CSISD Board Meeting 4/15/2025

001Yes. Welcome everybody to our workshop April 15, 2025, a little after 5:00 pm. Call to order declaration of a quorum. Six members present, one absent. Welcome everybody. Thank you all for being here. Uh item C, hearing is citizens. We don't have anything for the workshop. And then item D1 2526 budget update. Miss Wilson. Good evening, Dr. Hark Rider, Mr. Horic, Board of Trustees. I appreciate you allowing me the time to kind of go over the budget update with you and where we are at this point. I kind of wanted to start off with just giving you a little bit of a legislative update, kind of where we are in budget considerations and then what the next steps will be. Uh, of course, the 89th legislative session is on its way. Uh, it will end on

002June 2nd. A lot of these bills that we're going to talk about tonight or kind of go through are really kind of going to be on the floor tomorrow. So, a lot of changes could happen and uh we'll we'll be watching those. There's two big bills right now. The Senate Bill 26 and committee substitute for House Bill Two. 2026 has a little bit different raises in the fact that if you're a smaller school district, they're going to give you more per teacher for raises. And if you're a larger one, they're going to give you a little bit more. I mean, a little bit less. And then they're going to increase uh TIA as well as some state liabilities for uh for teachers. Uh committee substitute house bill two is a lot larger. So when they

003did the substitute, they kind of talked about several things. One of the big one is increasing that basic aotment to 6555 from 6,160. Uh when you increase the basic aotment, of course, that helps the district in the fact that it increases all of the different uh formulas that come off the basic aotment. The big one here is the golden penny yield. We usually get the only inflationary factor we get in our formulas is the golden penny yield because that's set based on the guaranteed maximum from Austin ISD and when that happens that gets to go up a little bit every year based on the values of Austin. Okay. So what they're trying to do is freeze it as current time right now. So the current rate for 2425 and then shift some of that to

004the basic aotment. there's just a little bit of fear there because when that happens, we just don't want that little bit of inflationary revenue that we get to go away. Uh then they're going to modify really our hold harmlesses is what they have in there. However, this one is they're thinking it's going to be an amendment to uh committee substitute house bill two that will be heard tomorrow. And then insurance to coastal towns that's not going to affect College Station ISD. uh they're going to look at special education and I'll show you in a little bit how much more that we pay for special education. So, we're really excited about the possibility here. This is something they talked about in the last letter of session after they did a study and realized that we're way

005underfunded on special education. So, hopefully some of this comes to light. You can kind of see some of the changes there. But then there's also a Senate bill that has to do with some increases in special education funding as well. They're going to look at increasing your bilingual aotment. And you can kind of see a little bit later tonight how we overspend what we're given from the state and the bilingual aotment comped aotment and then early education. They're going to make some changes there as well saying expanding it to prek. Uh they're looking at added a fine arts aotment. I think the main thing they're doing there is as we see all this cuts to keep to make sure that we don't do away with special programs. So they'll give us an aotment to kind

006of help us fund those programs. uh we can get additional funding set by the legislation in House Bill 3 back in 2019. However, you would have to move your end of school to 180 days because that money will not kick in until like you've gone past 180. They're looking at moving that back to 175. That's something school districts have asked for for a while now. uh they're going to aid uh there's a lot of school districts that get assigned state value and when that happens it's detrimental to the school district because they get their taxes based on what comes in in property value but then they get their funding when we talk about how much they're getting from the state they're going to get what the state has assigned and so it's very detr detrimental

007to a school district so they're looking at that along with some grow your own programs and hold harmless provisions sorry back on that one real quickly the state value assigned that like is that four ones that um like we got a little we got um reprimanded for not having our our values raised enough, right? Is that one of those situations? Yes. So you get you get a warning basically and then you get a year to turn it around and then after you turn it around, you got to turn it around again the next year to kind of get out to get your two years of grace again. So that's really kind of what it boils down to. And Miss McAdams, you're you're referring to the appraisal district valuing properties in in the school district too

008low according to the state, right? Exactly. Even though even the year they were up 22%. Right. The state said it was too low. Yes, that's exactly right. You get two years of grace. Uh the raises are the main difference there. You saw the Senate bill raises earlier. Uh the committee substitute for House Bill the raises change where in our current law it's 30% the new law says 40%. So 40% of our raises the only kick there is it's 30% of raises 30% of your increase in your homestead exemption has to be spent on raises. This one's 40% but this one says teachers only. And so this is kind of look at the current law. The current law says 30% but it can be spent on counselors and nurses and uh librarians. that they've done away

009with that in the House bill, I mean House Bill substitute, but they're thinking that might come back to the committee tomorrow and kind of change that so it's not teachers only and they consider those other positions as well. But to go even further, it's 30% of the total increase. 75% of that 30% has to be spent on those positions. 25 can be spent on other positions other than administrators. None of the in increase in percentage is allowed to be spent on administrators. Uh and then compensation includes benefits and insurance. Uh there's some other ones there with an increase possibly to help us with our loss in funding from our SHRs. Again, that special education reform. You can read that through the PowerPoint. Uh there's Metton Court of course is doing some things for early education

010and special education. And then another big one is the um safety grant. So right now we get 15,000 per campus. They're looking to move that to 30. And then House Bill is looking to move that to 37 and then move that per student funding from 10 to 28. Of course, the House bill has it 10 to 14. Uh neither one of these will cover the mandates that were given to us in the last legislation to put an SRO officer or someone uh on a campus. That still won't cover the cost that costes districts cost districts. And then um this is a big one that we want really kind of want to watch out for because of course you've got your um SAS ESAs your um education savings account but we want to be mindful of

011this one as well because it opens our borders so that any kid can move between campus between school districts. So this bill and it's already been heard once can move kids between campuses and districts. Have they given any indication by how they define open seats? They have not. So they're talking about do you have capacity is what they're calling it. If you have capacity on a campus then you can take those students to your campus. There'd be parameters that we would be required to publish those quarterly and we would decide what those would be. More than likely when they do that a lot of times they give the commissioner the authority to to set what that is. That's always a little bit scary. Uh so yes sir because obviously it's a big difference to have

012a seat versus all the other resources and the teachers and the things we need to correct because what it's not taken into account is I may have a uh seat I may have 10 seats let's say at an elementary campus and then I take those 10 students and then I have 10 more show up the following week to enroll that live here in the school district and now our class sizes are out of whack. So it it it create it's not as simple as just letting them move. It could create issues other places, too. All right. So, we're continuing to watch the ESAs. The other thing that you're seeing a lot on is bond elections. There are a lot of bills out there. You'll have those in the handouts that were given to you earlier.

013Uh they want to limit our defecence of our debt. Uh they can do that either from decreasing the hold harmless that they give a school district or putting it to vote by our board of directors. However, you guys already vote on that. Uh there's a lot of bills out there to move the election day to November only. Uh and then there's even one out there that limits if you failed a authorization, you have to wait two years before you go out again. Uh and then the useful loss of assets. Most school districts set that up anyway. If you're going to use some of your uh bonds to buy computers or or vehicles or something like that, they ensure that the useful life of those vehicles don't aren't less than the bonds they're selling it for.

014But they're going to make us prove that. Another is the estimated interest would be included on the authorization. So, you would have to give them the principal amount and then what your estimated interest is for authorization for your voters. Could you real quickly, what is the justification between limiting us from paying our bonds off early? What is is there any reason they've been giving given on that? They want to make sure because some school districts and and even College Station uses a lot of their bond funds for um upkeep to buildings. You might do HVAC, you might do uh computers, technology, vehicles. They just want to make sure that we're not pushing those bonds out to 20 years when those assets don't have a useful life any longer. Um that's what they're just trying to

015dictate that for us. But I think the the say the bust bullet of pulling things off of paying them off early though I I believe is also something they're in there that they're trying to limit and that one doesn't make sense the defense. Yeah, the defense that's worth that goes back doesn't make sense to me. I don't goes back to one of our legislative priorities of local control and lack of local control. They're trying to control when we go out for bonds, if we get bonds, how do we spend bonds, how do we pay off bonds. They're trying to get into every facet of taxpayers money, and every school district in the state and tell you how you have to manage that money. Yeah. Because they don't like the way uh they have an opinion.

016They don't like the way certain districts spend their money. It's not their money. So, yeah, that's what it is. It's a control factor. That's a hard one though because I mean I think what we're saying is if we're in a position as a district, let's say um we are cost came in lower than we expected on a bond or something and we have money to pay off that debt early that is financially sound because we're going to pay less interest over the long run in doing that. And so I'm I'm with you and not really understanding the uh reason they would try to impose that on us. I I think it stems back to the fact that they don't want us to keep our tax rate at a level to be able to have extra

017money. They always want us to decrease that tax rate. So just like they're talking about additional compression in the tax rate and things like that, they're trying to keep that tax rate lower. And so what they're trying to do is make sure that we don't put a defecence in our tax rate that we're sending to the to the the community. And so they're trying to keep that down so that our tax rate matches up exactly what our bond. It's kind of truth and taxation and it kind of works into that. So that's I think what they're really after a little bit. But yes, local control and if we can get those paid off, we build capacity for later so that when we pass bonds in the future, we have capacity and we can keep that

018tax rate down and we don't have a fluctuating tax rate that makes a burden on our taxpayers. And so I think that's where it falls in. We need local control to be able to do things like that and pay less interest. Absolutely. And save money on interest for sure. Okay. So, uh I just wanted to kind of let you know where they're at. Of course, they're meeting tomorrow. So, we're going to find several things out tomorrow. I just wanted to kind of briefly make sure everybody understands. Of course, tier one is our uh tax rate that is set by the state. Tier two is actually where we have those three extra golden pennies, but there's a total of eight golden pennies there. And our voters approved the three additional golden pennies, and we have five

019pennies. I do want to point out though, when you're looking at the tier and how it's set up, the district does not have control. Just like Dr. Dr. Hark Rider said there's no no local control in how you set your tax rate other than if you go after those eight additional golden pennies and then three of them have to be voter approved. If I was to say let's don't use them this year, guess what? Then we'll have to go out to voter approval again and get those approved for the future. So, I just kind of wanted to point out that another thing I wanted to point out is as property values go up, and we've said this several times, property values go up, it does not affect a school district when it comes to the

020day-to-day operations of the district because the school district gets their money based on formulas. They get their money based on your 6,160 for each individual kid. And then they are given a little bit more based on the needs of the students that they're educating, be it bilingual, GT, uh, special ed, they get a little additional money for that kind of funding. So, we get our total amount of funding. Now, when I show you some things a little bit later tonight when we're comparing district, those are our comparison districts. So, we're similar funding, okay? And so, we're going to get close to the the same funding. Like, they might be 30% free and reduced. we might be 40. So you get additional money for that. So we try to keep it in the same comparison so

021that we have good numbers to show. However, we get a set amount based on our formulas and the state funds the difference. And so if I had low property value, my local taxes would be low and the state would pay a portion a larger portion. If we were about 5050, we' both put in the same pot. Okay? If I am higher property value, then the local taxes is going to put in a portion and the state's going to put in a lot smaller portion. However, if I am property wealth, and this is College Station sometimes, but not lately since we started compressing taxes, but if I am property wealthy, if I have additional property taxes and that spills over what my my summary of finance says, I have to give that money back to the

022state because back to the previous slide, the state sets our tax rate. Okay. So, I just want to make sure everybody understands that we kind of have to live within our means. We don't get any extra money because property taxes are going up. It's based on our students that we have in our district. We can't get any additional funding. And I just have to take the opportunity to add as well that the um it used to be that that recapture was all used for other public schools and you know, schools that didn't have as much wealth in their district, but that is that has changed and not all of it goes to public education. some of it now um goes to general fund and is used at the whim of you know of Austin. So

023that's unfortunate in my mind. Okay. So I just kind of want to briefly take you back to that basic aotment that 6,160. We have not got an increase in that number since 2019 but these are some of the costs that the district have had to absorb. We have given our our employees a 26.6% 6% increase in compensation. We are spending in general insurance and of course this is across the board across the state 392% more now than we did in 2019. Our fuel costs are up 49% more than what they were in 2019 and our utility costs are up 16%. So those are huge inflationary costs that are being absorbed by our general fund. Okay. Uh these are some of the discrepancies when you look at the formulas when we go back to saying okay

024we are formula based they give us so much money and we have to spend 55% of that on special education for example then when we send our information into tea they reallocate something called function I mean program intent 99 and that's saying a principal is going to touch those kids a nurse is going to touch those kids we all have some administrative cost with all of our additional kids and their needs so they reallocate out after we get our reallocation on our our program at 1099. Our district spends $5.4 million more than required more than we receive from the state. Not what we're required to spend, but what we receive from the state. Okay. We spend 4.1 that's based on mileage. Dr. Hark Riders talked about that several times. That's based on the mileage that

025we drive our buses. We get that money back. We spend 4.1 million more than what the state gives us for transportation. We spend 1.7 and that's when I was telling you we have the SRO's on the officers. We've got TNT on all of our elementary campuses. We have the security officers. We're spending 1.7 million more than what the state is giving us. And gifted and talented, we're spending 958,000 more than the state is giving us. And in bilingual, we're spending 430,000 more than the state is giving us to educate those kids. And so we all have different type of kids on our in our district, but they cost more to educate than we're receiving from the state. Okay, this is kind of another thing that we're looking at right now, and it's our loss in

026students. Um, I just want to point out we estimated from the do demographer that we were going to gain 119 students this year. We're actually down 48 students. The demographer also says that we're going to decrease in students another 66 uh as well in on your desk. I gave y'all a maroon folder that looks kind of like this because when I gave you your PowerPoint, I did not have this in there, but I kind of want to just show you uh what the demographer is estimating for growth. So, we can kind of keep this in mind because you remember we don't get any additional funding unless we get additional students. We're losing students right now and in the future we're anticipated to lose even more students. So, we've got to kind of keep that in

027mind as we look at budgets. Uh, also we spend 83% of our total payroll, I mean our total expenses in the general fund on payroll. So, that's our highest cost. Here is a positive. Um, a positive is we beat the number from last year. Our turnover rate for College Station ISD is 17.6%. 6% and that is something that we need to celebrate. Teachers are not leaving like that like like in other places we're 17.6%. I want you to also keep in mind because we're at the bottom of this 17.6% and that's awesome. You look at the top and you see for ISD 24.3 and New KY 23.4 and Georgetown 22.9. Now those are a little bit higher. They're not bad but they're a little bit higher than us. But I want you to keep that

