001All right, it is 7:44 and we are back into open session. I call to order this meeting of the Arlington ISD Board of Trustees on April 9th, 2026 at 7:44. We'll go straight into the pledges tonight and they'll be led by Short Elementary student Ian Owens. >> When do I go? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, and liberty and justice for all. The Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. >> All right, please be seated for a moment of silence. All right, I'll turn it over now to our Chief Communications Officer Tyna Northington to learn a bit more about the student who led us in the pledge. Ms.
002Northington. >> That's right. Amongst all of these young students out here today, we have one bright shining star from Short Elementary School. And I want to tell you, Ian actually says that he is a lover of all things reading. Um, but as I got to learn and speak with him, I learned that he actually is a really strategic thinker. He's a deep learner and when I asked him about what books he enjoyed, he said he really enjoyed long books that were challenging, which just goes to speak to um how fascinated he is with learning overall. He's always learning cuz he's in school. He got to participate in today's ice cream attendance party. So that was a big deal over at Short. Um he does have a huge crowd of him tonight outside of his grandparents.
003He's got some Short fans over there in the uh audience. So I just want to bring some attention to a uh strings teacher who is um really uh passionate about what he, you know, fueling his really his love to play the bass and he says that it's also something that she's taught him a lot of uh the musical parts and that she always supports him. And so I think as a child grows and learns what they love to do extracurricular, those uh teachers and educators that we have, that support group means so much more not only to our students but to their families. Um a very bright man who says if it he had his way, he would make an egg omelet every day. Um he loves omelets and that just says it's like music
004but making it in the in the kitchen. So I think there's a lot of future. I want you him to know that we have a culinary program here in Arlington ISD. So as he continues to develop his skills, we're excited to learn more and maybe have some omelets for the board members in the years to come. So thank you so much Ian for joining us in the pledges this evening. >> All right, that brings us to the recognition portion of our agenda tonight. After our recognitions this evening, we will have a short recess to celebrate with our honorees in the lobby, so stick around for that. And leading the recognition portion of the agenda is Ms. Northington. I'll turn it back over to her now. >> Thank you so much, President Chopp and members of
005the board. Starting us off tonight, besides the full packed house, the majority of them are from Duff Elementary School. This is just a fraction of their choir. I want you to just note that they have a very powerful choir program led by Mr. Joshua Lewis who was recently named the teacher of the year. So, kudos to him AS WELL. THE GROUP WE HAVE TODAY MADE UP OF 72 students is part of that choir that actually has 176 students across their fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. Deaf choirs have a long-standing tradition of earning superior ratings at choral festivals and these students are proud to carry that legacy forward. In recognition of jazz appreciation month, they will be performing Play That Music All Day Long by Teresa Jennings, a fun, high-energy piece that showcases their musicality, personality,
006and their joy for performing together. Please join me in welcoming the Deaf fourth-grade choir. >> WOO! >> ONE MORE ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR OUR FOURTH graders from Duff Elementary School. It's such a treat to hear from our students, but also to watch the energy of Mr. Lewis. That I can imagine the parents have watched Mr. Lewis once or twice. I can see why he was named teacher of the year. I just took a recording. It's just that's that's the energy we want people to feel when they are passionate about where they work and they love where they work. And so, we're going to make something of that cuz that the his facial features are excellent for the children and for us. As they clear with our I'm going to let them have a few minutes
007one more minute before we ask you to turn your attention to the screens this evening. So, I'm going to give them another second or two so we can queue that up. Let some people find a seat. If you would turn your attention to the screens, they are very quiet. So, I'll go ahead and start our highlight this evening. Uh we'll be highlighting our Arlington ISD student of the month for the month of April from Seguin High School. >> Tewa Ogoh Ibi is our Seguin Nation Student of the Month. Tewa exemplifies what we want out of a Seguin Nation student. She's involved in every possible activity around campus starting with being our Student Council President. Also, she's immersed in the student experience. She's involved in everything she can possibly get her hands on around campus from
008being a member of the girls soccer team to being a part of our athletic program as well. >> I've known Tewa for 4 years now, and I've watched her grow tremendously throughout those 4 years. I think that everything she's done has been an earned thing, not a given thing. She worked hard at improving pride and patriotism throughout our school and really pushed to better our community. >> She was from the first group that started Cougar Times, our Seguin Nation TV. She's one of those kids that always comes around, always say hi. >> I'm going to miss her. >> One of the things I really respected about Tewa was that she took ownership of her learning. She did what it took to be successful. It's a pleasure to teach students like Tewa. >> She's been on
