001All right, good evening. The time is 5:00 p.m. It is June 16th, 2025. This is a regularly scheduled meeting of the Argal ISD Board of Trustees. At this time, we will determine if a quorum is present. Leona McDade, present. Josh Western, present. Rich McDow, present. Lean Arthur, present. Matt Sllayton present Oxsworth present. We do have a quorum established. It is still 5:00 pm and we will adjourn to executive session. All right. Good evening. Time 6:19 p.m. We have returned from executive session. At this time, we're going to have an impromptu pledge of allegiance from our middle school volleyball ladies. Yes, we have Miss Reese McDow and Miss Ava Holland and Miss Presley Mosley if you want to come up and lead us in our pledges of allegiance. We appreciate y'all being here during summer conditioning.
002Whenever you're ready, ladies. Honor the Texas flag. There we go. There we go. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. Thank you, ladies. Thank you, guys. Appreciate y'all hanging out and doing that. Run, not run. Guess. All right, Mr. Hawksworth, if you would lead us in our opening prayer, please. Sure. Dear Lord, thank you for this time tonight for us to come together and and do what's in the best interest of the students of this district. Um, please be with those students and help them have a great summer and recharge. Please be with their
003parents and give them patience as their students are home for the summer. Um, help us get back to school and and get everything prepared for a great school year. We love you, Lord. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right. At this time, we'll move into our public forum uh comments portion of the meeting, and I'm going to do my reading and wet my whistle here real quick. All right, we're now moving into the public forum portion of tonight's meeting. Please note that board policy requires speakers to sign up in person before the meeting is called to order. During this portion of the meeting, board members will listen to comments, but as the designated spokesperson, only the president may respond to the speaker if needed and refer concerns to the appropriate administrator. Speakers can comment on agenda items,
004but trustees will not be able to discuss the items until they are before the board during the meeting. Board policy beed local provides the presiding officer the ability to adjust the time allotted per speaker for effective meeting management. Pursuant to that policy, an individual's comments to the board at tonight's meeting shall not exceed 5 minutes. The presiding officer may reduce the allotted time for each individual to speak to no less than one minute for effective meeting management. Speakers are not allowed to receive time from other individuals. Tonight, each speaker will receive five minutes. Specific complaints about individual district personnel are to be processed through the district's grievance policies as set out in district policies DBA FNG and or GF. Speakers are not permitted to refer to individual students or employees by name during public comment
005period. Additionally, if you have a pending grievance that may come before the board in a level three hearing, please refrain from addressing the topic of your grievance except through the grievance process. Poor per board policy beed and this board's operating procedures, the board will not allow disruption of the board meeting by members of the public. If after one warning from the presiding officer, any person continues to disrupt the meeting by words or actions, the person will be removed from the meeting. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we have two individuals signed up this evening. Uh first speaking is Joel Rston. might have to adjust some of my comments because the things you just mentioned about mentioning names. So, I if I stumble for a second, I apologize. But, um, as I begin, I want to
006point out what you just mentioned in your prayer that you desire to do what's best for all students. So, I would like for you guys to consider that when you look at my daughter, a prospective student. So, I'm going to have to read fast. My name is Joel Rston. This is my daughter. She's 15 years old. She'll be 16 in December. Um, so pray for me as I'm teaching her how to drive. Um, she owns her own small business. Uh, she bought and boards her own horse with the profits from this business. Uh, she's been homeschooled through various programs and private schools for the entirety of her life and is excited as we told her that we were going to send her to Argyle next year as a sophomore. Um, we have three kids in
007Argal South. This is my beautiful wife of 20 years. I won't mention her name because she's teaching at Argyle South next year so I can follow rules. Um, we moved to this area actually seven years ago with the sole purpose of if we ever got to this point of putting our kids in public school that we wanted to be in Argyle. So, we're excited about that. And I want to just real quickly read you guys' mission statement. Argal ISD is a district built on tradition and values is committed to providing an exceptional and educational educational experience for each student each student through meaningful opportunities in a safe and caring environment. So, as I speak tonight, I want to ask if our current policy is advocating for this potential student. Um, is she being provided exceptional
008educational experience? Is she being given meaningful opportunities in a caring environment? I'm advocating for her, for her to have that opportunity to be a part of a diverse learning path that our students get to take. and I'm specifically speaking on our district's policy on awarding academic credit uh for students transferring from homeschool or unacredited private schools. Um we've had the privilege of meeting with uh Dr. Jordan. She was very helpful in educating us on y'all's policy. Um the counselors have been very kind. She told us that the policy was to take credit by exam through K K through 12 or she could start as a freshman at 15 and hopefully take those same tests to move forward throughout the year. Um, right now we don't allow any credit for private or home school that's not
009accredited. Even if the curriculum meets or exceeds state academic requirements. This means a student like this who has spent years diligently working is being told that none of her work counts, she has to start over, retake classes, or be placed in a lower grade than her age and ability warrant. current policy only awards credit through these credit by exams that are designed, as I spoke with Texas Tech, to accelerate students, not to place them appropriately. These credit by exams, if I look at English one, for example, um they're required to read multiple novels and multiple short stories in order to prepare for the exam. They only can pass it if they do that. And these requirements are not better novels than what she's read. They're not even Argal ISD novels. They're just random novels specifically
010for this test. So, this student has read many more novels, actually sophomore level novels that even an honors English teacher in Argal ISD has looked at and said they're above her grade level. Um, this test is not in the spirit of seeing if she's prepared to be a sophomore. It's making her redo work. She would be required to take six exams, okay? First semester, second semester, six exams just to still be behind to be allowed to be a sophomore. That doesn't even account for geometry, Spanish 1 and 2, and geography that she's taken from legitimate sources that are just not accredited. Okay, I understand the need for academic integrity to ensure that our credits reflect real learning, but I believe our current policy is too rigid and out of date and it fails to recognize
011the reality of highquality structured homeschooling and private schools that many families, including mine, have chosen to take. Okay. I spoke with the TEA many many times over the past month and this is fully supported and allowed within the distinctions of the TEA. Okay. I'm asking that the school board consider that this student um that as the state allows to award her credit for the outstanding work that she's done up until this point. Okay. The current policy and this current decision one minute affects the rest of her life. Okay. It affects her ability to have friends of her own age in school. It affects her ability to work for dual credit. It affects her ability to prepare for sophomore honors classes. It affects her ability to graduate before she's the age of 19. Okay? It alters
012her entire future, the decision that you make. Okay? This affects no one but her and it alters her future. Okay? I've spoken to many other districts in the area and all of them have gone away from the CBE for awarding credit in situations like this because they've realized that it's an unfair assessment to put a student through retaking tests over the summer just to be with the age appropriate grade. Um we as parents decided to homeschool her and now she's being punished by the school district for a parents decision. Um, in closing, I ask that you would consider not just the letter of the policy, but the spirit of education itself that learning can happen in many forms and that all students deserve the right to move forward and not backwards. Thank you guys. Thank
013you. Thank you. And Nikki, are you speaking? I was just speaking as he ran out of time. Okay, you're signed up if you want five minutes. I do have nothing prepared um or written. However, from her standpoint, the school that we did put her in that apparently is not accepted. Um an ER doctor ran the science department. a professor who teaches in a college ASU was her biology teacher along with the biology teacher that is accredited to teach in the state of Texas. So she is credentialed as a biology teacher to teach children. Same with her geometry teacher, her algebra teacher. So just so you guys know, we didn't put her in classes under me where I'm teaching in kindergarten. Um, we put her under really great professors and teachers that are credentialed in the
014state of Texas. So, they do know TEACS. Um, so I just wanted to leave you guys with that. We're not just a random homeschool family that just I teach them at home. So, hope that helps a little bit. Thank you. Thank you. Right. That concludes our public forum portion of tonight's meeting. Is it appropriate to wish Chief Davis a happy birthday? Yes. Chief Davis, happy birthday. Happy birthday, Chief Davis. Glad you could be come here for your birthday party. Spending your evening with us. All right. 26 27. Okay. $29.95 and change. Okay. We'll move on to the consent agenda. All right. for our June 2025 donations from Argal West Elementary PTA, $7,551.40 for progress learning from ABC, $549 for banquet desserts, and the Alex Bets Memorial Fund, $12,730 for painting of Memorial Basketball Court. Total
015June donations, $20,83040. Does anyone have any questions on any of the consent items? Um, just on the AYA agreement. Um, I know I wrote I read in there about construction areas being limited. Does that include the middle school field that we were on today? Is that being used? Not next year. It's part of the construction site still. Okay. Yeah, that's all I want to make sure. It looks inviting, but it's an active construction site. An active construction site. Yep. Okay. Any other questions on any of the consent items? Right. I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent items as presented. So moved. Dr. McDade. Motion to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Mr. Matthew Slate with a second. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Okay.