028in mind when I show you some other things. This is our makeup of our district. So, we're kind of a majority of our teachers are one to five years, 24.4 point4%. These numbers have not moved a lot from previous years because I showed you the same graph last year and it hasn't moved maybe a percentage and that's about it. Here is our teacher salaries. And so, this is something I really want to point out because this is where we need to save some money and move it to our teacher salaries. Okay? But like I said, we have fixed amount of money. So, we have to work within our budget. Uh, you can kind of look at College Station ISD and our neighbor here, Brian. They're a little bit under to us. They they shoot up

029a little when 15 years. If we are blessed by the committee um for House Bill Two that is written that we have to give more to older like more experienced teachers. So, that will kind of help us with that number and get that up. But um I I'm hopeful that that goes through because we need to address teacher salaries at College Station. Are those are those numbers available in addition to just salary but total compensation so insurance benefits those kind of things where we can look at the total compensation. Yes sir. And I've got a slide on that as well. Okay. And uh Austin I don't know if that I need to free up space to continue. Thank you. Yes, they're sim similar in demographer and basically our student makeup. Um this is where our

030first year teacher is 51750. Uh, but I do want you to look because you remember that highest turnover rate was at New KY and Fory. Those are in those top tiers and they're of the highest paid. So, it's it there's more to it than salaries. When you come to education, it's about the district that you're working for. It's about the students that make up that district and the parents. And I think we're very blessed here. And I think that kind of speaks to the lower salary and then lower turnover rate. But that is something that we still need to address. Uh here's the slide. We pay the most in health insurance and you're going to see that a couple of times. 472 which is is a good $50 and this is a monthly cost. This

031is a monthly cost for employees only. Uh and then for your highest paid school district and we're 3,000 for the total year different in in compensation just for health insurance. So we don't tell that story probably enough as we need to but we do amazing things for employees when it comes to health insurance. And is this 12? Remind me. Is this 12 months or nine or 10 or what? Okay. 472 a month per but over 12 months. Over 12 months. Over 12 months though. I mean if I if I Yes. Thank you. Yeah. 472 a month but 24 paper. But it's 472 times 12 to get it onto the add it to those annual salaries to compare. Uh and the last time I I brought this information I did add the two of them together

032and I'll do that for the future when we talk more on compensation. Uh even though that you see where our salaries are and where we lie, look at us. We're above average on how much we spend in instruction and instruction related services. So we're above average. We spend 59 82% of our total of all funds on instruction and we're above the average with all of our peers. So that say that's a lot itself. Uh here's our same makeup. Please make sure that you understand when I say 12 12% administrative personnel that's administrated across the board. That is your custodian supervisor. That's your directors on campuses, directors off campuses, your principles, assistant principles and things like that. Okay, so that's a big number. This is something else I want to point out because we we we

033kind of get that question a lot. We're below average on how much we spend in function 41, which is general administration. Okay, so we're only spending 2.74% of that money on general administration, which is well below our peers. And all of this information came off of frontline an analytics. Uh this is something when we're looking at budget cuts, I asked the system to give me what are my top eight differences on average per student cost. And so on their average per student cost, uh, College Station ISDB is spending 948 per student on supplies. The average cost of those peers I showed before are only spending $655. Okay? So if you take that by the number of students we have, that's over $4 million difference. And so when you talk about what we're kind of looking

034at now to making sure that we're we're doing zerobased budgets and looking at all of the cost that is our difference between our peer and college station. And so that's what something I know sometimes you think because we're 83% payroll there's not a lot that can be found in supplies. There is okay and so we've got to look at everything. We just got to turn over every stone to make sure that we're making the least impact to a student when we're making cuts. And we will uh bond principal that's just has happens to be where we fall because we sold a bond. Uh group and health insurance I showed you on that graph that's another one that's their third highest that we pay more than everyone else and it reflects it in the numbers there.

035Extraordinary items that just catches us because we've had a lot of hell storms lately as well as we've had to pay judgments for taxes and that goes into that account when they're large judgments. Uh the next one is salaries. And so when we're looking at but this is not total salaries. This is paraprofessional and clerical salaries. We pay more than our peers in those numbers. Uh we purchased some land so that's going to fall out. Food would fall out because of the fact that some of those school districts are going to be doing theirs with a third party company and so they're not going to buy food. We buy food because we do ours inhouse and um we have an amazing food service department and they're very efficient and then they turn over a profit

036every year. really kind of uh they don't cost anything. Uh our vehicles were high that year because of the fact that we had a bond program and we purchased a lot of our vehicles in one year. So just to kind of point out the one I want really kind of wanted to look at were those well we know health insurance so we want to keep it where it's at salaries for instructional positions and then supplies. Uh so this is kind of what we've done this far in our budget process. We spent a lot of time with training our staff just on how to build a budget, what goes into that. We've even go through gone through account codes. I've tried to talk them in that it's fun. I haven't got a lot of turn on

037that. Um but I'm still trying. But anyway, so we've learned how to use our account codes, what they mean. Um and then we've built staffing models. I put those in your binder that you're going to find three in your binder. They're the ones that we feel uh best about at this point to hand those out. You're going to find an elementary staffing model, an intermediate staffing model, and a middle school staffing model. What that helps us do is get efficient, but it also helps us make sure that we're equitable between campuses. So, we have a formula based to make sure that we're treating every campus the same. Of course, title one campuses are different. So, when you look at allocations for title one, we're going to say this is how we fund our schools, and

038anything above that is going to be your title one cost. And they get additional money for those type things. Uh we've compared oursel to our peers to find out where our outliers are. We've built s zerobased budgets for all of our departments and we've evaluated those based on essential achievement and enhancement. We've still got some of those coming in, but we're working through them. Dr. Hark Rider is so excited when he gets to sit and look at budgets. Um and then we have campus funding allocated by students. You're going to find that in your packet as well. And you're going to see exactly how we we allocated that out. We have allocated based on needs of students before, but we gave them all and said you can spend it however you want to. Meaning you

039can spend all of that on a regular ed child. We gave the allocations out this year, but you have to spend it on the money that was generated for those kids. For example, if your allocation generates 5,000 for a sped student, that money has to be spent on the sped student. If it's generated for a GT student, that money has to be spent on the GT. We're trying to push some of those expenditures back to the campus so that they're controlling what's going on at their level as well. The items in your folder is really for you to take some time before the next board meeting go through. I'll be available, Heather will be available for any questions. There's too much in there to try to go through tonight, but look through those and it's

040just kind of giving you a glimpse into what we're looking at behind the scenes. We can cover more in May if you have some questions on those items. Awesome. And then we're continuing to monitor the legislative session. So this is where we are right now when we start looking at the funding models for uh teacher efficiencies. Basically we rolled it out as looked at everything 22 to1. That is what we're required to do as staff 22 to1. So just because of the decrease in students and this is really just attributed to the decrease in students. We've decreased the staff uh will be able to to absorb seven positions. Okay. And that's 22 or less per classroom. Okay. Uh if we moved K 2, three, and four to 23, just one more student in the classroom,

041we can absorb an additional four force teachers. Okay. If we moved all grade levels at elementary to 23 to one, we could absorb 13 positions. And if the legislation does not help us out, I think these are some decisions that we're going to have to look to. Okay. And this is kind of what now this is crazy on graphs. I understand. But let me try to explain what I did here. Uh if you look at the bottom, that is the size of a classroom. Okay? So if you say 23, that says I'm going to have a total of four grade levels at 23. class size is 23. And then if you look at 22, you can kind of see the difference. And so we'll look at the first one. Like if you look at the

042blue number, it says current enrollment 22 to1. So I kind of showed you if if we're 22 to1, what are our class sizes? Our class sizes are 156. You can kind of see like for example, if you look underneath that seven, I have six classrooms. CLA campus grade levels, six campus grade levels of 17 per classroom. I have I have um nine campus grade levels at 18 per classroom. So, do you see what I'm saying? I don't have any classrooms currently over 22 to1. And then even if we make the adjustments, we would have a total of four if we were at 23 to one grade levels over 23 to a classroom and we would have saved 11 positions total. I just wanted you to be able to see the numbers and to make sure

043that you realize it wouldn't it's it doesn't work that way because of the fact that when you go on a campus you might only have four sections. So you have to divide those kids based on the sections that are available and it just depends on the efficiencies within that. And I want to be sure I understand the the yellow and brown and red that's what we expect for the demographer that will be next year. Yes, the yellow is what we expect. The brown and the orange those numbers are based on moving the class sizes that way but based on demographer numbers. Okay. I just looked at it two different ways. current enrollment and the demographer number and then I didn't decrease a campus if it didn't it didn't fall out on both of those numbers.

044Yeah. And the demographers numbers I mean it's a guesstimate that they do. So there's not an exact mass. It it changes. It varies. But the last couple years we've been below the number that they set for us. So meaning less students than they thought. So that that's something to keep in mind. And it's something we talked about last month of giving you guys scenarios and time to think about what we're doing and what you want to do. what we have the appetite to do. Um the bottom line is we have to anticipate until something changes we're not getting any additional funds from the state. If that changes different conversation of what we can look at and do but we can still get uh efficient with at least seven positions and stay at 22 to1. Uh

045but there is some and that that also includes uh space in each grade level at each campus to take on more students if we had increases that we're not anticipating. All right. So then we kind of looked when we looked at the funding chart at different positions and that we wanted to be equitable across the district in instructional aids outside of title one and outside of dual language. And so we kind of set a bar of 150 to one per campus and that would help us with five additional positions and save us 150,000. Uh in addition, you step one closer and you look at your clerical. This is even a little bit higher than what TASBY suggests our number to be. But if we do that, that's additional three uh clerical positions. And then we're

046looking at special education right now based on need. Um Miss Grande has come up with some information and we're just reviewing that. and then we'll bring you those decisions. If you look at the high school, I know uh Miss Leafers worked really hard with Cordonics to look at those secondary classrooms and with the 25 class constant. That means you might have a few over, but mainly your class constant is 25. Uh we would be able to have nine positions there and a 607,000 in savings. Additional staff based on equitables. uh we would need to add a position to a campus when we look at everything to make everybody consistent based on numbers. A campus needs an additional position. Uh specialized positions, we're just looking at that as we go based on needs of the district.

047Um something I always want to keep in mind is we we have to abide by board policy and it says we have to have near three months operating expenditures. This is where we are right now. Uh we've got 3.44 for four months of of total total fund balance except I want to point out the unassigned is 38,000 38 million. Thank goodness it's not 38,000 but 38 million we wouldn't make payroll. Um anyway 38 million is what is unassigned and um we've just got to keep that in mind as we go forward because we do not have another year to have a deficit budget. We have to kind of work through this if the state's not going to help us out. And remember too, regardless of the state, this is a a two-year process because this

048next year because we're running basically a 10-month budget, it's almost smok and mirrors for the first year, but it catches up on us in year two. So, that's something that we've got to keep in mind. If uh you did less potentially in one year, you're going to have to do even more the following year potentially to catch up. Hopefully, best case scenario, something happens and shakes out in the session and we have an idea of what we're going to get financially. So, it gives us a lot more information to be able to make decisions because the further this goes into the summer to make staffing decisions, the more it puts us in a bind that we potentially would hire some positions that we're not going to be able to if this goes too late in

049the year because uh folks are already going to have jobs and they're not going to be looking to come. Before you leave that um previous slide, I'm glad you put the 3.44 months on there because it looks like our fund balance I mean as whole dollars has increased obviously but along that same timeline our budget has increased. So I think it's important to you know to track that as a as a percentage or of of our overall budget. So it's not like we are just have more money sitting around. we have more sitting around because we have to have a percent of our um our annual our annual budget. So, absolutely. Uh this is just where we are next steps. We're going to finalize those staffing models where we're kind of auditing through our high

050school model now. We're going to continue to review those budgets, the zerobased budgets and um continue to make suggestions in areas for reductions. We should get our preliminary tax uh re um estimates, sorry, estimates by the end of April and then we're going to continue to monitor what's going on with the legislative session. Does anybody have any questions? Do you think you can accomplish some of these scenarios by just natural attrition? So, not letting go of folks. Absolutely. And that's our plan. Thank you for bringing that up. I have to say, I mean, it's pro I kind of makes me feel a little sick inside seeing how many um teachers we're potentially looking at um reducing. I'm I'm glad that some of them would be from attrition. I'm also glad that some of them I

051mean are probably make sense because we do have our our numbers down a little bit. But I I'm going to I said this last time too. The thing that kind of that really bothers me though is that that's the only proposal that I've seen really in front of us is to impact as an impact in the classroom. I just hope that we I mean I'm so glad you can go back to the slide you had where you were comparing our um some of our C spending categories to averages with our with other other school districts and that we are well over on supplies. So I mean I I mean that's hundreds of dollars per student that we are under. I mean that's millions of dollars literally. I mean to me that is where I would

052like to to see us look have very specifics on where we could cut some of that and please understand that's what we're doing right now. Uh I just don't have all those numbers ready to present because we're digging through those. That's why we did a zerobased budget literally I have sat with Dr. Harker and we have gone line by line through some of these budgets just to see where there's some places that could possibly be cut. So we're in the process of doing that. Uh and we're also looking at other things as well. We just don't have we have to start really kind of at the campus level because of the fact that we want to go as quickly as possible there because we want to allow those principles to go ahead and make those

053hires and so we want them to be able to post their positions and get out there as quick as possible so we get the best teachers. And so that's kind of why we start a little bit with um the teachers. But we're not done with this process and we plan to go a lot. Correct. This is one metric that we told you guys we were going to present. We're looking at every single metric that there is. And I want to I want to be very clear and say this again. We're not cutting any teacher positions. Every one of these would be by attrition on the decision that you guys make on where we want to be on class sizes. So attrition attrition only. So but it's it's one of many things. And like I said,

054the the staffing when we talked about cutting and trimming budget, staff is the biggest bang for your buck, but everyone's budget will be reduced in some form of capacity. Thank you. Just the follow up on that. I I do um I'm very glad we're not, you know, we're not getting rid of any teachers except for attrition, but I still believe that it is an added burden in the classroom on, you know, to increase class sizes. It is. So, I mean, obviously we got to make trade-offs and make decisions. I just am looking forward to seeing some other options out there and of course hoping that none of this has to be quite as drastic because of um as the state will come through. That's obviously I know the hope of every but when you're looking

055at a a state uh 22 to1 mandate for class sizes and there's seven positions we can absorb and stay at 22 to one or below in every grade level in the school district in elementary. Why wouldn't we do it? That's the expectation. So I think um I think our teachers it's more work on teachers and so we just need to be aware of that and careful especially if it's if it's aids as well and it's other you know other support folks across. That's the only that's my concern. And and just to clarify, presentation is based upon current funding models. And so with whatever happens in the legislature, it could all potentially change. The presentation is built on current funding models. Exactly. But where we're at now, we'll probably we're going home with the 22 to1.

