AISD School Board Meeting 4-22-25

001All right, good evening. It is 5:00 pm. It is April 22nd, 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 Wester, present. Rich McDall, present. Matt Sllayton, present. Oh, Craig Hawksworth is present. I s present. We do have a quorum established. We do have Mr. Hawksworth here. The time is still 5:00 p.m. We will adjourn to executive session. All right, good evening. The time is 6:04 p.m. We have returned from executive session. Um, this time we have our friends from Hilltop that are going to lead us in our pledges this evening. Mrs. Campbell, introduce who's with us here tonight. Absolutely. Good evening. Um, I am happy to introduce you all. This is Heather Whitney. She's

002one of our fabulous fifth grade teachers and she is the lead of our student council. So, I'm going to let her introduce you to the student council members that she brought tonight. Hello. Hello. Thank you for having us tonight. Um, I have three student council members. They've been practicing in the hallway and they're still not sure if they know the Texas pledge. So, we'll see how this goes. Um, Mr. Hodsworth can help. Yeah. Okay. Well, well, I'll be on the You're going to put it up here. Oh, look. There you go. just read it. Um, so I'm going to let them introduce themselves, say their name, and kind of tell us some stuff they love about Hilltop and Student Council. My name is Kellen Avery, and what I like about Hilltop Elementary is that our

003Horizon's program teaches us how to do engineering and how to do good at it. Hi, my name is Molly Lynn and I like I like how Hilltop gives a very good atmosphere to learn and make friends with. My name is Ridley Allison and what I like about Hilltop is the teachers. I did not bribe her. I want to be clear. Come on up front. Okay, there you go. Get started. Now we're ready. Aliance 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. Great job. Thank you guys. Great [Music] job. All right. Thank you again to Hilltop Student Council for

004leading us in our pledges. We appreciate that. Right. This time, Mr. Hawksworth, if you will lead us in our opening prayer. Sure. Dear Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for these administrators both at the district level and the campus level and all our teachers for this great year we've had. We're coming down to the end and please give them the strength and the energy to finish um strong as they've done all year long. I also want to thank you for all the community members that raised their hand and and get involved in some way, shape, or form to support this district. They're vital to our success and our continued success. And I want to thank them so much and thank you for sending them to us. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen.

005All right, Dr. Carpenter, we have some special recognitions. We do. Let me So, we're going to start with our Eagle Ambassadors. So, do we have any of our Eagle Ambassadors here today? Come on up. Yeah. So, we have our second cohort of Eagle Ambassadors here. Um, some the ones that could be here this evening. And this group met with us all year long. all things kind of a behind the scenes if you will of all operations in the district. And so they had the opportunity to graduate tonight. So we're going to celebrate them. But um I think most importantly is they came in and asked great questions. They came in and really engaged with our administrators that led their different departments. We really appreciate them. They've done wonderful work going back out into their communities,

006their neighborhoods, and helping be an ambassador for the district. So, um would just like to give them a round of applause and thank them for being here this evening. So, if y'all could help us do that and we'll take a [Applause] picture. Sarah So this evening we have we have se we have um Miss Fritz Sarah Britz we have Paige Miranda we have we have Aaron Reed and we have Miss Hail got you on here too. Yes, Kimberly Hail. Thank you all for being here this evening. [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] Got to be careful. Safety first. It's usually me. I'm not paying attention. Okay. And the second group we want to recognize this evening uh is going to be our collaborative visioning committee that has committed a lot of time this year. They're we're going to

007have a presentation in a little bit to celebrate their final recommendation um that they're going to have for us in a little bit. They've been working on a five-year plan, if you will, in all organization departmental areas. But um want to take a minute just tonight to recognize those that are here and then you'll get to hear from them directly and during a presentation in a little bit. So, if you are with the collaborative visioning team, I'm going to I'm going to call out our student learning group first. So, if our student learning group is here, if you guys will come up. Um, Robin Campbell, Dr. Don Jordan, Hillary Leair, Caitlyn Maguire, Lauren Tolles, those are our district representatives for student learning. And then from a community, we have Megan King, Jane Kiaak, Josh Lively,

008Moheit Ranjon, Justin Shuff, and Katie Spring. So any of the the community members here and then student representative Kevin Cantrell. Is Kevin here tonight? I know our students are busy. So okay. So this is our student learning group. So y'all hang on right there. Uh student experience Renee Thunderberg, Stephanie Kelly, Shannon Nolles, Donna Lumston, Dr. Dr. Heather Quas, community members Candace Allison, Sarah Deve, Jen Daport, Erica Deetsz, Angela Dixon, and Aliage B and Paulolly. Student representative Grady Emerson, who I believe is on the baseball field right now, so he's not going to be here with us. Resource stewardship, Dr. Chris Daniel, Kristen Hubard, Michael Lemish, Laura Risby, Liz Stewart, and Holly Williams. from a community on resource stewardship. Brian Darnell, Connor Kaine, Stephanie Mloud, Scott Morgan, Paige Reed, Megan Straken, and Joe Wait. Student Representative

009Sanvi Alpati. I think I saw Sanvi come in. Ah, there she is. Perfect. Uh, and then community engagement, Lindseay Griffin, Kristen Haynes, Rick Haron, Alexa Muton from a community Sal, Johnny Alpati, Tyler Avery, Kim Gregory, Emily Hol, Susan Hoover, Leanne Newberry, and student representative Presley Hawksworth. So, I would like to just thank them for the work and you're going to really be excited when you get to see their presentation a little bit. So, thank you very much to all of you for the many, many hours that you put in here in the building, but also all the collaborative hours that you put in outside of the time we've met we we met here. So, thank you all very much. [Applause] All right. Big picture. Big picture. Don't go anywhere. Big picture. There's always a pause.

010[Music] It's season. Yeah. put the spelling. Yeah, if you want. Let's see. Oh, we had All right, we're going to move into um public forum tonight's meeting. We have two people signed up. I'm gonna go ahead and read my script. Here we go. Uh we'll now move into 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, but trustees will not be able to discuss the items until they are before the board during the meeting. Board policy beed local provides the

011presiding 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 five 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, andor GF. Speakers are not permitted to refer to individual students or employees by name during the public comment period. Additionally, if you have a pending grievance that may come before the board in a level three hearing, please refrain from addressing the topic

012of your grievance except through the grievance process. Per board policy beed and this board's operating procedures, the board will not allow disruption of the board meetings 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. All right. Okay. Hey, we have two people signed up. Our first speaker tonight is the reigning Argal High School teacher of the year, Steven Orlosski. Hey, Mr. Orowski. There you go. And he wrote all of that. Thank you for the kind words, Mr. You have five minutes. Whenever you're ready. Okay. Thank you. For those who don't know me, my name is Stephen Arlowski and I teach US history at Argyle High School. Last week, the Texas House approved

013not only House Bill Two, which provided almost 8 billion for public education, but also Senate Bill Two, or vouchers, or ESAs as you know them, after hours and hours of proposed amendments, debate, and passionate testimony. When Senate Bill Two, the voucher bill was passed in the early hours of the morning last Thursday, public education did not win. Our students did not win. Our community did not win. Our teachers and staff did not win. bullying, outofstate money, and outofstate influence. One, regarding House Bill Two, I want to state that I am greatly appreciative of our ISD's House Representatives actions to increase the basic aotment beyond the amount originally proposed in the bill. Something is better than nothing, but something could have been and should have been much more. All our elected representatives who serve Argyle ISD

014in the legislature voted to pass this voucher bill. They chose to take the path of least resistance rather than fully fund the over 5 million Texas public school students, of which over 6,000 make up Argyle ISD. For the past several months, we have been bombarded with propaganda from the governor's office about myths and facts regarding Texas public schools. Not surprisingly, almost all myths were facts, and all facts were myths. I talked with some who said they would consider private schools based on where they live in the DFW area, but firmly believe public education should be fully funded and not this voucher program. This is what Texans want, desire, and deserve. That's also what the Texas Constitution requires. Article 7, Section 1 clearly states, "It shall be the duty of the legislature of the state to

015establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools." This voucher program in no way supports free public schools and is a workaround to benefit the few at the expense of many. Anyone who's paid attention to this whole issue knows the voucher won't even cover the cost of tuition. Additionally, nothing in this voucher program is conservative. It is exactly the opposite and everyone knows it. This program creates a whole new bureaucracy that plans to grow at a very fast aggressive pace and taxpayers are the ones paying for it. That money will certainly be diverted from public schools like ours. Last Wednesday, before the debate and votes on both school funding and ESAs, there were reports that Democrats and Republicans were considering an amendment that would send the

016vote on vouchers to the people of Texas through a referendum. Here's where the bullying went into full effect. Governor Abbott met with all House Republicans the morning of both votes. I'm certain the message was clear and was nothing the governor hadn't said in previous years. there would be political consequences for those who did not vote for ESAs. So what exactly are our taxpayers going to? We are paying a subsidy to those who can afford private schooling and are already there. Does that sound like school choice? I would bet that in this district there is strong majority of our constituents who oppose vouchers. All our representatives ignored their constituents and did what was best for them. They've made their beds. It's now time for them to lie in them. This is where we need the community's

017help. We need you to contact our representatives and let them know that public schools must be fully funded. Most importantly, I encourage everyone in this district to contact Senator Tan Parker immediately and tell him that House Bill 2 cannot be cut or short changed from what the House agreed to. The Senate still has the power to reduce what the House allocated. Don't allow them to take more from our schools, our staff, and our students. Finally, you need to know how much this district cares about school funding and adv advocacy. Besides myself, two staff members at Argyle South Elementary, fifth grade teacher Mattie Fairchild and assistant principal Katie Hayden have been completely devoted and dedicated to advocating for public education. Mr. Westerm proposed an amendment to our house reps and has stayed in constant contact to

018stay in their ears. If you want more info, Mr. Westerm's district incentive allotment was a suitable realistic proposal to fully fund high performing achieving districts like ours. Finally, Dr. Carpenter has continuously shown she values the input of all aspects and groups in Argyle ISD. Her leadership and guidance have been extremely valuable and meaningful in allowing us to use our teacher voices. Find me another superintendent and trustees who have talked the talk and walk the walk for public school funding. In closing, I want to finish with a quote my family and I took in during Easter church service this past weekend. Hope for the future gives us power in the present. As an AISD teacher and parent, I encourage everyone to share their stories, advocate for students, and hold our elected representatives accountable to our needs

019and our desires. I would like to say more. Unfortunately, I don't have time. But with that, I thank you for listening and appreciate your attention. [Applause] Thank you, Mr. All right, Miss Aaron Reed, follow that up. The best of the best right there. Good evening. You have five minutes. Floor is yours. Um, good evening. I just wanted to take a moment moment to um express my heartfelt gratitude to the school board and the administration for uh the incredible time, effort, and care that went into the Engle Ambassadors program. It was a remarkable opportunity for our community to gain an indepth understanding of the inner workings of the district, something that often goes unseen. You didn't have to open your doors after hours or dedicate the countless hours of preparation, presentations, or conversations, but you did.