016We have our first report. Energy management. Mr. Moses. So hard not to say coach Moses, but Mr. Energy Management Moses. I thought I was doing season ticket renewals. Is this wrong? You can do those, too. That's a bad fever. Flight you're sweating right now. Hey, listen. Thanks for having me. Um, really excited to give y'all a report of where we are so far this year. Um, just to start out, um, we've, uh, I've I've kind of double checked this with Liz and her team and our our accounts payable, but I'm looking at right now, I feel like, um, using last year as our our baseline to compare to, we're looking at right now about $100,000 in savings from the 20 whatever that is, 2023 2024 year to our current year. So that's from our September
017statement, which would have been August through our June statements that would have been um our May years. So um what I'd love to do is just kind of walk you through a little bit of what um what we put in place to uh monitor our electricity and our our spending throughout uh throughout the district. So this is a snapshot of basically the week after um Easter. So, this would have been Easter Sunday, I believe, would have been the 20th. So, looking at this right here, um, this is basically right off of, uh, it's not basically, it's a snapshot off of Co-Ser's website. So, anybody that's on the co co-op, whether they have a residential or commercial, um, meter, all right, they would be able to pull up information that looks just like this. So, you
018know, on your bill each month, it lays out basically the last 13 months and it'll compare um you know, the previous year and this year. I'm going each week looking through all of our properties to make sure there's no outliers. So, I chose this particular one because there is a pretty clear outlier here. Um you can see those four waves right there. Those are four days of electricity that you see there. So, what I'm looking for is Monday was a holiday. That's what it looks like when we're able to shut the district down. So you can see that we have a small bit of weekend uh usage there on Sunday. Monday is by far our our most uh minimized use and then we go Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and you can see uh Saturday it's
019kind of scattered a little bit throughout the day. So um a handful of things I'm looking here mainly I don't want to see the opposite of this, right? I don't want to see a plateau where it just starts at the beginning of the week and stays on throughout the week. I want to see it dropping off like you see right there. I'm also um just making sure we don't have any uh large spikes in there because those spikes is where we set our demand limit which becomes a multiplier in our bill every month. So um again this is our high school which is why you see kind of those uh little plateaus there at the end of the school day each uh each uh each day because we've just you know this uh what late
020spring we had all kinds of activities still going with all of our different um extracurric extracurriculars throughout the district. Okay, so this is uh again I go through Ever Campus looking at this. I use our environics, our climate programs just to make sure that everything's operating uh correctly. I'm trying to catch anything that may be running um and needs repairs, anything like that. And then I work with our team to uh stay on top of those. Okay, so to me, this is pretty exciting because this is something that's going to carry over to the future. So, if I could remind you real quick of uh the fall when Tommy presented for uh the operations team, I showed you a few graphs there and those were all from um NRG. All of this information is from
021co-serve. So, at the time I was trying to apply for a program that NRG offers that's called their red program. It's basically where they send us uh every week I get a report from them that's telling me it's either green, a yellow, or a red day. Red would be a potential for high use, right? And what they would do is they were going to buy back basically our electricity or pay us for not using it during those peak times. Peak times 4:30 to 8:00 p.m. Okay. So that's when traditional workday, everybody's coming home. Uh units are firing up everywhere. That's when their grid's really stressed, right? We hear that this time of year. So, um they were going to pay us to uh basically cut off our electricity. the graphs that Tommy showed you back
022then, we do a great job of that already. Okay, so those two campuses for NRG are the sixth grade center and Hilltop with those being uh elementary top uh buildings. We cut off and do a great job. So, we didn't even um qualify for that. Okay. So, what it did was it led me to go right back to Co-Serve and go, okay, do they offer anything like this? And although don't they don't have a specific program, what they do offer is a time of use rate and then their normal public building rate. Okay. So, um this again is just the high school. Everything I'm providing tonight's the high school because it's our biggest consumer. It's by far our biggest building. And if you look here, what I did is I basically they um I asked
023them to analyze each of our campuses, really each of our meters. And and what we've got back was um you know, this sample throughout the district. That's uh basically a theoretical um generation of what what the two you know analyzing you know comparing the two rates of on a typical year what we spend. So you can see there that's uh that's basically um projections of what the public building rate would be for the high school and then what this time of use rate would be. And uh just at the high school it was potentially somewhere between 11 and $12,000 a year. Um if uh if you look at all the other campuses that have kids on them like the middle school west south JRE which under are under co-serve um it's potentially $20,000 a year
024just by switching over to this different rate plan. So that was a a no-brainer. We started moving that in October, November. I actually just added the uh admin build into that as well. So we're looking to uh continue to make savings uh through this. So even though we failed to qualify for one program, it actually led us to probably greater savings through another. So that was uh that was fun fine for me if uh if you will. So um this is what I keep up with. So this is just mine. I personally made this. You don't have to read through all the numbers. So um this is just a Google sheet where I formatted it to where every month and I'll show you the next page where I pull all this from, but it's just
025pretty straightforward. If we're saving money, if it's a negative number, it's green. If we're not saving money, it is uh red. You'll see uh I think a west up there. That bill's in the middle of the month, so we haven't received it. That's why that one's blank up there. But we've done a pretty good job, especially up there at the top, which are our campuses where we have kids uh attending where um I actually control those through the system. We do a good job. What I'll be working on this next year is kind of coming up with plans to catch some of these other um maybe buildings that we don't operate through our one of our computer programs. Just kind of working with staff there and figuring out ways to uh to to save where
026we can. But that's that 101,000 that I was telling you that uh as of now just on co-serve we've saved. It's a little bit bit different if we throw in um Atmos Energy as well as uh NRG. Okay. All right. And to wrap that up, this is just where I want y'all to see where I'm pulling the information off of. So again, that's a snapshot right off of the the smart hub that is Co-Ser's website. And that's just their use usage comparison. So you can see I pulled up the May 2024 bill, the May 2025 bill. Um I gave you a snapshot of the bill. So if you see that 253 uh67, you'll see that under the column for May 2025, it's comparing that to May of 2024. And uh we saved I mean it's
027minimal this past month of $268 but I mean there's some things in there if you look there's two more days added in that so our savings are a little better than what they would and um also um through you know members of the community they've helped me kind of learn and keep track uh you know one of our one of our people that that's helped us out and speaks a lot pretty is involved he uh we called it our back of the napkin um math and that's uh you know Mr. I lean on him quite a bit here in the district. So, we came up with that just to make sure that the weather wasn't really the benefiting factor here that we're actually saving money and and uh again pretty excited about what the summer
028has for us and and see where we went in this first year on. Got it. So, any questions? Are we good? I number one, this is amazing. Great job. Um you mentioned early on environatics and climate. How many schools do we still have climate? one west. And when is are we planning to change when that contract's up? We talked about it. Yes. Yeah. Is it still challenging or has it gotten better? The Can can I go into detail on that? Do you mind? Um the biggest difference is so like right now JRE we've got our um summer school program. So if we say we want an extra camp added in there. Okay. So I can just add one extra room at the end the hallway at JRE right now. What I run into at West
029is I turn on every classroom. So you know we have one of the other things we're doing, one of the things I'm excited about this summer is we've really worked with our um janitorial staff. I check with them every day. Um and we're, you know, we're finding out what areas they're cleaning. So we have air in that um operating while they clean and then we're running it overnight to kind of dry the carpets and those kind of things. West with climate techch it's every classrooms on. So that's the benefit to uh to and you know to environics is I can it's much more detailed. I can control one of those at a time where instead of the blanket that uh I have with with climate is that what you're referring to when you said non-computer
030programs. No. So if you want to go backwards one. Okay. So not all of our buildings are on environics, right? So or climate tech. So for instance, so we have a few buildings that are still I mean they're just operated with your typical, you know, thermostat on the wall. So like our concession stand, right? So that's what I'm talking about. I don't run the concession stand. When they go in, we turn the concession stands on. So things like that. It's also that, you know, a concession stand's a great example. We wouldn't want that on a time of use rate because we're running it after hours, right? We want to use it during the school day and then it drop off and we not use any electricity. So, one of the things y'all will hear is
031I'm going to just, you know, talk as much as I can. The more we can minimize our electricity after 4:30, that 4:30 to 8:00 p.m., which is really just as much as I can cut things off at the end of school days, we're going to, you know, benefit from it. Now, again, that's not where students are. Of course, we'll keep it going. And I didn't mean to cut you off. What do you got? All the non-computer program buildings are things like concession stands or standalone. Yes. Not necessarily student facilities. Correct. Okay. Yes, sir. But every everywhere where we have students, we're we're running with a computer program and I oversee that. That's great job. I don't there's nothing else to say. Great job. Awesome. Appreciate it. Have you had any board members go around to
032campuses and closing blinds? So, I didn't mean to really brag on a particular board member who walked Hilltop Elementary and shut down. All of the blinds. I mean, I just the community let me know, you know. Yeah. It wasn't you, Josh. It wasn't him that let me know. I'll just put it up. We all have to put up with it. Thank you, Mr. Moses. We do appreciate everything you've done and your enthusiasm is what's so great about all that. you you at least make it a lot of fun to uh shut everything down every holiday. You do. We appreciate you very much because it's it's not the most popular position person to say turn everything off and your air is going off at 4:30. So, we appreciate your efforts. It's it's made a huge difference
033this year. All right, Mr. Cohen. Okay, good evening. Got the monthly update on construction projects for you. Um so starting here with the stadium tonight. Uh got a shot looking at uh the press box uh continuing to go vertical. Um they are uh probably two weeks from uh completing that I believe. Very close. Anyway, they're kind of working on the the northern uh stair tower. So, when you look at it, it's kind of a little uh lopsided right now, and they're working their way up on that north side. Here's just a different angle. Uh looking from the other back side of it in this, you can also see what we refer to as concession stand D. That's our southwest corner. So, that has been dried in. Don't have a roof on it yet, but they
034are now able to work inside the building. uh and the water will stay out. This shot is uh looking from our visitor side. So you can see they've made great progress on the visitor side grandstands. Uh that should be complete over the next two weeks and we should see them uh having deliveries and starting on the home side. Here another shot. This is looking at the concession stand over on the visitor side. Uh so they are working their way to the top. Uh it actually has roof joist, maybe even deck on it at this point now. So it's not far from being in the dry about the time it will probably stop raining. U we hope. Uh this is a shot looking at the indoor activity center. Uh so they're making good progress here. Uh
035it's a little bit slower with the weather since they are erecting this building from the inside rather than setting up a crane on the outside which eventually would affect our parking that we need when we get back to school in August. So it's going a little bit slower than we'd like. But again, if this rain will stop, then we will see great strides made there. And then of course you can see uh here in the the front of this photo, that's the one little area of fire lane paving that we have left to do. Uh this will be done and open before August 1st this year when we start uh all of the summer workouts. So we will have that entrance open again. This is another shot. Uh this is the northwest uh concession stand
036on the visitor side. So we saw the one that had been dried in earlier. So this is the one on the north end of the grandstands and it is currently now in the dry. just of our key milestones uh just as uh placeholders um home grandstand install early summer that should start sometime in the next two weeks and we will see the uh the turf field which we close for the month of June so we can do some work around the edges the perimeter get the sidewalks in uh do some work on the track edges uh retaining walls a lot of underground conduit we had to do so that will be reopened uh for July 1st so when they come back from their week off of summer conditioning, they'll have that turf field back. Uh
037look ahead, uh we should finish the summer work. So that's got to do with the turf field that we closed for June. The track will remain closed for the month of July. Uh so we will be wrapping all that up and then giving it all back to them uh August so they can use the track in field. uh going to continue and complete the press box erection uh the structural steel put the remaining roofs on all concession stands that will be uh roofing not just in the drive at the roof. Uh visitor grandstands should be complete over the next two weeks. Uh and then we'll start on the visitor side canopy. Uh so that'll be our entrance canopies like you see here in this photo. That's the home side, but they'll begin on the visitor
038side and then move over to this one. Are there any questions? Just curious how many, if you know the number, compare the visitor side number of seats to what we have at the middle school versus what's going to be at the new stadium roughly. Tell you, give me a second. Don't expect you to have it in your head. No, I don't have it in my head, but I can get close. So, we've got about 2,200 seats over here on the visitor side and I believe we're around 3 to 3,200 I think is the number of total seats. Total seats at 37. So, we have, you know, 2/3 of the total seats just on the visitor side here. Got. So, our total seat count here is going to be around 7500, right? It's about a 7030
039split. Okay. Thank you. All right. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Cohen. Thank you. Uh moving into the middle school. Uh we did have a beam signing this morning. Went very well. Had great weather for it. It was a little hot, but uh it wasn't raining and it wasn't muddy, so we had a great space to do it uh on the track and the the end of the turf in the deep. Uh so in this photo uh you can see we're looking at the uh gymnasiums. So storm shelter gymnasiums, one on the right, the one on the left is just the second gymnasium. This is a shot looking north. Uh so you can see the the field where we had our beam signing this morning at the north end there. uh they will start on this south
040end with irrigation and landscape over this summer and we should be getting some trees and and shrubs and those kind of things planted probably in October which is a better time of year to plant those things anyway. So we're going to be getting the site from the the road will be getting cleaned up and looking complete while the construction continues in the back on the buildings. This shot is just showing the tennis court pads. Uh so we'll have uh eight courts there. Uh so this is just the select fill. They're getting ready to drill peers for light poles and then they'll start working on slabs. This should be finished in the next six to eight weeks. This shot is looking at the uh band area of the building. So this is on the the far
041north side. So here we've got three band hall spaces. uh a percussion band hall in a larger ensemble area. This is our classroom wing. Uh so these are the last slabs they have to pour will be for our classroom wing. Uh these are also the easiest to complete. They're less intense, if you will, than the gymnasiums with the block or the the kitchen with all the plumbing that goes into it. So that's why they do this last even though it's kind of what we need first. uh it is the least intense and that's the reason just an overall shot uh looking southwest uh you can see the parking and drives 100% complete here uh continue with building slabs steel erection they've got metal studs going up in areas that should be sheathing uh on the
042outside here very quickly um we've got some brick already going on the gymnasium so we're going to see a lot of progress ress by the end of the summer out there should see a nearly complete building shell. Uh look ahead uh CMU that would be all of it. Our gymnasiums and our locker room areas complete by the end of the month. Uh we're going to begin the site fence which goes out towards 407 and the walks out there. Again, the the concept being we're going to work our way from the road back getting things finished as soon as we can. uh continuing with irrigation landscape in that same vein, getting the front buttoned up and and complete so we're not down to the wire next year trying to rush and get that in before classes.