009varsity for 4 years. Everybody in our district, they know her as the girl who's going to tackle you to get the ball. She is one of the girls I rely on the most, and she truly set the standard for what it was to be a Seguin Lady Cougar. >> Tewa was one of our athletic training students. She's been with us the last couple of years. She's very hard-working individual and I've been a great asset to our team. She's one of the most influential and charismatic teenagers I think I've ever met. She is a natural leader amongst her peers and just helps to bring a positive environment. >> know all this you can see how she will exemplify Seguin nation where excellence is a standard. >> Good evening President Kappa, Superintendent Smith and board members. When
010I first came to Seguin High School, I was a kid who had attended charter school almost her whole life after my family had moved to the United States. The rules, environment and people were all different and although I was accepted by my peers, I never truly felt like I belonged. Everything was new to me like trying McDonald's for the first time or learning a new form of greeting. I went from being around the same people almost my whole life to not knowing anyone. I was a timid kid but knew I wanted to be involved in something that changed my community and then I discovered the student council. Joining student council my freshman year is the greatest decision I've made in my high school years. It led me to growth and become the person I am
011today. Once Seguin High School brought me a home, a comfort I've never felt before. Being awarded AVID student of the month means a great deal to me because it shows the work I put in isn't going unnoticed. And I'm incredibly grateful for the support that's brought me here today. First off, I'd like to thank my assistant principal Miss Coronado and my principal Mr. Linton for nominating and choosing me for this award. Next, I'd like to thank my advisor Mrs. Brooks who has played a major role in shaping who I am today. She has always held me accountable, challenged me to improve and pushed me to become a better person and for that I'm truly grateful. Another huge thank you to my soccer coach for always believing I can be better and there's room for improvement.
012Joining Seguin soccer brought me a second home and comfort I will never forget. Another thank you to my athletic trainers, Coach Benitez and Coach Kennedy for always loving and supporting me. Last but definitely not the least, I'd like to thank my family and friends for the greatest support system I could wish for. Cuz I know my parents always supported my goals and aspirations and I'm forever grateful for them and to be raising me to who I am today because I know it's definitely not easy. I am honored and excited to represent the Arlington Independent School District as I step into the next chapter of my life. Thank you again. >> We don't often have this many people in the audience for these events, but I think you all can see why our student of the
013month honoree is such a big deal. Um we have amazing students here and we are so proud of you and what you've done at Seguin High School. Obviously, you're a born leader and so I can't wait to see you to come back and work in our school district in the future, just saying. Um but congratulations on such a well-rounded high school career, for putting yourself out there when you didn't know anybody and you wanted to take that big step in joining student council because as you said, that was a really important decision you made and it's obviously paved the way for you for the future. We are proud of you. Remember you always have a home in Arlington ISD. Congratulations on being our student of the month. >> Tia, before we take pictures, this is
014a pin that the Board of Trustees wears and we give it to people who are special to the district and have done great things and that definitely is something that you qualify for. So, on behalf of the board, there's a pin. >> Continuing tonight's board honors, we're proud to recognize our 25-26 Arlington ISD District Spelling Bee winners. Across three district competitions, Area 7, Area 8, and the Spanish Spelling Bee, these students have demonstrated exceptional vocabulary, composure under pressure, and true perseverance. Their hard work and dedication to learning are really on full display and they represent the very best in our district. We'll recognize our winners as I call your name, please come forward. You'll start with Superintendent Smith. We have our Spanish Spelling Bee winner, sixth grader Emily Moreno from Bergen Elementary. Spanish Spelling Bee
015runner-up, Helen Chavez, also from Burgin Elementary. An area seven spelling bee winner, sixth grader Marcus de Guzman from Foster Elementary. And they kept our moderator going for quite a while. There are a few rounds deep that they went um and they're different regions. So, they'll come to the center and we can take a photo with all three of them. Congratulations. Next, we are proud to recognize our Arlington ISD swimming regional and state qualifiers. The students being honored tonight each earned first place in their event at the district meet. Competing and winning at this level is no small feat and these athletes have set themselves apart from the very best. Their success has advanced them to that regional competition with some even continuing on to the state level. There are many students that participate in our
