportunities to grow. So the committee approached teacher support through four guiding questions that kept coming up. First one was who supports teachers? What does teacher support look like in
041CSISTD? Why do why do teachers choose to work here? And then what factors um impact teacher support? So to ground those questions in real information, the committee reviewed a wide range of material. Uh we reviewed teacher salaries, retention data, staff survey themes, district organizational structures, professional learning opportunities, community support efforts, teacher recognition initiatives, and uh just the broader state level landscape of public education at the moment. In addition to reviewing data um and district uh information, the committee also heard directly from the teacher members, which was a really special part of it. Um getting to hear firsthand uh perspectives from them really helped connect the information that's on paper to the day-to-day realities of the classroom was really great to hear from those teachers. So across all of those conversations, three themes kept coming up
042consistently. The first was that CSISD has meaningful strengths to build upon and uh the committee recognized that our district just really uniquely has uh a few really great strengths. Number one, we have strong community support in CSISTD that is really unique to us. We also have a lot of positive relationships between staff, students, and families. And then we also have a really amazing reputation for our district that continues to attract highquality educators. Teachers chose CSISD real for real reasons um to work here and the committee really wanted to celebrate and also protect those strengths. So the second theme that came up um a lot was workload and the pressures facing teachers. They recognize that teachers are navigating significant demands, time, compliance, growing student needs. Um, and that those pressures are felt across public education, not
043just here. Um, but the conversation was really around uh it was really grounded in respect and really just a desire to understand. And then the third theme that kept coming up was community collaboration. members talked about how teacher support extends well beyond salary which we all know it that feeling respected appreciated and understood it matters deeply. Um and they also recognize that community members also have a role to play alongside the work that the district is already doing and will continue to improve. So, now that you've got all the background information and all the how this committee was a little bit different, um Austin is going to walk you through the committee's official recommendations and then the next steps for this committee. >> Thank you, Melanie. So, our our committee recommendations, we spent um a
044good portion of our last meeting talking through what they primarily wanted to communicate to the district and then also being that this was a community advisory committee um to provide just some encouragement and really like a recommendation to the community on behalf of this committee about how we can support teachers as a as a community at large. And so this first slide is really uh targeted at specifically what what can CSISD continue to do or what can we do as a school district to explore understand and help mitigate some of the workload and burnout and to continue to support teachers. So, in particular, um, that first bullet point, listening to to staff about workload burnout through surveys and campus level conversations, um, we were kind of timed at a at a good point in the
045year to be able to talk to the committee about what that end ofear survey was going to look like and what questions we wanted to ask and what topics that we really wanted to focus on getting feedback from staff about. And so primarily that that feedback uh opportunity for staff was really to try to understand what's working um what are some of the stressors and the burdens that you carry as an educator and how can you help us understand what that day-to-day really looks like for you. Um the committee also encouraged the district to continue to strengthen teacher support systems. So, you've already heard from our teaching and learning department about the feedback opportunities and the engagement that they've had with educators throughout this school year and how that's shaped our professional learning opportunities going
046into the summer and into the early fall and how we're really specifically targeting how can we make sure that those opportunities are practical, meaningful, and give teachers a lot of value for their classroom instruction. Uh, another part of this because um, Melanie and I are in the communications department, we had the opportunity to really hear and try to understand how our communication efforts are impacting our community educators. And really, they wanted us to focus specifically on telling more specific teacher success stories so that we can build um, more public understanding and trust of educators. Um, if you've been around long enough, you've seen the es and flows of how um, education is talked about just in our society and culture. And they really wanted to focus on how can we continue to to do that
047as a district and and encourage teachers through our district communication. We also um talked a little bit about this with our teacher advisory council um, and just talking about how can we provide opportunities to parents, community members, educators to empower them to tell their stories as well. And another piece of this was to match the community support with campus and teacher needs in practical ways. Um, this is something that we've been evaluating throughout this school year. It was something we talked to the committee about and just trying to get feedback on what should we focus on. And really their main focus was we need to understand what are the practical needs our teachers need in their classrooms and how can we communicate that to our community so that we can match needs from from donors,
048from adoptive school partners, from local businesses and churches. So, we had a a good long conversation and a good comprehensive recommendation from the committee about the work that the district does. The second part of the recommendation was really how can the community be a part of that work? How can we continue to help? How can we continue to strengthen the community support around our educators? Uh the first bullet point communicating positively and respectfully with teachers and schools. Uh this was something that came um not surprisingly directly from a lot of our educators in the room. um they really wanted to encourage our community, our parents um to to understand that, you know, they are there teaching because they love kids and because they want to serve families. And so um you know, just continuing to
049encourage our community and our families to communicate positive and respectfully with our teachers and schools. Again, celebrating and encouraging educators for the important work that they do. Uh this is something that our department is working on kind of strategically putting together. How can we design ways for our community to tell their own stories, educators to tell their own stories? I don't know if you know this, but you've got twothirds of the communications department sitting here right now and the the third is in the back running the live stream. So, we're a tiny but mighty team. So, we've got to come up with some creative ways that our community can come alongside us and cover stories happening across all 19 campuses. And then the last piece, learning about and sharing the realities of today's classrooms. um
050kind of preaching to the choir here, but um you guys know what the realities are of educators today. There's a lot of things outside of our control and there's a lot of things that we can control. And so we want to understand what those realities are, communicate that with our community, and give them resources to help them support teachers. So that kind of brings us into what the fall is going to look like. because of that conversation and how that was shaped, um we really want to focus with this committee to um help shape our legislative priorities for the upcoming session and that starts in January of 27. Uh really focusing on helping our community understand how state policy, what happens in Austin, how those decisions trickle down all the way down to the classroom,
051how they impact students, how they impact teachers, and then have them help us uh craft some of those legislative priorities for the upcoming session. And then the spring semester, we'll circle back and do more of the topical discussions with district leaders in areas identified by the committee. And then ongoing, we've already put out a survey to committee members. One of the the the topics that came up at the top of that survey was they wanted to meet more and we love that. Um, we would love to be able to spend more time with the committee. Um, get more feedback from them, be able to present more information, bring bring other diverse stakeholders into the room internally and externally to help them understand the the landscape that we're operating in public education, how we can shape
052our district to be even better than it already is. And so with that, any questions, comments about our work this year? the emphasis on legislative priorities. Where did that come out of the group discussions? Like how did that come about? >> I think that was really just we were having discussions with the committee just about the landscape of public education and uh I think there's always there's always an opportunity for us to communicate better about what the impacts are from the state state level. And then this committee because we had so much interest in being on this committee. Like I said, we start out with about 60 members, felt like this was a good wide-ranging opportunity for us to use this committee to help us have kind of a sounding board in our community um
053to understand legislative priorities for the future. >> I think that's great because the more we can get citizens behind, you know, gaining support for public education, reaching out to their legislators, the better. Um, I feel like some of the organizations, TASBY and whoever else maybe didn't listen the last couple years and the fights that we've had with with our state legislators and what we're dealing with in public education. So, more that we can get citizens and voters out to do those things, the better. That would be fantastic. So, that's great to hear. Uh on slide 10 when you guys talked about the survey and campus level conversations, did did I hear you say that there was a survey sent out already? >> Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry if I didn't clarify that. Yes, there was a