056And that's across the state. all school districts really kind of look at that and that's because and even we're graded on that on first rating. As we decrease students, we're supposed to decrease staff and that's a grade on your first rating as well. Uh and so that's just being efficient as a school district. The others, yes, we're holding on, but we've got to just like with the staffing model, we've got to know where all of our positions are and start making a plan in case the worst case. Absolutely. Yes, I was just thinking the perspective of those of us on the board, everybody sitting out there tonight, people watching um if there it's been past time, but if there is a time to contact your legislators, it's it's that time. Yeah. And Josh, the other

057part is regardless of if the state gave us the $395 per student, which would be outstanding, we still have multiple areas in this school district that we can get much more efficient with our dollars. And kind of like Heather said, uh, for years our district has been behind the state average in teacher pay. You can't catch up with it overnight. But if we're in fish in areas throughout the district and we're saving x amount of money per year, that's additional money we can pass on to our staff and start trying to kind of close that gap. We're in a position right now with who we kind of recruit against for teachers. We're at the top of that scale. However, uh, that's not the goal. I mean the goal is to be as high as we

058can be where nobody could compete with us if salaries were the only driving force. That's that's the goal of where we want to be. Can you help us understand how this um what are the next steps in this? Obviously I mean I think it's more we're waiting more for the funding side of this equation which we really didn't I mean talk about too much in here tonight. That's what we're waiting for from the state. But as far as what we're working towards to reduce expenses, um when do I mean if you believe some of these decisions need to be made sooner rather than later, what is the time frame that we're looking at for doing some of these? I mean, we're going to bring uh more secondary numbers and department budget scenarios to you guys

059in in May. uh we'll take another glimpse and a bigger picture as far as digging down a little bit deeper at the June meeting and more than likely depending on what takes place in the legislative session would have a special meeting after the June meeting as close to July 1st as possible to approve a budget on the information we know at that time because the budget would start July 1. If something changes in the legislative session after that and we get additional funds, we can always come back uh later in July, 1 of August, whatever that is, and amend that budget if new money's come in. Yeah. So, it's not in stone potentially of what we approved prior to July 1. How about for um May discussion? Where do you think we'll see next month?

060Um you're going to see close to complete budget with current law. Say again. you're going to see a complete budget with current law. Okay, good. So, we'll see where we are and then then we can look at the scenarios based on what the where the state is at that point. But I I do want to point out that going back to those salaries like Dr. Hark Rider was saying and even back to, you know, we've got to look as a district at our inefficiencies and we've got to look where the fluff is and we've got to be able to make those decisions to say we've got to pay our teachers more. And so we've got to look at everything. And if we can gain some of those inefficiencies and push it more to the salaries,

061that's what's that's what's best for our teachers. And so and then keeping classes at 15, sometimes you could take that up to 22 and that savings, you're giving them back in salaries. And so you just kind of got to look at all of that and to make sure we're all of this and I think everybody in here is really working to do what's best for teachers and for students in College Station. So yes, we'll continue to look at the inefficiencies. I have numbers, but I I want to be able to work through those supply budgets to see what we can find out there and then bring you some good solid numbers the next in May. Is that good? It is good. Thank you. And again, you had some powerful slides. That one I thought was

062powerful to me. And I also really like I hope people will see the one where we have that CSISD deficit spending compared to um the state formulas for some of for special ed for transportation. I mean, what is it's about $12 million in services that that we offer to our students and we're supposed to be getting the funding specifically for those services and we're not and we're having to take it away across the find it in other places across the board. To me, that was very powerful. So, thank you for putting that together as well. There's one thing that I did notice um between all the Senate bills and things like that. I mean, I think Angela Paxton's bill makes me a little nervous, but there's nothing we can do about it, but I'm just

063curious what UIL thinks about that. Um because you start switching seats within district. Uh I bet UIL has something to say about that. So, just curious if that was brought up. So, we'll we'll do some research on it. Um, but I I kept kind of seeing the constant in this and and it goes back to what we were talking about. A lot of these bills are are state controlled. Um, and and Mr. Ben said it tonight. If if there's a reason, I mean, we we preach it and say, "Hey, call your representatives, call Dyson, call Warden, and all of them." Um, if there's a reason right now, I mean, I've done it. I've talked to both of them and, uh, you know, I've had good conversations with them. Uh, I think and I and I'll

064just say it. I I told them, "If you fund us on our enrollment, you'll never hear a peep out of me." And they laughed about it and I said, "I'm not joking. Like, you'll never hear a peep out of me if you fund us on enrollment because I might not play on the same playing field as a district, but by God, I'm going to have the funding to be able to compete and I'll I'll do that all day long." And so, that's the frustrating part, but I think a big piece of it is the state control piece, and and we're having to navigate that, and you're doing a heck of a job. Um, so we appreciate all that detail because uh if we can get any kind of local control into this, it it'll be

065a positive and we don't know what that looks like until maybe May, maybe not. We'll see. So, and I appreciate that. And I also want to say thank you to the principles and the department directors and secretaries on the campuses because they've done a lot with the budget this year and they have done amazing things. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, brings us to D2. receive a report related to the Shaq School Health Advisory Council. SA Good evening everyone. Um I am here to provide with y'all a brief um overview of the work of the school health advisory council that we did during this school year. and I had the privilege of being able to collaborate with the SHAK committee this year. And so again, it's an honor to be able to kind of share

066just a little bit of the stuff that we went through this year. Um just as a reminder that the SHAK committee is actually one of those um situations that we're required to have in each district um by law. um state may not be able to uh fund and balance a fund budget, but they can make sure that we have um other representation sometimes, right? Um one of the things I like to remind everybody is we have our information out there so that everybody can access it and see what kind of things the SHA committee is looking at from year to year. um some years have more going on in them on years that there might be curriculum um renewals or um considerations. Um this year was not one of those years, but at any point

067any of the committee members, any of our community members can always access um our our agendas and recordings of our meetings so that they can hear everything that's gone on in our um committee meetings. Um and they can get to them by way of our web page. Um the SHA committee is kind of functions on the whole school, whole community, whole child model. Um that's been a continuum from when we've started it um you know several years ago. And so we've made sure that we keep that um philosophy at hand. Um and you'll kind of see that reflected in a lot of the presentations um the the breath of presentations actually that kind of um go through the year with the SHA committee as well. So, just kind of an overview, our SHA committee this

068year, we had a total of 22 members. Um, 13 of those members are community members. They're non-mployees. Um, seven are actually district employees and we had two school board members that were, um, on our membership role as well. And then our focus areas. And so this year, um, just a few of the things that we kind of spent our time on is one of the things is we needed to look at our bylaws. And so we kind of um did a review of those early on and made a few adjustments to some things that needed to be updated to reflect the actual operating practices that we had in place for our SHAT committee. Um as well as we reviewed the wellness plan and made the appropriate updates so that the information included within that wellness

069plan actually reflected the current information that was specific for our school district. Um in addition to that we also were able to listen to some presentations about um our overall counseling supports. Um one of our um district counselors came in and gave us a wonderful presentation to let us know um kind of what the state of the counseling department is for the whole school district and the breath of supports that they have available for our students, our families and our employees alike. Um, in addition to that, we were able to u listen to a a report and have some great discussions about safe routes to schools. Um, and then also our child nutrition program was able to come in and provide us with some updated information about where they were with um all of the

070nutrition standards and and their budgets and where we are in the overall wellness piece from the child nutrition standpoint. And then finally, we were able to get an update from our district safety um coordinator and then she was able to let us know about the different efforts that are happening across the district um with all of the changes in legislature and expectations um as far as school safety as well. So that was important for us to be able to get that update. Um for this year, we don't have any formal recommendations um for you. However, um what we did have is a lot of discussion about us needing to continue talks about the idea of safe routes. One of the things that we recognize is um you know that the school district does not mandate

071bicycle lanes and and crosses and things like that. Um however, um the opportunity to be able to continue having conversations and look for opportunities for us to collaborate with the city um in ways to um highlight safe routes to schools to encourage um kiddos and families to walk to school, to bike to schools to have that, you know, healthy interaction and that social interaction. I'm just really kind of continuing that conversation. And so, um, as we go and prepare for the next year's SHA committee, that will be an area of focus that is recommended for them to continue having conversations on. Any questions? It's very quick. Not really. Just a thank you to Shaq and all the volunteers both from the district and the community that are a part of that and for the time

072they certainly the time they put into it. Um, and I appreciate that you're going to continue the conversation and and that you mentioned really the city impacts so much of that. So hopefully involving them would be a wonderful plus. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. And and that's another another area where the community can really get involved because quite often in fact I think this came up in one of the shaq meetings. The city of College Station will do surveys as far as uh you know bike lanes and and mobility and so forth. And so as as parents and and teachers and staff members and so forth when you have an opportunity to complete those um you know hopefully it would have have some effect with the city as far as things that could make it safer

073and more convenient for our kids and parents. Thank you. That'll bring us to item D3, adjust minutes to instructional day. Miss Leafer Okay. Good evening, Mr. Horac, board of trustees, and Dr. Hark Rider. I'm going to take a few minutes this evening to talk about um the why and the process of adding 10 and minutes to our school schedule. Um, so first I would like to start with um, our school district provides a lot of opportunities for our students across the district, different electives, whether it be CTE, foreign languages, things like that. Um, unfortunately, we are not able to provide all of those options at both of our comprehensive high schools. Um, so that all of our kids have access to all the things that we offer. um best case scenario for us to be

074able to provide the best case scenario for our students is to share students and to share our staff. To do that, we have to have an aligned a parallel bail schedule between our two comprehensive high schools. Um currently, we start and end at the same time, but we have different um lunch periods, we have different instructional minutes, we have different um advisory times and things like that. So um the first thing we did was we brought both of our principles in from our comprehensive high schools to have a discussion about what were the differences in our bail schedules. Um we had different instructional minutes, we had different bell schedules, we had different advisory times. And so those two principles did a wonderful job with coming to the middle and talking about how we needed to

075adjust our schedule so that we were able to share students and staff across the district. Um we um looked at some sample schedules with at you know how can we make that happen so that all school we could share and all kids got the same opportunity. Um the only way that we're able to do that is if we added 10 extra minutes to our day. Um we talked about what would be the most efficient and what would be best for families and students and we landed on the 10 minutes would be added at the end of the day. Um, next we had to talk to our transportation department on running buses between the different campuses and what would that look like? Um, did we do high school only? Did we do middle school? What all

076what all campuses would we um involve in that? Um, adding 10 minutes to our schedule adds flexibility to the calendar by adding um some time. And I have um a um a sample of other district to show you some exact minutes in a minute. Um, but the flexibility in the academic schedule would be for the 26 27 calendar because we've already approved the calendar for next year. But that does allow us for some um professional development time for our teachers, whether that be working in their classroom, doing professional learning with the district or on campus. It provides for opportunity for some extended weekends or possibly a longer fall break as well as a possibility of having some um additional bad weather days in case we have situations where we're having to cancel because of rain,

077floods, freezing temperatures and things like that. So this next slide kind of gives you an example of min comparison. So we went and did some research. Um, the TA requires us to have a minimum of 420 minutes per day, which is 75,600 for the year. Currently, we have 445 minutes, which gives us 76,540. So, we're a little bit over, giving us a couple extra days added to our calendar for different scenarios. So, our surrounding districts that we looked at, we started with Brian because they're our next door neighbors and they have a range from 445 to 470. So, some of their bands like for middle school example, they had three different bell schedules for their their middle school. So, not all their schools like elementary were the same, intermediate were the same. They had a

078lot of flexibility. So, I just gave you the gamut from 445 to 470. Magnolia is at 435. McGomery ISD is at 445 and Tomball is at 445 to 460. They also had some variances between their campuses. If we add 10 minutes to our day at 455, that gives us a total of 79,170 minutes, which is a a couple more days than we already have built into our schedule. If someone's asking where are we going to put the 10 minutes um to balance our schedules um we need to make sure that our lunches are all at a m a limit of 30 minutes with a five minute transportation or passing period. Right now one of the campuses provides 25 minutes for lunch and five minutes to get to class. And so we want to make sure

079that everybody has 30 minutes for lunch and the five minute passing period and the remainder um if any would go into instructional time. So, that's kind of the why. That was kind of our process. Um, are there any questions? A couple things to uh you guys think about. Uh, number one, adding 10 minutes to the school day. Couple things. If we left elementary at the same bell schedule, we would have to do intermediate, middle, and high school on the same because of transportation. TEA takes our minutes and it goes on the least amount of minutes. So if elementary is going 445 that would be our set number of days. I told you guys when we approved the calendar back in believe it was February that in order for us to create flexibility in our school

080day the only option would be to increase the minutes and then you have some increased flexibility. You have approved the calendar for 2526. However you could amend that calendar if you had the appetite to do that. In our mind, we would like to take 10 minutes to the school day adds 3.9 extra days that teachers to the over the year. We would like to take those four days and create two days in the first semester, two days in the second semester that are 100% for teachers. Half a day would be for planning, half a day would be a work day. There's no district meetings. There's nothing else that they're pulled to at that point in time. Uh time is something we're all been chasing in public ed forever. Teachers need it. Uh I would like

081to bring you an amended calendar in May to let you look at where those four days would fall. I still think it's enough time for parents to make any transitions or anything they need as far as child care goes or we add the minutes, we do it for 26 27 and come back and and redo the calendar. But in in in my mind, we're going to have the builtup minutes. I don't see why we wouldn't amend the calendar and give the days to the teachers for this coming school year versus waiting. So, is this if if I'm understanding this correctly, this will allow us to utilize our CT center for all kids, the block scheduling, getting kids there. I think this is great. I I like that you're aligning the two I like that you