016in swimming, so we're pleased to have many of them here with us. We're going to call their name by campus to be recognized. So, if they'll come up from first in the 8 6A district, we'd like to bring forward from Lamar High School our swimmers Jack Bedell, THIS DASHIELL HORNIAK, STATE QUALIFIER Carson Flemendon, and Nathan Siders. THERE MIGHT HAVE BEEN A COMMON THEME, I THINK, with dyeing their hair. Until they got far. We're going to have them come to the middle with their coach. They didn't make him do the beard, okay. Congratulations. And for our parents in the audience to know, all of our photos do go on to our Facebook page and our Flickr pages. So, if you wanted to catch one of ours, please be sure to follow us on there. Uh next,
017we'll have the the students from Martin High School our swimmers come down. We have Caleb Bratton. ASPEN GRAY. CLARA LAUGHLIN. Meghan Wynn. Corey Wilborn. Caroline Williams. Maya Zanders. Benjamin Boyer. DRAKE BURDICK. BURDICK. State qualifier Grant Hester. MITCHELL HALL. R WYNN. DEAN SCHWEIBOCK. AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, Dylan Troung. Save the best for last. There we go. With 16 top finishers, the Martin girls and boys team also took home the UIL 6A district title. So, that's a huge congratulations to Martin. We're going to have them sway to the middle. We'll have their coach come down and we can take a formal photo. If there's medals, I know some of you guys have your medals, please feel free to put them on. Hold. Hold. Hold. Hold. All right, there we go. Congratulations to Martin. Last but not
018least, we have our 8 5A district swimmers from Seguin High School in the house. We have two state qualifiers joining us tonight, Neil Boyer. >> And state qualifier Jocelyn Garcia. And if they'll put those in proud medals on, we will happily take a picture of their coach is going to join us. There we go. Yeah, let's put the medals on. We love One more, one more, one more. Congratulations to SEGUIN HIGH SCHOOL. AT THIS TIME I'D LIKE FOR US TO TURN OUR ATTENTIONS back to the screens for a quick video of recognizing our Arlington ISD Community Partner Award. This is our award of appreciation. Our recipient this month is the Dental Health Arlington for their Smiles program and the Arlington Back to School Kickoff Partnership. >> Dental Health Arlington, we are a low-cost option for
019the uninsured in Tarrant County. >> We have a school-based program called Smiles, where we go into the Title 1 schools in Arlington, and we teach first through fifth graders the importance of brushing, healthy eating habits, and the importance of visiting the dentist. And the students that bring back a consent that are in second through fourth grade get free screenings, free sealants, and free fluoride. And we're hoping to add fifth grade in the upcoming year. This program is so important because it helps kids understand how a healthy smile connects their confidence and success in school. Our mission really aligns with AISD, keeping kids healthy, in school, and ready to learn. So, what do we do with all the teeth that need to be restored? They They get their care here back at Dental Health Arlington. And
020so, one of the things that we do whenever they come here is we bring the families in and we not only treat the patient, but we can treat the whole family. We see from 0 to 99 and we're able to provide access to the entire family where they're able to keep their teeth well until they're 80. >> We are also proud supporters of the AISD Back to School Fair each year where around 10 volunteer dentists help screen between 500 and 600 students. We've been honored to be part of this event since the very beginning. >> All right. Good evening, Dr. Smith, President Chapa, and trustees. Want to thank you on behalf of Dental Health Arlington. I'm Brick Sermon. I'm the president of the Board of Directors. Uh we want to thank you for the partnership.
021We can't do what we do without the support of the schools, the administration, the teachers, and the parents, and the students themselves, and of course with your support. So, thank you very much. >> President Chapa was so kind enough to share the mic with me tonight because I serve on the board with y'all and I have been able to see firsthand for the last 2 years what has gone on behind the scenes. I know that is so much more than is just in that video and we are so thankful to you, Brick, for each of you. We are so proud to be partners with you because what you do for our school, for our program is beyond just our students. You take it to the community. You take it to the families and there is
022access to dental health care that would never have been there if it wasn't for y'all. Thank you for your partnership. Thank you for your fundraising efforts, and thank you for having the vision to want to grow to include more families and more students in the coming years. >> Congratulations. >> Okay, that concludes the the recognition portion of our agenda tonight. It is 8:10, so we'll we'll head to recess, but before we do that, I do want to recognize her because she is here, and she's now on the board of Dental Health Arlington, or has been on the board for a long time, but former AISD trustee, Kecia Mayes, here tonight. All right, we'll take recess at this point. Uh trustees, let's try to be back on the dais about 10 minutes. We're in recess. Okay,
023it is 8:27, we are back from recess. The next portion of our agenda tonight is open forum for agenda items. Ms. Crosson, do we have any speakers registered for open forum? >> President Choppa, we do not. >> Okay, that brings us to our report portion of the agenda tonight. I understand that we are forgoing governance committee and finance and academic committee reports, so that will take us straight to item C for reports, which is a update on our 2019 bond program. Dr. Smith. >> I'd like to invite Mr. Kelly Horn up to give us our most recent update on the projects that our voters approved in 2019. >> Thank you, sir. Good evening, President Choppa, members of the board, Dr. Smith. I'll jump right into this and before I leave this slide, I'll point out