020And in doing so, you made it clear just how committed you are to transparency, education, and partnership with the community. And that kind of leadership doesn't go unnoticed. I wholeheartedly encourage anyone who loves this district to participate in the program should it be offered again. I also want to sincerely thank you for approving the upcoming bond proposal. It's clear that it was thoughtfully and strategically developed. It not only addresses our district's immediate needs and pressing needs, but also wisely anticipates a significant growth that we know is on the horizon. It's an investment in both our present and our future. And I look forward to celebrating its passing and the continued commitment to serving all the students in this district well, like you always have. Thank you again for your vision, your time, and your unwavering

021dedication to our students and our community. Thank you. Okay, that concludes our public forum uh for the evening. Go ahead and call an audible with our collaborative visioning crew and we're going to go ahead and move to action item 11A. Excellent. So, Mr. Herren, if you'll pull that presentation up. I would like to call to the podium Dr. Lizzie Johnson. Uh Dr. Johnson was instrumental in helping facilitate this community group this year. Um, what I love about her process is she truly goes with the recommendations of what the values of the community is. And so nothing comes in predetermined. It's very organic, very authentic. And I believe that if you were with us at the very beginning to the time we finished, you would see that it's a messy process. and we went through several

022iterations but ultimately came to a final recommendation that we're very excited to deliver to you tonight. So, it's going to be this will be sort of a a collaborative and combination presentation, but we're going to let you start off and welcome. We're glad you're here and thanks for coming to see us this evening. Awesome. Thank you. Well, good evening board of trustees, Dr. Carpenter. Uh I call it simple but complicated just as she explained and that's what we went through in this very room with the committee. And we actually started this back, if you'll recall, in September with all of you from the very beginning where we did the three-hour workshop and we put all of the items together. So, it even that far back, that's how long this has been in play. And so

023I just want to remind you and these were some things we talked about when we met in September about the four areas that collaborative visioning actually helps the district do and that's to clarify its vision, mission, core values, and motto, which is what you worked on. And if everyone will look to their left, we have them here um on our banners tonight. We're very proud of them. And it, you know, it's just such a great way to put out the true message of all the amazing things happening in Argal ISD. And then we want to speak with one voice. And when you watch this group work in this room, there was a lot of discussion, a lot of post-it notes and dots and posters and we had things lined everywhere and it was just a

024great time and a lot of discussion, a lot of good questions. uh we obviously are want to travel in the same direction and support students in all areas of their education. We did have students involved in the uh committee and they were our guiding voice and uh they did a great job. So the end result is a statement of the district's guiding strategy on what it intends to accomplish and the key initiatives for achieving it. So looking back, this is just an overview of all the agendas that we used during those five meetings. And uh we had a lot of great presentations from our district leadership. Uh we talked about a gap analysis. Uh we brought out all of the the good things that are happening and the the data and then we brought out

025the areas of growth and that's where they started building out their collaborative vision template for their for from their priority focus area. And so, uh, the last night was really celebration because they worked so diligently that they pretty much had everything finished by that. They worked outside of this room, too, which was so amazing. They shared documents and they were working in the evenings and you could see them working in those documents. We could all see all the the good happenings that were going on there. Um, and then obviously one thing that's not on here is what I talked about earlier is that when we all met in September for those three hours to really flesh out all of those, uh, mission, vision, core values, and the motto statement. And so, uh, we've already recognized

026those who are here in the room tonight, but as you can see, this was our very robust group, our committee. And remember, they were divided into priority focus areas. So they really did focus on their area, but there was a time in this room where they were able to give feedback to the other areas. So they never left not understanding what was happening outside of their group. Uh we've also listed you all as part of this because you were the foundation from the beginning as the board of trustees who who laid the foundation with all of the mods and the um mission, the vision and the core values. and then our student representatives and of course we had some great district leadership in this committee who helped guide and support as the plan was coming

027together. So this was our timeline. You can see all the way back to September. Uh we started meeting with the committee in November and we we staggered it. We didn't rush them. We had them some nice time in between so that they could really work and think about the the items that they were bringing to the table. And then here's our finals from what you worked on and created together. And I think you're gonna probably going to see this everywhere in the district. It really It really set the tone for the whole process. It did. And what a great job, uh, communications department did with this. It It just really stands out. Good job, Rick. Um, and so, uh, I want to just keep that up there for a minute so we can just take

028it all in. but it really did set the foundation for what the committee started working on and as they started building out their plan. So, this is our plan on a page and it has all of the objectives from each uh focus area, your values, your mission, your your vision. Um, and this is something that the uh district can use over and over again. We can make you copies to have at your place for when you're making big decisions as board members. Um, I've talked to Dr. Carpenter about having these in the campuses so everyone can see them and it's a good reminder of where the district is going and the collaborative vision that is being set forth. I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Carpenter for this part. So um back in September

029obviously when we did the workshop and you worked through setting the mission, the vision, the core values, the tagline, all of those parts, done a lot of thinking, a lot of reflecting just over that time really on why Argyle for me because I felt like for me that gave me a sense of how I would, you know, move forward with this collaborative visioning plan once it was adopted. And I think that what really stood out to me and I continued to think about over these months is the words that you use, tradition and values. Um, I've spent time with staff. I've spent time with community and uh really understanding what's come before us and what's built us um into this point. I think one thing that really jumped out was uh during the bond growth

030planning committee, Coach Rogers came in and our athletic director and he's been here 22 years. Is that correct, Miss Stewart? about 22 years and he shared with the committee just and very vulnerably he said you know you have to know where you've been to know where you're going and I think when he made that statement that night it just resonated with me in a sense that we have to understand the the past and where we've gotten to this point before we can really set forward our future and where we're trying to go as a district. Um, and so that that really kind of rang true. And and it's funny because he's been out with us when we did some of our community bond presentations. And I want to give him credit for this because he

031he has taken the time to go back and talk to board members from the '9s before this district ever went to one high school. and he said, you know, I found out that they faced the same challenges we're facing right now as we're growing and going into two or multiple high schools that we but they also knew that what our identity was and you don't lose that identity. And so as I processed all this just kind leader, it's really about we can't lose our story because if we lose it, we lose our identity. If we lose our identity, we lose our future. And so this to me is what our future is. It's a community in, you know, community developed direction for us in all areas of student learning, the student experience, resource stewardship into

032community engagement and really saying this is our story and this is our identity and it's the standard. It's the standard of who Argyle is. If you are an outsider like I was and you knew about Argyle, it set a standard in a lot of ways. And so this to us is our standard and we have to know where we've been to and know where we're going. So that's essentially um just my perspective and my processing of this whole process as we've come to this evening. Um Rick, if you'll go to the next um sitting and looking at where we've been, we were one schoolhouse one time in the late 1800s and really studying the history of this district from Pilot Knob and Prairie Mound and all of that to where we are this year. I

033mean, there's been a lot that's gone on in this district over time from a one room schoolhouse to 6,400 students to going to be 11,000 students someday in the next 10 years. And I think that really establishes the journey this district has been through. And then where we are right now is the critical point. Um, you can see there and where it takes us into the future. And that's on the next slide. And we have, you know, the next few years already planned out here. And it's beyond that. It's not just, you know, next year or the following year, but it's all the way through 2030 and then 2030 and beyond that. And so, this is just um really just taking all of that and and putting it into a visual that helps tell that

034story. And somebody, I think it may have been Mr. Herren, found this picture um not too long ago and we used it in some presentations recently because it really set the tone and told the story of the mission statement that the board adopted. And when you go back to the tradition of values and you go back to exceptional educational experience, this district has been built on strong core academics, doing those really, really well and extracurricular activities and doing those really, really well. And this student is a former graduate that's wearing a lot of UIL medals. And those UIL medals represent UIL academics, marching band, UIL extracurriculars, state championships, and sports. that's the well-rounded Argal graduate that I mean it's our own kid wearing those medals and that really tells the story of the foundation of

035this district. So I just wanted to um kind of put that in the middle of this because I think you don't want to provide a product or a recommendation that doesn't have you know a lot of thought and process to it. And so really it is the standard and what you're going to hear tonight it's a standard of who and what we value and our people. It's going to be who we are and what we do and our core academics and extracurriculars and it's what tells our story accountability measures. We're more than an A and Fgrade. Um we have so much more to celebrate than that and we should be accountable for more than just A to F letter grade. So you're going to hear tonight the collaborative visioning where it all comes together. So

036awesome. So at the beginning of the process, the committee put a graduate profile together and we did a consensus build and we thought talked about attributes and we we went through the whole thing. And so these were the top items that came about and these were what they wanted an Argyle graduate to have when they left the district. And so um we're very proud of this and uh I think this is a great image. You have smiling faces, graduates, stos and ribbons and medals. Just like Dr. Carpenter said, it's the whole the whole package and that's what you produce here in Argal when your students cross those stages. So, um, we have our four priority focus areas. We have some representatives here tonight. This is not my plan. This is yours and theirs. And so

037they are going to present out their uh broad uh overview of their objectives that they worked on and give you a little taste of what happened at their tables and the discussion that happened because I think that's important for you to know that you know there was some grown zone sometimes and that's okay, right guys? Yeah. And so um they did get into some deep discussion sometimes and they had a lot of great questions for us and it was very thoughtprovoking. But just a reminder, we have our student learning, student experience, resource stewardship, and our community engagement. The four areas of which this plan was built around. Now, I don't think any of Oh, great. Come on up. So, as a reminder, we had our students in the room, which was so important to us,

038and I'm just going to ask her to give a little bit of her personal experience being on the committee, and then we'll we'll start with our presentations. Welcome. We're glad you're here. Thanks for coming this evening. Good evening. My name is Sami Alipati. I'm a 10th grade student at Argal High School. So serving on the collaborative visioning committee, I was specifically in resource stewardship and it was a great experience. I met tons of people who are talented and passionate and obviously as a student I don't have as much experience as the other people in my group. But they were really welcoming and I learned a lot from them such as um the importance of collaboration um using teamwork to problem solve and how the uh the impacts we have today that the the impacts we

039make today impact our future and I'm really honored to have served on such a meaningful committee and have contributed to the future of Argo. Thank you. We're glad you were part of it. Thank you. It was great to watch the adult members of the committee go talk to the students and ask them questions. And you know, you want them in the room. You want their voice to be heard. And so, um, at at this time, I'd like to call up our student learning representatives. We have Dr. Don Jordan and Hillary Lair. Okay. Little dynamic duo for us tonight. Hello. We had a very engaged group. We loved our student participation. Our staff and parents were from elementary and secondary. It was and from all parts of the district. And we started with a lot of

040different ideas, but the one thing that we had in common was continually striving for the highest level of excellence. And that was the common thread that kept coming up. And how do we push our kids to be their all kids to be their very very best. So because we had those those commonalities in our values, we were able to come together with a plan that every single person walked out saying that they loved it. It's a great balance of all the different ideas and I'm excited actually to kick it off even though a lot of it falls under learner services. Like we can't wait to do these things because they're really great things for our district. And one on top of everything that y'all already said, I wanted to just um emphasize in the mission

041statement talking about the exceptional education experience. And that was what our focus of this um committee, this plan of action really focused on. And it's one thing to say those words and to have that as a mission and a vision, but we were able to really break that down into a plan of action and what that really looks like in the classroom for our students. And reflecting on the graduate profile, starting with that was a great piece for us to come together on and then have that as our big idea. And when we looked at that graduate profile, it wasn't just any graduate profile. It was the Argyle Eagle graduate profile. And that's what we wanted the plan of action and the objectives to mirror. What does this look like? How are we different than

042other districts? And so the objectives that we followed and then the plan of action really mirrored that. And the collaboration from our group, I have to say Kevin Canrell, our um Argal High School student, he was amazing. I hope you're listening, Kevin. And his input was invaluable to this process. And um the parents on the committee, the educators on the committee really came together. We had great discussion. There was a lot of differing opinions and but the ultimate goal was what is best for our students and that's what we ended up with. So I think it was a wonderful process. I was honored to be a part of it. So thank you all for allowing it. Thank you. Thank you. And I just want to state I know you have the full document and so

043we're just hitting the highlights tonight. And so this was the uh objectives for the student learning. And next we have student experience. Miss Lumston and Dr. Quas, another dynamic dinner. Here we go. Hello. Hello. So, um I co-led the student experience table with um Miss Nolles and she is not here tonight because our one act play advanced to regionals. So, she's there supporting them which I'm very excited about. Um I'm excited to speak about the work we did in this area. Um, as you know, the student experience is on all of those posters over there. You know, that's a very important piece of it. Um, it's not just about academic success, but it's about making sure our students feel supported, connected, and prepared for their futures. Um, we put a lot a strong focus on

044building a positive environment that supports each students growth from the earliest grades all the way through high school. I know as a principal um I know my students are going to take care of that business in the classroom and they're going to push our kids academically and our kids are going to meet that challenge. But I want our kids to love being in our buildings. And um I think that that's what our area means to me. You know that the kids want to get up out of bed and come to school in the mornings and then that's when the learning happens when they're a place they want to be, not held captive at school. Um as a table leader, I can confidently say that um we had a very energizing table. We had a very

045spirited group. We had a lot of big opinions, mine included. Um, but we all did have um a very clear connection from the beginning that we wanted the best for our students and a common goal of creating an experience that feels meaningful and consistent across the grade levels. And um I made notes because sometimes I ramble. So I I did a good job sticking to what I was going to say. And now I will let Miss talk. I've got my notes as well. Hi guys. Thank you so much. Um, I got the unique opportunity to join the uh committee as a parent, but then I got the opportunity to join the district as a staff member and I'm so excited that I've gotten to see this in both areas. Gave me a really unique perspective.