043Going to continue with steel erection uh moving around over into areas A and B once they get slabs poured. So that's our classroom areas A and B. And then they'll continue with our MEP roughing. So they'll be hanging duct and running all the conduit, running all the overhead plumbing. And then here we've got just some milestone dates showing our permit date that we received building permit in December. Uh dryin building set RTU should happen here in the next few months. Uh elevator scheduled for spring install and substantial completion around July, hopefully a little bit sooner. Uh looking to move some furniture in and have it done before teachers start coming in on top of us. Any questions on middle school? Looks good. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Jeff. Thank you. Appreciate Dr. Carpenter. Yeah. So,
044as Mr. Cohen mentioned, we did have the beam signing this morning. Uh we had a great turnout. It was a little warm, but we had lots of students and families out there. I just want to again thank uh Corganu uh architects and PO Construction for um always being great partners in pulling off the beam signing. So had a a really good ceremony there. Just a few things going on in the summer. Um I know our students may be out. We've had a lot of students in camps, but we've had summer learning academy the last week of May, I believe. Dr. Jordan, is that correct? Um we had over 400 teachers coming through there at different times that week. And just want to um you know, a special thank you to Dr. Jordan, her team, es
045specifically Kelly Dillamman, um Lisa Watson, Cecilia Vaughn, they did an incredible job designing that week. And then most importantly, our own teachers were teaching those sessions, which is just another way that iron sharpens iron. So really appreciate your team's effort there. And I know we were over in the hallways, um the teachers had a lot of great things to say about that. So just want to celebrate that. that um it's exciting to feel that energy um over there as because it was the first week they were out and they were all excited about what they were learning and then they were going to go take summer break and then come back. So um appreciate that very much. And then we had our first crop of new hires last week. Dr. uh Dr. Daniel's team led
046that and I think we had 38 or 40 I believe in the room and that was our first one. Um lots of excitement in the room. Everybody's excited about being an Argyle and so really appreciate that group coming in and we'll have a couple more of those sessions. We're in great shape on our campuses as far as hiring. Our our principles have had um plenty in their applicant pools which is a good thing to have and so they are um definitely in a great place as far as having positions hired uh for the ready for the school year. And then um also want to announce just recently we have Miss Lumston at the middle school has hired Laura Risby as assistant principal and she was the Argal South I believe ESL. Is Laura here? No,
047she's not here. She uh Argal South um ESL teacher. So we're very excited for Laura. She was part of our aspiring leaders academy that went on throughout last year that Dr. Daniel and Dr. Jordan led and so we're very excited to have her um in that position moving forward. And then just a couple save the dates. I know it's still June, but it will be here before you know it. We have Eagle Bash August 2nd and the first day of school is August 12th. So, we will blink and it will be here. So, enjoy the rest of your summer. Um, few things district newswise. We had the 89th Texas legislative session end on June 2nd. There were about 170, I believe, education related bills that were passed. We've been, all of us have been to
048several sessions virtually and in person. I'm listening to a lot of the the uh interpretation of those bills. um they haven't all been signed by the governor yet, but he has until June 22nd to do so. And most lots of these new statutes will take effect beginning um this summer, for sure, September 1. So, there's a lot of things for us to process and train staff on and work that the board's going to have to do between now and school starting as far as some policies. So, just a few things that I think are very important for parents to know. Um obviously, House Bill Two, which was the historic funding bill, we're going to talk about in a little bit. I just want to uh thank publicly representatives Hopper, Hazen, Little and then Senator Parker
049um at the same time they, you know, while we didn't get everything we asked for and hoped for in public ed, we um definitely had a great progress. And so because of that historic bill, we're able to have the compensation conversation we're going to have tonight. And then while we await implementation um for some of those bills, um we'll be, you know, having those conversations. I hope to do an update in July with some of the highlights, but just a few things affecting um not only Argal ISD but students across the state. House Bill 1481, that's a student cell phone uh ban. So, the board will be tasked with writing policy that um is board policy for uh preK through 12 cell phones restrictions throughout the entire school day, including smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, and headphones.
050So that'll be um something that you'll be working through in August before we come back to school. Library material oversight, the Ten Commandments in the classrooms. Um districts are now required to display Ten Commandments in each classroom if they're donated. So that's kind of like the in God we trust signs. That's um coming into play. The House Bill six, classroom discipline reform, which is going to give teachers um students with chronic behavioral disruptions clear rights for them as teachers to remove persistent disruptive students. So, we'll be working through that with our staff. And then Senate Bill 12, which is the expansion to parental rights, is going to strengthen some parental right related curriculum transparency. Um, records of student access, opting in and out of processes, restrictions on DEI and gender identity topics, and then reporting
051requirements for facility usage and policies. So, there's a lot for us to unpack and uh as we prepare for next year, but we will continue to provide updates um as we are getting those out of the state level. So, um, we'll continue to monitor that and then we'll be bringing the board some policies that are timesensitive for school to start and then throughout the year you'll see some more adjustments moving forward with some of the things coming out of out of Austin. And then the one bill that did not make its way through at the last hour was House Bill 4 and that was the reform on assessment and it was in a great place. Um, however, the House and the Senate both had very very very differing opinions on what that should look like.