024that the inset picture is a picture of our newest softball field at Martin High School. And they're in that field's in use currently. And then I'll jump right into where we are finance. This is a drastic change from the last time that I presented a few months ago in the sense that most of our dollars now have been expended and across the board and they're the the portion that's allocated, of course, just this week we've expended another 40 million of that in the facility side, so we're moving quickly to have all projects in phase 4 and phase 5 contracted. We're down to our smallest projects. All of these projects though, we plan still to wrap up by August of 2027 so that we can begin to close out the 20 the 2019 bond program. And
025so I'll just draw your attention to the bottom. You can see at the bottom of the page after our cost for issuance and then the arbitrage liability that we uh at this point we expect that we may have. There's there'll be roughly 38 to 40 million dollars at this point in interest earnings and that number still may go up as we begin to work towards closing out the bond, but this is updated as of March 25th of this year. Uh, this this slide shows a list of all of our projects. You can see most of our projects now have moved into construction and and of course close out and completion. We still have a few that uh, the small projects that are we're holding in design just we can't put them all out on the
026street as we say to bid at one time. So we strategically just put put them out and make sure we have a good coverage. But week by week those design projects are going into bidding stage and again of the 14 in bid currently about six of those were bid this week and all projects that we bid this week came in under budget and we'll begin to wrap those up and present contracts for the superintendent to sign. And then I'll go through phase by phase just where we are. The Bowie and Seguin projects are in phase one are under construction. If you drive by those two campuses you'll see that the contractors mobilized on those particular fields to to get those started and those are softball fields for those two campuses and then of course we're
027in close out on the Martin Glasby project at this point in time. In phase two we are in close out on Arlington High School. Those projects that we show in construction Foster and Johns they're actually in a in a group with Atherton. They're going to move over into close out this week or pardon me next week pardon me and Wyman of course is just begun and you'll see a picture at the close of this presentation that actually shows not Wyman but Cravens Field and in all of its destruction and so both Cravens and Wyman are are actively in construction now. The same goes with phase three. Lamar that's a two-year project. All of our high schools take two years to to complete or two summers is the way we look at it. Not two years
028but two summers. The Little and Miller projects are wrapping up quickly and as I mentioned a minute ago Cravens along with Wildman is in demolition right now, and we're we'll move towards construction of the actual bleachers and buildings very quickly. And then in phase four, all of these projects that are in the bidding stage here with exception of Wimbish bid, those are the projects that bid this week and and came in under budget. And then those projects that I show in design, again, are just being held to to bid those out piece by piece with exception of Young. Young is being wrapped up in the design process right now, and and in we're working with the city to receive their comments that we can in include in in the Young project as we get ready
029to bid it. So, we're moving quickly into phase four to get all of those under construction and then again wrap those up this year. And in phase five, these are most of our really small projects. The the projects that you see in bidding, of course, the the largest project in that, of course, is the junior high concessions, and then, of course, the lighting that we plan to include with that for those junior high fields. And of note here, our our HUB participation went up and we're back over 25%. This will probably be the last time that I can give you HUB numbers because, as many of you are aware, this April 2026, the state closed that designation and changed it to what they call VET HUB now, and they no longer recognize minority and women-owned
030businesses as HUB category. And so, we won't be able to continue to to monitor that like we have in the past. We will on the projects that we have under contract right now, we'll continue to monitor those through closeout, but we won't get numbers on the new projects at this point. And with that said, I I meant my discussion slide, and I promised you I'd have a picture of of Cravens Field, and actually it looks a little different than that because most of that debris has been down and moved away at this point in time. So, with that said, I'll I'll open up to any questions tonight. >> Thank you, Mr. Horn. Are there trustees with comments or questions? Ms. Fallon. >> Thank you, President Choppa. Thank you, Mr. Horn. Okay, you mentioned about the
031hub and you can't give us the numbers, but will the district still strive to use the >> To To the best To the best of our ability, we will still continue to try to to try to encourage like local participation and and to But they The state's taken that designation away entirely. And so, our contractors will no longer be able to to provide the numbers like they had before, because the the designation's not recognized. >> But I do hope we'll continue to to use those businesses. >> Yeah, we we know those businesses well and and again, local and and minority businesses that we can to the extent that we can, we'll continue to to strive to do that. Yes, sir. >> Thank you, Ms. Fallon. Mr. Mike. >> Yes, thank you, Mis- Mr. Horn for