046I think um student experience means a lot to myself as a parent, but also as a staff member. I work in the counseling department. Um, and we're all about the student experience and connectedness in our department. Um the mission of Argal ISD um really stood out in this process. Um an exceptional educational experience for each student through meaningful opportunities in a safe and caring environment. We know that experiences set the foundation for who students will become and the mission really really puts that out there for us. Um, as participants, we did focus on specifically aligning what our actions were with what that experience in that mission is. Um, we focused on equipping students with essential skills for learning and life. We focused on creating environments where they feel a sense of belonging and a sense

047of safety. Not just that they're safe, but that they feel safe. Um, we also really made sure to clarify responsibilities that maintain that student safety and belonging. Um, as well as well-being. We emphasized a lot of the core values that um, as Miss Leard said, that really set us up for success through this process because we were able to go back to the conversations that we had on that. And so we really emphasize things like respect, integrity, wellness, kindness, meaningful relationships, but also preserving the district's commitment to academic excellence through all of that. So we had all of those conversations and that's where it got spirited sometimes. Um, but we also had a lot of conversations about our current practices and we really targeted where are our areas of growth in order to create experiences

048and that sense of belonging that our children need in order to develop in a healthy way and be able to lead healthy lives beyond us. Um, we wanted to create consistency across all grade levels and campuses. Um, this is very important to us that the same message is being given to all of our students. Um, and that they're all receiving this together. It makes that community even stronger. Um, these strategies really honor our district's tradition and values while ensuring that our students, staff, and families feel connected. We all need different experiences to feel connected. And as a parent and a staff member, I know that if I don't feel connected, I'm not in my best place to learn, to grow, and to do the work. Um, I want to be my best self every day

049and so do our students. They want to show up for us, but we have to be there to create the environment to receive them. We had a lot of discussion about the different experiences that students need in order to feel safe entering our buildings and feel like they have a sense of belonging and that they can engage in the experiences that we lay out for them. Um, it was important to us that we didn't just create a checklist that we really created a a developmental foundation of a framework that could be worked from for the the years to come. So, we're very excited to help prepare our students to reach their full potential as leaders and help them get ready for future challenges. So, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Next, we

050have resource stewardship. All right. This is a this is a big team. There was a lot packed into resource stewardship. Mr. Lemish, you coming up with them? I'm sure you'll have something you want to say. So, for research or resource stewardship, our table leaders were um Miss Stewart, uh Mr. Lemish and myself. And in order to provide a um exceptional education experience, you have to hire really good people, you have to be fiscally responsible, and most importantly, you have to have a safe and secure um learning environment. And so our committee um our table worked really well together. Um we agreed on many if if not most things that we discussed. We came up with new ideas specifically in regards to um hiring and retention of staff. Um one of the things specifically that we

051talked about, it's kind of a minor thing, but it's a big thing in in the HR world is our substitute teachers and looking at ways to incentiv incentivize them to want to work here. And so we looked at some options for um when you work a certain number of days consecutively, you get some type of a higher payment or a bonus for that. And that came from the group. That didn't come from us. Um want Okay. And then Paige Reed is here. She was our community representative. We also have um quite a few of our comm um community members here. We have um Laura Risby who was up earlier and Brian Darnell who um had has graduates of Argal ISD. Um they are no longer in school but he is still um involved. That's me

052next. Uh yeah, so I I'm a parent here in Arg Argo ASD and um my son goes to Hilltop and I thought one thing that you were talking about kind of where we come from. We moved from Melissa ISD and so we were at Harry McKillop which you guys know is one of the top rated elementary schools and my son uh I had to peel him out of the car on more than one occasion to get in the building because he hated school so much. I've never had to peel him out of the car to go to school here. Uh he participates in Horizon. He is in extracurricular activities and he absolutely loves going to school again. And that is incredible and I think it just is a testament to how this district has been

053designed and and the strategy that has been in place since long before this collaborative visioning committee came together. Um it was a pleasure to get to learn from all of the folks here. I think what was interesting is that we brought such a diverse background as a committee as a whole. Um that when we were talking about, you know, hiring and retaining and training uh staff from a staff that's already very highly trained, you know, you start to come up to some really um interesting topics, right? And so because we had come from such an diverse backgrounds, we were able to give some just some real life examples from other industries that we have been able to deploy and and implement that have really had great results. Um and so it was very nice to

054see some of those recommendations taken seriously. And um I think what was really interesting is um you know Mr. Lish who probably will always sell himself shelf short said something at the very beginning and it's always stuck with me is um we've never waited on anyone to tell us how to keep our kids safe. we've always set the standard for that and I think that that really showed up and once he said that it was like no one just said oh what does the state recommend it was how do we take this to the next level and that was amazing to hear it as a parent but also just to see that that's the vision that's coming through and I think we really focused on how to not we did there's not a whole lot

055in that plan that has to be redone because they're already setting the standard so it was more about how do we help get that message out how do we help inform parents and things like that and then from a a resource allocation. I've never advocated for a bond so much in my life. So my you've taken over my Instagram. Um but yeah, so it's just about, you know, kind of understanding what is already going on. What are some of the real things that are going on? And then kind of now that we can understand on a deeper level, how can we take that back to our communities um and help? Because again, Argyle is an incredible school district and the plans that you guys put together are already so high level that it's often just

056about educating parents and educating the community about where we're trying to go and bringing them along for the ride. So, it was a pleasure to be a part of that and I really thank you guys for letting me. Thank you. Thank you. And last but not least, community engagement. You need somebody to take a picture of you. Here, Dr. Johnson will do a selfie from the podium. Really? That's what we're That's what we're doing here. Um, so our focus area was community engagement. I will say Mrs. Haynes was a big support uh helping lead this table. I had to miss one uh of the meetings and came back and all the ideas had exploded on the uh on the charts. So it was fun. It was fun to lead this group because again it was

057a wide ranging of opinions and perspectives from parents who had been in other districts that are similar to ours which brought a great perspective uh to eagle partners that served on the committee um to basically a lot of different visions and a lot of different perspectives that were valuable to our group. Emily Holt I think we had to leave she's an Eagle partner mom. So they all these perspectives were great to really collaborate and just generate a good foundation for the community engagement piece. Again, they were business leaders and Eagle partners in the community and they all had tremendous ideas that help support the actual the vision that we came up with. The priority of the group was to strengthen community engagement, enhance marketing efforts and build strategic partnerships to support shared goals and drive

058collective success. So, as a communications department, we're always striving for community engagement. And this was kind of a deeper dive and to look at the things we do currently and go deeper with them and to add some more ideas and to just broaden those and enhance them and make them more polished and refined for all our new parents that we're experiencing. They come in and from a different lens, we had that capability in this group. And I want to introduce Susan Hoover. She's a parent and a family business owner in Argo. Thank you. Well, number one, it was a privilege to be asked to serve on this committee committee and it was a ton of fun. We had a lot of uh wonderful people with lots of different backgrounds that um added a lot of

059value and I enjoyed listening in on it. Um I think just to reiterate what Rick was saying is as the community is growing, we I think people come here for lots of reasons. schools definitely number one, but I think also if you drive around for just a little bit, you're going to see eagles on the back of people's cars. You're going to see Argyle gear. We are proud to be a part of this community and that says something about how well it's been built up to this point. Um, and so as we sat around the table, we wanted to say, how can we continue as it grows and more people come in with different backgrounds, how can we continue that engagement? So, what are we already doing? Well, we talked about Eagle Bash. We talked

060about um parent involvement in schools. So, we began to say, what are we already doing well and how can we just step it up to continue to engage new families primarily as it's growing? So, we talked about breakout sessions from Eagle Bash that kind of clues parents in on these are traditions. This is what a mom is, this is what homecoming is, these are our gal traditions that we have had over the years. And so it helps um integrate new families into what we already have here. Um and just being a little bit more um strategic in doing that. Serve days that bring the community all together that we're working for the betterment of the community as a whole. Um not just caring about where your kid goes to school, but all of the schools

061as a whole. And so it was a privilege and we had a blast. And so hopefully um some of the ideas we came up with will um continue to help us just grow in unity as a community. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Okay. So, um I hope that that gives you a really good idea of the engagement level that was here when we were working all those nights. I just want to say it's always a privilege to work here, but I just love this committee. And I I really mean that. It was no high stress. You know, we weren't talking about taxes and things like that. It was very um positive. Everyone was so excited and uh the feel in the room every night was just like let's do the right thing for kids and

062let's have some really good goals for that we hit for our students and and we make this just place even better than it already is. And so with that, I just want to thank you for trusting me with your group and with your visioning. And I'm going to open it up for your questions and comments. Sounds good. I I'll go first. You've been taking notes down there first. Last. No, I I first of all, thank y'all for participating. Thank you, Dr. Johnson for leading it and the staff and um for participating as well and making extra time for it. I and Dr. Carpenter for putting this together as well. Um, you know, I I think that one of the things that this helps me with as a board member is when you when I understand

063what the standard is and I understand what our mission, vision, and values are, it helps me with the in how we invest our resources, you know, because that's one of the most important things we make decisions on is where how are we spending our money? And I think um when you have these types of criteria and goals and standards set out, you make sure that you're investing your money that way. It needs to reflect your priorities. The other thing I'll say is as it as it relates is is um for me is one of the hardest things as a board member for me is as we grow is you know what what do we what do we want to be? Where do we want to go? Um, do we want to get do we want

064to try to be all things to all people or do we want to focus on what we do well? And I think sometimes public education is under attack. Um, public education um has brought some of that self uh that attacks on itself um when it tries to be all things to all people. Um, one of my sayings is sometimes less is more. Um, when I talk to other superintendents that have been through things, um, and they talk about how they grow and they add these things and they add all these neat things to do that are cool hobbies and and maybe student interest in, but it becomes very expensive and it stretches your resources then. And so there's this tough balancing act as a I think as a board member of saying do you do

065you add that is it sustainable? you know, um, and so I like about this is that it says, hey, you know, focus on the core, focus on the core subjects, focus on the core extracurriculars, understand where you've been to know where you're going, and invest in those things. And and that's just one of the takeaways that I have. Not that we won't add things or do things, but that's where our investments need to be. You know, people knew what Argyle was. It didn't do all things for all everybody. It didn't have the mo the broadest curriculum, the broadest extracurriculars, but what it did, it did well. And I hope that we can um teach teach math, teach history, teach science, teach English, you know, and uh have AP courses, have dual credit courses, have small

066class sizes, have the the best retained teacher, you know, ret high retention, good teachers, wellsupported teachers, competitively paid, um and you know, support in the sense of, you know, we have a a standard here for our children in the classroom. We have a you know if you know teachers understand if we don't have discipline problems we have parents involved parents volunteering I mean those are the things that I mean I didn't need the state to tell me whether it was an a district or not because I had parents in these hallways and I didn't need to know who the good teachers was or what teachers weren't cutting the grade because you had parents you know in some ways and um and so those are those are the things I take away I think Mr. Mr.