052Um the Senate version was discussed publicly as a way to restrict dis district districts from filing suit regarding accountability. The House side was really trying to reform assessment and its purity and they just could not get to a point and they ran out of time. So we do expect that to come back the next session but right now um House Bill 4 star remains the same as it has been in the past. And then um just some upcoming things for the community. We will have several facility naming processes coming this fall with new buildings um transitioning to two middle schools, two high schools, and then we're kicking off our transition teams for those transitions um this this summer actually. And then we'll be looking at doing quarterly updates with the board and public as we
053move into next year on all those different topics from athletic programming to fine arts programming to course selections to staffing. There's lots of areas that um we'll be working on. So looking forward to that. Thank you, Dr. Carpenter. You're welcome. Anyone have any questions for Dr. Carpenter? All right, we'll move on. Out of respect for Dr. Jordan. Noted. Thank you, Mr. Western. Thank you. All right, Miss Stewart, you got a information only budget amendment? Yes, sir. Okay. Um this is only our second budget amendment for this fiscal year. Um if you remember um I believe we talked about it in February and then acted on it in March. Uh we amended the budget to with all of the increased students after the first semester. We looked at the whole semester. Um what we have now
054is um we're amending through the fifth six weeks. Um at the time that we created this, we didn't yet have the six six weeks data, which we do now. Um and we'll work on that uh for the next one. But this takes us through the end of the fifth six weeks which gets us really close to our numbers for the end of the year. Um it focuses only on the general fund. Um but it's basically updating uh revenue on the ADA and special populations and then just a few other areas that we see that we aren't uh either over or underperforming for the year. Um and then um for the expenditures, we're looking mainly at three expenditures. It's going to be um uh maintenance and operations, transportation, and administration. uh maintenance operations and transportations both
055this year have seen um a much higher need than was planned in supplies and repairs and different items and just higher cost all all across the board um for all of those areas. Um and then in administration, we do have some um higher than planned um legal bills that are in there that we're anticipating for through the end of the year. Um do you mind going to the next page? I'm sorry, just scroll down from that one. should be page there you go. Okay. Uh so the first page is the revenue um prior year taxes. That's something that we've had to had some negatives in um for the last couple years. That's kind of a a newer item to have some negatives. We aren't the only district most districts are seeing that around especially Denton
056County. Um right now we are in the negative. We're going to bring that down to a zero uh budget at this point. Um we are seeing a little bit more um in penalties and interest income is still going strong. Um some more in donations but the then the largest one is in the foundation school program um there the additional revenue in the student populations in the ADA that we're anticipating. So that in uh altogether that's about 726,000 increase. Um get down to the next page. Okay. Expenditures. Um this is where we're talking about again um in function 34 and in function 51. This is where we're seeing the impact in some repairs um higher than anticipated repairs and the cost of supplies. So 130,000 is what we feel like will get us through on the
057student transportation. 116,000 on the maintenance and operation. And then in the general administration where we talked about legal fees uh is the majority there. And that's 60,000 is what we're estimating to take us through the end of the year. Um, again, that brings us up to about 306,000 for a total um ending number of about a $420,000 budget surplus. And y'all have not heard that word in a while, especially when we're talking about the uh 2425 fiscal year, but that's what we're looking at at this point in time. We will have another budget amendment. Um, when we bring this back to you for action next month, we will already be talking about our final budget amendment in information only. Um, we have one major item outstanding right now. Um we tal we mentioned that along
058the way and that's with our taxable values that were turned into the controller. Um and we asked uh DAD to go back and do a self audit and correct some of those items where it affects us in hold harmless. Um it looks like and we won't get the information back from the state until sometime in August which isn't timely for us but we're using some help in estimating that. It looks like it could be another million dollars in home hold harmless force that we're not counting on at this point. And that's just from having our data corrected um that was sent in um back in the fall incorrectly by the um appraisal district. And that's just again it's strictly on the hold harmless data um and where that state funding comes into play. It's a
059year-long process almost before you actually get the actual numbers back when you do have to do some sort of appeal or self audit on it. Um typically, you know, by the end of January. Um, but again, since we had to turn in some corrections or ask for the correction to be turned in on our behalf, it will be a little while before we have that data. Do you have any questions on the one that's here tonight? All right. Thank you. We'll bring that back to you next month then for potential action. student nutrition meal prices. So, every summer in preparation for the upcoming school year, we review our student nutrition meal prices and look at any changes for next year or for the future year. Um, there is the pay lunch equity tool um that
060is required to be used for those campuses that are on the um national school program. Um that tool has not been published yet for next year. So, these are estimates at this point in time. Um so, these may change a little bit before they come back to you for action next month. But we did want to at least bring you some what we felt like would be an estimate, a good estimate at this point in time. Um, so there are some increases there. At elementary, we're looking at 10 cents on breakfast, 25 cents on lunch on the secondary uh campuses and the adult meals. Uh, we're looking at the um middle school and sixth grade center of 10 cents at breakfast and 25 cents at lunch. And then at high school, 10 cents at breakfast
061again, 25 cents at lunch. And then no increase on the market or the made to order deli. And again, these are estimates at this point in time until that tool is published um and we can run some um some different data and make sure that we are bringing you the correct information by next month. Do you have any questions on that? Does it keep us self-unding? It does keep us self-unded. Um that student nutrition program has been self-unded for many, many years and they continue to operate that way and that really helps out our general fund. All right. Thank you very much. Thanks, Liz. So our next uh presentation we come on up ladies. So I want to give just a little background into how this kind of um became something we wanted to share
062with the board this spring or early kind of late winter. I was out on campuses just having some conversations with staff things that were going well, things that were needing we were needing to address. And one of the things that we have been and you as a board had noticed during looking at withdrawal numbers and spec specifically at the high school is losing some students to online virtual schools. And so these ladies had been studying that data themselves and noticed um some concerns of of of that we weren't able to serve these students and they came to me with an idea and we sat down Dr. Jordan we all kind of met with them later in April and this is what they brought us. So, we're very excited for them to to bring their ideas
063and talk about how we can um help our students. So, turn it over to y'all. Thank you. Thank you for letting us present tonight. Um let's get right into it. Okay. So, TEA has made some allowances for a program they call uh flexible school day. So, it's it allows for a reduced school day. It's just four hours. Um, however, it still allows districts to receive their full ADA daily funding for those students. So, um, even with this, uh, even though it's reduced time, they're still receiving their funding. So, it provides, um, a self-contained classroom with self-paced learning in an online setting. So, still at our school, just a little bit different setting. Um we are proposing that Argyle establish its own flexible school day program um for those at risk students living in our district.
064So these are our students. Um it could be managed or overseen by one principal and there I feel like there are a lot of benefits but um specifically academically it will benefit our students that are struggling uh to meet graduation requirements um on time with their cohort. In addition um it allows the district to receive funding that we're currently losing. So, we are always tracking data. Real quick, I think one of the things that will go back to that screen. One of the things that y'all shared that I think meant a lot as you that that spoke volumes to me was that when we're when we don't have these students in our schools, we can't support them in the way from a counseling standpoint. And you may get to that, but I think that's very
065important that when we lose them to an online school because that's what's best for them at the time, we lose them from being able to support them in some other areas. Right. So, I'm sure Dr. for uh Miss Magcguire will tell talk much more about that, but yes, these are our students. Obviously, our end goal is graduation, but we support them in a lot of different ways um in those years in 9th through 12th grade. And so, this would allow us, yes, to continue to provide some of that. So, we are always tracking this data all the time, every year. However, this past school year, um these are the students who at some point either leading up to the 2425 school year or throughout that school year have withdrawn from our district. Um 56% a
066little over 56% went to a very similar learning environment. Another public school, maybe a private school, still a four or five day a week um multiclass in-person learning environment, very similar to ours. However, 40% uh left to go to a virtual or an online program. So, that represents 48 students obviously with over 1,600 this past year. 48 isn't a huge number. However, um that number is increasing every year. And we're not the only district seeing this. This is very common across all districts. Everyone that I've spoken to, this is a very common thing happening. Um, but and there's a list of reasons there and of those 48 kids, they probably all have a unique reason. Um, and not all of them, not all 48 necessarily could be recovered in this program, but I do believe
067um, a lot could be. So, um, it's not just about a handful of individual cases. That number is rising quickly. And so we believe that by bringing a program like this inhouse, Argal ISD can continue to keep these students, keep servicing these students, whether it's through sped counseling, um different programs we provide and still get them either caught up caught back up with their coho cohort and back into our regular setting or fulfill their graduation requirements. Thank you, Miss Lemish. All right, so she kind of touched a little bit on the eligibility of the students. Um, the FSD program would target our juniors and seniors that have already passed their EOCC exams but are struggling to uh complete their remaining credits, whether that be because of the traditional time frame or the setting. Um, this
068includes students that need scheduling flex flexibility. Um, they may be recovering from extended medical treatment. Um they may be students that have fallen behind due to family circumstances or moves. Um students would enter through principal or counselor recommendation, MTSS or special education referral um or through self or parent request. This would allow us to capture those students before they consider leaving our district. We would be able to understand their needs prior to that exit. So there's an application process. This uh systematic application process would allow us to ensure appropriate placement and maintain integrity of the program. Um our students would be identified through their existing support systems within the ISD um or within their uh family environment. Um we would gather formal recommendations. We would hold a placement meeting that would include the FSD principal,
069their counselor, the student themselves, and their parents. Um through this we would provide an individualized learning plan with a structured 4-hour schedule. And so when they entered into the flexible school day learning environment, they would have a structured schedule to follow. They would also have that support that they may not have in an outside online setting. Um this would uphold the accountability for our academic progress and it would meet state funding requirements. So there are two program pathways that this could offer. Um and it's designed to support students in Argal ISD within both of those pathways and preserve the funding that benefits those students. So the short-term placement, it provides temporary support for students that are transitioning from medical treatment, students that may need credit recovery for life circumstances. Um but the ideal situation would
070be they would be going back into the mainstream classroom. The long-term placement would support students with significant challenges who need alternate settings in a self-paced learning environment. Um, this would help them reach graduation and remain within our district. Both of these pathways retain our students and provides the flexible support within the high academic standards that we offer here. So at AHS, we strive to ensure that every student receives a personalized education that prepares them for future success. Recognizing that each student's path is different, this program offers the flexibility to meet individual goals while enabling the students to still graduate as distinguished level of achievement and still earn their CCMR point. So for budget implications to effectively implement this program, these are some of the things that we've came up with that we would need. So
071for staffing, we would need a halftime teacher of record. Um while it was isn't mandatory, a special education certification would be preferred for this teacher to ensure that we can adequately support all learners that may enroll with this program. Um technology and licensing. So we would need to procure computer workstations and secure a site license for egeneuity. Um, this would be the proposed online learning platform that we would suggest. Um, currently, right now, our district uses Apex for credit recovery and online coursework. However, we propose transitioning to Egeneuity just because it has a lot more classes that we offer at our school and it just gives the kids more opportunity of classes to take. Um, for training, both of the assigned teacher and the program administrator would be required to complete the training to ensure
072that they know how to use egeneuity. And then for administrator support to recognize the additional responsibilities that would be associated with overseeing this program, we would recommend providing a stipen for the administrator scientist role. So expected outcomes um Miss Lemish and Dr. Quas have both talked about this a lot, but essentially both pathways are flexible learning and accomplish the key goals which would be retaining students who might otherwise leave for alternative programs and provide the flexible support of our students needed to succeed all while maintaining our high academic standards in Argo and maintaining our graduation rate. That's it. Great job, ladies. Don't go anywhere because there may be some questions. Can you go back one slide, please? And Apex is already in the budget and so this egeneuity would replace Apex. A new is going
073to cost more than Apex but there is already a line item. Correct. Because we already have some. Yes ma'am. And Apex currently is being used for credit recovery which is just Okay. That's what I and summer school. Okay. And is is this an annual cost or a one time? Annual. It' be an annual cost. It's a software license. Just Okay. I think we're currently paying around 8,000 a year for Apex. It's a cost per license. This is an unlimited cost or unlimited users cost. Yeah, this would allow us to assign classes as needed rather than purchase licenses. And these the workstations, how different are they from the other computers that the onetoone students are using? It's just monitors and keyboard mouse set up that they plug their Chromebook into. Okay. It would allow them to
074have the opportunity to have a larger screen to do some of the bigger projects. So the workstations are just the added hardware, right, for Yes. Yes, sir. things like science labs might be hard to do on a smaller screen. And so we thought a bigger screen would allow them better visibility for those types of things. And Ed, oh, sorry. Um, Egeneuity is really good because they have like videos and it actually teaches the students as they go. So it could kind of give some kids the opportunity to like split their screen with like the assignment and the lecture notes as it is so they can work both ways. How many and and let me just interrupt and say I love the idea. So thank you for bringing this to us. Um and how many classroom
075I mean again if we're looking at last year's numbers there 48 you know I don't know if you guys could estimate how many of those 48 would have probably stayed. Um, but with the 4hour school day, you know, is that a 4-hour block that you're trying to get everybody in at the same time or is it rolling throughout the day for classroom utilization purposes? Good question. Um, to start it would be one block um in the morning and that way we're using a part-time teacher rather than a full FTE. Um, but in the classroom itself, we may we will the intention is for us to be able to identify those students before they're exiting, before they're thinking about exiting. Um, and so if we are able to capture those students, it's in it's completely possible
076we could have up to 30 kids in it next year. Okay, listen. Go right ahead. I swore myself to secrecy. I made it to 9C before I You did a great job. I just want I was waiting for I need you to But y'all had such a good idea. I had to speak up. You need to And so here's what I like about the idea and I and I wanted this is more to be on the soap box than a question is what you what I wrote down here is you're saying the goal of this program is to retain students who may seek alternative educational experiences. And quite frankly, I think that's what public education, including Oregon ISD, should be doing, not just for atrisisk students, but for every student because every student, I don't
077think I think we're moving in an area of choice in education. that we need to recognize that traditional learning experiences and environments are not what we should be just solely focused on and that we should strive to offer the most choice for the most kids and the most families that we can. Absolutely. And so I think this is what this represents. I think one of the things and that I mean that can be innovative learning, classical learning, five day school weeks, four day school weeks, you know, half day programs, three days on, two days off. I think we should continue to explore those things to figure out how to offer the most choice for the most kids. Unfortunately, I think what you're going to tell me is the state will only fund it if the
078students at risk. So, what we'll tell you is the state the state funds minutes, right? Yes. So, yes, to answer your question, we don't have the opportunity to do like a three-day on, two day off. However, there is a new Senate bill that we just talked about this morning and we're going to be looking at that throughout next year that does allow some virtual learning because see, they took that away from us if you if you didn't have a virtual school that you had, you know, gone through all that and they closed all that off. So, they there's a new bill that's coming out that's going to allow some of that back in of which we can use some of this edge annuity. So, it's not something you can stand up this year, but we
079already talked this morning about how that's going to be something we're looking at for 26 27 for those very reason. That's what I wanted to say. I'm glad to see y'all thinking this way. I'm glad to see your program bring this to us and I hope the administration continues to bring us more creative ways to offer different educational experiences for families and kids. I have I've personally seen some very success sto great success stories of students who would not have graduated or received a diploma that had a program like this and were able to do so. And um so it's it's really good for for kids and families and then we are excited that we may have an opportunity to expand it beyond at risk with this new Senate bill. It's certainly a step in
080the direction of serving all students. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I was going to say scares the hell out of me that I agree with Josh. I have to deal with that later. But the first thing I thought when Miss Lemish was presenting was why are we not doing this for everybody, right? And I assumed that because it was the way the TRC or whatever was called TC bill was written was that it was for just for atrisisk kids. So I think it's great. My question was really on the numbers. Um, when you showed the chart and you showed online and said 48, I thought that represented just the kids that went online and not the other kids that left. Is that the total number? Nope, that's just the total number is about 120 students withdrew.