054end ofear survey about 10 open-ended questions um specifically about um you know, what are the things that make you want to keep working here? What are the things that you feel like you carry around as an educator? What are burdensome things? All open-ended. And so we're processing that information and and kind of wrapping some of that stuff up. >> Is that closed or is it still going? >> It's still open. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Has have the responses been the amount of responses been what you hoped? >> Yeah, it's about what we got in the fall. So we're looking I'd have to go back and look at the exact number, but a little over 300 completions. Um, but we set up the survey specifically so they didn't have to answer every single question. So it
055wasn't a long survey. they could answer the questions they wanted to and then move on to other questions if they wanted. >> And then when will that close and when do you expect to have like something that we can see from the results? >> Yeah, we'll close it at the end of this month as you know we've still got some folks on contract. Um and then um when they go off contract we'll close it and start processing all that information. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Great. Thank you. >> I just wanted to thank you guys for all your hard work um being on this committee. It was really really great to see retired teachers and current teachers collaborating. That was probably one of the coolest things to see and bounce ideas and kind of um work
056together and um it was it was a great committee. So, thank y'all. >> I want to ask um first of all, I'm glad and not surprised that the committee came up with the focus on the teachers. Very glad glad to see that. And I and I like the committee recommendations. Some of them are spe specific like the survey right and that's happening. Some are a little more broad. I mean you you talked in some strokes on yes your team wants to work on some things and maybe some things would fall outside of your teams. I what is the plan moving forward? Are you planning to implement something in every one of these areas or is that something you know that's still under discussion with the admin team? I guess a little maybe more spec specific
057on implementing some of these these things. >> Sure. Yeah. I mean, as you saw, teacher support encompasses more than, you know, just our communications department. Um, and so, yeah, it takes time to kind of process all of the committee feedback, get survey results back from from staff, understand what the impacts of the work they're doing. Um, yeah, there's lots of factors that go into it and yeah, we're continuing to kind of chew on on the feedback and understand um, you know, what's going to be the best forward. We can make decisions up here at central office every single day, but we know that it impacts 2,000 staff members at the end of the day. So, we need to be thoughtful and take time to make sure that we're doing that in a way that's meaningful
058and valuable um, to all of our educators. So I'm kind of hearing that as far as some of the specifics they will be driven maybe more out of the survey and feed and discussions that follow. I mean, I can give you one specific that I mean that our department's specifically working on. Um, one of the things that came back through survey feedback um in the fall and in the spring was uh communication and that's something that we have some control over, but it's also something that we want to work with all of our departments, all of our campuses on improving, frontloading information. Those are just those are uh systemwide things that we've got to kind of process and chew on. So like one of the action items that we have is developing a more consistent
059uh communication cycle with our staff through a dis through a district newsletter coming from the district about employee information. So those are the kinds of things that we're working on um because it it because it's it's important for us to be able to communicate ahead of time and that so educators know um what's going on with their job and what's impacting them as as teachers. >> 100% agree. >> Thanks. >> Yep. Thank you. >> Yes. First, thank y'all. I think any opportunity we have to engage our stakeholders for feedback is is only a positive. So, thank you very much for the information. And this is just a thought. It kind of runs parallel to what uh Dr. Payne had mentioned. It may be a worthy strategy to engage a handful of the folks from this
060um group next year to take a visit to uh Austin when our folks reconvene in the spring uh to meet with some of our elected officials to advocate on behalf of of public schools. So, uh, I thought of that as we just, as you mentioned, legislative priorities, uh, this might be a very could be a very impactful group as far as carrying the message on behalf of our school district, uh, next spring. So, just just a thought and consideration. So, thank you again. >> Yeah, thanks. >> Well, that's what I really um enjoyed seeing as also one of the board members that was able to sit in those committee meetings. um having a community committee. Um it just shows that it takes all of us together to reach the goals that we want both like
061legislative advocacy but also supporting our teachers. And so can appreciate that there are things that we do here in this room that we need to do to support teachers, things that are done every day on our schools to support teachers, but there's also that community aspect of um supporting and caring for our teachers that I appreciate was drawn out. And so, um, I think that's the value of this kind of committee and appreciate you guys for just starting maybe not even knowing what it was going to look like at first. Um, but hope to see, um, just the efforts on that committee continue to grow. Anybody else? All right. Well, thank you both. Um, appreciate that presentation. All right. Our last workshop session is going to be a policy update. U policy update 127. Miss
062Hester. I got the microphone. So, I'm going to make a comment on that committee, too, because I was on that committee and I've been on a lot of committees in 46 years, and that was one of the most productive um opportunities, the way the two of them worked together and laid out intentionally how to get us to talk freely and safely. So, maybe just one of the most real committees I've ever been on and how they led it from session to session. They were incredible. They make an incredible team. We're lucky to have them. Hate following them. My my topic is not quite as fun. So, um update 127 is really um kind of a catchup still on the last legislative session before we get into the next one. Most of it is legal and
063most of it was based on the updates from the 89th legislative session with just a few local topics. Most of those have um already been discussed internally and and we're moving forward with those. if there are any questions. We will vote on it at the next board meeting. >> All right. Thank you. That was easy. Great job. >> Thank you, Miss Hester. All right. I think that's going to bring us to unless there is any descent, we will adjourn. Great job. Thank you, sir. That's Good evening everyone. We're going to call to order this meeting of the College Station ISD Board of Trustees. Declaration of a quorum. We have seven members present. Welcome to this meeting of College Station Independent School District Board of Trustees. We were elected at large to represent the interests of
064our community and our state in educating our students. Our mission for our students in this district is success each life, each day, each hour. We adhere to all pertinent laws, policies, and procedures in posting agendas and conducting our meetings. The detailed agenda information was made available to us at least three business days in advance, and we have all come to this meeting informed and prepared. We have just completed a workshop session where we heard reports and discussed much of the information needed to make decisions in either this meeting or in upcoming meetings. This is a meeting of the seven trustees in a public setting rather than a public meeting. As such, public comment is included on the agenda at a specific time and requires us to listen rather than take action so as to abide
065by the Open Meetings Act. We are pleased that you have taken time this evening to join us. We are very proud of this school district and we thank you for your interest in and support of our students. And that is going to lead us to our recognitions. We have some students from our bilingual summer school who are going to lead us in our pledges. Go ahead. >> Hello, my name is Maria Science and I'm the the summer language academy coordinator. Um, our program is housed this summer at Southville Elementary. We serve four, five, and six year olds. And currently there's about 180 students more or less enrolled this summer. And these are two of the students that are currently participating in the program. My name is Maline and I'm 6 years old. >> My name
066is Kelly and I'm 6 years old. >> Please stand for the pledge. Together to the flag one United States of America and to the republic one stands under God under God indivisible liberty and justice for all. >> Let's do the Texas flag. I aliance to the Texas and under God, one and indivisible. >> Please remain standing for a moment of silence. >> Thank you. May be seated. President Eigee, members of the board, and our guests here with us tonight and watching online, it's always an honor and a privilege to recognize the outstanding accomplishments of our students here at our board meetings. And tonight we are proud to recognize the College Station High School boys golf team. Following an exceptional season, exceptional season that culminated at the UIL 5A state tournament. This season, the two the
067Cougars captured the region 3 5A championship and finished seventh overall in the state. An impressive achievement that reflects months of hard work, dedication, and teamwork. So student athletes, as I call your names, if you will come forward to be recognized, you'll receive a certificate from Dr. Hark Rider and you can make your rounds to shake the board members hands. If you'll just wait over here, we'll take a group picture after everybody receives their certificate. So first we have Gage Alzando. Gage finished as the UIL 5A state tournament individual runnerup, shooting a two-day total of 139, five strokes under par. He was also named honorable mention academic all state, first team all state, and earned a spot on the TH SCA super elite team. Keller Henson. Keller recorded a personal best round of 72 at even
068par at the state tournament and was named a second team named to the second team academic all-state team. Braxton Marryman Braxton was name was named district 175A newcomer of the year and earned first team all district honors. Orin Marryman, Bentley Andrews, Eli Rogers, and their coach, Zach Marlo, is here with us tonight. Come on forward, Zack. Congratulations to these student athletes and their coach on an incredible season. Your accomplishments on the course, in the classroom, and as representatives of College Station High School and College Station ISD have made us proud. Congratulations. I'd also like to take a minute to recognize the artwork that was provided by our bilingual summer uh school and enrichment summer school and that is at the back of the boardroom. So, be sure and take a look at that as you