032uh your presentation. Uh just to tack on to what you talked about the hub designation, just from personal experience, um in my business, we were hub designated, but we were also vet hub designated. Uh once that change came into law, several hundred drug testing facilities kicked off. >> Mhm. >> And so, in the state of Texas, there were only three designated drug testing facilities now, and mine included. So, that's how much of a significant impact >> Right. >> uh this this law has has changed with all the hub designations. >> Yes, sir. >> Thank you, Mr. Mike. Are there any trustees with comments or questions? Okay. Seeing none, thank you, Mr. Horn. >> Yes, sir. Thank you. >> Okay, that brings us to item D tonight. This is a follow-up report on our Teacher Retirement
033System Active Care. >> So, trustees, we presented last to you in December. Uh Mr. Cale and Ms. Danball were here. Uh and we promised you a follow-up on some questions that came up. One of the things that we don't want you to think is when we bring something to you and we say we don't have a recommendation at this time, it doesn't mean that the work doesn't happen behind the scenes. And so, I'm going to turn it over to Scott and Holly and tell you a little bit more about the things that continue to happen as we explore these options for our teachers and staff across the district. >> Thank you, Dr. Smith. Good evening, President Chapa, board members, and Dr. Smith. We're we're very appreciative of having the opportunity to share this with you
034this evening. I wanted, before we hit go on this first slide, I want to give you context of what we want to share with you tonight. We're all very aware that that this topic, whether it be TRS active care or whether it be health care in general, is a pretty involved um subject. And we know that it's one that is also highly personal and affects people deeply, not just in terms of their health care, but in terms of their cost. And so, what we're going to take you through tonight, pretty quickly in a in a few slides, takes you through the history of where we've been in terms of uh the initiatives uh that we've followed and the progress that we've made. And it's important, I think, to understand that foundation, although it'll be brief.
035Uh what are the root causes of health care? Um again, most of this will be a brief overview, but we're going to touch on that because until we really uh internalize what those things are and appreciate what they are, I'm not I'm not confident that we're going to be able to address them. And so, I'm hoping that uh we do an adequate job on sharing that with you. We're going to talk about market data and employer contributions, um particularly some differences between uh school districts, Arlington ISD included, as well as the private sector, and wondering why um maybe some of those costs are so different and some of those premium contributions are different. We're going to show you a little bit about the work we've done behind the scenes to Dr. Smith's point a moment
036ago in doing a comparative over the last several months between SWHR and TRS ActiveCare, and looking at options to model a different program within Arlington ISD. Should that opportunity present itself from a timing perspective to be the right thing to do. Uh we're going to talk a little bit about the option of on-site clinics, and then how wellness plans contribute to what we're trying to do, what what their real value is in in our particular plans, and then finally rolling that up into where it leaves us in this report with those primary options that are available to us to hopefully do something meaningful in the future to address this challenge, which we all know is health care. So, to go ahead and get started Uh I I covered this, but we're going to review those
037potential health care wellness opportunities. We're going to cover that general overview that I I just shared with you. So, from a history of advocacy and wellness efforts Um you know, AISD has advocated for flexibility to exit TRS due to active uh costs for some time. In fact, in 2019, we had the opportunity I also had the opportunity to testify in front of a House Committee alongside TRS and um really share what our challenges and concerns were, and that was the beginning of starting to have some advocacy as well as some influence, and that contributed to we believe a much deeper partnership than we'd ever had before. In fact, than most school districts had before with TRS ActiveCare in trying to make progress on this this challenge we call health care. That ultimately evolved. It wasn't
038the bill we sponsored, but that ultimately evolved into Senate Bill 1444, allowing districts to opt out of TRS ActiveCare. Um and then we launched in turn an employee wellness program in 2018. Our purpose in doing that, we'll talk as we go through this presentation, and I say this sometimes maybe too directly with my own staff, but if you don't get sick, you don't have to get well. And if you don't get sick, it doesn't cost anything to get well. And so as as straightforward as that sounds, the reality is wellness is a big deal not because it's some trendy thing to do, but because it's in the best interest of individuals and it's in the best interest of the collective cost of the plan. Um, we've we've gone more than just putting some website out
039there. Uh, we actually have wellness champions at every single one of our campuses and it really has it has enculturated itself over the last several years to be more of a norm than something new um, that people are are getting used to. And we focused now much more than we used to on prevention and healthier employees and lots of research is out there to show that incentives improve engagement and outcomes and our wellness program includes those incentives as well. We'll talk about maybe we expand those going forward. I'm going to let Holly Stambaugh, our director of compensation, take over here for a minute and then I'll pick back up in a second. >> Thank you. So to continue with Scott's messaging, um, we recognize that health care costs continue to rise every year and so