067Lemish put it well. We didn't need the state to tell us how to handle safety in this district. We led the way. I don't need the state to tell me what's a good class size. We know what a good class size is and we need to allocate our resources to do that. I don't need the state to tell me what good curriculum is and how to teach it. We know how to do that. And I don't need the state to give me a star rating, an accountability rating, because we have accountability in our community. And so those are Thank you for that. I I just wanted to share my thoughts on it and how I will try to apply what you guys brought to us and it'll be mostly in in the investments that we

068make. Thank you. Yeah. Um Dr. John is just in in the entire committee. So this is amazing. So, um, where I work, we we have something similar with our mission, vision, values, and principles. And those principles that are there, they give everyone there the autonomy to help serve. Um, and you can make any decision through those principles. And so, this really is empowering. So, I I I highly encourage putting up the value statements, the priorities, the objectives. um that it empowers the students, it empowers parents, it empowers faculty and staff. Um but it but it sets expectations for the district and and so you don't ever want to lose your sense of self. Um to to echo what Mr. Westerm said, very few people are looking at star accountability ratings and saying this is why

069we're going to this district because of their accountability rating. um the actions and the investments that our parents and our students and our faculty and staff, this administration puts in the metric comes out in in what the state does. Um but people are moving here for the standard. Um because Argal stands out and and we don't stand out for just some weird anom anomaly. We we stand out for providing academic excellence or expecting academic excellence and helping inspire our kids. Our role as parents, our role as as citizens is to inspire those and we see the potential in them and and help them prepare for the rigor and the grit of of the world. And so the vision here, it just it it says it all. And so it it's extremely inspiring. We heard it

070from the DAS up here. It's extremely inspiring that Dr. Jordan's ready to get this out and go. Um, but but I can tell from everyone that presented that that spirit is there. And so I'm excited. I'm inspired. Like I'm ready for this to continue forward because this is the standard. We're just putting it out there formally. Um, and so thank you for all the efforts to to bring this forth. So I think it will continue to um you know move the legacy of Argal into the future and continue to grow and challenge everyone in this district and it emphasizes the importance of community collaboration. So um we're not doing this alone. No one's doing this alone. So um everyone has a place here and a role here in Argyle to make us um continue to

071strive to be the best and provide the best for our kids. So, thank you. So, I don't I don't think I ever really thought about it about being where you were to know, you know, knowing where you've come from to know where you're going until coach Roger said that. But, it made me think back to 2014. I've been on the board a while and the community was so concerned about how fast we were growing and how were we going to keep what we had and the and the schools full of parents volunteering. I remember my kids were in elementary here and it came out for a class party. If you didn't sign up in the first five minutes, you weren't getting on the list and it was a big deal. If you didn't sign up

072at meet the teacher before school, you were not getting on the list. You weren't participating that and so there was so much concern and talk about that and there was a lot of effort put into continuing as we grow to make sure it was the the Eagle way or whatever. I know there's some references to&m drinking the Kool-Aid and all that stuff, but um never said the word. Yeah. So, you know, but it really it's really encouraging to hear some of the folks tonight how they came out where there's community engagement and talking about, you know, we have to get to a place where we care about the schools with an S, not the school my kid goes to, which is important, don't get me wrong, but how can we bring this community? If you

073hear my opening prayers a lot on these, it's always about how do we focus on Thank you for letting us focus on the district as a whole, right? Bring the community in the support of this community. That's what makes it I heard about Eagle people driving around with Eagle stickers on their cars, right? It is. We We wear it on our sleeve. We wear it. I I get to go sit in front of other school districts on a regular basis and it within the first two or three minutes, I tell them where I'm from. Right. sometimes that they get mad. I was in salina the last week and they're not happy, right? But others are, you know, at the end of the day, they're not happy because we beat them all the time. So, um

074so anyway, it's just very encouraging to hear um community engagement. Hiring the right people has always been a priority for this district and and for us to keep it at the high level that we have for so long has been amazing. You know, we talk about it as teachers retire. some of us that have been here for a long time. It's hard when you see that teacher retire and you know all the impact all the students you if you when your kids are old enough to graduate and you go to a graduation unequivocally you'll hear a student step up and say here the I want to thank these people. It's their kindergarten teacher. It's their third grade teacher. Yes, there's some high school teachers but they go all the way back and those teachers are

075there. And so um it's just it is a unique place and I I think we're putting in collectively all of us in the community and you to how do how do we keep it right because the fear is as we grow the risk is to lose it and I love the idea of at the eagle bash having breakout sessions say listen you want to be an eagle per parent this is what you got to do this is how it works if you can't do this might want to go somewhere anyway thank Yeah, I was going to say, you know, I fly at 30,000 ft. Everybody knows it. Big picture thinker. Um, and and I love this piece because I love the fact that you took what we started with and you you made it grow

076and you operationalized it in in some respects. Um, I love I love what you said about your son. That that really spoke volumes to me. when you have a kid that really didn't want to go to school goes to Hilltop or any one of our elementary schools just happened to be Hilltop and just so welcoming that you know they just want to be there every day and that's the culture that we want to have in all our schools and I believe we do. So I it's just um it's kudos to the entire staff and everybody that's in here that does that every day because you're the ones that do the work. We don't you do. And um the other thing, you know, I agree with um for me the the less is more. Um you

077know, keep it simple, keep to these core values, always focus on them. Don't make it complicated because it doesn't need to be complicated. It's actually pretty straightforward and pretty simple in a lot of ways. You just have to be consistent and caring and loving and um and educate yourself and know what it is that you that you want to focus on and continue to move forward. Um and I love it too, you know, I agree with uh Mr. Westerm that, you know, when we make these decisions that are thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars and things, you know, where are we going to put our money or the district's money, our money, everybody's money. Um it's by taxpayer dollars, too. So, you know, where are we going to put our money? And um

078you want to put it into this, you know, and you want to make sure that you always have something to to rely back on and focus on. Um and we have like the greatest staff on the planet, I mean, I cannot tell you as a, you know, as a schoolboard member, when I get to go out and visit schools and, you know, the campuses, the teachers, everybody is just so welcoming, so loving, so caring, which is such a great part of this. But in addition to that, they're actually great educators. I mean, you know, they're just they're doing their stuff and everybody just got their own way to do it. And um I've always said there's an art and science to teaching. You know, the science piece is kind of the pedigogy piece to me

079and all of that, the kind of howto, but the art of it is what do you do when you close your door and you're sitting there with your students and how do you get those messages across? And you know, our teachers are just wonderful at doing that. So, um, I appreciate that you all had the dialogue. I appreciate that there were some I know you used a phrase, you know, that there were a couple, you know, a couple of times when it was like a little rough, you know, grown zone. The grown zone. Yeah. I mean, you know, I love the grown zone and we have the grown zone up here sometimes, you know, but that's the only way that you move forward because you have to you have to be able to respect everybody's

080opinions, listen to everybody's opinions, and come to some type of consensus on what it is. And when you look at all of that, what is it that we need to focus on? And how do we take everybody's ideas and thoughts, fit it into this, and move forward? Um, and I'm just I'm honored to be a part of this district, number one. And number two, thank you to all of you on the committee that worked hard and put in all those hours because this is not easy. It's not easy to come together when you have a lot of different personalities, a lot of different thoughts. Um, I love the variety from different areas of the districts that you had parents, that you had educators, that you had administrators, um, that you had, you know, the leadership

081and, um, and you were all able to collaborate and come together to create this. So, thank you very much for that. I think our challenge and our commitment to you guys is it just can't be words on paper and we can't just be celebrating all this, you know, kumbaya moment. It it has to our challenge as a board member is to make sure that we um make the investments that fit with the mission, the vision and the um core values. So that's that's my commitment to you guys for the commitment that y'all made and I think our you know exactly this will be moving forward. It will be essentially a district and campus improvement plans. will be the goals and metrics that you expect out of superintendent evaluation which aligns with the campus principal evaluations

082and it helps us develop what those metrics are besides just a f. So that's the beauty of of this process is it becomes the living breathing document that all of our goals and objectives and actions each year are wrapped around. There's a a book called Trust and Inspire by Stephven CVY. Haven't read it, you should check it out. Um, but it it talks about in there like you don't have to have the CEO doing all these things. The CEO doesn't have to buy into it for you as an individual to make um a change and start that initiative. So although we're grateful that from the top down this is the standard, I think everyone's individual ownership of knowing what the standard is and what the expectations are only helps strengthen us and and so everyone

083taking a time individually to look at collectively we're doing well because individually we're we're taking ownership for what the standard is. So thank you. Thank you. Y Okay. I will uh I know this began a little while ago, but this is an action item. So, uh I will entertain a motion to approve action item 11A on approving the collaborative uh collaborative visioning plan. So, move Mr. Matthew Sllayton with a motion to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Mr. McDall. Mr. McDall. All right. Mr. McDow with the second. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed. All right. Thank you all again for being here. Appreciate it. Thank you all so much. Appreciate you all very much for being here. Let's give them one round of applause. Thank you very much. And

084you're welcome to stay. We're not asking. You don't have to leave. You don't have to leave. Thank you'all very much. This this consent agenda. It could be spicy. Si, thank you for speaking. We appreciate you coming tonight. All right, we'll move on to the consent agenda. Here are the donations for April 2025. We have JRE PTA, $250 for the garden club. We have Denton Farmers Bureau, $250 for the Garden Club. We have JRE PTA, $1,500 for a patrol stories guest speaker. We have Hilltop Elementary School PTA, $220 for the kinder field trip. We have Town of Argal Police Department, $1,500 for Red Ribbon Week. That's $375 to each elementary campus. And then ABC fiscal year 2025 number 17, $2,87243 baseball field lettering. Total April donations $6,59243. Okay. Does anyone have any questions on any of

085the consent items? I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent items as presented. So moved. Mr. Hawksworth's motion to approve. I have a second. Second. Dr. McD with the second. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Okay. I get to do some board reports now. It's my section. I think it is. It is my section. Okay. Uh every year we are required to report our continuing education hours as board uh trustees. And so at this time I will announce those into record. Uh we have uh trustee Mr. McDow is complete. We have trustee Craig Hawksworth incomplete. Trustee Josh Westerrom incomplete. Trustee Leanne Arthur complete. Uh trustee Dr. Leona McDeade complete. Trustee Matthew Sllayton complete. Trustee Sam Sllayton complete. That's all I have to say about that. I fulfilled

086that requirement for our April reporting. Excellent. Mr. Cohen, what is going is there anything going on constructionwise? Not too much. No, we're just sitting around waiting for things to happen. The sun has been out. Can you work on 377 then if you've got all this extra time? Can I work on 377? No. Okay. All right. Don't want to work on that. All right. We're going to start with stadium update tonight as always. Uh so here uh we've got a shot looking at our home side. You can see the columns in the foreground. Uh those are continuing. They've probably got three or four more pores before they get all those knocked out. That's for the grandstands. Uh behind that, the steel structure for the press box has been going up along with the masonry. Uh, we'll