069um are leaving tonight. That's going to move us to item D1, which is our board reports. I'll start with Head Start um policy council. Um they the Head Start continuation grant was awarded. Um enrollment is strong. We have um Head Start's weight listed and Early Head Start has a weight list. um attendance is 93% and um things are going well with that program. All righty. I can report on DEIC met last week. We met by Zoom and the whole meeting was discussing the plans for all of our federal funding um streams, title one, two, three, and four that are all, you know, have their specific focus areas. But I think one of the things that um stood out to me is that that the new district behavior coordinator role that we have approved is going
070to be coming out of a combination of title two and title four funds. And really the reminder on the process behind that that over the last many months DEIC and the programs had been um had surveying surveying teachers surveying uh members of the committee on and and parents as well on how we thought those funds could be best utilized and supporting behavior or really supporting teachers and with you know some working on behavior improvements in the classroom I think was was one that came to the top and So, that's where that position really came out of. Um, and I think the only other thing I'll add, and I don't know if y'all are going to mention it, but I went to the next step in this TASBY's legislative advisory council group, and that's where we
071we met in San Antonio last week with again board members from across the state and just refining the ask of what we at least at this point what we want to focus on asking our legislators. Of course, our school district, we can have our our own, but this is what schoolboard members are asking TASBY really to to um to work on. Really, no surprises, but we do but we do learn a lot from hearing from other school districts. Most of us have all of the same needs, but some have some specific other requirements. And so, we're trying to trying to capture all those together. And I'll I as soon as we get the latest version of that, I'll share with the board. >> Yeah. what Miss McAdams is referring to. While she was um doing
072those legislative priorities, Miss Wilson and Miss Simmon and I did travel to the summer leadership institute um put on by TASBY and did some board officer training and just brought back some um great things I think that we're able to take from that. So, it was a good training. >> I can report on education foundation. Um, we did the proper sendoff for Teresa Bendon as they held a retirement party for her um on May 20th and lots of community members and CSISD staff as well as donors were all in attendance. So, it was a great night to celebrate Teresa. I know Amy Haye is hard at work as their fiscal year is approaching the end on June 30th, but they are already planning ahead for next year. Um and they already had their strategic planning
073session um on June 9th. So they have hit the ground running. Excited for next year. >> All right, then. Dr. Hark Rider. >> Yes, ma'am. Although our district calendar may be uh pretty light this time of the year, we've got lots going on behind the scenes with hiring, construction, and planning for the 2627 school year. All right, that's going to bring us to item D2, which is consideration, discussion, and possible action related to schoolboard meeting schedule for 2627. Mr. Dunen, >> thank you, President Eigy, members of the board. This is our last meeting of the 2526 school year and our board calendar. And so you do have a memo that outlines that all of the meetings would uh for the next school year fall on the third Tuesday of each month with the exception of
074Tuesday, August 25th, which is the Tuesday after the first day of school and Tuesday, March 9th, which is the Tuesday before spring break. We just moved those for the holiday and because um we didn't want to do a board meeting the day before the first day of school. So, so our recommendation is that the College Station IT board of trustees approve the third Tuesday of each month as the regularly scheduled workshop and meeting dates with the exceptions that I mentioned. >> Motion to approve as presented. >> Second. >> Right. I have a motion to approve um the schoolboard meeting schedule for 2627. First by Dr. Payne and a second by Mr. Martindale. Any questions or comments? All right. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? >> That will pass 70. Thank you. >>
075Um item E is our hearing of citizens. We do not have anyone signed up to speak tonight. So we're going to move to the consent agenda. Um that includes items G, item H2, I1 to I2, and J3 to J13. >> Motion to approve as presented. >> Second. All right. I have a motion to approve the consent agenda by Dr. Payne and a second by Miss Simmon. Any further discussion? All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? That will pass 70. And that is going to bring us to item H1, which is um an end of the year MAP data presentation. Mr. Man. >> All right. Good evening. Thank you, President Eigy, Dr. Hawk Rider, members of the um school board. It is my pleasure to come to you this evening and get to be
076the voice of fantastic work on behalf of our teachers and our students this year. which really was a great pleasure to be able to see just how much growth we've experienced over the course of this school year. Um, and so just like I did last year, um, I like to bring this report up because it shows the data in a different light, um, and through the achievement deciles process. And so I'll kind of walk you through the different phases of it because it is a different way to look at it, but I think it tells a really good story as to how NWA measures growth and how it helps us to see just how much our students are growing. Just to orient everybody to the information that you see on the screen um because it
077is a little bit different. Um, so this graph visualizes the achievement deciles. And so what you see at the very top are the students that fall from the zero to 9th decile and on the bottom the 90th to the um hund actually the 91st to the 100th decile and all in between. Um and so as we go through the graphs you're going to see these um same deciles populate through. And the way that uh map likes to describe this is that if our school district was representative of the entire United States, each decile would contain approximately 10% of the students. And that's based upon their data that they've collected over many, many years. And so I highlighted, if you notice, there's that black line that's on every slide. Um but I just pulled it out
078to draw the attention to the 10% line. um because that black line indicates where um they see the data and what we want to see is as far away from that line as possible on either side. Okay? And so I have a graph that shows that. Um but what is depicted here on this image is the distribution of CSIC student by achievement decile over the fall. And so the way this works is we take our fall assessment in August and September um whenever the campuses take it in their testing window and where the students um test on their achievement they stay in that desile the entirety of the year no matter how much they grow in the winter how much they grow by the end of the year. And the reason for that is so
079we can do an apples to apples comparison to how much did students that are in that decile grow because if they went from the the 20th decile to the 50th decile to the 80th decile then they're constantly shuffling and you can't truly say that Jeff grew this much but keep me in the same decile from the beginning and you can say that and so that's what this says here is this allows us to report um where we see and one of the things that our map rep always reminds us is that we see um very atypical growth in our district. Um which for us we feel like well this is not enough. We want to see more. Um you know but it's a good reminder that we are doing a great job with our kids.
080Our teachers are doing a fantastic job and our students are working really hard. Um and so what I said a moment ago that black line the 10% okay NWA says that um the further away right the more important. So whenever we look at the tops and the bottoms of this curve, what we're talking about is how far are those lines away from that black line. And so CSISD has seven of our um 10 achievement deciles that are more than 2% from that black line in the middle. And so what that means is that we have fewer students that are struggling learners in the top that we're seeing that the zero tens and 20s and 30s. And we have more students that are very successful high achieving learners in the 70 80th and 90th percentile than
081what map typically sees in their data. And so the bottom line is we want to see both of those arrows going that direction. Right? So graphically visually that's what you want to see. That's that's the indicator that thing is going well. Okay everybody make sense on that? We're going to jump into some of it. Okay. So, as you are very well familiar with goal two, um we are focused on our historically underperforming student groups. And so, we're monitoring that. And what you're looking at here is our groups of students. And so, you'll see under here, the label of the student that's here corresponds with the graph that's right above it. And so, you can see here, this is a small population set for us. Our American Indian Native American population is a small number of
082students in comparison to the rest of them. Um, but you can see that we have a distribution that isn't what we just described, but you see the the great difference of distribution with our Asian populations of students here. And then you see our African-American students, which is one of our historically underperforming student groups. And it is pretty much the opposite of what we want to see. And we've seen this in the past. Um, and we're working hard to continue um to improve this. And I think that you'll see some of the improvements that we've made this year. Um, and then you see there's more of that even distribution of our Hispanic populations here in College Station ISD. And then our multithnic students um is more along the curve that we um would like to see
083and expect to see with our distribution. And then you can see our white students on the bottom. So those um are the growth deciles that they are set in. And so as we go through and we look at the different graphs, that's what you're going to look at. Um, and the other part that we're going to talk about is the growth bar. What you see different here is NWA reminds us that anything above the 50th percentile is a good thing. We want to see numbers well beyond 50 when it comes to growth. And so what we're seeing here, this graph represents all of our students, all of our tests, tens of thousands of tests that are in here. and we are well above the 50th percentile in every one of our areas, which is great.