082included the principles um and really got their input. Um, aligning the two schools kind of do does away with the us versus them mentality sometimes between our two high schools. Um, and teachers have been asking us for more time in their classrooms. Um, just to to do what they need to do to plan. So, I I feel like this is checking a lot of boxes. Yeah, I like the alignment as well. So, this was primarily driven by the high schools, right? Driven by the CT center phase two, right? you you have you don't we're not duplicating uh programs. So, in order for both high schools to be able to utilize it, they've got to be on the same schedule to be able to go back and forth and to be able to get there on

083time and get back because we're not going to have teachers teaching goalless high school kids welding and consult kids welding. They're going to be So, have y'all had So, you said sounded like you talked with them to work on this. Have Have you had a chance to talk with the elementaryaries and understand what going to four less actual instruction days would look like? Because I know they're always with testing and all. You know, there's so much on you technically would be potentially adding unless you gave days off. Well, I mean, but not but not instructional days with the um it would just it's like maybe looks a little different. I'm just asking if you've had the question. I don't know. But that to have 10 minutes a day versus four extra days in a schedule

084with all the activities and things that that elementaryaries do. That's just one thought. I don't know if have you talked to the elementaryaries yet or not about that component. Not that specific. Yeah. I mean I think the one thing that we could all agree on at every level is we need more time. How do we create more time? Because during our staff development days that we have for staff, a lot of times the district has to use some of those days for TEA requirements or things that have to go. Principles need time with teachers. They also they need time to work on whatever they need to work on as well as they want to try to give teachers time in their classrooms to do what they need to do. Uh so in my mind we're

085building a CTE centerface to they have to have the same bell schedule that's not open for discussion to get kids back and forth otherwise we've wasted a facility and programs that we don't have kids interested in going to. Uh, and the other part in my mind, it's a win-win from a standpoint of our teachers need more time and so our staff development days isn't necessarily more time for them depending on what we have to do for tea purposes or what we need to do for a teacher. So, it's a it's a balance. Uh, I believe Jeff, our next DEIC meeting is before the May board meeting, correct? We would uh as a cabinet and with principal feedback earmark potentially what those four days would be get feedback from from principles take that to the DEIC

086say where they are and potentially bring you guys an amended budget in May. We would have it in workshop so we can have a discussion and then an action item in the board meeting if you decide you would like to to make a change for 2526. Otherwise, we could have all sorts of calendar options potentially for 26 27 and and I I'm assum I'm assuming the teachers would appreciate the extra planning time and I think the only other and I'm glad it's going to go through DEIC to have that discussion so they can have all that input. The other thing though, we really are asking um at least for that next this year if we did that it would be more work on teachers. 10 more minutes a day, the equivalent of four more. Isn't

087that right? They'd be working the equivalent of four more days. Yeah, but we're going to give it back to them. So, I see what you're saying. Yes, technically. Yes, we're giving the four back to them. That's why. But it's still the summer. It's the same number of days they have to be there and they have to be there 10 more minutes a day on every day. That's which again is the equivalent of four extra days. So it's the same amount of days they have to show up. Well, I think it's 10 more minutes. I think it's good to rethink about that. I'm with you and I think the principles can get some feedback. Yeah. because ultimately we want to do what the campuses, you know, either way the 10 minutes have to come into play

088or we've got a a a facility that, you know, with our growth, but not with our growth, more our opportunities that we're able to offer that that we're not utilizing and why' we do the bond kind of thing. So I think with the feedback that we get from teachers to principles and the principles within the DEIC, I think some some good conversation will happen as it pertains to stuff that we're not accustomed to because we you know we can only imagine what the what that looks like in a calendar year for teachers. So um I I anticipate and I I charge all the principles make sure we get some good feedback because that's only going to help. I mean uh for us going forward. So that was my point and agreed. I'm not against and

089just to clarify I I mean adding the 10 minutes is not the problem. It's just more how do we approach that with the extra four days and make sure it's you know right for all the schools. So well and I think one thing that um I mean there's always some some some pain points when you're going to make a change like this. Um, but having been on bond committees, um, going back several years, um, there was a time when we were talking about putting certain programs at one place and then you had to be in school at that one place to be able to do those programs. And I had lots of friends and parents say, "Well, my kid would want to do that, but they want to be at their high school." And so

090one positive to this is we've come to a place as a district where we're going to say these programs are going to be at the center and we're going to be able to get you from whatever high school, you know, whichever of our three high schools um to to go to that. And so just throwing out that there is a positive in that too. And there there is some purpose in that. And so u we got to work through what looks best for our teachers and students. But that that point right there is something that I think we got a lot of parent feedback um back when we were doing the bonds. And we've we've also been asked by parents, our we have our students are shifting. We're not sending everyone to college anymore. We

091we have kids that want these skills and the CT center is going to equip these kids to to leave our nest with skills that can go out and get a job immediately. And so I like like you said, there is pain with all of this, but the outcome from it is I think there is is a huge positive. Yeah. And I do think um it's exciting to have more people at the CT center and have that center. I want to clarify though that from what Missy just said, I mean what is the just to make sure everyone's aware I mean is I don't know if we have a firm timeline for where everything would be offered at one place instead of the two campuses. I mean I know maybe that's the goal, right? We still

092I mean something like culinary right now um at least the extended years are still only at CSHS. I mean not are we Yeah, there's not a goal that we're going to do exactly the same thing at both high schools. That's okay. I just want to make sure that was Yeah, because we have the flexibility right now based on the program and where the kids are coming in. They can transfer from one high school to the other high school because of a program. I believe that starts their sophomore year, not their freshman year. So, they have the flexibility to move campuses. We don't provide transportation, but they do have the flexibility to be able to go. With the CTE phase center, you don't have to change high school. You can stay at your zoned high school

093and we're going to bus you back and forth. So, that's the the difference there. But still, not everything will be offered at correct, right? Clarif we will be able to get more flexible with the new science wing that we can renovate existing science labs and potentially add some programs there uh that we currently don't have there. Yeah. Anything else? Thank you miss sleeper for your time. That rings to item E adjourn. They're different. You were Thank you. Proud of you. That's not going to be Yeah, sure. Hallelujah. I'm sure she I don't know. [Laughter] Hello. Hello. Hello, boys. Thank you. [Music] It is perfect. You got me excited. Hallelujah. [Music] chocolate. I figure something What was that? course middle of the night over there when I text. So I was like, Ready? Good. Good. I'm

094good. Welcome everybody to our regular scheduled meeting April 15, 2025, a little after 7. Item B, declaration of a quorum. We have six members present, one absent. hoping to have him back next month, by the way. Just wanted to pass that along. Um, welcome everybody. Thank you'all for being here. Welcome to this meeting of the College Station Independent School District Board of Trustees. We were elected at large to represent the interests of our community and our state in educating our students. Our mission for our 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 and posting agendas in conducting our meetings. The detailed agenda information was made available to us at least 72 hours in advance. We've all come to

095this meeting informed and prepared. We've just completed a workshop meeting where we heard reports and discussed much of the information needed to make decisions in either this meeting or an 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 by the open meetings act. We are pleased that you have taken time this evening to join us. We are very proud of this school school district. We thank you for your interest in and support of our students. That'll bring us to item C. I believe we have three elementaryaries here tonight. You got it. Okay. Good evening. It's so Thank you. It's

096It's so good to see everybody. I am Teresa Cot and I am the principal at Forest Ridge Elementary. Thank you very much. Okay, you know, we're getting down to the end of the year. Just to get a few uh uh a round of applause is kind of nice. Um anyway, so uh I have the wonderful privilege to introduce two fabulous Falcons to you tonight who will be representing Forest Ridge at this meeting. So I have Keegan Brown and I have Jordan Kelly. So, so I have a few words and then they're going to tell you a little bit about themselves and then you'll get to meet all of our other friends from other schools here this evening. So, these two ladies are uh uh important kiddos at our school. They are what we call flip

097leaders. So, that is Falcon leaders inspire people and so they do all kinds of leadership things in our school. They also were on in our show choir and so you know they have have performed uh many times in front of big audiences including the Texas&M basketball team and I I think that their singing helped them get as far as they did uh in their uh work. So you know these two ladies are really wonderful. Keegan is like the epitome of uh someone with really great social skills. She's kind and and and inclusive and all of those things and a great example for us in Jordan. She is amazing. She has grit, perseverance, and that girl wants something done, she gets it done. They have a few other things they want to tell you about themselves,

098so get ready. Good evening. My name is Keegan Brown. I'm from No, I'm in from Forest Ridge Elementary. I am in fourth grade. My teachers are Miss Wester, Miss and my favorite subject is reading. My favorite thing to do at Forestry is flip. Flip. You get to help different teachers and help kids with their work. And you have a lanyard that has your picture and your name on it. And so that people know that you're a leader. My favorite thing about Forest Ridge is that people are kind and um your teachers help you and our mission is all falcons learn at high levels. Outside of forests, I like to play with my friends and do soccer and I like to do church. my when I'm proud of get getting to be a fabulous falcon and

099I when I grow up I want to be a teacher at Forest Ridge. [Applause] Good evening. My name is Jordan Kelly and I'm a proud fourth grader at Forest Ridge Elementary in Miss House's class. My favorite subject is math. My favorite thing to do at Forest Ridge is um is to go to art class and to is to go to art class and to interact with my friends. My favorite thing about Forest Ridge are the amazing faculty and staff and the fun events I get to participate in such as um Falcon Palooa, Field Day, and the talent show just to name a few. My favorite things my favorite thing to do outside of Forest Ridge are to draw or to attend church, draw, sing, and dance. and I like to play with my brother and

100sister and enjoy outdoor activities with my family. My favorite um I am proud of being a I'm proud of being on the all a student honor role all year and being named as CSISD student of the week. And when for my career when I grow up I want to be a artist and a lawyer. [Applause] Well, that's a hard act to follow, but um my name is Laura Richter and I have the very good fortune of being the principal at Southnull Elementary. And this evening I have with me two amazing South Nolers. Um I always get input from the staff of, you know, who should we bring? and we have this opportunity to honor some kids and every teacher I asked gave me these two names and so I am going to let them tell

101you a little bit about themselves because they are way cuter than I am. So here they go. Hi, my name is Saul. Um, the thing I love about South No is that everyone is kind and my favorite thing to do is create art. And when I grow up, I want to be an artist. [Applause] Hi, my name is Ella Espino. My favorite thing about South Nol is my teachers, Miss Lockach and Miss Kerbo. What do you like best about? What's your favorite thing to do at South? My favorite thing to do at Southnull is to eat lunch. And when you grow up, what do you want to be? Whenever I grow up, I want to be a vet. [Applause] Good evening. I'm Jeff Duron, principal at Rock Prairie Elementary. Um, and [Applause] oh, I uh

102I guarantee my lack of singing is what helped the Lady Longhorns get to the final four this year. I've brought along two rock and wranglers with me, two fourth graders, Heidi Lutra and Ashton Sims. I'm going to let them introduce themselves. My name is Heidi Lou. My favorite thing to do is read. When I wanna When I grow up, I want to be a teacher and teach at Rock Prairie. And my favorite thing about school is GT Computers and [Applause] Art. My name is Ashton. My favorite thing to do is play Fortnite. When I grow up, I want to be a YouTuber. It My favorite thing to do is My favorite thing to do is with be with Miss Harris. [Applause] Thank you. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Salute begin under the Texas

103to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please join us for the Texas flag. I mean pledge. Honor. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge algiance to the Texas. One state one and indivisible. Please remain standing for a moment of silence. Please, you may be seated. [Applause] Stay there. All [Applause] right. Okay. So sometimes even the principal gets surprised. So next we get the wonderful privilege of uh introducing some fabulous folks that work at each one of our one of the three schools that are represented tonight. And so um I think it's going to be really interesting tonight. So, what what we thought at Forest Ridge, the group that we thought would be really nice to

104recognize tonight is what we lovingly refer to, I'm sure you all know, as our camp team, right? So, computer art, music, PE. So, if those people would please come forward, I would appreciate [Applause] it. And so, let's see. Let me get myself. All right, here we go. So, now I can see when you're 411. That's that's challenge. So, here we go. So, uh the the fabulous people we have in front of you really are sort of like the lifeblood of our school. They are the foundation and they are, you know, the backbone. So, without these people, then our school just wouldn't have the flow and and and and we wouldn't be able to work at the level that we do. The things that they do really support our kids in so many ways. So right

105here to right here we have coach G. So coach Gilland and that's why he's called coach G. So coach G. And one of the things that's really important and on the other end we have coach B. And so you know coach Bermudas and so those two gentlemen work really hard to make sure that our kids move their bodies because we know that they can't really use their brain to high levels if they don't keep their bodies in motion. And so he really works really hard on the health and well-being of our kiddos and that's very important for our school. Next to him is Miss Sarah Leader. So she is our art teacher at Forest Ridge and the way she views the world with her heart and her spirit just brings out the amazing creativity in

106our kiddos in ways that I can't even imagine. And so you heard one of our students say art is their favorite. Well, this lady is the reason why. So, uh, next to her is Elena Stewart. Miss Stewart, Miss Stewart is our music teacher. And so, when she's not doing a sing along or a musical or taking her show choir to amazing places to sing like, you know, where they get to to meet Anderson Garcia and he's our friend. Uh, then, you know, she is, you know, teaching kids really powerful things, uh, in in music as well. So, next to her is Ginger Burke. She is our computer teacher. Miss Burks is a serious computer teacher. She is all about teaching coding and she's written two amazing grants that have brought really great materials to our

107kids so they can do things well above well above what we would typically expect in a computer classroom. So uh these are again like I said like the backbone of our school and the reason for that is they also help us with something that we call soore. And so is an enrichment time during our day in which kiddos get to come and really do some things with steam, steam based activities. And so they without them we would not be able to have our collaborative team meetings the way we want them. And so and our kids are getting some real power there. I mean they do all these really great creations and uh they've written musical compositions and some have even been copyrighted. So, I'm sure one day you'll hear them in the world and you'll