087tell you if you've looked at it today on the way in or if you can see it on the way out if it's not too dark. I believe they have topped out now. So, the top of that masonry is basically as high as the press box going to be. So, it will eventually get surrounded with structural steel and you won't see that anymore very soon. Uh, you can also see in this picture we've got our uh new poles for our field lights back up. So they were able to repurpose all the lights from the poles we took down. We've now got 120 foot poles whereas we had 80 foot tall poles before. This is just an overhead shot of our indoor activity center. Uh this is showing progress on the grade beams. In this shot,

088half of them are poured. They're actually completing the other half right now. working on last truck making it a late evening. This is a shot uh of one of the concession stands on the home side. This will be the one at the south end. Uh so they've started with the masonry walls going up on that building and that'll continue and they'll move over to the other two as they complete this one. Did you say you repurposed the lights? We repurposed the lights. Yes. So the so the actual physical fixtures on the pole, we took them down. Then we removed all those. Those went on the new poles along with additional fixtures. So we're not I'm not getting those really cool lights that are going to We are. We are. Yes. Absolutely. That are going to

089like flash. Absolutely. Tie to music and touch down. We're going to have to put up warning signs. Yes, we're getting those. Absolutely. Give him a kaleidoscope. It's all walking. That's all I want. Well, good lights. You're going to be good with the money, right? Told them you're going to be good with the money. Good board. Yes. Good board. At at the beam signing, they did have a scale rendering of the stadium with the with the um screen to scale. So, I don't know where that rendering is. It might be here at the admin building. Now, I not sure where they went. I think I saw them after. They were actually up here. I think I saw them, Mr. Since Mr. Western can look at that. Absolutely. Yeah, it'll be a nice board. I put them

090on social media. Very nice. Uh this is just a little bit closer shot of our homeside activities going on that we've already talked about. Columns for the grand stands and then the press box construction. This on our visitor side, our parking lot. Uh they're getting ready to pour the last of that lot. uh as soon as they finish the fire lanes. Yet another shot of the home side uh just showing the the progress uh of the press box. Not a whole lot of interest in this photo, but this is the the far southwest corner of the detention pond. So, the town had us uh add a bunch of extra trees that went in around the detention pond. So, this is just showing that we have now, as of last week, started planting those trees. Uh,

091and as of today, we've started working on the uh the sod that will be coming in for the new practice field. And then most of the area you see uh back there, get my directions right off Denton Creek. That'll all have some uh hydro mulch down in the next couple of weeks. So, we'll get some grass growing on all these areas. these construction fences will shrink and move in and so some of that will kind of return to what it should be and look a lot better from the roadways and just some milestones that we're tracking. Uh visitor grandstands uh I think they're due to arrive the first week of May and start and then we do have a delivery scheduled I believe next week it is for our pre-engineered metal building which is for

092the indoor activity center. So, we'll start uh the construction of that as soon as it arrives. And then here in couple of weeks, we should start seeing some grandstand pieces go up on the visitor side. As soon as that's done, they'll move over to the home side. Once we get the press box construction kind of out of the way and working on the interiors, then we'll start on the grand stands there. Are there any questions? I have a question about middle school. Okay. Want to ask now? Yeah. You you've got slides, right? I do. Okay. I I thought we were through. No, no, no. I have more slides. Okay. Just one at a time. So So So we're still these are athletic based. This is an athletic question, Mr. SL. The the elevator is scheduled

093to arrive in June. I know you haven't asked it yet, but I want to say it. This is about athletics. Unless you want to walk to the top of the press box or the stadium. Stadium. Unless you want to walk up to that top level of the press box. That's going to be a long walk. I have no problem with stairs. Um, no. I was I was going to ask on the the track and field events. I I noticed like at the middle school site they've already got some of the equipment up. Yes. Is that common to have that equipment up so early in the construction process? Not necessarily common, but the the goal in construction is do all you can as soon as you can. And so because of the schools being set as

094far back off the road as they were, that allowed us to work on the front of the site earlier. So, we wanted to get the turf in and since that's all packaged together, that contractor's out there to finish his scope. So, he brings all that out, but that's not going to stay there because we don't want to leave it out there. So, it's actually going to move. Okay. So, that wasn't really coordinated super well and we probably would have never put it up. But that's why you did see it is he's just get it all here, get my scope done, and then he goes away. Okay? rather than waiting until, you know, four months before we need it and then start and then we get a weather delay or, you know, whatever could happen and

095then we don't have it when we need it. So that's kind of the idea behind it is do what you can as soon as you can. Okay? Because something will go wrong and you can't if you plan it the other way. That's the conclusion of my athletic questions. Okay, no problem. So now we'll go into the multiple slides. Uh in this photo, we're looking at our two gymnasiums here. The first one in the foreground with the blue, that's the storm shelter. Again, that's the uh insulated concrete form construction that they're doing on that one. And just traditional masonry block on the next one. This is just an overhead look at some of the grade beam work uh in the classroom wing. So, you can kind of see the courtyard taking shape. So the classrooms will

096surround that on three sides. And this is just a direct overhead view on of the storm shelters. Uh we have walls going up there. The slab you see with nothing happening on it. That's the uh the fine arts areas. Uh all the band areas. Here we've got our turf field being installed. So again, just get it done so that we don't have to worry about completing on time later. This will be out of the construction area. Uh so we've got all of the underground in at this stage. We planned ahead even for some future things. Thinking about elementary that will come on board and what do we need to put in the ground now so we're not having to go back and and dig through that landscape or get under that drive. So that's all

097been in. So, this area will complete the fence and it should be pretty much out of the construction zone for the duration as soon as they complete that. This shot is uh this is our two tennis courts um or our two tennis court pads. It's actually eight courts I believe is what we have, but it's two separate uh post-tension foundations. So, this is the select fill going in for those two foundations. And here's some of the field events and equipment you can see from the road. Uh we've got some soccer goals sitting there that are going to get moved back out of the way and stored. Um harder to seize the discus and chop cages which are also there. So we should see uh some steel erection begin in the next week or two. It

098has started to arrive on site. uh they're going to start uh area C for us is where they're going to start. So it's the administration wing. There's some uh detail where they have to tie in some steel supported by masonry. So the masonry's got to get up first. And so that's kind of why they're starting in a more non-critical area first, which C is the administration area. Uh but that's due to the the structural design we've got. Uh the gym roof is going to go on. Area F was our storm shelter. So that'll be a concrete roof. So once they get those walls up, we'll set the the beams and then they have to actually form and pour a concrete roof on that. Uh all our fire lane and parking is now complete at this

099time. And so we're going to continue working grade beams and slabs. And then we'll be starting on irrigation on that front half where all the athletics are and uh eventually get get that planted. I hope by the end of the summer that's all planted. So it'll look better from the road. But again, if if the question would arise, it's we can get it done now. We're going to get it done and and get it in so that we're not struggling at the end. So that's why the landscape at the front is going to go ahead and go in. That will include the tree buffer along the road that we had to put in. So, some of the key milestones that we're still tracking uh right now, I haven't developed this list, but now that we're

100getting into the building, uh itself beyond foundations, we'll start to fill this out and get some uh you know, power milestones in here, roof dryin milestones, things like that on here. But we are still on track for completion in summer 26. And we're trying to figure out ways that we can get in sooner than July. So hopefully we've got furniture coming in in May or June is is the target. So we kind of get all that in place before we start trying to move teachers and staff in there. We're still looking at November for the other for the stadium. Yes. Yes, we're still tracking November, but we are looking to see how we can improve that date as well to see how soon we can get in there. Looking to try to get some some

101games in there this year. Still pre pre-playoff games hopefully. Gotcha. Okay. And then just one more note on elementary 5. Uh we were at town council last night and we did get a site plan approved on that. So we're continuing to move forward on that with with our next submissions to the town. Good. Should have some more some more information for you next month on that. Good deal. Excellent. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you. Thank you. All right. A few things to share. It's that time of year, right? Always something exciting to share. Okay, so I want to celebrate uh Argal High School teacher Melissa Carpenter. She's our theater teacher and she was recently nominated uh for the 202425 Betty Lynn Buckley Award for outstanding educator and that's just a prestigious honor recognizing excellence in high

102school theater education. So very proud of Miss Carpenter on that and looking forward to the outcome of all that. But she was nominated for that. And then you've heard this name once before, but uh it's time to celebrate Zoe Bookio again. So you remember she was a state swim qualifier. She's also very artistic and she had her art as part of a a really a contest with Congressman Gil's district in Flower Mound and she won. Search within Finding Self was named the Texas Choice winner. So congratulations to Zoe and um it will be displayed in his district office in Flower Mound for a good while. So huge honor for Zoe. We're very proud of her as celebrating Argal High School 2025 class Val and S. So Mattie Eckles and Cameron Bernard were named Val and

103S. And so we're very excited about celebrating them and at graduation along with all their all their peers, but um very proud of of Maddie and Cameron on that. It's a huge huge accomplishment to graduate number one and number two. So congratulations. And then if you haven't seen social media, our homegrown eagles, those that have attended K through 12 in Argal ISD took their traditional annual picture. Last week, uh there were 35 students that started in kindergarten that will be graduating and we have 362 current seniors. So just kind of gives a testament to the growth that they've experienced as a class and how many of them are still here. Our allies, I know we mentioned somebody mentioned a while ago that Miss Nolles, Miss Lumpston mentioned, Miss Nolles is on her way to Levik.

104she is out there for one act play to compete and then we also have UIL regionals at the end of the week out there. So, a lot of students traveling back and forth to love. So, I want to continue to keep them in our prayers as they're on the roads and away from home. Uh Mr. Sllayton, I know you got to go to Special Olympics last week. I did. You were over in South Lake for that. And I know that they were competing at the highest level and doing an incredible job. So, thank you for attending. Um I got to go over today. Um Mr. Haron and I actually went over to to Jane Russman and uh we got to see the unified champion school field day for our exy kids which are early childhood

105special needs students and that was incredible. They they were competing in their own special Olympics if you will. They had um the student council from JRE was helping assist. They had other prek peers in the room. Um it was a lot of fun, laughter, teamwork and lots of children just having a great time. So really appreciate the invitation from from Miss Katie over there and she had us come over. But really proud of proud of our our Special Olympics program. And then we also got to celebrate bus driver transportation appreciation today. Eagle Partners provided crumble cookies to all of our bus drivers. So Miss Stewart uh went over and was able to um share sweet treats with them and we caught got a good picture before they headed out on their afternoon routes. They are

106obviously the first face many of our students see and sometimes the last face our students see every day from the district. So um very very important u members of our family. And then we celebrated two storing star soaring star award winners this month. Katie Hayden, assistant principal at Argal South, Mr. Westerm. I know you've had the chance to get to know Miss Hayden through legislative advocacy and she was nominated by peers, Mr. Orlowski was one of the ones that nominated her in fact. And then also Michael Dong out of our transportation department. So we went over and celebrated him. He has done an incredible job this year uh leading helping lead the transportation bus drivers. We have four state track qualifiers headed to Austin. Softball begins playoff this week. They are playing Brewer in a

107best of three series starting Thursday. Um boys golf was district champs, fourth at regionals. We had two girls golfers at regionals. And then we inducted 177 new NHS um inductees at the heart high school this week. So, lots going on across the district. Um again, back to academics and extracurriculars. You've got all of it right there wrapped up. Just a few district news. Early voting started today. I know that we have been it's been reported that we had 283 early voters in the district and so that opened today 8:00 to 5:00 through Saturday and then Sunday I think is 11:00 to 5:00 and then Monday and Tuesday of next week 7 to 7 and then it'll be election day. So uh we have four different polls here in the area just um here in the

108our really our district community. I want to thank Pogue and BLK for sponsoring our beam signing our commemorative ceremony we had last week. I know. I think maybe we talked about you not being there and you'd have to get the renderings. Is that correct? Is that what was said while we Where were you? We'll make sure you see those pictures. I'll get there. I'll get there eventually. We did have a great time. Lots of kids signing the beam. We had not even assume to be eagles. We had little eagles. We had them all all ages um there to sign the beam. And so that'll be exciting to to see that hoisted when it's time to go up and for them to leave their mark. So that was great. Uh excited about graduation. It is Sunday,