084Last year, we had some yellows in here. Okay, so we've gotten all of our deciles pushing even further within our growth, which is a fantastic piece. And I get ahead of myself. There's your 50th percentile bar. And so this is the reminder as a parent, you've probably seen this on your MAP growth reports, um, but like for everybody to know that the yellow piece, this is average growth. And what MAP means by average growth is what we should expect a student to grow within about a year's worth of time. Whenever we see the high average growth, then that's a year and a quarter to about a year and a half give or take. And then the blue is well beyond a year and a half worth of growth. We want to see greens and blues
085as much as possible. Yellow is not a bad thing, but we like to be green and blue in all of our graphs. And then the other piece that you'll see for this presentation is I compared our spring, which is the end of year assessment, to our winter. So every slide for whatever assessment that we're looking at for growth, the spring will be on top. So the most recent assessment compared to our middle of the year assessment. And then again, the reminder, we'll look to see if we have any of these bars drop below that black line. So that's what you want to be looking for. And again, it's not typical for us to see this many of these deciles well beyond the 50th percentile. So, NWA reminds us of that quite a bit. We had
086tremendous amount of growth this year. So, let's get into it with our underperforming student groups. So, you can see back here again, this is our growth in their achievement deciles. So, our native um native native American American Indian students and so you can see their winter and what you notice is the yellows have disappeared and we have more length in our blues and in our greens and seeing the blue remember that's indicative indicative of a year and a half or more of growth. And so what's really great to see is whenever these zero, tens, and 20 lines are green and blue. This tells us that our academic interventions with our highest struggling learners is really working. Because in order to get these kids out of these top desiles, we have to grow them more than
087a year to get them caught up with their peers that are growing at least a year's pace. Does that make sense? We want to see greens and blues at the top. very much so. And so you can see the difference from the winter to the spring. These are our Asian students. And so you can see the pocket of students in the middle um that accelerated their growth, but you can see just about every one of our desiles improved over their performance in the wintertime. Our Hispanic students, again, we can see improvement from the winter to the spring with all of them moving in um to the high growth area. and our African-American students. And so this is our winter and you can see where we are with our spring. And so this is what I
088was saying. Our data is showing what we're doing is helping. It's working. It's just taking longer than we want it to, but we're getting them there. We're working hard to close as as many gaps as possible. And then our multithnic students, again, you can see that top bar is very blue and very long. So, our most struggling kids in this this U student group have really done a great job with embracing their learning this year, which is a fantastic thing to see. And then you can see with our white students. And so, what these slides tell me is the work that we're doing to close their gaps with struggling students is really working on their growth scores. They're making lots of academic growth. Okay, any questions about our struggling student groups before I move on
089to subject specific? Okay, so with M >> actually Jeeoff, can I ask one thing? I guess I'm a little a little conf I'm surprised actually that some of those have enough data points like for that we because there's so few students in say the um American Indian and >> but this is every test and this is over the course of the year. So, so like fall, winter, spring, they're looking at the and the different subject tests. >> So, between all of that, so one kid, multiple tests could fall into different >> Yeah. reading, math, science. Yes. >> So, it's per test, not necessarily per student. >> Correct. Yeah. One student on Yes. Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. >> That's correct. Um, so with math, our K to8 math, um, you can see here our winter in
090the bottom and we do have that yellow bar right up there at the top. Um, and that is certainly something that has received our attention as to what's going on and digging in with those groups of students. Um, and I can tell you that this is be indicative of what we've seen on Star with our seventh grade math. A lot of those students are going to be in that range right there for us. And so we're aware well aware with that. Um the good thing is is with the other deciles that we're seeing either sustaining the growth or improving the growth, but we're very much aware of what we need to pay attention to. And you can see um this graphical representation shows us um the percent um by ethnicity for our math students. And
091it gives us again by decile 010 all the way through to the 90th decile. And it heat maps it for us so that then we can see just where those student groups are falling. And we compare this to the previous years to help us see are we gaining traction? Is what we're doing working or not working so that we can continue to make the adjustments that we need to make. Uh with algebra 1, our winner is on the bottom and you can see our algebra teachers put a tremendous amount of work in um with our students to push into their growth and we're seeing lots of students with tremendous amounts of growth over the course of the year this year with algebra 1. And you can see that represented in our heat map broken down
092by ethnicities and our deciles. And so we have lots of fabulous growth with algebra one this year. And then our algebra 2, which a lot of these students that are in this top piece are juniors and seniors and they're struggling learners and they have picked up their growth. And so again, this is telling us that the work that we're doing to target in on these students is paying off. It's really helping um with what we need to see with them. And you can see the shift in the color changes from the winter with so much of the yellow into the green and into the blue. And so this is telling us that our spring semesters um are really pushing our kids where they need to be. And whenever we break it down into our ethnicity
093groups, we see the the differences there. And wometry, same story, different subject. But that I love that same story, different subject as we've got lots of growth going on here. And we can see it both at the both ends of the spectrum, right? And so this is a very positive thing for our students in geometry to see how much they um picked up from the winter assessment into the spring assessment. And then again, we break it down by our student groups. Any questions about math before I move on to reading? Okay. So, in reading K12, um because we do have reading assessments that go all the way through 12, they're all together, unlike math where it breaks off into the subject specific once they get beyond the eighth grade. Um but you can see very
094much in line with math. Um lots of growth over the course of the year from the winter assessment into the spring assessment. Um very strong across all of our deciles with all of our students. Uh the only way this would be any better is if we saw more of the blue up here at the top. That's just me being nitpicky, right? But we want to see that that amount of growth, our Spanish growth, and I've got this at the end in our areas that we're we know we got to continue to improve on. This is one of the areas that we know we've got a lot of work to do is to improve the reading with our Spanish growth, our Spanish reading students, their growth scores. Again, yellow is a year's worth of growth. We
095expect more than that. We want to see more than that, right? And so, um, this is something that we know we've got a lot of work to do. It's not that it's bad, but it's not where we want it to be. And then we can see the breakdown of our K12 reading right there by the achievement bands and the ethnicities. And then we see it with our Spanish. And so this helps us to break down with our kids where to focus and what we need to be working on next year. Any questions about reading before I move on is less data points there because it's all K12 and then Spanish. Okay. And then with science, um, building upon what we have seen the last couple of years of science, um, tremendous growth, again, we've got
096the the top desile right there where we've got some attention and everyone knows Amanda Gibson. She's all over it, right? She understands, um, the work to be done there, but it's it's fabulous fabulous growth that we're seeing amongst our science in K8. And again, we're breaking it apart across the deciles by our student groups to help us understand um our areas of work. And then you can see our growth within biology. And I mean, our biology teachers like, if this doesn't get you excited, I don't know what does from the from the winter into the spring. Just the amount of growth that we're seeing across all levels in science. It's fantastic to see that come across. And so then we see it amongst our different student groups and our achievement bands. Um so to summarize
097it up right comparing like it says spring 26 to spring 25. So if you look closely at the data you can see here this is this spring 6.2% of our students are in this lowest decile where last year 7.2% of our students were in that lowest decile. So what we're doing is working. It's making a difference. It's helping our kids. It just doesn't happen fast enough for us. But this just tells us that we are on the right track. the work we're doing is making the impact that we want to see because we see the more of the distribution across what we would expect to see from NWA's database. And so then when we compare right all of our assessments again spring 26 to 25 this is the norm. So I know that this was
098a conversation we had whenever I was here in the wintertime about wanting to make sure that last year's norm data was in for this year and it absolutely is. Both of these slides this is to the new norms. This is to the new norms. I even verified with our map folks everything is there because we want to do an apples to apples comparison and they assure me that everything in there is adjusted and they're very impressed with what they see. And wrapping it up overall data are ethnicity by campus. Oh, I see camps. Sorry about the typo there at the top. Um I'm always most critical of my own work. But the great thing is you can see just how much growth is occurring across all of our campuses with all of our students. And
099this is what we want to see. We want to see everybody growing. Whenever we mean all kids, it is all kids. And that's what we're really pushing in on. And so then you can see the campus by subject and the amount of growth that we have there. And we're going to keep pushing in. We know where our hot spots are. This is aligning with what we're seeing in our STAR data. So we know the work ahead of us. Um, but it's all good stuff and I'm very very excited to see um how the data is coming through and it points it up right here in our summary. Our students are growing consistently. We're accelerating our growth over the course of the year. Um, we are being successful with our goal, too, even though it's not
100where we wanted to be. Um, and we know that we've got work to do and we've got to dig in on our Spanish reading because that is certainly not where we wanted to be um, with our non-native English speakers. Those are the students that are struggling the most in that area. So with that, I'll ask any questions or comments you guys have as a board. >> It's a lot to process. It is. >> We've had this presentation to look at. Um there's a lot of exciting things there and I appreciate your comments on uh the goal of serving our you know traditionally um low performing students and um so I love seeing that. I don't know that I have a question. Anybody? Anybody else? No. Well, thank you, Mr. Man. >> You're welcome. >> All
101right. That is going to move us to item J1, which is consideration and possible adoption of the 2627 general fund food services and debt service fund budgets as presented in the public hearing that we had in our workshop. Miss Wilson. Sure. >> Good evening, Miss Eeky, board of trustees, Dr. Hark Rider. Um, I would just like to bring the budgets back up that we had. Sorry, we did meet earlier this evening and listen to a presentation over the budget. And this is just basically the adoption of the budget. We are legally required to adopt a general fund budget, special revenue, not a special revenue, excuse me, food service budget as well as a debt service. And so here is the general fund budget. We we adopt the budget by function. It's a 8.3 million, but
102I do want to point out again that 2 million of that is a roof project that is going to be uncommitted in our fund balance and rolled over. We actually received revenue for that in the previous year and we're going to roll it forward this year. So that accounts for two million of that $8 million deficit. Our debt service fund is a $2.5 million deficit. But as brought up in our workshop earlier tonight, I do want to point out that because of our payments flip different school years, um we make a payment in August for the taxes that we had already received in the previous year and then we make uh we collect taxes for future payments. Um, so that is why they don't line out, but it's a $2.5 million deficit. And then our
103food service budget is a balanced budget. Are there any questions? >> Motion to approve as presented. >> Second. Okay. I have a motion to approve as presented the 2627 budgets. Uh motion by Dr. Payne, a second by Miss Simmon. Um would also just encourage anyone who is interested in hearing more about that to go back and look at the workshop from earlier because we had a lot of great um discussions and questions in that. But there is there any further discussion here. Okay. All in favor please say I. I. Any opposed? That will pass 70. Um moves us to item J2 which is consideration and possible approval of the 2627 employee healthcare insurance. Yes, ma'am. We have Ross Gunnels here to present tonight here. Good evening everyone. Um, thank you to the trustees and Dr.