108go, "Oh, that's because of Miss Stewart." So, let's give them another round of applause. Thank you. Thank you so much. [Applause] So, I think you're going to be able to determine a theme to tonight's staff recognitions. Um Teresa and I and Jeff all talked and um for probably pretty similar reasons, we've all selected to honor our camp team today. Um one of the reasons I selected these fine individuals and I'll introduce them to you. We have Amber Herblin, our art teacher. Liz Marshall is our PE teacher. Kim Taylor is our music teacher. And Rachel Lewis teaches computer to our kids during camp time. And what I will say is that I don't think there's a single team on our campus that touches every student every day in our building. And for some of our kids,

109if you think they start with us in kindergarten through fourth grade, every day, every kid, right? That is a tremendous amount of influence and power and just change that you can make in a child's life over the course of their elementary career. And I need to tell you that this team is outstanding and I am so blessed and the children at Southnull are so blessed that these people are in their lives. And I will tell you um I'm going to speak kind of about them globally, but one of the things that is most powerful to me is that these these ladies are always willing to give a yes when it comes to what's best for the students at Southnull. And I'm just going to give you a few few examples of that. They make sure

110that every child has an opportunity on our campus to shine and be celebrated. I don't think if you that you guys know this, but whenever kids come for senior walk, they're excited to see the rest of us, but they all want to know where these four are. They all want to come find them. Um, you guys plant the seeds of love for art, music, athletics, and technology. And um I've personally been to a open okay it was a backyard band practice um of a band that has two college age Southnull kids who one is the lead singer and one is the drummer. Um we have a one of our students and probably more than one but one that I know of is graduating from console this year and is going to be an art major

111at the University of Texas in Austin. And I know, and there's probably more, but I know of two students from South Null who are going to be collegiate athletes next year. So, um, what you guys do makes a difference and what and what the kids, um, the the passions they choose to pursue. Um, yes, they say yes to being part of campus planning and initiatives because they do touch every kid in the building and they see things from a different perspective of other grade level teams. They can see things from that building perspective and they're often the first to offer suggestions about ways to improve campus structures or if we're going to start an initiative, thinking about how all that's going to work and how all the pieces are going to play together. And these

112pe these these ladies are always willing to say yes when it comes on to take taking on challenging product projects. Several years ago, we were using a fundraising company to run a fund run for us. And these ladies watched it for a couple years, and they came to me and they said, "We can do that, and we can do it better." And I and I and cheaper. And and and they did. and and because of their initiative, we have a home run, a homegrown fundraiser every year where our kids get a an an experience that caters to who they are and our PTO benefits positively from their willingness to say yes. They'd say yes to making sure even our youngest learners on our campus have an opportunity to to take part in their classes. This

113year, we made the decision to add our prek students. our youngest are three and four year olds into the camp rotation. At first, that kind of scared you guys. I'm not going to lie. Um, but you put your heads together and and you made some changes and we have we've created something that works for them and now they are exposed to that every day. Um, you say yes to professional learning. These ladies sit through a lot of professional development on our campus that doesn't necessarily pertain to their content areas, right? They sit through a lot of reading and math and but I will tell you that anytime we have campus staff development, these people are the first people to raise their hand and talk about how they're going to implement what we're doing in their

114classrooms. And lastly, you guys say yes to leadership. I know in each of your cohort groups at the district level, you guys serve in a leadership role. And so your influence goes as at South Nol, but goes way beyond that. And so I am just so thankful for you each and every day and I don't say it enough. So heck, I got an opportunity to say in front of a lot of people and I took it. Um, but I don't know if you know how amazing you are. So I just wanted to give an have an opportunity to say that. So you're welcome. [Applause] Oh, sorry. Okay, let me give my friend to Jenny. [Applause] So, I brought my kindergarten team. No, just [Laughter] kidding. So, these are four of our camp team. Let me

115introduce them to you first. On the far end, we have PE assistant Juan Benvitas. Next to him is our coach Tabitha Brown. Music teacher, Joseph Heritage. Art teacher, Kelly Win. Miss McCabe, our computer teacher, couldn't be with us tonight. She's with her twin grandbabies right now. So, in a better place, I guess. Um, wow. I don't know what else I can add to what was already said by Miss Richter and Miss Cod. These are the most flexible people you're going to meet on any campus for a campus to be successful. These are the people who are always going to step in at any time and most of the time with a smile on their face. I brought these folks up here, however, for a different reason. We talk about words like grit and perseverance a

116lot in education. What these four and five folks represent is the word resilience. I could sit here and list an just a laundry list of items that have occurred in their lives in the last two years and you would think it was hyperbole, but it absolutely isn't. They have gone through a lot as a team and they have come through the other side shining just like I would have expected them to. They are incredible people, not just incredible educators. And they are the heart of any campus, but for sure they are the heart of Rock Prairie. And so I thank each and every one of [Applause] you. Yeah. [Applause] I got your certificate. Miss Debbie, would you come up here? Good evening, everybody. My name is Chuck Longwell. I'm the driver supervisor with transportation. And

117with me tonight is Miss Debbie Morris. She's one of our bus [Applause] aids. And Miss Debbie has been with us for the majority of the semester. She came on early early this year. Um, and I'm not going to say words that I have prepared. We actually got a wonderful email from your driver and I'm going to read it tonight. Debbie Morris has consistently demonstrated exceptional dedication, compassion, and professionalism in her role as a bus aid supporting special needs students. Her ability to create a calm, safe, and nurturing environment on the bus has made a significant positive impact on both the students and their families. She goes above and beyond her daily responsibilities, showing patience and empathy in every interaction. Whether it's helping a child with mobility challenges boarding a bus, calmly managing behavioral issues, or

118communic communicating effectively with parents and staff, Debbie approaches every task with a sense of purpose and care. She often sits in the same seat with students to directly communicate one-on-one. The students respond to her kindness and love her. Her strong attention to safety combined with her warm and reassuring presence has helped foster trust with the students and ensured a smooth, secure transport experience every day. Debbie is a vital part of the transportation team. CSISTD Transportation benefits greatly from her employment. Her contributions as a bus aid embody the values of excellence, kindness, and reliability that this recognition represents, and I could not agree more. So, as thanks and to show our appreciation, we have a certificate. And if I can find it somewhere in here, a gift card provided by E3 and the Education Foundation. As

119well as the very fancy parking spot up [Applause] front. Congratulations. Thank [Applause] you. Mr. Horak, members of the board, we will continue our recognition portion of the meeting um by recognizing some of our uh incredibly talented and dedicated students who have reached the state or national level in their respective activities or competitions starting with&m consolidated students who have competed in the business professionals of America uh state competition. So, we're proud to recognize the outstanding accomplishments of the&M Consolidated High School students who recently competed at the Business Professionals of America State Leadership Conference last month in Dallas. This year, 27 students from Console participated in a variety of business related events including accounting, economics, advanced office systems, business law and ethics, medical coding, and speech to name a few. It is our honor to recognize four

120of these students that have qualified for the BPA National Leadership Conference which will be held in May. And so students, as I call your name, if um you'll do your best to make your way down this side aisle and receive your certificate from Dr. Hark Rider and shake the board's hands and then we'll take a group photo after we call all of the names. So, placing third in extempiraneous speech at the state competition and qualifying for nationals, Khloe [Applause] Choy, also placing third in advanced office systems and procedures as well as receiving the Statesman Statesman Torch Award uh during a special recognition ceremony for her service to others and serving as a voting delegate uh is Mayu [Applause] Fujiwara. Placing first, winning a state championship in extemporaneous speech is Justin [Applause] Palazolo. And our last

121national qualifier, uh, who couldn't be here tonight, he placed first in, uh, business, law, and ethics, and it's Gian Carlo Valades. Please give him a hand. And I'm not sure if I can see her in the back, but their adviser is Miss Kathy Fischer. Please come up, Kathy, to be recognized. All right, congratulations, guys. Next, we had several student athletes uh participate in um the powerlifting competitions this spring. Um tonight we have student athletes from College Station High School's powerlifting team. The&M consolid consolidated powerlifting team couldn't make it tonight, but we'll honor them next month. So again, we're proud to recognize uh these student athletes from College Station High School who competed on the boys and girls powerlifting teams and had an impressive season that culminated at the state meet. The Lady Cougars dominated throughout

122the year, earning first place in two invitationals and were named the region 2 champions before finishing seventh overall at the state meet. The Cougar boys also had a strong showing this season, placing fourth and first at spring invitationals. At the state meet, Cougars Cougar lifters had impressive showing setting personal records, breaking school records, and representing the school and the district with determination, grit, and excellence. So students, as I call your name again, if you'll come and receive your certificate and shake the board's hands, we'll take a photo when all the names are called. So, starting off, our state champion in 5A division 1 in the 165 class, who was named top squatter of the meet after setting a state record of 500 pounds in squat, [Applause] Miss Jesse Kajisik [Applause] placing third in the 105

123class, Beth [Applause] Strener. Placing fourth in the 148 class, Giovana [Applause] Castellani. Placing fourth in the 181 class, Annayia [Applause] Taylor. Placing fifth in the 242 class, Emma Moore. All these ladies are very impressive, but Emma is a freshman and she made it to state this year. So, that's very that's amazing. Placing seventh in the 165 class, Ray Pac. And placing 13th in the 220 class, J. Miracle Sandal. [Applause] We had two Lady Cougars who could not make it tonight. Brianna Erig placed seventh in 242 and Colleen Gold plays 12th in 148. Please give them a [Applause] hand. All right. And for our boys, the Cougars placing 17th in the state in the 181 class, Briaden Smith. [Applause] Briaden broke his personal record in every single lift at the state meet and he set new

124school records in the 181 class for squat and [Applause] deadlift. All right. And then placing 20th in the 220 class, Liam Ponte. Liam also set personal records in every lift at the state meet and set a new school record for the 220 class with a bench of 405 pounds. [Applause] And of course their coach, Mr. Greg Frasier. Please come forward, Mr. [Applause] We got everybody. All right. Congratulations. [Applause] All right. And our last student group, um, we are proud again to recognize an outstanding group of students from&m Consolidated High School and College Station High School who recently competed at the Texas Public Safety Association State Conference. TPSA is a statewide organization that provides opportunities for high school students to develop knowledge and skills in law enforcement, forensic science, emergency services, and other public safety careers.

125students qualify for the state competition by placing at their regional contest and uh making it to the state level is a tremendous achievement. So again students as I call your name please come receive your certificate and um be congratulated by the school board. Um first we have a back-toback state champion in report writing from&m Consolidated High School, Miss Susan Kramer. [Applause] All right. And then we have a team here that placed fourth in blood stain pattern analysis. Team is made up of three&m consolidated students. First, Autumn Odor. [Applause] Also on the team, Isabella [Applause] Stumpf and Joanna Chua. Sorry if I butchered that name. All right. and from College Station High School earning a top 10 placement in anthropology, Lillian Matsik. [Applause] Also earning a top 10 placement in DWI traffic stop, Cheyana [Applause] Ringo.

126And we have another state champion in law enforcement agility, McKenzie [Applause] Theobald. And our other Cougar state qualifiers, Sophia [Applause] Whitaker, Zoe [Applause] Zelman, Josiah [Applause] White, Dylan Broad, [Applause] Holly [Applause] Price, Daniel [Applause] Kennedy and Eve [Applause] Oronda, TPSA advisors. from Console are Chris Dawson and Aaron Howell. Y'all here? Come on [Applause] up. And College Station High School Jay Summers who can't be here tonight. [Music] Donnie Welsh. Donnie Welsh. [Applause] All right, guys. Congratulations. Y'all can have a seat. All right. And that concludes our recognitions portion of the meeting. Yeah. Just give a sec. Good evening everyone. If we can, if you have empty seats between you, if y'all can scoot from the outside to the inside to let some folks in so that we can hopefully find everybody a seat so we're not

127blocking any aisles. All right, we want to make sure we recognize our artwork at the back of our boardroom from our Forest Ridge, Rock Prairie, and South Null kiddos. So, make sure y'all check those out before. Obviously, we heard a bunch of them are going to be artists later on, so I'm sure their works are back there as well. So, appreciate them bringing those over. Uh, brings us to item D, board reports. Who'd like to go first? I can. Um, DEIC met and we got a science update, a social studies update, um, and then the, uh, district improvement plan, which we'll hear about later on in the meeting. We got an update on that. Mine's actually I just want to do a quick thank you at for the schools that helped uh welcome the leadership

128TASBY group on Friday. Um some of you know it's a it's a program that I've been a part of for this last year and we've uh there's 34 of us from schoolboard members from all over the state and we've been visiting different uh districts. We've just seven different districts. this was the final one and it was a great it was a great to be able to show off some of the wonderful things happening in in our school. So, particularly thank you to all the admin team that helped put it on, but really the two campuses that opened up for us and let us, you know, come in there and and the students that talked to us and and let us see what's going on because that's what it's about. And so, it was it was

129really a good experience and thanks also to the rest of the board who was able to participate that day as well. So, It's a busy time for education foundation and I have a few things I want to share with you guys. First of all, senior hall of fame is coming up um next week. I believe we have 64 students and their educators that are going to be honored at that. Um also, the education foundation just went through its process of picking 130 students that are going to receive um $175,000 worth of scholarships. Um that's awesome. Um, and something that's new this year, we just had our first ever CSISD freezer sale. That was at the Brazes County Youth Livestock Show. Um, I heard it was amazing. And, um, that freezer sale was supported by the

130foundation as well. Um, and then Miss Bennon would like for you guys to check out the updated donor wall that's just out there in the foyer that has this year's donors on it. Um, and it's because of those donors and and the work of lots of people um, in that foundation that we can do all of these great things for our kids. the um intergovernmental committee uh meeting met intergovernmental intergovernmental uh committee met and um got a couple of development updates um around town. Most of it was centered in Brian, but then Dr. Harker Ryder actually also gave a uh presentation on uh CSISD and um a bunch of the things that we have going on. And so it was a a very good uh good meeting and um the intergovernmental committee meeting is u

131it's really it's kind of taken off this year with some changes and so I think it's going to be it's going to be good. Anything else? Superintendent update. Yes sir. We are now home to the uh 5A division one girls soccer team state championship. So, uh, big congratulations to Coach Blakeley and our ladies and I thank them for making it not close at all. They won four to nothing and in a football game that would be like winning 60 to nothing. So, they did a wonderful job. Uh, we will recognize them next month uh at the board meeting. Uh, the city of College Station is going to recognize them next Thursday at their city council meeting. And then I got a text uh Saturday morning from our House Republican, our House Representative Paul Dyson. He