040this is a little bit of summary of what are those root causes are. Um, Gallagher provided us some resources that are market wide data on rising health care trends. So I just want to share that it's not unique just to Arlington ISD, it's it's statewide and uh, it's actually national as well. Um, we do have about 20 high cost claimants and those 20 high cost claimants are $11 million of our $45 million uh, claims. Um, we although we have $45 million in claims, we're taking in about $40 million dollars premiums. So what that means is is what we're bringing in, we're costing about $5 million more than what we're bringing in. And right now, TRS is taking that cost. Um we are part of Region 11, which is a um uh you know, a high-risk,
041high-claims uh region. And as part of that region, um we see those rates continue to increase every year. So, Arlington ISD is pooled with other districts, and although we have um measures and efforts that we're trying to do to promote wellness and reduce claims, um unless those other districts are also doing the same thing, it's going to make it challenging for us to see our regional rates uh lower. So, we're we're focusing on us, but we certainly want our neighboring districts to also promote wellness as well, so we can see some of those premiums go down. Every year, we see about a 10% increase in healthcare and our premiums, and we've seen that pretty much the past several years. So, we're anticipating that we'll see that again soon. Uh we're anticipating to get our rates
042in May. My understanding is the TRS board uh is expecting to meet at the end of April, so we'll be looking for those rates, and we'll communicate with those out to you um when we have those available. I can share that our claims have gone down. We recently did a a new claims analysis, and last year we were at 122%, and this year we're at 115%. Now, that's not exactly where we want to be, but it does show that we're we're making efforts, and we're we're seeing uh those claims go down. You know, this weekend we have the zoo run. We have several hundred of our employees that are actively involved in that. We're excited about that. We just did the traveling trophy, where we um recognized uh some of our wellness champions for the
043efforts they're doing at their campus, among lots of other things. So, I believe that those efforts that we're doing are paying off, and you see that in our claims data. Ultimately, even though we're seeing those drop, we certainly want to get below 100%, and we're advocating to the best of our ability with our employees, utilizing our wellness champs to get out there and have conversations at the campus and the department. Um this is a market comparative where we looked at private sector data and compared it to our Arlington ISD data. But before I get into the private sector, I do want to share UEA sent out their recent comparison. They do that every year and we added always add in the wellness incentive to see with the wellness incentive where would we be and we
044would fall about 19. That does that would be for our hourly employees and we we do a uh slightly different contribution for our exempt, but it's not a big difference. Now, even though we're 19, I will share that Irving ISD is number one and they're contributing $506. So there is some room for improvement if we want to be more competitive in our contribution. On the left side of the image, you'll see year after year. On the top is the employees and at the bottom is the family. And you'll see that those increases continue to go up every year due to these rising health care costs. But then you'll see subsequently that the employer share is staying on trend with the rising cost of the employee. So the cost is going up for the employee and
045in the private sector, they're continuing to keep that trend. So you'll see the employer share for the employee employee only has stayed about 83% even though those premiums are increasing. And then for family coverage, you'll see that that employer share averages about 72% even with those premium increases. Arlington ISD employee coverage is 63% in comparison to the private sector 72. So that's not you know, that's not too bad. We're fairly close into that coverage, but where we are behind is our family coverage. We're at about 16% when you compare to the private sector and what we're contributing. If we wanted to compare with the private sector, you know, apples to apples, we would need to add about 12 and 1/2 million per year to be competitive. Um so, our um our employee contributions aligned with
046the private sector. Now, understandably, that's, you know, a lot of money, so we need to consider what we could reasonably do if we wanted to be more competitive in the market. All right, Scott. >> So, the So, the next two slides, I'm going to hit one, then Holly will hit the second one, are intended to show the kinds of exploration that we've done to consider, okay, so what can we do different? What What can we do to take initiatives of of our our current state to make things better. And the first thing that we did was we went and actually talked with our neighbor across the parking lot. They were They were extremely helpful and supportive in those conversations, and it was over a number of weeks um that we we had those conversations about