104Hark Rider for allowing our team to present at this evening's meeting. Um, with me I have Ronnie O'Neal as well as Todd Gunnels here. um from the Ankco team as well as Cami and Dena from Baylor, Scott and White. A little over five months ago, the district hired Anko to represent them on their employee benefit health plans and help with this year's renewal. The district's coming off a two-year rate cap with Blue Cross Blue Shield. And on last year's renewal, the prior broker negotiated an uncapped renewal for 2026. Due to the district's heavy claims of 109% medical loss ratio along with a nationwide trend of healthcare increases, Blue Cross Blue Shield released an initial renewal increase in the response to the public RFP of 37%. While this seems shocking, it is not uncommon as we
105are seeing large increases across districts as well as private employers. As part of the RFP, we know that 17 carriers received the request for proposal. We received 13 declined to quotes. Four quotes total were received. The carriers that quoted were Blue Cross Blue Shield, Baylor, Scott and White, EMI, and Curative. After evaluating all the bids and coverages, Baylor Scott and White was the recommendation. I'm going to go through some slides to give some background. After the best and final offers were received, Bluec Cross Blue Shield did lower their overall rate increase to 27.9%. Over the past three years that the district has been with Bluec Cross Blue Shield, if you add in this increase, the trend increase or total increase is 47.1%. We also benchmarked the bid from Baylor Scott and White versus the TRS
106plan for this region and there was over 1.64 million in savings. This chart shows you the three-year rise in premiums and we take an employee only enrolled in the PO plan currently with Blue Cross Blue Shield so that you can see the monthly cost increase each year. The first year rate cap on the plan was a 6% of course that is what Bluec Cross Blue Shield delivered and then eight and a half in year two and then when the uncapped renewal was received there was a 27.9% increase given. So why Baylor Scott and White? So after 22 years in this industry I can tell you that the number one question I get is how much is coming out of my paycheck. So, a lot of times on health care premiums, the first thing people ask
107is how much is coming out of my paycheck for the plant. There's a constant battle on health insurance between the cost of health care versus the cost to use health care and the access to care. The base or the lowest cost plan with Blue Cross Blue Shield last year was a high deductible health plan, which means that there are no co-pays and no first dollar coverage for people upfront. A lot of people unfortunately when they make their benefit plan decisions and we talk to them on a regular basis choose the lowest cost plan because that's what they think's best for the care. But with Baylor Scott and White, one advantage is the base plan is now a co-ay plan option with rich first dollar coverage. For example, when you're on a high deductible health plan
108and you go to the doctor, it might be $200 to see the doctor. Whereas on the base plan with Baylor Scott and White, if you have kids under the age of 18, it's a Z co-pay, which is a huge advantage to someone picking between those two plans. So, some other benefit enhancements you'll see, and I mentioned there are the $0 dependent co-pay on anyone on a co-ay option um taking their kids to pediatrician under the age of 18 with the plan. And one thing that is confusing with Baylor Scott and White, there are three different network options. Two of those plan options would be the premier HMO which has a smaller network, the plus HMO and then the access PO. One thing and one question we commonly get in our industry around Baylor Scott and
109White is do I not have access to MD Anderson? On the access PO plan, the fourth option, you do have full access to go to MD Anderson. You also have nationwide access if you leave the Scott and White service area um through United Healthcare's PO network. So that's a common misconception. There is an option on the plan that you do have service well beyond Texas and you can freely go in the largest PO network in the country. How was how does the 5.4% increase with Baylor Scott and White compared to TRS? We we wanted to show that as a benchmark. TRS for this region received a 12% increase roughly versus a overall 5.4% increase if the plans are elected with Baylor Scott and White. Also in the proposal there is a medical loss ratio gain
110share which is kind of confusing but basically if the district plan runs under a 72.5% loss ratio the district actually gets money back from Baylor Scott and White which then could be rolled into health plan premiums for the next year. Also, Baylor Scott and White was the only plan that put second-year rate caps in place. So, as we see the benefit of bad years and rate caps with Blue Cross, where it was a six and an 8% increase, Baylor Scott and White has guaranteed a no bigger premium increase than 11 to 14.6% depending on the type of plan. zero dollar member care. I hit on this for for kids, but also tele medicine and virtual care is all zero dollar copay under the copay options with Baylor Scott and White. And a major one in
111my opinion and a place that we see major issues is diabetes. And so, not to be too public, but last year the largest increase in care costs for College Station ISD was diabetes. And so, Baylor Scott and White has a program built into their co-pay options called Be Well. It's open for enrollment two times a year and if a member enrolls all their diabetic supplies, their medications, their testing is included at a $0 co-pay, which is a huge benefit to those members. And as we see with diabetes management, when people defer care, don't take their insulin, that condition gets out of control, and what happens is the claims go up. Therefore, the district gets a larger premium increase at their renewal. pharmacy transparency with lower RX co-pays on most plans and then local scale. So
112Baylor, Scott and White, we're seeing a growing trend in this area where larger employers are adopting their the regional healthcare plan and they do have localized service. So what changes for the plans? When you compare the last year's four plans, the Blue Cross Blue Shield we have in the left column there, we have a $1,500 deductible HMO versus the $1,500 with Baylor Scott and White. An employee electing that plan would actually see, and albeit not much, but a $3 decrease in per paycheck costs. On the $2,500 deductible co-pay plan, the lowest option, there'll be a $310 increase per employee only per paycheck. On the HSA or the high deductible plan, the deductible is going up from $3,300 to $3,400. That's requirement of IRS due to embedded deductible laws. So, that's the reason that in increase
113in deductible, but the out-of- pocket's the same. You do see an increase there of $37 on that plan. And then the PO option, which has the broadest network, is going from a $1,500 to $2,000 deductible. There are similar co-pays, and the out-of- pocket is $500 higher. That plan is receiving roughly a $49 increase on an employee only cost. The reason we list employee only instead of all four tiers is out of the 1,400 plus employees in the district, over a thousand are enrolled in employee only coverage. So what does the network look like when you overlay it versus the actual claims that the district had with Blue Cross Blue Shield on the premier plan? Roughly about 74% of those would have been in network 79 on the BSW plus HMO which is the HSA plan
114network and then on the PO 84%. So while there is provider disruption the majority of claims and providers would be of would have been in network with Baylor Scott and White Health Plan. >> Sorry, can I interrupt on that real quick? Quick just to clarify that. So are you saying it is it the actual providers that are options for our employees or the actual ones they were using? >> The actual ones they were using. So the ones they see every day we took the actual claims use Baylor Scott and White's data and ran a cross comparison of the disruption that that would create. >> Thank you. >> No, it's a great question. >> Ross, can you just like for people that don't do this all the time? >> Yeah. >> Say that as plainly as
115possible. >> Yeah. So you took all the claims >> and there's a lot of different types of providers which makes disruption report extremely confusing. For example, emergency rooms, well that's typically not in anybody's network, right? But if you talk about a general practitioner, if I saw a 100 GPS on that plan on the far right, 74 and a half% would would have been in network or the claims processed with those general practitioners. And so up to 84% of the actual claims filed with those providers. >> The 74.5% is the lowest. >> So that's the RI that is the lowest cost option. >> Expensive cost and 84.2 is the PO. That's the most >> That's right. And one thing that um Baylor Scott and White is committed to is employee education at the open enrollment meetings
116and and explaining the differences between the various networks and the plans. Healthc care is confusing. I do say it often keeps me in a job. uh unfortunately or fortunately um but it is very confusing and so it is important for employees when they go through and make these benefit choices if access to care is your most important thing in this example you would want to choose the PO option for example if you're an MD Anderson patient regularly you want to choose that I do want to point out there's a continuity of care provision with Baylor Scott and White which means that if you're in your second or third trimester of pregnancy you're a high-risisk pregnancy uh newly diagnosed with cancer cancer, uh, trauma transplant candidate, um, recent major surgery, acute conditions, hospital confinement, or behavioral
117health conditions. You have the ability to apply with the health plan and continue the coverage with a provider that you are currently seeing, whether they're in network or not. It doesn't mean that Biller Scott White will approve that, but it does mean it's an option for you to apply for continuity of care. Okay. Um the benchmark on TRS I do just because we get this question a lot from trustees is what would it cost us in TRS versus us being on our own and so on the Baylor Scott and White plan options as apples to apples as we can make it it saves about 1.64 million in total premiums. Okay. So what do the actual premiums cost this would be this year hypothetically um versus uh the prior year. So if we focus on the
1181500 plan first and I'll this grid is a little confusing but I I'll go through the employee only. The cost last year on the 1500 HMO with Blue Cross was $8365. That is going to go down to $8043 on the 2500 HMO based on the district's contribution. Last year that was $37.51 a check. That would go up $3 to $40.60 60 cents a check on the 3,400 HSA plan. That one was $29.92. Uh last year it would go up to $67.89 this year. And the PO option $97 versus $147 for this next plan year. So what would happen if we kept Blue Cross Blue Shield at the 27% increase? So you can see here what the cost difference would be. And this is comparing it to the Baylor Scott and White uh proposal we got.