109May 18th. So that is coming up quickly at 6:00 at Miss Stewart if you need. You might want to put that in your calendar. Yeah. Sunday the e the uh 18th 6 o'clock. And um Miss Stewart, would you give just a brief I think Mr. Orlowski did a pretty good job. Would you have like to add anything on the legislative update? I agree. I think he did legislative. He did a phenomenal job. He might be working on his own campaign slogan at this point. The only thing I would like to add is u you know some of the wording that was in the original House Bill 2. We were worried about how that would negatively impact our district and there was an amendment that was added to House Bill 2 that retained the whole harmless

110that I felt like would help our district out. It it would take the uh negative impact that we felt out of the bill out of there. So, you know, we're hopeful. Right now it's u on its way to the Senate and um we'll just have to see what they do with it. Um that's right. Right now the House and Senate are still very far apart on their school finance and how they see funding schools and you know the end of the session is coming up quickly. Y Well, I'll add this. Um this is Dr. Carpenter's report. Yes. This is Mr. Here's Here's what I want people to understand. Everything's just It's not all bad. I mean, in the sense that House Bill Two, if if it, you know, if the Senate doesn't whittle it down,

111you know, we should anticipate that there'll be more funding for public education. Um, I think in some of the runs, and a run is something like, you know, they draft these big bills and then they give you a run and they tell you what they think Argyle's gonna get out of that bill. I think they do it for every district. And what we saw was was was pretty good. I mean, right now we're probably hovering somewhere in the low to mid 9,000 per student funding. Um, it looks like in this bill you may be able to get to 10,000 or low tens. Um, but I want people to know one of the frustrating things of sitting in in a board position like this is, you know, the state is maybe in this bill will get

112us to to $10,000 per student funding. And that's with the weights. That's not that's not basic a lotment increase from 6160 to 10. Yeah. And so that's what all and so in but they didn't they did find the courage to give $10,000 in education savings accounts or or or vouchers. Um and so you know what's frustrating about that is because we we tried so hard and I and I do think we made some effort and I do think our efforts are not lost. I do think change is coming in future sessions is that, you know, they're going to give $10,000 to private schools with no attendance requirements. You know, we only get a percentage of that. And we tried to change and level that playing field and promote things that said, "Hey, you should fund

113us on enrollment, too. It shouldn't be based on attendance because we staff, we hire, we build, we h purchase materials based on enrollment. And so you should level that playing field. So there's where some of my frustration still lies is the fact that they there is no attendance requirement with a voucher or education savings account. There is no safety requirement. They don't have to hire. I mean, they they want to tell you safety is paramount. You know, we every school's got to have armed security, and we've been doing that for a long time. But I guess if you go to a private school, there's no requirement. They'll give you $10,000, and you don't have to spend any money on safety. Um, you don't have to spend any money on any certain curriculum. Um, and so

114there's there's still some unfairness in what's going on. And I hope in time that we can level the playing field. They don't have to teach and and and give a star testing or accountability. um they don't have technology requirements. They don't have they don't have they don't have to accept special education um or provide that. So no first report either. No financial integrity report. No none of that. So I mean we we got a long way to go. Um and I I do think with Mr. Olowski and Miss Hayden and Miss Fairchild and you Dr. Carpenter and Liz leading the way. I I I I do think that the advocacy is, you know, or communication of what our challenges are um are real and some of the changes that can be made would be extremely

115beneficial. Funding on enrollment either fund your mandates, fund your safety mandate, fund your technology mandate, fund your sped mandate, or do away with them. Mhm. You know, when they say fully fund education, well, you fully fund education by funding on enrollment and funding your mandates or eliminating. It's got to be one or the other. So, that's where I'm at. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Per. You're welcome. Thank you for finishing that up. Be a closer. Okay. All right. We'll go on to information only. We have math curriculum. Dr. Jordan talking about curriculum. Here we go. Okay. No, that's you're good. Go ahead. One more. So, we went through this process last year with science and language arts with with is picking our new curriculum. So, this is for math now. So, we went

116through a very similar process where we invited all of our kinder through fifth grade teachers first to start um reviewing two different math curriculums. The reason there was only two because we really wanted to stick with the ones that were approved by um the state board of education because then we can ensure they've covered all the TESS. And so those two were the ones that were approved for all grade levels um K through five. So we really thought that Blue Bonnet was going to be the choice and we had some teachers pilot it throughout the year, but when it came down to it um they picked STEM scopes. Can go to the next slide and you can see here's the vote there. Um all K through five teachers had the opportunity to vote. We looked

117at it three different ways. which was teachers who piloted Blue Bonnet from the beginning of the year, otherwise known as Eureka. Those that didn't that just looked that just went to the two presentations and those that lo at least logged in and tried both of them with their class. And no matter how you looked at it, Stem Scopes was the winner. So, STEM Scopes is the way we're going. Um, same opportunity for our secondary teachers. There were three choices that were approved and so they looked at all three stem scopes, blue bond at Carnegie and Agile Minds. Agile Minds was the winner and go to the next one. 100% of the teachers chose Agile Minds. So that will be our secondary adoption. So going back to STEM scopes, you can see that it um received

118a 100% rating from TEA. It does qualify for the $40 per student funding from TEA. Customer service has been great and we couldn't say that for every single publisher that we work with, but that's good because when our teachers need help, we need them to be responsive. Agile Mind, same thing, 100% rating from TEA. Great customer service also qualifies for the $40. So, what's included for STEM scopes? student workbooks for that paper pencil part, manipulative kits for hands-on materials for every classroom. There's also digital login so that teachers can um print out things that they need for their students. We have fluency kits, one per grade level. That's more of our it's not something that's needed every day for every single student. It's a supplement. And then the foundational kits also one per grade level

119because that's more of our intervention. They do provide 80 hours of professional development for our staff to get them accustomed to using the program and that's throughout the year for agile minds. Also the paper pencil part with the student workbooks, the teacher manuals, the digital access, uh the question bank and professional development. So the $40 has been collecting for the last two years. So, we actually have $411,000 $411,480 in our account because that's for um the last two years. So, we weren't able to use it last year, but we banked it. So, now that there is an approved list, which we received that in December once we got the approved list, we were able to move forward. And so, if you go to the next one, you can kind of see what the subscription looks

120like. It's actually a little bit less than the HMH. So you can see how it's broken down. So the cost per per year is there. So we can use the $216,73647 from the one account. That's the $40 per student that we bank. And then there's the EMAT, the $29,832.75. That's a separate account that we get. It doesn't none of this comes out of our bottom line from Liz. This is the separate account of money that we have just for resources. We expect to get about 1.6 million to last two years. So, of that 1.6 million, part of it will be for this. The reason for that is um why it's not included in the $40 per student is because we have those advanced math classes for um starting in fifth grade. And there is no

121curriculum for that that combines those. And so it's been on our teachers to have to create something and that's a tremendous amount of work for them. However, Agile Minds does have one, but it doesn't qualify for the $40 because it's a combination of two different things. It's not on the approved list because it's not just one grade level. So that's why part of the money or it's coming out of two separate accounts for that reason. Do you have any questions on that before I move on? No, but that absolutely makes no sense. I understand it, but it makes no sense. Well, unfortunately. So, going back to House Bill6005, if you'll go back one, there we go. Just kind of the review of the $80 that we have um banked for the last two years. We'll

122go towards the cost, the majority of the cost, and then we'll get that every single year. It's not per subject, it's per student. So this which is part of the reason why we went ahead and adopted science and language arts last year because we're only getting the $40 per student. So now we're using that for math. So we kind of spread that out um so that we could provide all the new curriculum and we'll continue to get more. There's the timeline of um when the money is released. Can you go back to the slide before? What was what's the bottom one? student a lotment increased. That's how much we get per student for the um our EMAT account. And 1558 per EB student. Okay. And is that on top of the other money? That's how

123the 1.6 million comes about. Okay. But the 1558 is that on top of Yes. the basic. Okay. Got it. Any questions for me on that curriculum? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Thank you. Okay. You're going to hear a theme on my agenda items tonight. They're all over the $100,000 limit. So this first one um for information only is for purchase of computers. Uh this is a refresh of two computer labs at the high school. Um they both qualify for our uh and provide career and technical education courses. So it's our CTE funding um that is available that will pay for both of these labs. Uh it's the engineering lab uh which the computers in there are a little bit more expensive than just your basic computer um for the uh software that it has

124to uh be able to provide for the engineering class. and then the audiovisisual lab. And so both of those um if you'll notice about this time every year we bring you particularly the computer lab refresh and that's in order to order them, get them in time and have our technology department have time to set them up and get them get them going. Um just a little bit of note uh we talked to you last month about where we'd seen some quotes come in and you know people would resend those quotes really quickly because they weren't sure what tariff was going to do. Um, this is one quote that actually went down from the first time we talked about it, just slightly, but it was a little bit lower than when we originally started looking at

125this. So, we always do like to recognize that, but um, we're asking for an amount not to exceed 125,000 based on the quotes that we do have. Um, and this would come back, um, for consideration as action next month. Do you have any questions on that? Is there any fear in this quote being rescended between now and next month? I believe with what we've had seen um we've had quotes come in, we've had quotes rescended, we've brought the brought those quotes back, which is actually the topic on one of our other uh products tonight. Um it's been a little bit volatile um in specifically technology. I think just in some unknown um but I I don't have a good answer for that. I don't okay right now. Um the last we heard the tariffs on

126the anything coming out of China on the technology part or specifically for the computers uh was taken out of that tariff. Yes. Thank you. So they're not honoring it for two weeks or anything. They're just pulling back immediately. You want to come up here? I think we we've seen some different things than what we've seen ever in the past on these quotes. Not specifically this, but just in technology quotes. I talked to one vendor today and they changed their company policy that their quotes are only good for seven days. Um there's so much uncertainty right now that nobody can really only I mean it's changing day to day. I think answers that I've gotten have changed four times in the past two weeks just because something different comes out every day. Um there is the

127exception on computers, phones and something else right now on China but again there is still a 20% being applied. Some of the vendors are just choosing to eat that with what stock that they have in the US now or balance between increasing, you know, in US stock with what they think is going to cost so that they can kind of charge a little bit higher price for what's here, but not charge so much for what's going to be coming in. Try to meet that balance. But there's no company that that has that I've talked to that has a very good confidence level on what's going to happen dayto day. We have the canvasing on the 14th. So we could put it on we could put it on that meeting which is a week earlier than

128the regular meeting if we needed to. Can we also just approve a not to exceed number and when it comes in you snap it if we think it's the right number. Not to say information only tonight. No, not tonight. Yes. Before the 14th committee. If tariffs are going to continue to be a topic. It's something that we could, you know, or get in front of at least. Yeah. Or not have them onformational in this particular climate, maybe we just put them and and we can um you know, we'll continue to to watch the what's happening and if we have something that in the future that we feel is potentially volatile, um we can bring as if that's the case as action without bringing as information first. um especially if it's a standard purchase, something that

129we've planned out that's been in the budget um that we typically do each year. It's just something in this current climate to be mindful of if we need to go old school and have action before information only. Then we we will keep that in mind because uh again we've seen some differences over the last few weeks than what we have in the past. Yeah. Thank you. All right. On the next item, I do have some um people here to answer questions on this one. This is going to be the transportation software. Um so, we've got Tommy Leford and Brady Pel. Uh we've got Michael Limish and we've got Greg Borer. So, um about three years ago, we went through a process of updating updating some uh transportation software. Uh we thought we were getting a