081Yeah, 48 of those left to go to an online program. And a lot of those I mean those that's 40% but those represent 48 kids that we worked to try to keep in the district or for whatever reason. becomes very personal for y'all because you've been working with those kids. Yeah. So, um obviously it wouldn't have worked this particular program wouldn't have worked for all 48 of those kids, but there are a lot of Yeah. I mean, would you have do you think you would have picked up any from the other category? Quite possibly. Possibly. Yeah. Depending on the life circumstance they're facing. Yeah. Or the flexibility that you're now offering. Right. Right. Um, so I I think it's great. And Dr. Quest, with with this right here, like they're doing partial day, is there's
082is there still opportunity for counseling intervention or mental health services that that we can provide in that day? Addition to additionally to them being there, that is it strictly you're here four hours, you got to go. We would as counselors, we'd go in and check on them. Uh, typically these are going to be students we have good relationships with going in. Um, and so just as I do with DAP, I'd go in and check on these students as well and maintain those relationships, but yes, they they'd get the same services we provide to any other student. Um, now they will be there part day, so that has to we have to keep that in mind as we're we're working through all of that. But um, yeah, they'll still be considered students of ours. But they
083can. But as far as an extension beyond their four hours, could they be served after they left or or they four hours and then they I mean some of them I know are going to work. That's part of their thing. They're going to jobs and things like that, but they they could potentially receive services if they had something going on. They needed you. Absolutely. Yeah. They're just like any other student. Um they could come up and and see us in the counseling office or make a request just like any other student. And that's a big thing we're seeing. I mean, kids are leaving because of anxiety, depression, and so they're leaving and they're going to an online school setting, which by the time they get to high school, a lot of times means they're home
084alone all day. Um, and so from a mental health standpoint, we feel like this is a much better way to serve. It definitely um for those students, it works with their treatment plans pretty well. Do you find it difficult like like example like student goes to let's say residential treatment or impatient treatment and they have uh a program there where they can continue education. Do you do you feel that those patients they're patients sorry I work in a treatment center those students that are patients at a facility and then step down like you can collaborate obviously with the release um to be able to continue what they've worked on there and seamlessly transition it into the curriculum here. Yeah. I mean, one of the the hopes of this program is that the students that would
085be going in in the temporary pathway, um we would be able to coordinate with their treatment center. Right now, we're doing that. Um teachers are responsible for sending work over to those students. It's putting a lot on our teachers because we are having um full disclosure, we had four go in in one day this year. Um, so that's a lot for our teachers and the expectations, but we also want to make sure that we're servicing them. So, we're trying to facilitate that communication and help the parents along as well. Um, but when they get back, they're typically behind and it's really hard for them to catch up. So, this could be it's hard to focus on healing and education at the same time, but try to do as best as you can. Yeah. I mean,
086health has to come first. We We have to be stable to learn. Okay. based on the grades that they're in. You know, some are old enough to drive, some aren't. I'm assuming we can't offer transportational services to students all over the district. So, I mean, of those numbers you were talking about that might stay in, did that account for, you know, some of those ages and and where parents may or may not be able to get the students here for that period of time? It's juniors and seniors only, right? we would be targeting juniors and seniors and there may be a few that don't drive. So there may be and it the ones that may be outside of that the outliers may be the ones that are going into treatment of some sort or have
087a a health situation. Um, yeah. So, that would have to be worked out with the families for the time being. And Liz, you would see this as a budget amendment change or you've looked at I I know we had overview of budgetary impact here, but you've looked at it in depth or plan on looking at more in depth. Yes, we've looked at it. We met with them um earlier and talked it through and um I think the general feeling was the benefits for our students um greatly offset the cost any cost to the district. We do feel like the funding would offset the cost, but when you look at the benefit for the students that it is a a definite reason to move forward. So So what would a typical day look like for for
088a kid like this? Is it that they're staying in over there for four hours or they're going and then someplace else for four hours or how does that work if they're getting they're getting a full school day? Yeah, just four. Just just four hours. flexible laws. So, if they stay on it short term, they will have some catchup to do. If they stay on it long term, they've got a lot of catch up to do potentially and they could still graduate, but they'll probably be older when they do. It's possible that they could graduate on time. And that's what we're working towards is because with the self-pace, they we could pace their individualized learning plan to a point where they could even graduate early if they need to. Okay. Depending on the number of credits
089they're deficient in. Okay. Yeah. And then um have you seen this locally at any other schools around here where it's been successful? Do you have any data on that? I mean, not specific numbers, but just in general. Yeah, we've spoken to several different programs. Um and coming from other districts, we've seen similar um programs that have, you know, started up in this kind of way, but really grew over time. Uh the lead program is one in Midlotheian that we talked to the principal. Um when I was in Alam with Eagle Academy which ran very similar to Midlotheian Academy. Okay. Yeah. It typically builds very quickly. Yeah. It's obviously a need. Okay. Well, thank you for Well done, ladies. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your time, Dr. Daniel next, I'm assuming. Yes, he is.
090So, this information is information only. Um, and I think our final decision whether to bring this back next month is going to be pending our final resolution with House Bill Two, knowing how much money we are um going to receive for our our compensation plan, which you'll see later. Um, couple weeks ago, we received our new TRS insurance rates. Um, and again, they're set to increase anywhere from four $49 to $191 um, per month depending upon the type of insurance plan an employee carries. We um, currently the district contributes $300 per month toward insurance for people who take TRS insurance, which is about 51% um, of our staff. So, a little little more than half. A couple of years ago, we've been we've lagged behind other districts in our contributions. And if you remember a
091couple of years ago, we did increase it to 300. And so, um, we're still lagging behind some of the other districts. Prosper Northwest Lewisville were about the same as Carol. Um, that's based on numbers from two years ago. And so, we have a couple of options. Um, we have three options really. One is we can look at um an increase that you see on the screen there of $50 more per month or $100 per month or not do anything you depending upon um what our funding looks like. I think I mentioned it last year um pretty close to one of the teachers here in the district and she took a pay cut last year because of increase to healthcare premiums. So, as long as we, you know, we're talking about helping support our teachers and
092our educators. So, so you'll bring this back in July? I'll bring it back in July. All right. Thank you. Just a question, a quick question. In our budget workshop that we just had, was any of this included? This was not because we did not have the premiums yet. Okay. We didn't have that figured in. Okay. So, this will be an addition to Yes, ma'am. Okay, these just came out uh late last week actually. Okay, it was a last minute ad. Policy update. This is TASBY policy update 125. You've seen these throughout the year. I believe this is the third one this year. This is a this is a baby one compared to the one that's coming soon. That will be it will be hundreds of pages long. I mean really 600 700 pages based on
093all of the new legislation that's passed. So, this is the um just a small version of some mostly language edits and clarifications, which is what typically happens with policy updates um throughout the school year. Um and so I think there's a if you'll click on that link in that cover sheet. No, just uh go back to that cover sheet and see if it'll open straight from there. See if you can open that right there. What what Christopher had pulled up though was um that's that's what we get from TASBY and it's just showing you every little detail of what was changed. Um but just kind of going over some of the highlights. If you want to call them highlights, can you go back? There should be three slides. One more there. Um there was some
094clarification on BDAA local which deals with um board advisory committees and they basically separated into two categories. one being an advisory committee and one being a board committee. They used to be lumped together in one policy. And so that's what BDAA local the change is. And it the biggest change there is that it um if it's a board committee like if there's a group of you and you form a committee which I don't think we've done this but um then district employees wouldn't be a part of a board committee. they would be part of possibly an advisory committee. So it clarifies that the superintendent um designates or has the authority to designate advisory committees, but so it's basically pulling those two committees apart. You have a question? No, I I don't understand any of this.