119So for example, on the 1500 plan to cover an employee only, it would cost an employee $146 more a month. On the 2500, it would be $157 a month or 21% more. On the HSA option, $121 a month. And the PO option, $87 a month. The cost difference between Baylor Scott and White's proposal and the 27% increase of Blue Cross Blue Shield based on where employees are rolled today equates to about a $2.81 million difference in total overall annual spend. And that is based on next year's rate for Blue Cross Blue Shield because what you showed us earlier was Blue Cross Blue Shield for 2526. >> Yeah. >> And we're looking at Baylor Scott and White for 2627. >> That's correct. I wanted to show everyone what their cost difference would be if they chose
120a plan with Baylor Scott and White versus last year because the question we commonly get in an open enrollment meeting is what was I paying for healthcare last year versus what will it be this year? And then I think this grid's extremely helpful because it shows the cost to keep Blue Cross Blue Shield and how much it is. In a perfect world, I would love to stand up here and tell you Blue Cross Blue Shield went down and everybody's benefits are getting better. I would love nothing more for the teachers of this district for that to be the case. Um, but unfortunately, we have to do the best with the data we have. We have to work and go out there and get the best options so that people can afford care and have good
121access to care as well as benefits when they utilize it and Baylor Scott and White was by far the best option when we we looked at all those numbers. >> Uh if their providers are at St. Joe, how does that factor? >> That's a great question. So CHI is out of network. Ironically, and Baylor Scott and White can answer this question. If I chose the PO and drove to Houston, I might be able to use CHI there because I would have United Healthc Care's network. But if I'm in in the county or a Baylor Scott and White service area on that PO option, I cannot go see a CHI representative. Now, I will say this, that doesn't mean, and this is one point about networks. So, if I renew with Blue Cross for 911 and
122CHI gets in a fight with Blue Cross because they want a higher reimbursement for MRIs and CT scans and everything else under the sun, they can exit their network. We just saw that with Memorial Herman in Houston with a massive fight with Blue Cross Blue Shield. So, this happens all the time. So, just because Baylor Scott and White doesn't have CHI today, it doesn't mean that next year or in the future they won't contract and network. That's also not a promise that they will. It's just to say that that could happen in the future. >> Do do we have any data at all of how many of those on the continuity of care? >> Mhm. >> You know, it looks like uh 11,000 total claimant service encounters like do you have any sense at all
123of how many of those were St. Joe's CHI? >> Well, my best guess would be the majority of the disruption is CHI St. Joe's. That's pretty much where that >> 15 to 25% is coming from. >> Yeah, there's some private providers on the various networks that may or may not be in >> for all practical purposes. >> Yeah, Texas Children's one we ran for example that GPA. They're in all all three plan networks in network. I know that's a big one, especially with people with kids on the plan having a Z pediatric co-pay. That'll be a huge benefit on three of the four plan options. >> When you mentioned continuity of care, you said they have to apply for that. So if you >> So so a couple of things they could go through the
124district's um benefits HR team and contact us and we would help them with that. Of course we're happy to help any employee with continuity of care. Obviously people are very stressed out in those type of situations. There's nothing like an expectant mother that's been with an OBGEN for a long time and going to deliver and that the kind of the anxiety around that. So our team would help in any of those continuity of care situations when we were notified or they could go direct to Baylor Scott and White Health Plan also and seek that continuity of care on their own if that's what they were comfortable with. >> Okay. So tell those expected mothers to call you is what I >> Hey, I promise I'm going to get some questions. It's it's inevitable. >> Um
125do you have any idea and I don't know if you know the answer to this. Do you have any idea the success rate of that of what that would look like? So, I'm going to defer since they took the time to come to my Baylor Scott and White crew over there and ask them what the percentage or if they know of the continuity of care. >> Sorry. So we do provide a form to all the employees and it has um it gives some very good examples of what would be approved. It's always a medical decision. So you know it has to go through our care team and be reviewed and approved based on medical necessity but it does give some very good examples in the form of what would be approved. So you have a
126good idea. I'm assuming this is something your team when y'all are doing the enrollment, y'all will sit down one-on-one with an employee and sit down and take the time to educate them on all of this. >> Absolutely. Yes, we will be there at meetings. >> Ross, you had four respondents to the RFP, correct? >> The other two were eliminated just because >> cost. >> Okay. >> Curative is a a newer health plan out of Austin, Texas. Um they have had some success in member growth. the thing they do is a zero dollar deductible plan for everything. I wish they were very competitive on the district because teachers would have loved to have that benefit, but the reality is they were way too expensive. And then EMI does a lot of school districts, they they even
127self-milly said, "We're just sending in a bid to send one pretty much." >> Okay. >> Um so they were they were high, but that's a great question. >> How how long are these numbers good? >> Yeah, they're good for September 1st. Um, so at the renewal date, but obviously if we ran up against that wall, you'd have to renew with Blue Cross Blue Shield at the 27%. >> Okay. So in theory, the district had and I I understand there would be some time required for transition, >> right? >> But the district had does have time arguably to make a decision on this. They >> Yeah, they absolutely I mean you could the longer you wait, of course, you know, with open enrollments, there's 30-day process submission to carriers. It takes time, but yes. when would
128be our preferred timeline for enrollment and I mean I don't know if that's for you or for the district. >> So I don't schedule all those but I believe the first enrollment meeting scheduled for July 9th just to give you kind of a sense and keep in mind that enrollment systems have to be updated um plan documents benefit guides all those things. So it is it is a process um to get those things updated. >> The second year caps between 11 and a half 14.6% what happens after two years? >> Yeah the same thing that happened here. So, if you're running well with Biddler, Scott, and White, obviously they would give you a more preferred renewal in most situations. Not always, but in most um you know, or the RFPs conducted again, we go out
129to market and we find the best overall health plan provider. And we can also do that um in the second year if there's dissatisfaction with Bill, Scott, and White, but there could be a caveat that if we do that, we lose the rate cap guarantee from them. I want to go back to something you said at the very beginning just because I you went you went through it quickly. One of the challenges, if I understand what you said tonight in getting this bid was that when you add up all the premiums College Station ISD employees paid last year, >> y >> Blue Cross Blue Shield paid 9% in healthc care coverage more than they received in premiums. That's correct. >> And since they're not running a nonprofit business, >> correct? >> And they need to
130make money to be able to maintain a business, that made us not very attractive to everybody you went out to, which I assume is part of why we got declined by 13. That's correct. >> Of the 17 companies that they said that we're not going to touch that. Is that right? >> Yeah. They look at a number of things on RFP. um the last couple years of claims. They look at your large claimants and they have an actuary project how much those claimants will spend over the course of the next year. Another big one that's always in the news and it's a political football is prescription drugs. And so the cost of those lots of specialty meds out there are 5 10 15,000 a month. If you see a commercial on TV at night, I
131can guarantee you Google the drug. It's expensive. So that's kind of the challenges the health care industry faces is we have all these new tomarket treatments and care but the reality is that it's very expensive and so when you have certain aspects of those things on your plan um it can drive cost unexpectedly as well. >> Uh you mentioned prescription do they have to use Baylor Scott and Whiteies? >> They don't. There's otherarmacies in that network that they have access to. That's a great question. So, if we stick with Blue Cross Blue Shield, the lowest amount anybody's paying more is 87 bucks a month. >> That's that 87 on top of the current. That's correct. >> Okay. So, in every single instance, the rate goes up. The least it would go up is 87 bucks.