047if we went to a single system, if if our and for anybody listening, please don't believe that hey, this is a decision that's made or this is where we're going. This is what we're trying to provide is evidence that we're exploring options, not that we've made decisions, because we want to understand what those options look like as we try very hard to to solve these issues. And in this in these conversations with Southwestern, the question was, if we give you the economies of scale, if we were in fact an independent um carrier for Arlington ISD, if we were self-insured, and we went just with your system, what would what would that mean in terms of cost breaks and cost efficiencies? And the long story short, there's a lot of information on that slide, but the
048long story short is because where our current ratio is of claims to premiums, it's not much better. Now, what happens over time when you have ultimate control over your own plan is you can put a lot of things in place that you might not be able to get in place when despite the best of intentions and efforts a TRS is trying to serve hundreds of districts with hundreds of different interests and and varying different levels of receptivity to trying different things. When you run your own plan, you assume more risk financially. You also have a lot more control. So, the Southwestern Health Resources model that we talked about them with, I believe starts to show payback after you've been in the system for 3 years, you start to see that return on investment. Obviously, we
049would like it to be faster. That would like to be in a better position. So, we'll talk a bit more in a minute about how we go about getting our actual claims down so that we are more marketable whether it be this model or whether be any other model. And that magic number is to get below 100%. So, what's that mean? What that means is we've got to stop spending more in claims than we're bringing in in premiums. And the way to do that is either you lower your claims, ideal, or you raise your premiums, which obviously they're already higher than most people can afford in many cases. So, the wellness objective is intended to lower those, but this is one model. I think there's still some viability to it. I just don't know that
050we're ready in terms of what our current claims ratios are. You heard Holly say a minute ago that we've seen progress dropping from 122 to 115. That's on the right trajectory. If we continue that trajectory, this will become more of a reality and an option should we want to pursue it. There's also other pros and cons, of course. So, the next and and Holly's going to speak to this, but the next thing that we've looked at and saying, "Okay, what can we do different to serve our employees to also address costs is we looked at the details of what it would look like to implement a care clinic model and Holly speak to that. >> Yes, we've actually spoke with different clinics but CareATC is one of the models that you see here. I will
051share too. We've actually done personal on-site visits at Denton ISD and Mesquite ISD's clinics to see how those operated over the last year or so. We've had a lot of great feedback about those clinics. One of the good thing about clinics is it is an opportunity for employees to get access to care very quickly because it would be here locally. When they get quick access to care, it helps overall health and chronic condition management. When you get those under control, then you see with this CareATC model, there is return on investment. But it does come with the cost. So CareATC is just again one example of different models out there, but there are some options that we could consider. Those Those options do cost anywhere between two and half million to three million dollars per
052year. But if we do it with fidelity, then we certainly have a option to lower claims, which could end up at a later time putting money back in our pocket or money back in our employees' pockets by being able to reduce those overall premiums. So Scott mentioned that we've been looking at some ways or considering some ways to reduce our claims. You guys are familiar with our wellness program. We use Vitality. And Vitality has different tiers and one of the tiers if an employee reaches it, we give them an extra $51 per month, which is $612 a year. We also pay over the state-mandated minimum of 225. So for our non-exempt employees or hourly employees, we pay them or there we contribute $314, which is $89 above the state-mandated contribution. And then if they participate
053in wellness, they get another $51. Now, one thing we're not doing today is requiring the biometric and requiring the health assessment. The health assessment just takes a few minutes, but it gives you a lot of good information about where you can improve, and you can use that information to go visit with your health care provider at the biometric to say, "Here's some areas that I need to improve." Um and so, one of the things we're considering is is requiring our employees to do the biometric and the health assessment. And if they do not, we're considering um saying, "Well, if you're not going to participate in that, we're we'll move you back down to the state mandated minimum in order to incentivize our employees to participate." Now, I will share with you, we do free on-site
054biometrics. Um we certainly would uh make a plan to make that more available to our employees as often as possible. We also provide wellness points is what we call them uh to towards their o- overall points if they go see their own health care provider um because we we're trying to incentivize them to go, but we do on-site biometrics here at the district for free. Um another thing that we're considering is adding an another tier. That other tier um we targeted that that it would be $189 per employee per month. Now, that tier is going to come with a lot more effort. Um they would have to use the biometrics, and it let's let's say that it reports back that their cholesterol's high. Now, again, none of these come to us. All this is confidential.