130full package in that. Um we did not. So what we've had since then for those three years was not the fully functioning software that we thought we were getting at that point in time. So um last spring Mr. Leer and I started discussing this and looking at this and I gave him the directive to begin researching finding out knowing that our three years was up finding out uh you know what it would take to get this software up to the state that we thought it should be in. And so um he brought in the help of Mr. Royer and his team. They've done quite a bit of work on this as well because we felt that was what was lacking before was the technology aspect of this. Um, of course, uh, Brady Bell has been

131involved in this. Um, and then through, uh, talking and through, um, some information that Mr. Buryer had and talking with the safety committee, um, there was, uh, some discussion about badges being worn as identification at the secondary campuses next year. So when we start talking on the technology side, we want to make sure that all of our software packages that would need a badge would communicate and talk together so that we can have one badge rather than multiple badges. So we didn't want to bring forward a transportation software that required a badge for a student on a bus that would be a second badge compared to an identification badge. So these systems all do work together. They coordinate. It can all be done as one badge. It also can work with our student nutrition software

132so that that badge can be utilized in this u when they're going to buy lunches or breakfastes uh and things of that nature both in the elementary and in the secondary. Um but I would like to give Mr. Leadford some uh time to talk to you about what this software actually does and the need in the transportation department for that software. So again, she uh she gave the directive a little over eight months ago probably and uh we've been working very very hard trying to find the perfect scenario. Um our goal was after talking with Greg and Liz was to find a company that we could just as a sole person. U Greg used the term one throat to choke. So, uh, that's if we could have just found the the one company, it it

133would have been a lot better because right now we have three different companies that that do just a portion of this software. Um, after much deliberation and and talking with 14 different companies and uh, we actually interviewed and and had u some demonstrations put on by seven of them. um we we come down to two and it it was between two of them and we we were trying so hard to go with just one. Uh but but we they they just don't offer the best of of both worlds. So most of them are either really good at routing or really good at everything else. And uh so we we found uh in our opinion the best of of each one of them. So so we're we're going to go with uh two of them. Um,

134right now what we've got is is a scanning system. It's it's a little badge reader on the bus and a student can get on there with their badge and the bus driver has no idea whether that student used their badge or somebody else's badge or who that student is because they can't see anything. So what this software does is it provides a tablet and every bus is outfitted with a tablet. Uh when a student scans on on the bus, the driver can see a picture of that student. Um real time information and and very fast, quick information can be um gathered from the driver, the the dispatcher in the transportation building as well as the campus administrators. So uh we have a parent portal with us, a campus portal, and an admin portal. So all

135of that information with this one software can be very quickly gotten as a student gets on and off the bus or have you researched other school districts that are using this software and happy with it? For sure. So there are 27 school districts that use the smart tag and then there are 14 that use what or what we call transact. It's it's easy routing. Uh, no school that we've talked to uh uses one by themselves. Correct. We've talked to to Brazis Ford, talked to Collville. We've gone and visited with them. We went and spent the afternoon with Greatvine Collville. They have smart tag. And the hard the hardest thing with the routing piece is we sat down with Gravine and they do use solely that, but They're primarily built out. And so what what SmartNet

136doesn't offer on the routing side is they don't offer the ability for us to change streets and things like that that are communities that are rapidly growing. And the other and easy easy routing you can we are able to create them on a map on our own. The smart tag is we think is by far the greatest in everything else except for the routing. And the guy has even told us you trying to improve routing, but their process is you tell them we need this added and then they they work with their team to get it added versus us being able to add it when we need it. I mean, look, my ignorance, I guess, but I mean, a bus route's a bus route. I mean, how much routing help do they need if they're

137running the same route? So, if you add it boundaries, it changes. I mean, you figure the route out and you kind of run it twice a day every day. So, any anytime that you're figuring out how to combine routes, if if you've got a bus driver absent, sometimes you have to combine routes. Uh sometimes you have to create new routes with new school years, you can lasso a certain group of area on a map and it'll route those kids for you. So instead of you having to go in there and individually inputting each one of those into the computer and and figure that out. But the the most significant thing that that we have problems with is the the number of actual riders versus registered riders. I mean we have 120 registered riders and only

13845 of them are on the bus. So it's it's extremely difficult to be able to figure that out. So on once we take the role and and have to dwindle that down, we have to create other routes. But I mean it's it's just there's a lot of a couple of things that I'd like to point out. So what we thought we were getting in the old system and if we were to stay with the system we weren't and upgrade it to the point that we thought we were getting a few years ago would be about 250,000 to give you a comparison here. We're looking at 170,000 upfront costs. You know, there's annual costs with any software that you go with and we compared those as well. But think about um we have our bus drivers

139in our buses. They can't use a cell phone, right? They can't be looking at a piece of paper. They do not have navigation. We have, you know, up to four, sometimes five, six sub routes daily on those routes. So, your driver does change that sub route. That subd driver could be on any one of those routes depending on who's out or what the need is that day. and you're giving them the route a few minutes before they get on in a piece of paper and saying, "Okay, memorize this route so you can get out and go drive that." You know, that's not the safest alternative. We have technology now that'll actually provide that information on the bus. Again, we went through this three years ago. That's what we thought we were getting. What didn't come

140with the package that we were on was basically the tablet and the system that got it on onto the bus and the software on there. So, we do have a scanning system like he was talking about. Um, in order to see that, someone has to be sitting back at the computer. there had to be a question, somebody go in it. This actually puts it on the actual bus itself. The driver can see, you know, yes, this student is supposed to be on my route. Nope, they're on the wrong route. Yes, they're supposed to get off on this route because they're scanning as they're getting off. Yes, this student is supposed to get off on this route. Um, and so it's a little bit more of a safety aspect for there and puts the information actually

141there at the driver's hands where they have it up front. So, um, again, we went through this discussion a long time, three years ago. That's the software that we thought we had. That's not what actually not what has not been what has been in place, but we do feel like that's what we need to move towards and we need need to utilize the software that's available to make things run efficiently, safely um and have all the capabilities um for our drivers out there to get our students to and from school safely. This is also safer for I mean obviously the history of the district we've had issues where a kid didn't get off the bus or we thought a kid like a parent assumed a kid was on the bus and the bus is back

142to the bus barn and there's no kid there the kid never got on and having to track that down at six o'clock at night on a Friday evening. Um, so this this seems like from a safety standpoint and a communication efficiency standpoint, it's going to allow us to to best know where our kids are and when they're getting off the bus and when they're supposed to get on the bus and um be able to place them on the right bus if they so happen to get on the wrong yellow bus. Yes. So mentioned that these two systems that you narrowed it down to in different categories, do they integrate? Yes. With each other so that if you're a kid scan doesn't scan on, you don't have to go down that street now. It makes your

143route more efficient. Yes. Things like that. And so it updates that in real time. Yes. And then the other piece you mentioned was it's it works with all the cards, Vicata, every it all syncs across one card. As of right now, we would not be allowing them to use entry key badges on the students. Correct. So the stu in the secondary students or is it just high school or secondary have on their phones? Uh so fieldhouse access is that that's so but it's just high school. Yeah. Mr. Lemish can speak to this as well. There there's a few different things that you want to keep in mind if you're giving kids access to certain buildings. I think there's legitimate reasons to do that in certain circumstances. Um, if it's on a phone, a kid's not

144handing their phone off to another kid or leaving it sitting somewhere for somebody to pick up. That may become a safety concern. So, there are definitely things that you want to think about if you enable those badges to access certain doors. Their badge, right? Being that they are RFID cards, should the situation arise to where we want to do that, we feel that it is a safe situation, we can. Yeah. I'm not I'm not suggesting that it is, right? is but you just mentioned it worked. You said the car would work serve dual purposes. So I get scanning on the bus. It serves as their idea if we're making secondary now wear them next year. Right. That's what I heard. So um if we're going to stay with Jessica on certain students accessing across the

145parking lot at the high school. That makes sense. I don't think I would go. My point was I don't think I would give students Vicata access on a card because if they lose it probably not going to come tell you they lost it number one and now it's out there floating around and anybody can get it. But it does integrate with the child nutrition software depending on the types of scanners that they have. can either read a printed barcode that translates to the student ID. So, you um get out of that situation where a student doesn't know another student's ID and they're trying to pay for another kid's lunch or whatever. You completely get away from that situation. So, financially you're in a better situation. Um but depending on the software, what it supports, some

146of them support RFID readers or barcodes that just read the printed barcode on the badge. So, either way, it does work and integrates with those systems. And how how long is the contract? So, It's year. It's year to year. But the the good thing with smart tag is after three years they give us new tablets with no cost. So if we do only use them for one year, we don't get that advantage of getting those new tablets after three years. Can you but there's no change of cost. Can you lock in a rate if you commit to longer term? Uh we haven't asked that question. I mean a lot of them now let you lock in a rate for multiple years but still pay year to year. But by committing to on paper a five-year

147contract, you lock in the rate today because if you go year to year, I guarantee it's written in there somewhere that you're subject to five, six% a year increase. Right. But counter to that, we've we've been stuck in a system for three years that was not functional. Yeah. I don't know. And we evaluated with confidence. So the way we've done it is we've asked them for their very lowest price. Yeah. and and maybe year one it is better to you know and if you think it all delivers what you want then I'd go to them and say hey let's talk about a longer term deal with a locked in annual rate we can we can definitely do that one other thing I'd like to mention is uh they actually piloted this program on on a

148bus we piloted the the smart tag program on one of our buses for about two months and really got good feedback from the drivers and it's turn by turn navigation, scan on and scan off with the badge. They can see the student. Uh there's messaging back and forth if they need to message without doing anything but pushing a button. They can I mean it's everything's right there. So I think the bigger challenge for me with routing is like you said, if you got 140 registered riders on that particular route and 40 show up at any given day, that could jump to 100. could, right? So, your routing has to be real time based on who's on the bus, especially middle school on Fridays when there's no football practice. And so, one change that's already been

149made for this year is in um you talk about Brady's done done this. Yeah. So trying to tackle that very problem like our our student enrollment form only gave a checkbox. And so it was a checkbox to sign up for transportation, but it was also a check box because it also stated field trips and it was basically the release for field trips or any kind of transportation, you know, whether that's athletics or field trips or anything. So we've separated those forms and and so now you're just picking bus where the next one you're picking field trips and then that's where you do the agreement that you're going to abide by policies for the district. But then if you select us then there's a drop down that we can run reports of cumulative that tells us

150do you want to ride am only pm only am once a week and so that will give us more data that we've never had to kind of prepare for the routing disparity so to say and then you know from a building principal standpoint you know some of the stuff that Mr. Slate was talking about, you know, it it's hard it's really hard to to know, you know, if a parent is, you know, they thought they were picking their kid up in car line, but that kid got on the bus, you know, us trying to figure out who is where and and calling dispatch. They're calling the buses and then the buses, you know, there's 40 50 buses and so they're trying to communicate who's that that whole process can be slow has sped up astronomically

151because now as a building principle I can just log in and see if Johnny get on the bus and I can immediately tell that parent who's up in ar you know I get that they're heightened because they don't know where their kid is. So I can immediately diffuse their emotions of of knowing where their job is. And so um you know and then the program also you know as soon as they scan they you know a little kid gets on the wrong bus by accident if they scan in it turns red and says you're on the wrong bus. This is your route. So the driver can immediately tell. So there's a lot of functionality that will improve safety for our our transportation department. About nine years ago, we uh I as a campus principal, we

152implemented smart tag and it's still that district still has smart tag. They're very pleased with it. I mean, it was great because there were times when we had students, you know, you were trying to find them and it was a quick, you know, way to to look them up. I think if you um looked at most of the district around us, you would find that they have some form of fully functioning system. I feel like we're operating a little bit behind at that at this point. And so this is our attempt to to catch us up and and get us get this department where it needs to be. So when you say the last time three years ago that you ultimately didn't get what you ordered, how did you know this time that whatever happened

153last time isn't going to happen again. Well, that's where we've brought in everybody to look at it beyond just um you know, if if you ask a department that um their expertise may not be in the software, it may not be in the technology. So, we've um you know, asked our technology department, Mr. Royer sat in on quite a few of these. He's um brought in his staff to look at these. Um you know, again, they've communicated with Mr. blemish on trying to integrate everything, but it's it's a much more in-depth review. Um um bringing in everybody that might be able to uh give us some insight on that and everybody working together to try and and and get the the best product that uh works correctly. Whether this is a good thing or not,

154I've had a vendor tell me that I'm brutal before. Uh and you can ask Tommy. I had tons of questions for these people and dealing with all the companies that I've ever do dealt with on technology. It's interesting to me that the smart tag rep that came out, he's probably the best vendor, not even being a technology vendor that I've ever interacted with and he could answer every single question that I asked him. It wasn't let me check in, you know, let me check into that. I I'll get you an answer. Let me get back to you on that. So I was thoroughly impressed with the smart tag vendor and him being able to answer every single thing that I asked him. So I feel very confident in uh the smart tag side as well.