132And for some people, it goes up. >> Well, it's actually more than that because that's versus the Baylor Scott and White premium. >> That's relative to the to the proposal. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> So, it's even more. It's even more than the 86 87. >> Got it. >> So the the pain for anybody is if they're CHI. >> Yep. >> And that they would have to apply to stay um and if they have medical necessity is what you said. My concern would be that for better or worse if Baylor's gotten white says we can provide that care and that would just be >> that that is possible and the carrier has a discretion on that. Usually in sensitive situations though on a new group, they're pretty favorable on granting that. Not always. It this
133has been a challenge in my five years or whatever I've been on the board of how many times we've had to do this. Um and I know it's hard for people. We had a handful of emails from staff um >> sure uh reached out to people and so I know that this is can be uncomfortable, can be a challenge, may have to change providers and all of those things. Um so it's not a decision that I think any of us are taking lightly but also trying to uh for historical context we had TRS we uh years ago we gave everybody a raise and the next year TRS raised the premium to exactly how much the raise was that we gave everybody. >> Y >> um so it's insurance companies are not always our friends and
134not always my favorite personally. Um so this is a challenge for everybody. Thank you for the information. Yeah, I I will say one more thing and and um I've had people ask me before, what do you do for your healthcare? And I do enroll through the healthcare through my employer, but my wife who's also a graduate of College Station ISD is enrolled in Baylor Scott and White Health Plan. She's actually on a higher deductible than any the district would offer. Um and it's very good coverage and she has a pre-existing condition and you know we get great treatment. We go to retina specialists for it. So, a lot of times people assume that someone presenting this is doing something for themselves and they would recommend, but you know, I'm comfortable. I'm in this industry and
135and that's the plan my wife has. >> Yeah. I do want to ask just to be clear on this if the there was someone else that was managing the Blue Cross Blue Shield, a different broker. >> That's correct. >> But an Enco doesn't serve the benefit any differently regardless of which one the board chooses. Correct. >> That's right. So it's not if we choose Baylor Scott and White, you get paid and if we choose Blue Cross Blue Shield, the other guy gets paid. >> No, we do our best to attempt to do this for free, believe it or not. >> Right. But you would manage either plan. So there's really no benefit to an other than you have no you have no dog in the fight. >> It's a lot easier for an insurance agent
136to renew things than change things. >> Okay. I just want to make sure that was clear. >> Yeah. along >> sorry just along those lines a question was asked um >> is there a would there be a possibility to keep two plans because some of the feedback we got is people would be maybe pay more >> to keep existing >> sure it's a common question and you would think an employer with roughly 1500 people enrolled would have the ability to do that but in these bids the carrier assumes a certain participation rate and so if you cut into that both carriers are going to assume the worst and they're going to assume adverse risk risk and they're going to all raise their rates up to where it's not affordable in either option. So, I hate
137to say it's kind of an all or none in these situations. In pools with thousands and thousands of people, sometimes you'll see multiple health plans offered, especially in regions. Um, but today it's more common that there's a single health plan offered and Baylor Scott and White works around that by having something like their PO option which includes the ability to go anywhere you want to go with United Healthcare outside their service area and that's kind of how they work around that. It was a problem for years and then they addressed it as a health plan. I >> also want to point out and appreciate how much the district contributes. I don't know if you know averages from other districts, but I know a lot of districts do not contribute nearly this much that we are
138contributing thousands of dollars per employee. >> Absolutely. We work on many districts. Hub, who Anka's a part of, works on many school districts and the district does contribute a whole lot of money for teacher healthcare and um more than a lot of districts do. That's for sure. >> It it's it's well beyond what's required by the state. That absolutely a positive. Um, so Dr. Payne alluded to some of the emails and the questions that we uh received um a lot yesterday and today I I think once people became aware of the agenda and that we would be taking this up for consideration this evening. So Ross, I want to thank you because I think your presentation and your information answer a lot of those questions. what is and I wish we would have had this
139information to the to to our faculty and staff uh in a more timely manner as opposed to the same night that we're being asked to consider it. >> Sure. >> But again, the economics of the recommendation makes sense >> u to me. I just um I wish in the time management or the presentation of or whatever it would have been more friendly for our employees so that there wasn't this state of uh elevated concern that we experienced the last day or two. Um, >> I definitely appreciate renewals are tough and when they received and kind of the timelines. What I can tell you is as a the new representative on the plan, our team will do our best to have this be an even earlier process next year if possible so that there's more transparency
140for everyone involved. Um, we kind of hit the ground running as fast as we could. It takes carriers, you know, 45 to 60 days typically to respond, turn around and answer questions. So, it was a pretty tight timeline, but we'll do our best to to meet and exceed standards in the future. >> Yeah. You know, I think that the the numbers are the numbers. I mean, you can't that's thousands of dollars per employee per year. Like, it's you are, you know, you know, health care is so challenging compared to home insurance or auto insurance because it's it's people you're talking about. I don't feel very emotional about my cars. I feel emotional about my children having the care that they need if something happens to them. And so I think and I think we've seen
141that in the in the last day or two. It's to me it's been clear that this is there is a lot of emotion and a lot of strong feelings around this. Mathematically, this feels very straightforward to me. I mean, I think the way I think about it is if you could receive 80% of the options for something at 70% of the cost. Generally, that's a deal I would I would take knowing that there are people with real situations that are going to be disrupted that this is very inconvenient for them. Understandably, I think the biggest thing that I feel disappointed in the process is not about the numbers. I think it's we've talked for months about hoping that these or expecting, not hoping, expecting that the numbers would go down. And so I think we
142sort of set ourselves up for a little bit of disappointment in that they did go down in what they would have been, but the the real dollar cost per employee is going up. And so I think that probably if if we hadn't said that then people wouldn't have grabbed on to that. But we did say that multiple times. And then two I I would love on I think on dis what's that? Okay. I think on any decision like that, I'm reminded in the last few days, I think we have a real obligation as a board and administration to anytime we can bring people along with us in decisions that are personal. I think we have to make a commitment to doing that. And it wouldn't have been I don't think Ross I don't think it
143would have been saying this is exactly the cause. This is exactly what's happening. But even a committee, a panel, a survey asking would you pay X more for your health coverage if it meant that it you didn't have to change continuity? Like I I'm hesitant because I can say what Chris Field would do, but I don't have children with any special medical needs and for 20 years of my life, I didn't even have health insurance. I or a plan a group plan. I just used whatever I could use because I was always in entrepreneurial jobs. And so the way I would make this decision is really unique to my experience. And I'm even I feel hesitant to speak on behalf of,400 employees when in the last 24 hours I've had more emails than on any
144other topic since I've been on the board in seven months. Is did we only hear from the people who were upset? Maybe that's it. But I don't know because the people we heard from pulled a memo out of an agenda posted online and got it got that information to us. And so I think if I have any disappointment has nothing to do with Ross. I love Baylor Scott and White title sponsor of the BCS Marathon. Uh my mom worked at Baylor Scott and White for many many at Scott and White for many many years in the days when it was $5 co-pays. Um so I it's nothing to do with that. I think we could have managed the communication in this process better and I think our stakeholders deserve that in the future and I
145hope we can learn from that regardless of how we vote on this. >> I do want to um address that a little bit just to just to kind of be clear on the timeline because um my understanding was the district received the information you know that we're looking at last Monday. Is that correct? Um, so it it just just to be clear, we haven't had a situation where the district's been holding on to information for a long time um that they could have communicated. And yeah, so it is a tight time frame. Um, I mean, we as a board first got our first look at this on Friday, last week. So um, we knew that Blue Cross Blue Shield was going up 27 point whatever percent last Friday. Um, it's a quick time frame to
146look at it and I do understand the concerns of, you know, employees who have contacted us. Everybody really wants to be sure that they get the care that they need, that they get it for their kids. Um, we understand all of that. I feel like, um, as a board member, I have to rely on the expertise of the people who are doing this every day. So, the fact that we're getting a presentation that says, "Hey, you know, here's everything we've looked at. Here's the experience that we have because I can't speak for every employee and every specific need." And the reality is um it's hard to change and there's probably going to be a few people in this process that it is going to be painful because there may be some very special circumstances that