095I mean, why are we why are we having to update things that we don't do? This was always this has always been in policy, so it's just clarifying what our policy is. Okay. It would have been based on a legal change. They usually don't update a local unless there was a legal language change. So they probably there was a So they're separating an internal committee from a board committee. Who's they? Tasby. Tasby. They're giving us the recommendation based on that. You don't have to accept it. Yeah. Tell them no. We're just bringing the updates that they No, I appreciate that. I just It's enough policy for me. And then local is the one you have you have uh authority over. Yeah. Um the other thing that I'll highlight here is EI. It used to say
096um when you're looking at partial credit for student, it was the way it was worded was combined grade four and that's being changed to an average of for clarification. And then as far as um data that we keep track of bullying, we've always kept track of bullying, but it wasn't included in the actual policy. So that's being added in FTE and then FEC is more based on just information on attendance for credit. So there as far as like substantial changes, it's really just besides the board policy and the advisory is separating those two out. There's not much of a change to the policy itself. That will come this summer though. It will be a lot more. There'll be a lot of legal updates this summer and then locals that will fall in line with it
097because of the legislation. Yeah. And I'm kind of Mr. Wester, I'm kind of like you sometimes. I'll admit I mean when I read these I'm I mean I have to read them many many times to figure out what's even what's the difference. Right. And so you're not necessarily recommending the is the administration recommending that we we are because we we we use TASBY for policy guidance. But we'll get some clarity on the specific uh committee, the internal and the way they've got that, why they're separating it like that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Julie, will you next Matt sent you solo tonight? Mhm. Your agenda item I think says review a financial plan and um I didn't provide that. I think the lawyers did. So I apologize. We had one and then we've gone back
098and we're re-evaluating a little bit um based on legislative changes. Is that a shocker? No. Um so uh as Dr. Carpenter said, there were a lot of legislative changes this session. Um there were a number of proposed things that we were monitoring around the issuance of debt and thankfully most of those died um because they some of them would have been catastrophic to school districts to be honest with you like a 20% debt limitation and some other things that the um that the legislature was contemplating and kicking around. But um if you can go to the next page, SB4 does have um some impact on um what you all will be able to to uh or what we are evaluating right now for you all around um the 2025 uh bond authorization. Right. So again,
099the state legislature is proposing uh it will go to vote in the fall. Um but um typically homestead exemption votes do pass 95% to zero because people see this as a tax reduction and 100% of the people will vote yes, right? Well, not 100 but close to um because what they don't understand is how that impacts all the agencies that get these um that for which the values are then impacted, right? um at the um the municipal level, at the school district level. And so they don't quite understand what it's doing to um their local municipal entities. But in the case of school districts, this$1 to $140,000 change will likely lower the TAV for the district next year. So we won't see as much of an increase. We'll see a lower increase because every homeowner
100is going to get some of that value um back. it will likely in affect your frozen value um population because many people at the last homestead change when we when they adjusted the 60 the 40 to 100 rather people's frozen values fell so low they don't even pay a tax bill anymore. So if you were over 65 and your frozen value of your house bill your tax bill fell below what this change would have made. There's some over 65 people that don't even pay local taxes anymore to school districts because of those homestead value changes. We expect that that will be the same. This is not as big as the last homestead change in 2023, but at $40,000 it may put a number of people below the frozen value tax bill that they would have
101had. Um there is also some change to commercial properties like they did last year. I didn't have the details on that. There's so many complexities with this bill and TEA is working out how it will implement um this bill. So, we don't even know all the details yet. But what we understand is that um along with this Homestead change um the legislature has committed to um make you all harmless. They'll hold you harmless, every school district, for debt that is outstanding as of 91 of 2025. Well, the May 2025 authorization was not planned to be sold in 2025. You know, we had expected to sell that over multiple years. So, debt that we would have planned to sell in 26 or 27, 28 or 2030 will not be eligible for reimbursement from the state for
102how that loss of TAV revenue impacts your debt service. Does that make sense what I'm saying? In 2023 when they made the change for the first time, they did hold districts harmless for debt that was outstanding at the time of the change, 91 of 2023, and debt that was authorized as of 911 of 2023. So, if they had done that again, your May of 2025 election, we wouldn't be concerned about when we sold the debt because it would all be eligible for reimbursement by the state when we finally sold it. That is not the case this year. they will only um reimburse you on debt that is outstanding as of 911 of 2025. So we had actually talked to Dr. Wright and Liz about three weeks ago and said we're on plan to sell the
103debt the way that we had talked about over multiple years and we are going back to the drawing board. That's why I don't have a bond plan for you today is I am working on a number of scenarios um in a variety of instruments and ways to try to advance the sale of some of that authorization into 2025. So, but the problem with that is is if you if you you do you need to try to figure out a way to sell as much of it as you can, right? Based on what they've set up. Yeah. But then secondly, we have to spend it in a certain amount of time. you you are wedged between state legislature and federal tax exempt law which says you have to make a reasonable attestation that you can spend
10485% of that money within three years. So even if we could sell it all uh which is a big struggle for spend it all in three years. You have to be able to spend it all and we know we can't do that. We don't even we hadn't even planned to spend it all in three years. If everything was glorious and golden here we would not be spending some of it for six years. So, we're for you all, this legislative change is a wedge into a corner that is a little difficult to maneuver. And so, we're reworking the bond plan. Um, as it says up there, the delivery date of the bonds that will be eligible for the 2025, we call it ASHA. It's the homestead exemption reimbursement. It's some big number from the state, names
105from the state, but it we call it assh for the 2025 level. It has to be outstanding as of 91 and it you have to have bonds that are payable after 91 and it has to be repaid 100% from INS tax levy. There are some districts that are I don't think anyone pays anything from non from INS tax levy but they're also trying to work on reducing your eligibility or your ability as a school district to like defease bonds, redeem bonds. um they felt like school districts were taking advantage and artificially, you know, kind of calling debt in early and prepaying it in order to save money and that's a bad idea according to the state legislature. So, but the truth is, I mean, we need to buy land. That's a lot of bond money.
106Uh we need to do capital improvements. We can front in some of that. We got to build a baseball softball complex by 2027. We can do some of that. We got a middle school, too. We might as well get started on that. We're gonna run out of TAV. Well, I know that's the problem. I mean, right now I don't see in terms of like and they're exemption. It's not need, it's TAV. It's not the need and the timing of it. We could do it all. It's it's the growth. So, what we've done for, you know, the last 20 years is sell into the growth of the district. And that is going to be harder to do this year, but we're looking at a variety of things. and I will have a bond plan in the
107next week or two that we will discuss with Liz and Dr. Carpenter will send to you before the meeting in July, which is the agenda date to approve the order. Again, because of this timeline, we don't have a lot of flexibility of trying to get the 2025 bonds priced and delivered before 91 of 2025. So, um I that's why I don't have the plan in front of you today is I'm still working on it to see if we can get as much as we can sold. Right now, our target is what we were planning for in 2025, which was 72 million. And what what did that include now? What the 72 million that our original plan was? What did that include? I'm sorry. I don't I don't have that in front of me. It was
108land. It was an elementary school I believe. So it was um original plan for 25 is a little bit of planning money for middle school 2, a little bit of planning for the baseball softball, the overage on elementary 5. Um a small amount of capital improvements at Hilltop sixth grade center and um 377. It wasn't all of it, just some of it. And then um the connector here at Canyon Falls and then land. So was 75 million sorry was 70 thank you was 75 million um expected to be the increase in TV we were going to have or is there more uh what we well we had projected growth um originally we had hoped for growth of about well we probably had 17% 15% going into 2026 preliminary values from the CAD at the $100,000
109homestead exemption we don't have $140,000 exemption values from DAD because the CADs can't keep up with the legislative changes either. But we expect that to probably be haircut about four and a half 5%. That's the loss, what I'm going to call the loss with the $140,000 change. So we might only grow 8% with the change in values from 100 to 140. Yeah. So you So what is that what is that number? I don't have it off the top of my head. I don't I don't I probably have it in a model that I didn't bring with me. I apologize. Um you were projecting around 15% at the 100,000. But that'll probably get cut. But you but it looks like it's really going to come in about 12%. She said eight I think about 8 8
110to 10% growth 140. You didn't listen as well as I did. And then when it goes to 140,000 you expect that to come down to from about 12 13% to 8%. Yes. Okay. And and we just we don't know what that is right now. I don't I don't have that number right now. We the CAD can't we can we have an interpolated number that we're building off of what the change was that we get from TEA but it's not so so we have to to your point we have to rep prioritize what we think the the new CAD growth number is going to be and therefore then determine what we can spend and build or gain we can sell right now sell now and spend three years right and So what what we're working toward
111is spend or commit. It's spend. Has to be spend 85% has to be 85. What you what you make when you sell bonds for tax council when you issue the debt is you make a reasonable attestation that you expect to spend spend 85% of the funds within three years. Not like okay well you know we'll plan it. It's like spend. You have got a PO out there that's got the money kind of committed to it, you know, like I approved a GMP or whatever gross maximum price. Is that spending? It's committed. It's not really spent. It's committed. It's not spent. Yeah. So, it is hard to advance projects that we had expected to fund out in 30 or 31. So, they're going to force districts. They're forcing districts to go sell bonds for money they
112may not need yet. Oh, yeah. We anticipate that there will be a super strong heavy issuance of PSF debt this summer. And isn't that cap too? Sorry. Sorry. Isn't the PSF debt capped as well? Um, right now PSF has a lot of capacity. It'll be interesting to see if there's much less after the end of the summer. So, we'll see. But PSF as a fund has a lot of capacity right now based on the new multiplier we have around um with the IRS. So, we're I don't think there's any question about eligibility, but yes, many many districts are now looking at what their authorization is that they have, old or new, and they're looking at selling more debt than they would have otherwise planned to sell because if you don't have it outstanding, you will
113not get that reimbursement. And it's an annual reimbursement over the life of the bonds. So, if you're selling bonds for 20 years or 30 years, it's an it's a certain percentage of reimbursement that you get for 30 years. So in my is it fair to say like it's forcing fiscal irresponsibility? No. Yes, it is. No, because we're not I don't think that I would we would do something. I think it's just forcing people to push to move on to push bonds sales up into into a current time frame that they they're moving it forward when they might have sold it in a year or two or three years. But if you're fighting inflation, you get if we don't need the funds that we've been authorized to sell, then then that's not a burden that's put
114on the taxpayers then, right? Because we don't have to issue those bonds. And now in essence, we're being forced to issue as much as you can as quickly. We're never we're only going to sell what we need at all times. Even if she says we need to fast, we're only going to sell what we need. So it's not going to force us to do things we don't need. If you can sell it and be held harmless, there's a difference between need and having to spend to to maximize your hold harmless. If we think we can sell it and spend it in the three years, why wouldn't we to maximize our whole harmless? But then we don't we wind up having extra money sitting around and then we have committed to three years where you're earning
115the interest and you get penalized on some that you earn. If we have too much sitting in there, you earn too much interest compared to the yield. Yeah. it may create some arbitrage issues which are arbitrage. Thank you. Um you know where you've made more money than the yield on the bonds and you have to give some of that um over earning back to the federal government. I guess it's better to earn the money and have to give some of it back to the federal government than not have the money. Um it is a little complicated. I don't um so what I should say is we're looking at trying to sell about 250 million in 2025 instead of 75 million. It's about 250 versus 75 million. That's the goal. I We're not sure we can
116get there, but that's what we're working toward. It's all of the 26 20 25 26 and 27 amounts of bonds that we had scheduled in those three years. We're looking to try to sell in 2025 if we can make that happen. I I'm not guaranteeing that. I I I'm working with kind of assumption numbers and trying to figure that out. People to be alarmed about that. I mean, we have $250 million in projects that we should No, this is not anything that we didn't schedule. It's just And by doing them faster, you may save money. You may save money. You may save money. So, I mean, it's not necessarily It's not great. It's not all doom and gloom, though. If you can do it, and we have the ability to do it, let's do it.