155And we looked at transact you can almost look at these companies as soon as you look at their user interface you can tell is this an up-to-date company or are they operating 10 years ago and both of these companies are just really on top of things. So I feel very good about them. Well, I appreciate that you all were involved in it and sometimes and you're right, sometimes transportation person, not yourself, but sure. Um, you know, doesn't necessarily know the software end, you know, and the software people may not know the transportation end. And we we met one we met with Smart Tag several times and we even brought a couple drivers in, one that was a parent in the Northwest, which also uses Smart Tag, and then the one that was piloting and we

156let them drilling and ask all the questions and and so that we get it right. Good. Appreciate that. Thank you. Well, again, this is information tonight. So, if y'all have more questions, please let us know. Um and we'll bring this back for consideration next month. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Right. That concludes our information only portion of tonight's meeting. We're going to move into action. All right. I will entertain a motion to approve action item 11 11B as presented. This was in executive session. 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. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. All right. Um this one we did talk about last month. Um this is the Chromebook purchase. This

157is the one to one devices that our um bond was successful for last year. And this is for um the refresh. And we have had some differences in quotes on what's happened on this one. I would like Mr. Warrior to come up and talk to you just briefly about what's happened with quotes since last month on this one. So this is kind of what I was going into um previously. So, we got quotes, everything was great. The whole tariff thing started happening. Dell immediately rescended our quote. Here's our new prices. Acer held strong for the time being. We got more tariffs and then they started kind of putting on the brakes. Let's see what's going on here. Um, we did get clarification that as of right now, those tariffs are not being applied above the

15820% for the computers. So, I feel we're good there. Uh, it's my best understanding. They haven't come out and said said it completely, but the way I understand it is Acer is eating part of that to make this deal in good faith, get back in this district. Um, so I feel really good about them. Um, and and I I just trust them as a as a vendor right now. Um, I will say when we previously had Acer fought definitely five plus years ago, maybe seven, eight years ago, the same rep is still there in his position and is our rep uh at Argyle. And that's kind of reassuring because with a lot of these big companies, I get a new rep every year. I never get to build relationships. There's no stability. So, I do

159feel good about Acer in that way. The product is better. Um, but as it is right now, they have told me as long as they have a PO and nothing changes between now and Friday, a PO by two o'clock on Friday, they still can honor this price. But assuming nothing else changes between here and there. So, we're kind of just living a dayby-day situation and hoping for the best. All right. I'll entertain a motion to approve action item 11 C as presented. Mr. Hawksworth motion to approve. Do I have a second? Mr. Wester, Mr. Wester. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Right. Thank you. Thank you. This is TASBY update 124 um which was presented to you last month as information only. It also includes um a change to

160DEEC local which is a local policy that we have um adapted with um a couple of highlights and I'll just mention those again. Um for DEC local we have added a bereavement leave policy and an additional paid local leave day in addition to the five that we already have. You don't have any questions? entertain a motion to approve action item 11D as presented. Motion to approve. Mr. Western motion to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Mr. Rich McDall. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. For our teacher 2526 um staffing requests um as and I wasn't at this meeting. I was very sick last week. Um as discussed glad you're back and you're you're well now. Yeah. Thank you. We were there. Or was it

161two weeks ago? That wasn't even last week. It was two weeks ago. Okay. At the board workshop um a couple weeks ago, these were the um additional positions that we brought to you and that we're bringing to you again that we would like to add due to our anticipated growth based on the demographers report. And we're also bringing back um some additional positions that were discontinued last year such as instructional specialists and a 504 504 testing coordinator. Um also included in this plan are six additional classroom teachers at the elementary level to reduce the number of students in each classroom so that it's below the state required 22 to1. without the six based on the report right now we will still be be below 22 to one but we are trying to move that number

162even lower for um potential growth that has happened over the years I mean I'm getting just got an email while I was sitting over here about um from one of the campuses I won't mention you um how they're concerned about this may not be enough so this is our um initial plan to you as funding is finalized and the budget is final finalized. We are going to have to adjust based on um money and also based on number of students that are enrolled. And so we will continually evaluate um the staffing plan. This is just to get us an initial start. Got some questions for you. Good. So I understand this is a um a 3.2 2 million rough commitment in the budget in terms of staff. Is that right? Yes. Yes. Do you And

163can you just tell me like how much of that $3.2 million that we're committing here for staff is actually going into the classrooms um and in the support positions for the teachers. Do you have that? I do. I did not. I have all these 93% of it. It was like 92 and a half%. Yeah. Okay. So two two point 3 million of it roughly. So $3 million of the 3.2 is going back into the classrooms and and classroom and classroom support in classroom support positions. Okay. 33 new classroom teaching positions. 33 and then three program support and then there's some other stuff. But from a classroom perspective, it's 33 positions. 33 teacher positions in classrooms. And we weren't I mean we there was a great budget workshop and kind of a collaborative effort. we weren't

164necessarily able to fill every request that we weren't able necessarily to bring every position back that um may have been cut last year. Um but we're still hopeful with legislative action that we can continue to bring back more teachers and support staff if we have the room. Yes. Correct. Absolutely. And is the is the same true that central office I mean what did central office or central administration get? I mean, did they get positions filled for this? Go ahead. For this current year or for next year? For for next year? For next year, we are um we'd be returning to bringing back a 504 district testing coordinator and adding a much needed HR specialist. And are there other needs that central office have that are not being filled? There's an accountant position that we haven't

165filled that we've left vacant. So, yes, the accountant position we don't have bringing back. Um, and we don't have a two, we need two student nutrition positions that we don't have in there. A router, three maintenance positions that were and a router dispatcher position. Oh, yeah. Transportation. We we we took that one out. No, that one was on that list. It is on, but there were there was another transportation that was the diesel mechanic was not included. Okay. Okay. because you you had a router dispatcher and then a bus driver on two correct two bus I'm sorry yeah two bus drivers okay so I'm pleased to hear that the vast majority over you know 90% is going back into the classroom and you've also mentioned that as the needs arise there may be opportunities to

166to even make um well there will be opportunities to make additional investments I believe there will there's going to now we're going to have make some adjustments on some of the feedback we got and I appreciate the feedback we got after the board workshop was that there was and and during the board workshop was that there is this you know stress within the campuses as it relates to 504 support and and I think after the workshop I think you know it's kind of hey if there's things that we can do and I want to make sure these people that you know took the time to to give us feedback that you know I should be heard. And I mean, are there going to be opportunities for us to potentially make more investments into the 504

167support? Yes. Don, do you mind? You want to talk a little about that? So, we talked to counselors today about adding some days in their contract, which will give them the opportunity to take care of some of those end ofear duties and beginning of the year duties as well with extra days on their contract. So, um, they all seem to be very appreciative of having some extra days on contract. So they would be paid for those extra days. Correct. To that would be allow them to spend more time on the 504 or other responsibilities they have. Yeah. I mean, you know, throughout the year those meetings still happen. Sure. Plus the specialist coming back, right? Specialist coming back would also just take some of the load off of what the the office is handling and

168that includes the APS, the counselors, everybody's pitching in to fill in some of those gaps. So I think it'll it help in that respect too. then the middle school and high school have a dedicated person for that if these positions are approved. Oh, I'm glad to hear that. One one more because I want again this was a comment made and it's been a comment made on our boardwalks is that one of the things that happened last year in the in the budget cuts was at the elementary school level we had to cut a specialist position which I I you know this is the benefit of I guess being here year after year is I now learned what that means is that then you had to pour more kids into PE in the in the PE

169classes became overburdened. I don't or have we done anything in this staffing plan to address potentially that or is there things that we can investments we can make to address some of the challenges there? So, not in this part specific staffing plan, but we have that on our list in June when we do our leadership institute with our principles to look at um some options and potentially and it may include some staffing later, but it's not in this current plan. Okay. But we need to look at some other creative options and talk through those scenarios for those that have like seven sections instead of six. Um, which it all goes back to to, you know, like we had talked about you, we wanted to fill our classrooms as much as we could so that we

170could get the class sizes down and we I mean, we've done a kind of we've mapped it all and we're we're running low on classroom space anyway. So, we'll have to look at some creative options. So, even if you wanted to add a specials, it's it's the whole balancing act here. We want to get class sizes down. We'd also like to add more specials to lessen the PE load, but we don't have the classrooms because we're spending the money on class. I have to look at some other option places on campus to potentially house some options. So that's what we're going to work through with them. And we need an elementary school and we need a school. Elementary school. So that's it for me. That that was going to be one of my questions because

171I saw the the minus ones on classroom available on three out of the four elementaryaries. So that's that's concerning. But yeah, get creative. They they they've obviously been very creative over the years, you know. I mean, they were not using classroom. I mean traditional classrooms if you look at just traditional classrooms yes those would be our numbers they have gone above and beyond that and found a place to put classrooms but that's just the basic the best one was when west opened and the year after that that was that was the height of creativity 2x4s and sheetrock so um okay so the list that we got everything on here is included correct or is there anything that was removed off the We have not changed anything from what you saw on on April 10th Okay.

172And so then we've added and on top of that we're looking at the six additional elementary teachers for the class size stuff and the extra days for the counselors. Okay. I don't know if extra days for they're not in this. That's not part of that. It's that's minimal compared to positions. I mean yes we're going to we're going to do that. You know part of the plan is just not all the paper. Got these are all the positions. I'm just I'm scribbling. So okay. Got it. Okay. the band and the dance because that program has grown tremendously and the special population support. Okay. And then the returning positions of behavior specialist, secondary 504 campus testing coordinator, the instructional specialist on the elementarymentaries and the counselor's half receptionist that we had split that in half. It

173would become a full again. Another GT teacher and a another diagnostician as well. Yeah, I saw that on here. Okay. And then also the district 504 testing coordinator that was just coming back in. It was it was vacant this year, right? Under a different name, but the position was vacant. Okay. Thank you. All right. I'll entertain a motion to approve action item 11E 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. Any opposed? All right, y'all have some hiring to do. Awesome. Okay, we'll talk tomorrow. We'll talk tomorrow. Isn't that on Mr. Herren? That's a community engagement. Thank you all very much. Lot of hard work. Bless. Yes. ready. We discussed it this in close

174session. We have a probationary contract that um we plan to terminate at the end of the school year. I will entertain a motion to approve action item 11F as presented. Motion to approve. Mr. Wester. Motion to approve. Have a second. Second. Mr. Hawksworth. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. Any opposed? Thank you. The time is 8:23 p.m. We are adjourned.