132is going to do a resolution uh that will be presented on the House floor uh during one of the session days here coming up pretty soon. And we're hoping to be able to choreograph getting them there in person. It'll be a short quick visit, but it'll be a time that they'll remember for the rest of their life. So, we're very proud of those ladies. And also, not only is it difficult to win a state championship, but they were 270 and one. They did not lose a game all year long, so they can truly say nobody beat them, which is incredible. Just a calendar update real quick. Friday is Good Friday, so it's a holiday for everyone and then coming back. So, we've got an extra long weekend because Monday is also a student holiday and

133it's a staff comp day. So, uh I know we've got a lot of folks that are looking forward to having a long weekend off and get back for the final stretch run of the year. And the last excited about May the 1st, we're going to host our first district volunteer appreciation lunchon. And we have Austin, how many total volunteers we have in the district? So, we have over 3,000 volunteers. Are we feeding 3,000 people? Okay, just double checking. We uh we have a wonderful support group of of people in our community, not just parents, that want to be a part of of what we do each and every day. So, it's just a small token of appreciation uh to thank them for what they do and helping us out. It takes a village uh to

134have a great school district and raise uh raise our kids and we appreciate them and going to show that on May the 1st to those folks. So uh looking forward to that time uh together with them. That's it. All right, that brings us to item E, hearing of citizens. During this time, we will hear from citizens who registered to speak prior to the meeting in accordance with board operating procedures. The open meetings act prevents us from responding to speakers regarding items not on the agenda. Comments related to items on the agenda may be discussed during deliberations on that specific agenda item. Public comments are limited to three minutes per person. Those needing an interpreter may have up to six minutes. Each person has one opportunity at the microphone regardless of minutes used. Unused minutes may

135not be acred by another speaker. The executive assistant will time the comments and alert the president when time has expired. The board asks that those addressing the board refrain from derogatory comments. Our first speaker is, and I apologize if I mess up your names. I I truly am going to try this. Uh, Yichen Quan, and I think we're going to use this microphone right here. Good evening. My name is Ichin Kwan and my kids are zoned for CSISD schools. I'm here to read the statement from the teacher Lorax. Texas law states each classroom teacher is entitled to at least 450 minutes within each twoe period for instructional preparation. A planning and preparation period may not be less than 45 minutes within the instructional day. During a planning and preparation period, a classroom teacher may not

136be required to participate in any other activity. Our status as a district of innovation has allowed the district to take away our uninterrupted planning time. Today, the district would like the elementary campuses to have two dedicated planning periods per week for the solution tree professional learnings committees or PLC's. Teachers are told to be grateful that we finally have been given time to work and plan together. In truth, teachers were already doing that, but now cannot do the basic planning that is necessary to run a class because our time has been taken away. Even with just one PLC per week, it is still too much when you factor in ARS, 504s, parent meetings, and other required meetings, and teachers take even more work home. Teachers are only paid for 10 months of the year, and training

137in the summer earns only a day or two of comp time during the school year. This makes for more work without pay. The solution tree training that we do in PLC would be infinitely more beneficial if it were completed in the summer with teachers being fairly compensated for their time. That way they could analyze their own data in the year, utilizing the coaches as much as needed and getting assistance with interventions and classroom support that is so desperately needed. We're advocating for a culture where open dialogue is welcomed, where respect is mutual, and where both educators and parents can ask questions without fear of being labeled difficult or facing retaliation. We understand that no one can make everyone happy and that leaders often have to make difficult choices. However, this administration seems intent upon silencing

138opposition. Rather than listening empathetically, they downplay our concerns, listening in order to refute and silence objections. There is a rudeness and incivility to interactions that is absolutely contrary to what CSISD has stood for in the past. No one is safe. We have lost many loyal long-term employees who could not remain in what they deemed a departure from our traditional values, an over reliance on test scores and a weaponization of data. And we lost even more who felt crushed by the burden of simply too many expectations. I've heard many teachers say that Jeff Dond helped heal their teacher rooms from other places where they were not respected and valued. Unfortunately, some of those schools are in our own district. Grievances are filed and nothing changes. Yet, the principal who uses his position to lift up his

139teachers rather than tear them down is the one who gets demoted. This is not who we are. Let's return to our values. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not. Thank you. Thank you, [Applause] Amy Shellac. I can see. Thank you. Good evening, members of the board. My name is Amy Sheilac. I'm a proud product of College Station ISD, a mom of two current CSISD students and someone deeply invested in this district. I served on the committee that helped craft our current strategic plan and core beliefs. I volunteered regularly at my children's school since 2020 and developed relationships with staff administrators and teachers across the district. I hold a degree in English from Texas A&M and once planned to become a teacher myself. After seeing the

140direction of this profession is heading under current leadership, I'm now grateful that wasn't the path I took. But I still feel called to support those who haven't given up hope for their chosen calling. In November, I sent a detailed email to district administration expressing concern about declining teacher morale and the crushing workload brought on by the implementation of PLC's and more. I relayed the message that teachers felt unsupported and overwhelmed. I asked for two things, a meeting, and that our communication remained confidential. The response I received was generic, evasive, and completely sidestepped both of my asks. When I followed up, I was met with silence. That silence speaks volumes. I've since learned that my request for confidentiality was also ignored. Undeterred, I pursu pursued a meeting and was eventually granted one with two additional district

141representatives who had read my email. I used that meeting to advocate for the teachers who had confided in me and suggested the district conduct an anonymous survey so staff could speak freely without fear of retaliation. I was flatly told no. They would not survey the teachers. They explained that unless teachers were willing to come forward by name, the district could not effectively address the concerns. They implied that the real issue was a lack of understanding on the teachers part and said identifying who was struggling was necessary to offer more training. In other words, no anonymity, no action. I'm here tonight not just as a parent, but as a voice for the teachers who are too afraid to speak up. They're afraid of retaliation, not only against themselves, but even against their children who attend this

142district. What kind of culture are we fostering where educators who should be our partners are scared into silence? Let's talk about retaliation. We demoted a respected elementary principal. By all accounts, a beloved leader, potentially because he didn't enforce the PLC model aggressively enough. In reality, he was protecting his staff from a rigid and ineffective system. He let them teach. Imagine that. His demotion sends a chilling message. We're also seeing teachers resign mid year in record numbers, not because they don't love their students, but because they're being crushed by the demands of a failing model. and in return, we're reporting them to the TEA, even when replacements are secured, potentially ending their careers. I urge you to investigate the growing concern that our superintendent may have financial ties to solutions tree, a potential conflict of interest

143that would explain the relentless pressure to implement a model that is clearly breaking our teachers. We say we value transparency, collaboration, and feedback in this district. Then prove it. Listen to your teachers. Listen to your parents. stop perpetuating a culture of fear and start fostering a culture of trust in an environment where people feel safe enough to speak. Thank you, [Applause] Neo Jen. Excuse me. Dear elected members of the school district board and superintendent Hark Rider, my name is Neil Jang, a proud parent of two Rock Prairie Wranglers, Aliyia and Samir. I am here today to celebrate a righteous action taken to save our children from an unsavory character found hiding amongst on our mist surreptitiously sent to us by the other Texas University. Identifying this agent was made possible by his being clad not

144in a proud maroon but in a yet unapologetic burnt orange. A As a Asian, sorry, a parent only shudders at the prospect of what disagreeable propaganda and inappropriate influence our beloved children were exposed to by these longhorns. Good riddance. All silly jokes aside, we together are better than this. We look straight into the eyes of those who disagree with us and oppose us and see in the heart of their heart that we are all driven for and driven by love. In this room, in our hometown, and in our children's classrooms, it is the love for our children. Teachers and staff who surely spend even more time every day with our children than we do, we are ever grateful that they love and care for the well-being and healthy growth of our children. Principal Durand loves

145what he does and I am thankful that he does. When he says, "I love what I do," he is simply putting into words what his actions have continued to show us day after day, week after week, year after year. We've all benefited immeasurably from having him with us as a beneficiary of his love and dedication. And I stand here to simply ask you to open your ears, your minds, and your hearts when we say, "Please don't take Jeff away from us. Please don't take principal dr away from us because we will be envious and covetous of the families who will receive him. Don't take him from us because we will have to struggle to be fair to whoever will have to step into his Wrangler boots. Here's a recitation of Wrangler pledge modified and adapted.

146We are somebody. We are learning to be best versions of us. We promise to be respectful, responsible, and reach for success. We are Rock Prairie Wranglers. I am a proud parent of Rock Prairie Wranglers. Thank you for your time, your open ears, open minds, and open hearts when we say we love Principal Durand. Thank you very much. Thank you, Heather Nickel. Good evening, Dr. Harker and members of the board. My name is Heather Nickel, and I'm here today not to only speak for my kids, but to only speak for the amazing teachers and staff we have in this district. Nearly a year ago, I first raised my deep concerns about our outstanding school district. initially as a parent advocating for services for my daughter, then in a letter from a teacher, and most recently through

147a survey that felt completely disregarded. Today, I'm seeing those same concerns play out at Rock Prairie. And unfortunately, this is only the beginning. If the board continues to ignore what's happening, the situation will only deteriorate further. I want to remind all of you, the board's role is to serve and represent the community, not to function as an arm of the executive team at central office. In my meetings with with central office, I was repeatedly told, "We're not hearing it." One teacher said after the news about Rock Prairie broke, "What happened at Rock Prairie is exactly why we can't speak up. Retaliation is real and it does happen." The unspoken policy coming from central office feels like stay quiet and follow the orders. A few years ago, the board's vision was to bring leadership that would

148offer stability to our district, its teachers, and its staff. Instead, what we've gotten to feel is disturbingly similar to what happened in Brian ISD between 2011 and 2016. We are not willing to have that happen here. Teachers are tired of hearing it's a privilege to work for College Station ISD. Right now, it's not a privilege. It feels like a dictatorship. As we approach the end of the school year, I fear the mass exodus I warned about a year ago is going to come true. And from what we can see so far from central office, we continue to deny the true reasons why staff are leaving. My daughter is losing one of the best specialists she she's had for two years. Yet another casualty of these ongoing changes. I already know I'll be bringing a box

149of tissues that day when she finds out. And while one of you on the board may relate to the situation or the heartbreak of losing this amazing specialist, I'm left wondering what hasn't shifted your perspective. You're losing great teachers, administrators, and staff and families, too. More and more kids are being pulled out to homeschool. So I ask you, what will it take for you to truly listen to your community and work with us instead of simply taking direction from central office? Thank you. Thank you, Ashley Baros. Hi, I'm Ashley Baros. Uh, my kids are zoned at S CSISD schools and I'm here to continue the to read the statement um from the teacher Lorax. Miss Pdola taught one of my three kids and I'm happy to help her advocate for herself and for the rest

150of our teachers. So, these are these are her statements. Student behavior has become increasingly problematic in recent years. Teachers are being assaulted by students even at the elementary level. We need more behavioral support. There needs to be real accountability when students are violent against teachers and other students. Even when the perpetrator has a diagnosis, safety must come first. Our teachers and students should feel safe when they come to school. Teachers already wear wear too many hats. In addition to their teaching duties, we are not only behavior specialists who fill out forms for doctors and psychologists. We are ESL teachers, gifted and talented teachers, enrichment specialists and interventionists for the lowest of the low. We have to document every accommodation and modification which can take hours. In addition to our arts and 504 meetings, we have

151to prepare for and attend at least twice per year per child. When we refer a child to speech services with our for articulation difficulties, we are required to work with them in class on their speech skills for several weeks before we can even begin with speech services. We fill out our behavior charts and are responsible for their social, emotional health. And we work with parents to get to the root of academic, social, and behavioral issues. We monitor lunches and keep allergic children from their allergens while carefully observing the epileptic children for signs of impending seizures. We help children reserve resolve conflicts and learn to persevere. Today, kids attention span is shortened by their access to devices. So, we have to be extra creative. and knowing what it's doing to their brains. We are still required

152to provide a certain number of minutes per week of computer assisted inter interventions. We hunt down kids who are chronically absent and try to find ways to get them to school reliably. We deal with students whose IQs are deemed too low for special education services trying to grapple with how to teach a child with no help who is destined to fail his or her way through school. We deal with helicopter parents and angry parents and wonderful parents. We contact protective services when we note signs of abuse. Teachers are doing a lot more than teaching. Adding more work to our plates when we are already struggling is unconscionable. A more compassionate approach would be to introduce new responsibilities in a way that decreases others whenever possible. There must be a decrease in the burden before we

153break our teachers. And stating that the best way to introduce sweeping change is to just rip off the band-aid is simply out of touch with reality. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not. Thank you. Thank you. Brad Brimley. My name is Brad Brimley and I have four children who have attended or currently attend Rock Prairie Elementary. Mr. Durand has been the principal for every one of them and he has been exceptional. My kids are excited to go to school because their teachers are passionate. They're sensitive and they're committed to them. Following the announcement regarding Mr. Durand, I visited with multiple teachers and I can tell that that passion is being stifled by a culture of fear and micromanagement created by the district administration. More and

154more teachers are seeing the district interfere directly in the classrooms which affects the teachers ability to meet the students unique needs. Teachers feel like their professional judgment is no longer respected. They tell me they are being they're getting burned out because they have heavier administrative duties. There are fewer or no specialists. and they receive less support from principles and assistant principles because those who are in campus administration are bogged down with meetings. What's more concerning to me is that teachers are afraid to speak up about the toxic environment created by our current district administration. They are afraid to speak up for fear of retaliation. They are scared and Mr. Duron's recent reassignment deepens their fear and anxiety. I'd like to draw attention to our district budget. Compared to five years ago, the funds allocated to

155the district's general administration this year have increased by 51%. Funds allocated to instruction have increased by only 22%. Campus administration funds, what goes to support principles and assistant principles, have increased by a pitiful 6% compared to five years ago. What is the district administration doing that is so important compared to teachers and campus staff? We understand that finances are limited. Teachers say that the new district administrative positions have not helped us do more with less. It's not working. It's not something where we'll just figure it out in a couple of years and iron out the wrinkles because talented staff and teachers are quitting or retiring. Their jobs have become unsustainable. When a beloved principal is removed, what message are you sending to teachers and parents? For the teachers that remain at Rock Prairie, what kind