147don't fall under one of the perfect, you know, examples that we have. Um, but unfortunately, group insurance is is something you have to kind of look at in the aggregate. And so I think looking at the numbers that we have on the cost savings going with Baylor Scott and White and you know falling back on the expertise of those who do this every day. I have to consider that more as a trustee than you know getting into the weeds of the feelings that we all have about a change. I wish that as a trustee I could say yes keep your plan that you love and it's going to be $100 less. But that's not the situation that we have and neither the district um or the board of trustees have any control over what medical
148insurance is doing. So I you know I I understand that there's a lot of concerns. They're valid. Those feelings are valid, but we also have to um have to come to a decision and we have to give the district time to adjust to whatever decision we make as well. Um so those were the few things that I was going to add. Historically, I haven't been here as long as some of you sitting on the board, but is this not similar timelines to years previous when we get presented with the information of insurance for our employees? >> Yeah, that's from what I I mean, we've been in this situation every two years really. It's so this is not new for employees um that we've had to deal with this and it sometimes it is a tight
149timeline and sometimes we have more time um to vote. But I think as Mr. Martindale said this spells out the economics of it. Um and I had a lot of questions coming in and really I mean it was posted I think Wednesday or whatever where Austin is. So um that it was coming up. Um so uh as I I came in with questions I got a handful of emails. I've had way more emails about other subjects before because I think employees who have been here have just been through this before and and I have think we all have the same concerns at your point. Um, you know, we're pushing this out as soon as we can. Um, for all those reasons, I motion to approve as presented. >> So, I I want to clarify my
150comments earlier. I was not >> We have a motion. Just a point of order. We have a motion to approve. I have to ask, do we have a second? Okay, that motion is going to fail for the time being. Go ahead. Go ahead. >> My comments were not directed at Ross, so if they were taken as such, I apologize. No, they weren't at all >> where where I the point of my comments were I district got this on Monday. >> Sure. >> I did not see this on Friday, Miss Eie. It was in transmitter with with a comparison of the rate cost. We got this presentation as a board of trustees at 11 o'clock today. Is that correct statement? >> The entire presentation. My my comment was that last Friday we knew that Blue Cross
151Blue Shield was increasing and that the district was bringing forward a Baylor Scott and White. We received that information >> and we had I think we had the chart that showed the increase for every plan on Friday. >> That to be clear that was the information that we received on >> I I just think if if if some of this would have even been attached to the agenda for people to see it'll provide some clarification to people. It it it was was my point. I understand the tight timeline on everything else, but I think the more information we can get out in advance, it answers some of the questions or it eliminates the questions alto together. That that was my point. Now, in addition to this, so the timeline that we are dealing with in
152theory, well, it's good till September one, but I know that's not practical nor reasonable. to begin the enrollment period. I think I heard Ross say as pend for July 9th. >> July 9th. That's right. That's that's the first meeting. >> So, and and the board may not have an appetite for this and I'm not sure it changes them result. Actually, I feel like probably a majority of our employees because the economics absolutely speak to it. Does it serve us any does it serve us to sit on this a week allow for feedback? Didn't maybe this presentation answered the questions that we received. Maybe it didn't. Maybe we get no additional feedback or anything else, but it doesn't allow our employees not to process information just as we've been able to before we take action. Now,
153I know that requires an everybody coordinating their calendar if they even want to consider this as an option. It likely probably won't change the outcome because again, I think the dollars are going to drive this even for our individuals. But at least it shows that we're providing our stakeholders with an opportunity to to know what's going on as opposed to here's the presentation of the board's taking action. Th this is I guess I'm I'm I'm throwing this out there to see we just had a motion which failed. So I I we need to have some conversation then. I I agree to an extent, but I don't understand what getting their feedback. I mean, he just said it takes 45 to 60 days. Like, if we wanted to put this back out for proposal, we don't
154have the time. It sounded like only four people even gave us an RFP. Um, I agree. I I wish people would have had more time to process because I do think Ross' presentation answers a lot of the questions in the emails, especially the network retention slide that shows most of these folks aren't going to lose the care. And that was one of the big questions is am I going to still be able to use my doctor? They didn't want 90-day waiting periods. But um I I I think it just it I don't think it would change the outcome to delay it to have people just say they're not happy. I mean, some people may say, "Okay, I'm good." But I just don't understand what the point would be other than I and I don't want
155to discount people reaching out to us and I tried to email back everybody except for the last few I couldn't get to today. Um and and I do want people to understand that I sympathize. Yeah. this isn't what we kind of thought was going to happen. I don't like that they're going to have to change doctors. I mean, we had a situation. My son had a major surgery and we were with Memorial Herman and they dropped us right after a surgery and we had to apply for continuity of care. So, I I've been in that situation. Um, I just don't I don't really know what would buy us pushing it off a week to get additional feedback. Um, I would welcome people. I'm sure we're still going to hear when people are upset whatever we
156the outcome is tonight. Um but I think in the essence of time we have to do something to start meeting these enrollment deadlines >> without a process to to collect you know everybody's feedback then we're just getting anecdotal feedback anyway. Um not that people's stories don't matter but I would be concerned with um we we just the time frame I know that's coming up between now and July 9th. I would be concerned with how we could effectively get good feedback and and be able to address it anyway when we know the options aren't going to change. The options are going to be what they are no matter whether we like them or not. Um so >> and I want people to have a choice which is why I was asking those questions. At the same
157time, if you look at who's investing in our community, you can just see the growth on Highway 6 of what Baylor Scott and White is doing to provide here and the more access that they have. So to me that's a benefit. I hope we're not right back here in two years doing this again, but it's a reality of where we've been repeatedly over and over again. So to your point, I don't know what's going to change. Um and we are asked to make tough decisions and that's what we have to do. >> It I I get that. I understand we're in essence would be kicking the can down the road. I I hope this serves as an example for us with future items that maybe we can discuss things a little bit more in advance
158so that our our folks like the emails we received don't feel like such decisions are are rushed. I think that would help tremendously in um letting our employees know that we too struggle with these things and we want to make the best decisions possible for them and we need to have these conversations to show them as such. Uh so uh I I just I feel like this is an example that we need to be mindful of in the future. >> I 100% agree. And to go back to your kind of question, is this a normal time frame schedule? Yes, this is the normal time we would have to address it. Um, but I think the thing that was seemed a little different to me is that I even for me as a board member, I
159was surprised that it was going to be the significant change that it was that we didn't really have much of a at least I didn't have any heads up that this was coming. So I can fe I can understand how our our staff who even had got a little bit less information than we did were you know were reacting and and nervous and so I do think there was an opportunity certainly for um even without all the information you know you've talked about that Russ that that to at least have some of the conversation that you know why we're going out for bids because of you know where what Baylor's cotton whites our Bluec Cross Blue Shield was coming back with. So, I I really think that would have been so much more helpful for
160not only for our staff and teachers and and their understanding of what's happening, but for us as well as we as we move forward because the feedback and that they provide for us is always helpful as well. Um, all that said, I agree that the presentation really did answer the questions that I think most people um had that I had and it is not, you know, it's it's the the worst op of two evils, right? In the situation, we don't have like a everything's perfect option, but the the numbers, the monthly savings up there, the monthly difference um with comparing the two plans make the make the number side of it pretty clear and I'm not sure if waiting any longer would really make a difference at this point. Got to help people with the
161transition. >> So acknowledging that we know that we've had a tight time frame to turn this around um and also acknowledging the information that we've been presented tonight. Um do I have a motion on this item? A motion to approve as presented. >> A second. >> I have a motion to approve the employee healthcare insurance for 2627 by Dr. Payne. I have a second by Miss Wilson. Is there any other comments? >> Just that I wish we could offer better to our employees and then you know and I know you do too. Thank you for making the effort. Um it's just this is these are the options we've got right. >> All in favor please say I. >> I. Any opposed? That motion has passed six to one. Thank you all for that. Um and
162I believe and thank you for your presentation. I really appreciate that. >> Thanks. >> Say that again. >> I am so sorry. Let me go back and make sure that I record that correctly. I saw a hand and I mistakenly um interpreted that. So I'm going to do that again. All in favor, please say I. >> Any opposed? 70. Thank you for correcting me on that. Um all right, that is going to move us to our executive session. The board will meet in executive session to discuss safety and security updates. The session will be held pursuant to the discussion regarding intruder detection audit and corrective action plan exception in the open meetings act as set forth in section 551.076 of the Texas government code. We are going into close session 821. Sir, I know. >>
163Great job, Matt. Right. It is 8:31. We're returning to open session and if there's no descent, we will adjourn.