117Yeah. And the whole thing there is that that gap in that you do have the ability and it doesn't go above the 50 cents and you have the Yeah, we still have to pass the 50 cent test. We still are working on getting a future TAV value that we need to get uh we have a lot in play at this moment is what I would say. And so we will be back to you all with more information with a bond plan that lays out what that looks like and how that you know will be accomplished. And it might not be 250, it might only be 220. We're going to do what we can. That's our goal was to try to work on what was originally scheduled for 25, 26, and 27. And we're going to
118have to leave the remaining authorization um out past the next legislative session. So that gives us maybe a chance to convince the legislators that they need to go back and revise some of this. And it also lets us see what how the TV is impacted by this change. and um you know work on that kind of as a phase two of the May 2025 authorization. So and we need to all we need to allocate more time for Mr. Cohen to present too. He hasn't said a whole lot there. So well I mean and that September one date just seems very unrealistic. I mean they barely close the session. We don't even understand every little nuance of all these bills and in less than three months you have to make that decision to do that which
119has vast implications down the road in the future. So at one point in this bill they had it written as September one of 23 I believe and they made a change towards the end and amended it to September one of 25. Had it been September one of 23, that would have taken any choice out of our hands and any ability to act on that out of our hands. But they did at least bump it up to 25. I don't know if that was a typo or what. And the reason you're re you may recommend that we sell more bond money by September of this year than we anticipated is because we would get more state aid. Yes. So the loss in the TV value with the increase in the homestead exemption is supposed to be
120offset by hold harmless reimbursement from the state. I'm not sure you get 100%. I'm not sure anyone gets 100%. But I think people are getting 95% or close to what they would have gotten if TAV had if the homestead exemption had not changed. So the reason to do this is because you're going to get more state aid hold harmless money and you're also going to counter inflation potentially cost of projects. Yes. If you can actually execute on those projects earlier than what's in the plan right now. Yes. On both sides you could get that. And every district is doing the same thing and there's only if Pog was sitting here. No, it's a ridiculous stupid deal. That's an overreulation. I I don't disagree with you that there's a reason to do more than we can
121and yes, we can probably find ways to do that and you're going to save money potentially by moving those projects forward, but there's it's got to be spent. The issue is spent. If it was committed, you have to be able to make a reasonable expectation that you can spend the money and um reasonable is often in the in the you know, but capital plans. Isn't it fair to assume that with all the demand on construction that costs are going to go up? Well, there is. There's your savings right there. You're going to you're going to overcook the market for construction for sure. And you're going to be in a delay because there's only so many of them to go around. So, he's right. The price is going to go up. Thank you. They think they're
122doing something great and it they make things real complicated for you all which is which they're doing on many many levels. I'm sorry. What problem did they I mean what problem did they address with this? Um this is all about property taxes and lowering the property taxes across the state of Texas for homeowners who feel like their property taxes are too high. Squeeze the balloon on one end and it gets bigger on the other. So they've done this now. This is the fourth homestead exemption change. They did one in 2015, one in 2021, 2023, and now 2025. continue to do it. So on $200 million 85% is 175 170 million. Yeah. We we would have to have a plan. So as we're working through this then we have to work internally on a plan that
123would actually um get us to the 85% in time. Right. Okay. Right. You have homework to do. We have homework to do. Thank you, Julie. Thank you. Thank you for speaking in English and not financially as good. Yes, Jeff, let's go buy all the mechanicals for every building you ever had. And then if you'll kind of flip through the first few slides, I'll talk through those and then I'll let you kind of take the There should be You should have a You should have a slide. You should have had um is it the link at the top? No, they've got it was it was just sent I mean it was sent to them directly. Um here let me go in and do this. It's all right. I'll do this right here. You can just put
124it in public if you want to just do that and you can pull it up. That's that one right there. Perfect. Okay. So the May workshop, we visited with you all on staff compensation plan. We knew enough about House Bill 2. It has now since been signed by the governor. So I want to do just a couple of recap things before Dr. Daniel finishes talking about that. Um if you remember, we talked about budget priorities that we took back out to staff. If you'll go to the second slide, um we talked we took back out to the staff, let them look at some things. Class size ratios were obviously a priority. restoration of campus support positions were a priority from that we had to eliminate from 2425. You addressed those as a board in April
125with over $3 million in teaching positions for class size ratios and then also those campus support positions that you approved back into the budget. And so today we're here to talk about compensation increase and then the fourth priority was a balanced budget of which Miss Stewart will bring back in August and we are on track to have that. Uh, one thing I do want to share on the next slide, um, regarding class size ratios where we currently sit. So, the the message and the direction of the board was to fill our classrooms as much as we could and get our class sizes as low as we could before we started school. Um, and I think we have exhausted almost every classroom in every elementary campus we have. And this is where we currently sit today.
126It is June. And so, you'll see um, where we were at 18 and 19, we're now to 20 and 21. in a couple of places. Uh that south, I'm sorry, the west kindergarten number has gone to 19 since this chart was made. So, um and you've got two highlighted there. In a little bit, Dr. Daniel's going to bring an item to you that talks about requesting two additional FTEEs for teachers and three contingencies for the very reason that these continue to creep up as we get closer to August and we are almost out of classrooms. So, we are trying to keep them as low as possible. This is where we are as of today was in Skyward in the queue and then um we're coming with a few more teaching positions. So there's a chance
127we could be asking for more teaching positions in June July if we can find the space if these continue to creep up um with our our situation but we are trying to keep them as low as possible start the year. That's where we are. So um you want to take it from here? Sure. Okay. So, at the um workshop when we talked about the compensation increases, there were two that were being funded through House Bill 2 with some still unclear definitions on I know it sounds simple to some people that may be listening, but what is a classroom teacher? Um, but so, and it only included those that had more than two years of experience. And so, our compensation package does account for those that are at year zero and two. and then another um
128increase for all other staff who were not a part of um the increase from House Bill Two. And so for year 0 to2 teachers, it would be a $2,100 increase, three to four years, $2,500. And for five years or more, $5,000. And that gets built into our teacher pay scale. It's not something we can just you can't just t tack it on as a stipend as a one-time kind of thing. It gets built into um the pay plan and hopefully it continues. It should for at least two years. Right. Right. Yeah. And the the note there um just on Thursday of last week, TEA put out some additional guidance to clarify a few things. And that note right there um classroom teachers generate the increase in the years after they've completed three or five. So
129it's not when they're entering into that year, it's once they've completed that year. So if they have completed their fourth year, then they're the 2500. If they've completed their fifth year, then they move into the 5,000. So that was a clarification they came out with on Thursday um with their publication. So Oh, go ahead. Yeah, I talked a little bit about this. I'm just still the unsure. We're getting a little more clarification from TEA on a classroom teacher whether you know if it's a part-time teacher, if they're a DOI teacher, um if you have an instructional spec specialist on a campus, which we do, who is paid on a teacher pay scale, are those included? And again, we're including people on that scale even though House Bill 2 only funds the definition of a teacher
130according to TEA. Four or more hours in an instructional setting. So, an instructional coach won't qualify, but in an interventionist would because they're in an instructional setting. And that second bullet has been answered for us since we prepared the slide deck um in the same publication. And it's not a stipen. It will actually be a pay scale separate a new pay scale. And this is just an example of why the Senate bill which mandates how you spend every dollar is a whole lot worse and more complicated than the House bill which said here's your basic aotment district. You decide how you can who how the raises are going to be implemented. Correct. I mean this slide just tells you what the problem is. And you know, we want to celebrate all the new funding and
131stuff, but how they fund it matters. And because they fund it with every dollar being earmarked, it creates all these questions. That didn't need to be the case. If you just give the basic a lotment that's deserved, it's highly regulated what we're allowed to do with it. And it creates more government when you distribute regulated because you got the TEA is the winner. And bullet three is another question that makes it a little more difficult. You know, do you have two two quote teacher pay scales because we have teachers and librarians and instructional specialists that are paid on the teacher pay scale. So, do you pull all of those people out and have a separate scale and have teachers only on one scale? Because that's the way that House Bill Two is funding. It's just
132the definition of a classroom teacher. and Miss Stewart and I have a call with TASBY tomorrow to we're talking about two pay scales or other options is what we were told. I mean they don't even know completely. Okay. Then and this hasn't changed. I don't believe this is the same thing we showed you at the workshop. So we're still looking at um obviously the surplus amount depends on the full interpretation and implementation of House Bill 2. But right now um where we were from the May workshop is we're in the same spot. Now, of course, we're bringing a few positions to you tonight, but we're still looking at that 1.6 surplus going into next year's as she brings the budget for adoption in August. So, we're bringing forward the compensation plan for consideration uh for
133staff. Well, I'm all for it. And the reason, one of the things I like to see, and I love that chart that you showed, is it showed an emphasis on reducing class sizes. And it not only showed reducing class sizes in K through four, it showed that you're including fifth grade as an elementary school classroom that doesn't have a maximum class size. But you made the administration went to great efforts to reduce those down into the low 20s trying to get those to start out which is we know in certain situations creeped up to 29 or 30 last year. So because we started at 26 and 27. So that commitment in the budget, you know, isn't an individual raise to a teacher, but it is a quality of life that you're providing them by making
134sure all those classrooms are used and there's less kids in those classes. And I think it's important to reiterate for those that may not have seen the workshop, the board workshop from the March where you all actually took the feedback from the staff on those budget priorities and found a way to incorporate all four of them in some form or fashion to be, you know, to meet all four priorities and didn't just pick one. And the surplus is going to put you in a position as if enrollment increases throughout the year to address those um quickly. And that's why we're carefully monitoring this summer as as enrollments are coming in and completing inside the system. Um the campuses have a we have a a spreadsheet that they're updating and so we're watching those. That's why
135those two highlighted ones, we knew we were automatically going to if you approve the five teaching positions tonight, two of them are already allocated and that gives us three and then if we come July, depending on what things look like, we may have some more. Are we saying that with doing this, we're pretty much using all the classroom space available in our buildings? I mean, I believe so. We have just a just a little tiny Look at the heads back. I mean, you can see I mean, they're I know they're just I mean, so we looking at that dreaded portable word at some point. Maybe we will for next year if we're going to try to keep class sizes under control because we still have a whole another year before elementary 5 open the school.