156of relationship do you expect them to have with a new principal that's handpicked by this administration under these circumstances? This situation sets up that principal for failure and the teachers for failure. And who suffers? Of course, it's the students. I feel sorry for the remaining principles at Rock Prairie or other campuses who have other positions to fill. They're going to need to convince prospective teachers that the workplace actually isn't toxic. that Jeff Don was an exception and that teachers Thank you. Appreciate [Applause] Kira Rodriguez. Good evening, Dr. Hark Rider, members of the board, community members. My name is Kira Rodriguez. I am the proud parent of two Greens Prairie Mustangs. Um, over the last several months, concerns across CSISD have been growing and they're no longer whispers. What started as quiet conversations among educators has

157become a collective voice from teachers, parents, and community members who care deeply about what's happening in our schools. We are advocating for five things. First, teacher retention and support. Teachers are telling us they feel undervalued, micromanaged, and unsupported, especially under current central office leadership. Many are considering leaving the profession, not because they've lost the passion to teach, but because the conditions they are being asked to work under are simply unsustainable. They're navigating costly trainings like solution tree that fill one-sizefits-all and disconnected from classroom needs. Unreasonable expectations for data tracking and documentation. Decreased autonomy and a growing fear that pushing back, even respectfully, could cost them their jobs. Second, transparency and communication. Families and staff deserve honest communication from central office, especially when it comes to leadership decisions and major shifts in direction. Third, student centered

158solutions. Programs like Adminum have been implemented with limited teacher input and top-down pressure. Educators are asking, "Are these programs truly helping our students learn or are we just checking boxes?" Fourth, restoring campus autonomy. Principles and campus leaders, those who know their communities best, are being overridden or silenced. We're advocating for them to have the trust and space to lead effectively. And finally, protecting the culture of public education. We believe in collaboration, not compliance, and open dialogue, not silence, and in building a district where educators, families, and leadership work together with mutual respect to do what's best for kids. This is not about tearing down. It's about holding up the voices of those who are too often left out of the conversation. Thank you for your time and for listening. Thank you. Andrea Buck. Good evening

159board members. My name is Andrea Buck and I've been a Rock Prairie parent for the last seven years. I want to thank you for the work you do. I know it's not easy to make decisions that affect so many families and I'm genuinely grateful that we have a governing body committed to holding leaders accountable and ensuring our schools are led with excellence. We all want the same thing, strong, effective leadership for our kids. But that's exactly why we're here tonight. The decision to remove Principal Don from his role feels out of step with that mission because there's been no clear evidence to support it. For context, Rock Prairie has been above the title one elementary average on the STAR test since the 2020 2021 school year. When a leader is dismissed without clarity, it creates

160a ripple effect, one that hurts more than just one individual. For our school, this moves a blow to momentum and morale. Students lose a trusted presence in the halls. Teachers lose a supportive advocate. Families lose a principal who knows their children by name and invests in them beyond the classroom. The progress we've seen academically and relationally now feels uncertain. Recently, a teacher shared something with me that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. She said they cannot learn until they feel loved. But there's another consequence, too. The loss of trust in this board's leadership. When decisions are made behind closed doors without transparency or stated cause, the community begins to question the credibility and integrity of the process. And that's damaging for everyone. There is a better way forward. Last Thursday, my first grader

161came home talking about the Character Strong program that our district has implemented. And she was telling me how they were learning about courage. And she said, "Mom, courage is choosing what is helpful and kind even when it's hard and scary. You've got to speak your mind." And I said, "Can you please write that down for me?" Because her question to me was, "Why is he leaving us?" So I said, "I want you to write that down on my card." And I'm going to tell all these people tonight what courage actually is. listen to those who work with principal drawn every day. The teachers, the parents, the students. We've seen him raise academic standards and support struggling learners. We watched him celebrate student growth and champion teachers development. He walks the halls. He shows up. He

162leads with excellence and heart. That's not just my experience. It's the overwhelming experience of this community. So tonight, I'm asking you, please reconsider your decision. Reinstating Principal Dr might feel like a hard U-turn, but I believe it would be a courageous one. Take it from my first grader Kate. Courage is choosing what is helpful and kind, even when it's hard or scary. I There is honor in leadership that is willing to pause, listen, and course correct when needed. Do what is right, not just what is easy. We and our kids are counting on it. Thank you. Thank you. [Music] [Applause] Samantha Kimbell you here? Okay. Meg Anderson. Good evening. My name is Meg Anderson. Many years ago, I graduated from&M Consolidated High School right across the street. And I mean many. I'm a former substitute

163teacher at CSISD. I have three children. One a recent graduate of College Station High School and the other two are currently attending there. 100% of my kids student education has been in College Station ISD schools. I am not a teacher who is currently being intimidated into staying quiet about their suffering. I am not a teacher who has been threatened into silence. I am not a teacher who is worried about having a target on my back while they strangle on the injustices of losing their weekends and evenings and time with their family to meet the new expectations of this current administration. I am however a friend to many who are. There's been a mass exodus of many excellent teachers from CSISD. I suspect there will be many more leaving when it's time to renew contracts. These

164people are excellent teachers who have dedicated many years of their life to be trained to educate our children. Instead of being allowed to do this, they have recently been forced to jump through hoops for programs that have not been proven to work. They have lost more than half their planning time under the guise of being known as a district of innovation. These teachers have had to sacrifice their own time to spend planning lessons and grading papers and projects. Instead of being trusted, they have been micromanaged. In order to replace these compassionate, professional teachers, we will likely have to substitute them with emergency certified people who have not had the same rigorous education about how to teach children to learn. This means we will have weaker teachers to replace our outgoing ones. I don't think this

165is what we want for our children in College Station. We are at a tipping point in our school district. The role of superintendent is to lead with vision, yes, but also with wisdom, collaboration, and respect for those who are actually in the classrooms every day, our teachers. Unfortunately, we are witnessing a growing disconnect between our administration's decisions and the reality on the ground. The teachers, our frontline experts, are overwhelmed, undervalued, and most of all, afraid to speak up for fear of retaliation. We are not a district of innovation. Currently, we are a district of dysfunction. We must ask, are we best serving our students, our own children, when teachers are burning out under the weight of unrealistic expectations? Are we being responsible stewards of public funds when we invest in programs that have no proven

166track record while cutting back on essential resources? Everyone loves to say College Station has better education compared to nearby schools. What happened to our GT program? Where did our intervention programs go? We need leadership that builds trust instead of fear. Our current administration's vision has become increasingly out of step with the needs of this district. For the sake of our students, our teachers, the future of this community, I urge this board to seriously consider a change in leadership. We want an administration who inspires, not intimidates. [Applause] Sylvia Piridola. Hello, my name is Sylvia Perdola and I'm a former teacher at CSISD. I love this district and have experienced it both as a teacher and as a parent. The education my children received was excellent. I'm a big fan of CSISD. Due to the changes in

167the general atmosphere in the district in the last couple of years, I ended up quitting my job, citing personal reasons on the advice of my lawyer after the first quarter last semester as I was having health problems related to the stress I was experiencing. My hours of work with students and even parents was my job and my joy. And that's not what drove me away. It was the unrelenting expectations from on high that didn't take into consideration the things that were happening at our schools. When I left, I told my colleagues I wanted to be the teacher Lorax so I could speak for the trees. I found an empathetic ear from my meeting with HR, but I felt attacked and belittled in my meeting with upper level personnel. I felt that my words were going

168to be used against my colleagues rather than listened to and considered as a way to improve relations. And so, I stopped speaking out. Tonight, I came to voice the five most common concerns of the teachers since anonymous feedback is not allowed and they're afraid to speak honestly for fear of repercussions. I've spoken to a lot of people who have trusted me with their pain and concerns from all levels of our district, past and present. The words not only reflect my own experience, but the experience of nearly all the others I've spoken to. I'm speaking to the board publicly because when I emailed, only one board member responded and met with me. These board meetings often feel like PR generated spin machines to me. But my hope is today that board members are going to begin

169to see beyond the curtain and start to dig deeper to gain a fuller understanding of the dire situation our district is in. The cost cutting measures implemented last year were touted as being best for the students and best for the teachers. Our interventionists were removed and our enrichment GT specialists stretched so thin that they were unable to keep our programs as they had been. Now, students who, for instance, did not qualify for GT because they're on level in math, but several grade levels ahead in reading are at risk for disengagement and are left without the joy of a guided challenge in enrichment that makes school worth waking up for. Teachers must now plan for in-class enrichment while also trying to catch up the lowest students and challenge the onle students all in the same room

170at the same time. Our students and teachers need these resources back. My thanks to the two women who read the rest of my statement for me during their time. But for the board, unless someone like you cares an whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not. Thank you. Thank you, [Applause] Jamie Sauier. Um, it's my first time doing something like this. Uh, I don't like crowds and you can ask my kids. I don't like addressing people who've already made it clear they're not going to listen. In first grade, our youngest was diagnosed with a condition that qualified them for classroom accommodations and individual counseling. This is back when there was a department of education. Thank goodness Jeff Duron was at Rock Prairie to steward us through this process. Honestly, the entire staff,

171all the faculty were and continue to be great. But um his professionalism and guidance and leadership were essential in the subsequent development of our child into the stellar student and person they are today. Deron's approach in that situation with our child was indicative of the type of educator and person he is. U reflective rather than reactionary, positive and upbeat regardless of the challenge. He's kind and caring and empathetic. He's never angry or frustrated in the face of adverse conditions. When a parent or guardian or a student needs him, Mr. Don makes them feel like the only person in the world. As if their issue is his only job in that moment. If the intermediate, middle, and high school principles in our family's future demonstrate half the competence and compassion of Jeff Duron, our children will

172be in good hands indeed. Thanks. Thank you, Stephanie Leatherwood, Allison Moulder. Hello and thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts. My name is Allison Moulder and I'm the proud parent of a child at Forest Ridge Elementary. Over the past few years, I've had the opportunity to witness the incredible dedication of our teachers and staff across CSISD. They greet my son by name, make him feel valued, and within administrative limitations, tailored their teaching methods to his individual needs. I am eternally grateful to these teachers for supporting my son and I owe them a debt that I will attempt to partially repay by speaking up here. Unfortunately, I am concerned. We have already lost some of these incredible educators and we are at risk of losing even more. Instead of meaningful face-to-face interactions with students,

173teachers are being asked to rely upon ineffective programs. Lesson planning time has been lost due to excessive meetings. They face dwindling numbers of support staff. Of note, our teachers are paid significantly less than the state average, while central administration salaries are above average. This district's amazing, caring, and dedicated teachers deserve better. They deserve to be trusted. They deserve fair compensation. They deserve time during the workday to plan thoughtful, engaging lessons. They deserve to go home in the afternoon to relax and spend time with their families. They deserve to feel physically safe at work. They deserve to freely voice concerns about the district without fear of retaliation and have their concerns addressed by the central office. One of my personal mottos is to assume good intentions. And I speak tonight under the assumption that everyone in

174this room is united in the goal to create a healthy, positive environment in our district so that students can grow into capable, compassionate citizens. We simply cannot reach that goal without prioritizing the safety, well-being, and professional growth of our teachers. Since we are currently failing our teachers, we are failing our students, too. I don't want to leave tonight without expressing my gratitude to the members of the board. I appreciate the time and dedication that you volunteer. You wouldn't be here if you didn't care for our teachers, students, and community. So, tonight, I ask you to reflect on why you chose to serve. Listen to the voices of our teachers and community. question whether it is really beneficial to spend district money on expensive burdens burdensome programs and inflated central office salaries while cutting important child-f

175facing staff. Examine why so many valuable teaching professionals are choosing to leave this district. With your leadership and a renewed commitment to transparency and trust, we can shift the energy in this district and create positive change. Our teachers and our students deserve it. Thank you. Thank you. Bethany Duran Gans. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight. My name is Veran Gans and I'm the daughter of principal Derand. I grew up in this district from kindergarten all the way to graduation and I'm proud to say that I worked within the district as a year as an instructional assistant at Forest Ridge. Right now I'm working towards my t-shirt at Texas State University where I actually drove two and a half hours to get here today. I can confidently say I would not be

176here or where I am without my father. Whenever I would get overwhelmed with work, he would remind me it was all worth it in the end because I was doing the best for my students. My dad has always put the students first because that is the type of person he is. I still remember the joy on my prek students faces when the conductor of the Polar Express himself came into the room and stamped their train tickets. He brought the train conductors to his school every year around the holiday season just to give his youngest students a special holiday memory. I remember walking the halls of Creek View Elementary at senior walk with my dad right before I graduated and having fellow graduates coming up and saying hi and gushing about their favorite memories of my

177dad. They still remembered the train conductor all those years later. My dad, like a student, has also learned and grown throughout his years working at CSISD. From an enrichment specialist at Forest Bridge to an assistant principal at Creek View and finally a principal at Creek View in Rock Prairie. Every year my dad has worked in the district. He's improved as an educator, leader, and human being. He hasn't forgotten the people who have helped him grow, and they certainly didn't forget him based off of the amount of staff we've run into all across town that he knows. He always makes sure to stop and say hello to everyone, greet them by name, and catch up with them. He seems to remember everyone who's ever been inside his schools, even if he's only met them for a

178brief moment. Not to mention the fact that he somehow memorizes the names of every new parent that comes through the car line by the end of the fall semester and finds time to check in with them while simultaneously keeping the line moving. I could never. I even remember running into a parent in Alaska of all places while we were on a cruise trip. At the time, I found it so embarrassing that he always seemed to run into people, even at the edges of the country. But now, I find that moment and moments like it so special. These might seem like little things to you, but all of these moments have had a big impact on the people of these district of this district. I am so proud of my father for the 17 years of

179hard work, dedication, and care he's given to this district, and I know his impact will go far. Thank you. Thank you, [Music] Beth Neetherland. Good evening, members of the school board and Dr. Hark Rider. My name is Beth Netherland. I'm a proud parent of two wonderful sons. Um my oldest is currently at College Station High School and my younger son attends St. Joseph Catholic School in Brian. um both attended Creek View Elementary under Principal Duron's leadership. I'm here today to support Principal Don and the teachers that are suffering burnout from the new professional learning community model. Um thank you for taking time to listen to my concerns. It appears that the solutions tree contract was approved in July of 2023. Thank you Dr. Hark Ryder for responding to my email. Um, since the approval of