136But there are alternatives. 50 million we got to spend. I mean, there are alternatives to that. I mean, you can reduce class sizes. So you can bring in more support in the classroom. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yes, you could put you could put additional teaching support inside each classroom. Yes. All right. We already have the answer in the back row. Any other questions for Dr. Daniel? U Wine. I'm going to abstain from action item 10A. So all right, I'll entertain a motion to approve action item 10A. So moved. Mr. Hawksworth, motion to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Mr. McDall, a second. Always every time. I heard you. The last time I didn't hear a second, someone voted against me. Um, so I apologize, M. That's okay. All right. Any further discussion? All in favor
137say I. I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Thank you'all very much. I know our staff will be very very excited and we will get that message out to them as soon as possible. Many of them are probably listening tonight. So, thank you. Some of them are sitting out here. They might be texting right now. It's a far cry from two years ago. The discussions we were having a year ago. Even a year ago. Yeah. All right. Now, we're back to the positions we talked about. Now, back to the positions that we we just alluded to earlier. Um we are bringing to you not as information but as action because there's an urgency to it. Um of an addit the addition of five classroom teachers. Two of those which will be immediately like probably start
138clicking buttons to hire because they've been asking me about it released the as soon as possible. And then we'll hold the other three positions and continue to watch enrollment and if we need one of those positions or two of those or how many we don't have to wait for the next board meeting. We'll have those kind of on kind of on hold. So, there's those five teaching positions that we're asking for. There is a um diagnostician that is needed in the special education department that would be paid for out of federal funds. And then we also have included, we talked a little bit about this at our during our safety update back in May, um the need for an additional police officer, specifically with the K9 unit and there is some quite a bit of
139startup cost involved in that. Um but it like I said it it would not be a yearly um cost. Having another officer will one I think one of the big goals especially with the K9 with an additional staff member is really trying to curtail drug use at the high school and to try to um see if we can detect more of it. Um and the other is our police officers are they are limited to their campus. If anybody is ever absent, then there's not a replacement. There's not we don't have a subpool um for police officers. And so many times we have campuses that are without a police officer. We sometimes send Chief Davis. He's all over the place all the time. Um covering, coming to meetings, meeting with um the municipalities, other police departments.
140So, it's really having that extra officer will free up some time for Chief Davis as well. But our primary goal out of all of this is the um is the drug use is to try to help with that. Anyone have any questions for Dr. Daniel? All right, I'll entertain a motion to approve action items 10 B. So, Mrs. Artho with the motion to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Dr. McDade with a second. Any further discussion or questions? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Daniel. Thank you. All right, Mr. Cohen, you're the closer. Yes. All right. So, tonight uh was bringing you a proposal. Uh this would be for a change order to the construction contract to replenish contingency funds. So, this is not uh
141a request to give the contractor more money. This is the discretionary discretionary fund we have within the contract. So that allows us to deal with, you know, unforeseen, changes, uh if we need to to add something along the way that got missed. So it allows us the flexibility to approve those and and keep the project moving. Uh so uh if you recall when we brought the uh price in to you for the stadium and the indoor activity center, uh we were over the anticipated budget. So as part of the strategy and the plan when we brought that to you we had re re-evaluated uh our allocations that we had included for FFN technology some of those things uh which were not your typ it's not your typical project so we we don't have as much
142furniture as you do in an elementary school so we reevaluated those categories you know to see where we could pull funds that were already in the bond uh to cover the construction costs that had come in higher uh it didn't cover all of it. So, another part of that strategy was we looked at the interest we were going to earning since we're in this higher yield time right now. Um we are actually earning more than the bond yield and so we had some projected interest in there to make up the remainder of that difference. Uh in addition, we kind of kept our contingencies that we did include tight. We didn't want to come in here and and overinflate that cost even more with these higher contingencies. So we came in with percentages that would be
143lower than you would typically see uh on a project of this. So during the course of the project uh we have encountered a number of of unforeseen conditions things we could not have anticipated or planned for uh and it has has really eaten into that contingency. uh just broad categories. Um we had a lot of underground electrical that we located sometimes by accident uh and discovered it was in the way of the foundation for the indoor activity uh in the way of a fire lane. So all of these things had to be moved out of those areas so construction could continue. Uh we did discover some some issues with the track that we had to deal with in order to tie in new concrete to the track to have a smooth transition. Uh and then
144just some general uh technology pieces that that had to be coordinated. Some of them were not identified at the time the project went out and so we had to coordinate those uh after the fact on some of the APS and some of those type of things. Um so uh any of these funds um that are spent uh you know they go to the contractor but anything not spent of course is retained by the district and a final change order will reverse that out delete that from their contract. So again the contractor doesn't get this money unless we approve what it's being spent on just gives us the flexibility to keep things moving. So, you know my feelings. Accountability hasn't been there from some of the people that we've used in the past. Some we may
145still be using today. Um, CM explained to me if you're guaranteed max price and you hit a line that the architect or the as built from the previous guy didn't show, who's that? I mean I mean the architect from the previous build it's the same architect. It's the same architect. Yes. So they put it there. This is where I struggle. Right. So uh if you're I feel like a guaranteed max price is guaranteed max price. If you miss something, you get to eat it. Th this is not a guaranteed max price. Huh? This is not a guaranteed max price. The stadiums the stadium and the indoor are not. That was that was competitive seal proposal method. So that puts more of the risk on us for those type of things in in that scenario you
146mentioned that would be their responsibility if we exceeded all contingencies. Well, if I just don't put money in the contingency, then we exceed it and it's their responsibility. Is that what you just said? No, because this is not a guaranteed this is not a construction manager at risk with a guaranteed maximum price. Yeah. So I I would like to say this that a lot of what we have found uh is not something that that the architect would be responsible for um because electrical lines, you know, specifically circuits to uh parking lot lights, circuits to feed the baseball and softball field, it's not drawn on a plan that says you put it in here like you would see with a water line that's that's eventually turned over to the town as a public water line. We
147just know point A to point B. So we have to rely on any record drawings that we do get from the last project to know where they're at. So so we don't necessarily we don't know the exact path and exactly where those utilities were buried. So that's the issue is is we don't know that. So when we do it we've do these projects where they're multiple phases, right? This is the third major project over here. We've got to start asking for people to tell me where you put the power lines, right? And we Yeah, we do. And we get those and to the best of our ability, we're checking those to make sure they're accurate. But they aren't always. Listen, again, I don't have a problem putting money in the contingency to use things when
148we say, "Hey, we want to do a change order to do something better than we thought." But going back and spending it on things that we like I feel somebody who did one of those projects before should be accountable for, that's where I struggle. So, Is this project you recommended CM? It is. And we voted for CSP. Yes. All of us but one. Yeah. I don't remember the the vote count, but I do. And all right. I've never liked the project. I voted against the project. And this just explains why. I mean, if you told me we were spending $450,000 and we were getting a second jumbotron, we were getting better technology. You told me if we didn't spend this 450,000 and we could cut seats back, we could save money and reduce capacity. I'd
149be excited to hear that. And since I hear none of that, I'm not in favor. Well, well, I can tell you that that I hope not to spend any of this, but the contingencies that we have remaining are getting dangerously low uh in order to keep the project moving. I hope we don't spend any of it. I would love to cut bathrooms. I'd love to cut seats. I'd love to cut all those things to have a more intimate awesome packed state close to All right. Or spend $450,000 on a cool tumbler. It's video board. Video board. 2025. That's what I'd spend. I would spend the money on the but not on moving that board. The vision board. But I jumbotron too. No, we're good. All right. Same time. What do we What do we have
150a contingency before this or that we've used or have we? We started uh with a million 175 across the board in all the contingencies both projects combined. That's just kind of how my brain remembers it and we are down to about 125 at the moment. 125 remaining. And of course now there's a lot of in and out. I mean this is not just 10 things. I mean, I'm I'm up to about 80 items. So, there's lots of credits that are going back in to help replenish it, you know, from construction VE do things better. But then there's a lot of things we encounter, add that, you know, if they didn't put the 450 in the pot, what do they do? What do we do? Uh, we're going to eventually probably run into a situation where
151something gets stopped until we come back and and ask for some funds for something specific at that time. So, right now we're just trying to get it in there so it's available. Again, this is not spent. There's not anything particular that I'm going to go spend some of this on tomorrow. And I hope we can continue to generate more savings and and credits to offset any of the continued uh expenses. So, this is out of the balance of the 2022 funds that we currently have from our interest. interest specific for these projects. Yeah, we we have about a million2 right now in interest savings that are available to the projects that must be spent on these projects, right? Within three years. Yes. Okay. I entertain a motion to approve action item 10 C is presented.
152So moved. Mr. Matthew slight motion to approve. Do second. Mr. Oxford with a second. All in favor say I. Any opposed? Opposed. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Again, for the record, I voted for CM. Everyone else up here voted for CSP. I'm not sure how that made a difference. All right. The time is Dr. Jordan 8:22.