180that contract, the University of Arkansas, um, they did release a research report and a policy brief about the PLC work model in Arkansas schools. And, um, the University of Arkansas report and brief were released in the summer of 2024. Um, after reviewing this report, I did reach out and ask um, some education professors at Texas A&M University to weigh in. Um, their insights have raised several important considerations that I believe should be addressed. Um, one professor highlighted that we do need to compare our student population with those in the Arkansas study. Um, she mentioned that the report indicated a dip in performance at year four across the board and warrants further investigation. She questioned if the dip was due to new leadership, initiative fatigue, or other factors. Um, she said that understanding the cause of

181this dip is essential for ensuring long-term success of professional learning communities in our schools. Another professor remarked that she was worried about the potential of PLC's to add even more to a teacher's already overflowing plate and contribute to teacher burnout. She said PLC's do not have to be a burden on teachers, but they have the potential to be depending on how they are implemented. Her feedback was that it's really important to listen to teachers voices. Finally, that professor expressed a desire for our local schools to have more autonomy in deciding what works best for them. Whether it be solution tree, admin, or other professional diff development programs, schools should have that flexibility to choose the methods that best support their students growth. Districtwide mandates may not be equally effective for all schools and allowing for

182tailored approaches could lead to better outcomes. Those were her words. In conclusion, I urge the board to consider these points and engage in a thoughtful dialogue about the implement implementation of professional learning communities. By doing so, we can ensure that schools are equipped to provide the best possible education for all students. Thank you for your time and consideration. [Applause] Jeff Don, Jeff, do you mind? We had someone that we missed on the sheet. We were going to bring her cuz I think you wanted to go last or signed up last. Believe Heather Drake. My apologies. Hi, good evening. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. It's encouraging to see the amount of parents and community members here because I know and my hope is that we care so much about our

183schools, but especially about our students, our teachers, and our staff. My name is Heather Drake. I'm a Christian, a wife, and a mother to four beautiful children. Our our oldest, Heidi Lou, represented Rock Prairie Elementary here tonight by leading our moment of silence. This felt particularly timely and we were honored to have her here with us with our wonderful principal, Mr. Dond. We have three boys younger, two of whom are also happily enrolled at Rock Prairie. I taught public school until 2015 and have been blessed to stay home with our children since then. Also worth noting, my district then adopted the PLC model with Solution Tree during my time teaching, so I'm all too well aware of what that entails. Since then, I've continued to be an advocate for public school education, and I spend

184a good bit of my time supporting and volunteering on our campus. Our oldest started kindergarten at Rock Prairie in the fall of 2020, which was quite an interesting time to start. During those early days, Mr. Dond went out of his way to ease our fears, get to know us, and he truly made us a part of the family culture that is Rock Prairie. I could never condense into three minutes what the past five years under his leadership have meant to our family. There have been tears, celebrations, grief, and teamwork. I'm not shy about advocating for all kids, and he has always been by my side. I would be remiss if I did not implore the board to humbly reconsider what has been done. I am saddened to see the veteran principal in our district, who

185is beloved and appreciated by countless families, has been treated like he is expendable without so much as an explanation to families until pressed. That is shameful. Unfortunately, this is not the first situation that has broken our trust in the board with this community. Though I do think this can shed light on current happenings with more families. There's a growing lack of trust and transparency has waned. As an example, we have multiple children in GT and have been deeply discouraged by the recent changes, including not filling the open GT specialist positions last year. It's incomprehensible to continue to overload teachers in all positions and expect data to trend positively. Yet, when I kindly voiced my concerns with many of you in this room, I was dismissed and patronized. Your solutions since then have been to put

186an inordinate amount of weight behind expensive programs such as Adminum and expect a standardized, costly contract with solution tree to solve problems at campuses of all types. In fact, I should go off my notes here and say that the woman in this room who was in charge of cutting the enrichment programs did not even know what the enrichment program at our school was and asked me what I meant by enrichment at our elementary schools. I have never been more certain that and using your words pushing in more responsibilities on our teachers pushing in is absolutely detrimental to our school district, our teachers and our kids. involved parents asking questions and looking for answers is not the problem. I feel like I speak for many people here by saying we we'd appreciate mutual respect. Thank you.

187Thank you. Mr. Horac, members of the board, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak a bit this evening. I'd like to start by letting folks know how incredibly grateful for the amount of love and support showed over the past week from seemingly all corners that I am. I keep using the word humbling because it's exactly what it is. Friend of mine wrote me the other day saying, "We should all be so lucky to witness firsthand the impact we've made on others." That's true, and I am an extraordinarily fortunate man to have been given that opportunity. With that sentiment in mind, I'd like to address the 18 other principles in this district. To Chris, Justin, Gwen, Jeremy, Rhino, Omar, Piper, Britney, Roco, Laura, Teresa, Donna, Ally, Kate, Mike, Amanda, Heather, and Mindy. I want

188you all to know how much I respect each of you. I'd like to hope that a small outcome of all of this is that everyone begins to understand just how difficult the role of a campus administrator is. Thank you all for what you do on an hourly basis, working for the kids, their staff, and the community. You all deserve just as much praise and thanks as I've received. Next, I'd like to speak to the students and families of CSISD. I don't know if you know this or not, but I'm a Longhorn. And so, saying nice things about anything so close to Texas A&M doesn't come easily, but please hear me when I say this is a great place to have a family. Student success is indeed what is at the forefront of everyone's minds. Success

189has always been defined in many ways in this district. A student learning to brush their teeth independently, a student reading their first book, a student taking a chance on performing in the arts, in athletics, or in a talent show. My strong belief on accountability of a school is this. The true measure of a quality school lies in the day-to-day interactions and experiences of the students. like the great football and football coach Ted Lasso. I tend to think that leadership is about helping people become the best version of themselves while m maintaining a high level of empathy and positivity. True leadership is striving for both. What makes leadership so difficult though is that constant struggle of the gray in between those two poles. But that's just it. That's what we have to strive for each and

190every day, a balance. And so it's my hope that another outcome of this is more and more reflection and time given to understanding that middle ground. These last 10 days or so have been incredibly difficult for both of my families at home and at Rock Prairie. I say to the community, it is heartening to see how involved many of you have been, and I sincerely hope that this interest in the well-being of our campus and district continues long after this evening. However, it's also time to focus all of this energy and concern away from my future and towards the future of all of our schools in this district, moving forward as best as we can. We have just about five weeks left in this year, and I would like to be able to guide my

191campus through those weeks with as much joy as I can muster and as much support as I've witnessed recently. The students and the staff deserve no less. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] [Music] So, while we can't respond, obviously, we want to try to answer or provide any kind of clarity within the restrictions that we can. So, I'd like to acknowledge the community's interest and concern regarding the recent leadership decisions within the district. We feel it is important to provide the clarity about the expectations of our campus leaders and process by which these kinds of decisions are made. While the board of trustees does not take action on these kinds of personnel decisions, we are made aware of the personnel matters, including any concerns or actions being taken by district administration to support, coach, and evaluate

192campus leaders. Throughout the throughout the support process, campus leaders are made aware of expectations and potential outcomes. The intent of this process is to provide ample opportunity to continue in their role, be successful in leading their school community. As a district, we hold our leaders to a high standard. And when the standards not met, we have a responsibility to take action that prioritizes success of students, staff, and campuses. That'll bring us to consent agenda. Those items are item G, H2, I1, J1 through J5. That is all. Move to accept as presented. Second. Motion by Mr. Ben. What's the second? Miss Simmon. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries. 6. Brings us to item H1. Consideration discussion possible action related to the district improvement plan goals for 2526. Mr. Man. Good

193evening. Mr. Hack, Dr. Hark Rider, ladies and gentlemen of the board. It's my pleasure to come to you this evening uh to share with you about the 2025 2026 goals for our district improvement plan. So, just a quick reminder that um this year we did see a transition in the formatting of our plan um and how we were evaluating our progress as we went throughout the year. Um and whenever you look at our district improvement plan, you can see there's a format change, but there were some of the more specific details that were built into the plan. And just like we've done in prior years, we monitor that plan and we have our three review periods in the fall, in the winter, and in the spring. And then in June we'll have our summit of

194evaluation and then I'll be able to share more information with you as to all of our progress that we share with our DEIC as we go through. Um so you can see this is just my little evidence of artifact. You've got board members that serve on DEIC that are a part of the review process. Um but we've completed these three um components as we've gone through this school year. And just as you see here, we asked him for feedback and questions and provide clarification on the progress that we're making. So, we've done quite a bit of work this year and uh we've got quite a bit more to go. Um the DEIC does have a board recommendation uh for you because that's part of what they're charged with is recommending the board goals. And just

195as we adopted in the spring of 2021, our strategic framework, it is the same strategic goals. You can see the same six here about enhancing effective instructional practices by implementing innovative and personalized learning experiences. Elevate academic outcomes of our historically outperforming our historically underperforming student groups. Strengthening relationships between our stakeholders, our student, staff, and families. Cultivating and strengthening our intentional partnerships with our local businesses, communities, and higher education agencies. continually improving our technology ecosystem um with all the different components that we know to maintain our safe digital secure environment and then also the continued integration of our instructional technology into all of our teaching and learning practices. These are the same goals that we've had for the past four years and the recommendation from DEIC is to continue with these goals if the board so

196chooses and so this would be the next steps in the timeline is we met in DEIC last week. Um we bring it to you tonight um with a recommendation and then we will begin gathering feedback for year five of the work from our stakeholders from across the district. Um, and then we take that to the DEIC meeting, get their input, and then over the summer, the work begins with the development of our improvement plans from the district level through all of our campuses, everything threaded um with all of these goals. And so I end with the recommendation of DEIC made last week with a 16 to zero vote for the board to continue with the work of the board goals that we've been using the last several years. Any questions? None. I don't have a

197question, but I just want to just say that when we we started the strategic design process so many years ago, um, one of my big concerns was how so many organizations go through that process and there's no followth through for it. And, um, um, and just that is is always a concern and it has been it has been nice to even through a change in uh the superintendent and a lot of staff that we have continued to to look at that to make decisions based upon that and so um just that that followthrough I know Mr. man, you've been here a while and and so forth, but um I I just really appreciate that as somebody who has was concerned that there wouldn't be that when we started the process. So, yes, sir. All those

198in favor say I. Yeah, I guess we do, don't we? I'll move to approve as presented. I'll motion. Sorry, my apologies, Jeff. I'll second. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed. Motion by Miss Simmons, second by Miss Iggy. Pass 60. My apologies, y'all. You were excited to approve those, weren't you? Well, you know, I mean, I was on the committee, so yeah. So, uh, that'll bring us to item K1. Consider approval of the guaranteed maximum price GMPA amendment of 27,240,53, including the early release package for the construction of the CTE phase 2 project with Poke Construction to appoint the district superintendent, Dr. Tim Harker, to the district representative, and to authorize him to execute the agreement with Poke Construction utilizing 23 bond funds. Mr. Bugner. All right. Good evening. So, this

199is the uh the total GMP for the project. This is CTE phase 2, which um POG construction is our construction manager at risk for this project. Uh if you recall, GMP1 was established uh in February at that board meeting for the pre-engineered metal building portion to get that going for delivery dates. And then this is for the rest of this project. So with the entirety of this project, it comes out to the 27,240,53. Um, and once this is approved, we can get POG uh mobilized and started on this project with anticipated completion of summer of 26 for the uh 2627 school year. questions. I make a motion that we approve as presented. Second. Motion by Miss Eyee, second by Miss Simmon. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries. 6. K2.

200Consider approval for the replacement of the chillers and pumps at Rock Prairie Elementary in the amount of 400,000 utilizing tips contract 2410402. Mr. Buckner. So, as part of the uh Rock Prairie Elementary renovations and additions uh with the added square footage from the addition and due to the age of the uh current chillers on that campus, they're roughly about 20 years old. And chillers usually have a lifespan of 15 to 20 years old. So we are at the very tail end of it. Um after working with Solless O'Brien, our MEP engineer for the uh projects that we have. Uh we are needing to upsize the two chillers and replace those due to the age as well as the pumps and some of the motors. And this is outside of the project that Dramala Construction is

201overseeing due to we could do this with a uh contractor and not have the overhead and everything else from the uh general contractor. There is about a 24w week lead time on these chillers. So that's why we're kind of doing this now. We'll find a break during the fall semester and stuff to have these installed. It should be a pretty quick turnaround on that. But um it does it the price for it includes a $20,000 in contingency as well just in case anything pops up that we weren't aware of or anything. But um this is for $400,000 and it will replace the two chillers at Rock Prairie and in relation to the projects that are going on there. on the on the contingency issue. I mean, is there any concern structurally? I I would imagine

202there's not, but with with the replacement of the chillers. They're all outside. They're all aside on these. And the chillers we're selecting, the Petra chillers fit on the existing chiller pads that are already there for the current chillers. So, there's no impact there or anything. And of course being 20 years old, we have a lot better efficiencies than we had 20 years ago and over the lifespan of those chillers. So, but no, it won't have anything structurally. Okay. Everything's on the uh ground floor. I move to approve as presented. A second. Motion by Miss Simmons, second by Miss Wilson. Questions, comments? All those in favor? I I. Those opposed? Motion carries 6. Thank you. Bring us item L, executive session. We're going to head to executive session. You're here when we get back. We'll see

203you then. If not, enjoy the next two days and enjoy your holiday weekend. Thank y'all for being here. You think they're better now than they were? That's right. Yes. point. uh I think John who has Yeah, whoever. Yeah. Um, I make a motion to approve a recommendation to terminate Brianna Martin due to contract abandonment. Second. Holy cow. Um, we have a motion by Miss Eie, uh, second by Miss McAdams. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries 6. I'd like to make a motion that it's recommended the College Station Independent School District Board of Trustees approve a recommendation to terminate Christy Mada due to contract abandonment. Motion by Miss Simmons, second by Mr. Ben. All those in favor say I. All those opposed. Motion carry 6. That'll bring us to the

204last item of Journey.