055But we could they would work with their health care provider, and they would say, "Here's the things that you need to show improvement on." That's reported back to our Vitality. And when you see those those those uh changes to their overall health, they get points for that, and the more points they get will put them into this next tier where they would be eligible to get not only the $51, not only the $89 that we're giving, but also the $189. So, that contribution um is over it's $554, which would actually put us at the highest on the UEA rating if if we had employees doing this right here. It also would be a claims reduction strategy, which is really what we're trying to achieve having our employees be well. And this model right here is
056based on 25-26 rates. Like I shared, we don't have 26-27, but with this platinum tier at $189 with today's rates, we could have employees paying nothing per month just for participating in wellness under this model that we're considering. All right. Turn it back to Scott. >> So, I'm going to go ahead and summarize at this point and to to start that I'm going to just put a bow on on what Holly just said. That's a lot of information, a lot of details. I want to remind everybody that might be listening, we're not making these changes today. We're exploring options, but but the gist of what Holly was just sharing was wellness has been put into our culture now for some time. We're starting to see the value of it. We're starting to see the acceptance
057of it and we're hoping to elevate the wellness program at this point to have more influence and a little more leverage, a little more reward when it comes to behaviors that keep people from getting sick in the first place. When you first start a program like that, you you're you don't want to go too fast. People are getting used to it. It's new and it's different. And we're at a stage now with it being enculturated where we'd like to take it to a next level. So, we're confident that the interaction between the employee and their doctor is truly taking action on those things that come back. It's not just about taking a biometrics exam. It's not just doing a health care questionnaire. It's about what that tells the doctor and some evidence that there's action
058without without crossing the line of sharing medical information with us, but we know that they're taking action to intervene in whatever may be one of the flags and that therefore they're they're really stopping whatever um illness might otherwise be forming with the individual. So, that helps the person and obviously helps long-term cost. Most of the big ticket costs aren't things that happened because you got the bug last week. The big ticket costs are things that happen over time. They're heart disease, they're cancers, and they cost a lot of money aside from the human toll that goes with them. So, we know that we have to get involved early and we're hoping to to take steps with wellness to take that to a different level than it's at today. So, one of the things that TRS
059shared with us just in the last week or so is that they're actually going down the path of strongly considering, I don't believe it's formally approved yet, but strongly considering a pilot with it sounds like a target of two school districts in the state of Texas. Assuming they go forward, we have been told that we are likely to be one that would be invited of the two. What they're talking about from their pilot perspective and and this is more of an immediate could have an impact as we continue these other things in the background is that they're looking at different tiers of networks within the same plan that an employee has a choice of what that tier is in terms of the actual network and those networks have different costs. So, hopefully that will give
060more opportunity to people within the same plan to make individual choices that work for them either more expansive choices in terms of providers for example or more limited choices with lower cost. So, I think it's exciting and I think it's a product of the partnership that we've we've uh put together with TRS ActiveCare over the last several years that they're willing to consider us as one of those two pilot districts and we'll see where that goes from here. Considering the affordability of market-based increase in district premium contribution, $12.5 million is a lot of money. Um, it wasn't intended to put up here to say that it's, you know, it's we're just going to find those dollars and it's going to be fine. It was intended to shed light and be transparent with with all of
061us about where we're at. And a lot of times we hear school districts, why why are premiums so high in school districts? The chart you saw earlier is is at least a good part of that answer. We contribute, not Arlington ISD per se, but school districts as a whole contribute at a different rate to their employees health care than does the private sector. And there's reasons for that and we're schools and we'd have different budgets and that's all true. But the end result is you either have to increase contributions or lower claims in order to get premiums to go down. And that that's a key factor and whatever progress we make toward that uh, would be helpful. Uh, we talked a lot already about the enhanced wellness incentive and adding um, adding both a uh,
062carrot and a uh, accountability standard to our wellness from where it's at today. In other words, a little bit more of an incentive dollar wise, but also a little bit more at risk above the contribution that's already made above the state minimum. To say, for example, again, anybody watching these decisions have not been made. We're only brainstorming. Um, but for example, to say um, you might really actually have to be in wellness to be in our health care plan or to get our contribution above the state minimum. I'm not saying there's not pros or cons to that, but we're looking for a way to incentivize people to really engage in this in this wellness initiative to lower um, the incidence of of illness and the costs that go with them. And then developing on-site clinics,
063we know that as Holly mentioned that there are clinics that have been successful. They they give more for they give more access to their employees. Illnesses gets get addressed more quickly. It also a little tidbit is many of you probably seen the emergency doc in a box type places. The ones that actually say emergency room on them um you recognize I would assume that those are not full blown emergency rooms. But they bill very close to it. So if you have the flu and you think you're going to a provider that is that is just you know a general doctor but in reality it says emergency room from a cost structure it's a very similar to going to any of our hospitals emergency rooms from a billing perspective. Most of our employees don't know that.
064And not only do they get hit with the respective employee cost of going to an emergency room after the fact but the the the system and the plan gets hit with it as well. And so having something like an on site clinic not only would would give more immediate access to care it would solve problems like that to give employees really real options at a very different cost structure. And then finally if you roll all those things up start to make some progress whether it be in a contribution with with a modified pilot with TRS whether it be some version of of an on site clinic of which there are multiple different ways to do that whether it be a partnership with THR next door any combination of those things including pushing really hard at
065taking wellness to a different level with incentives and accountabilities from where it's been in the past can get us to a lower claims ratio to our premiums and once we get start getting below 100% we become marketable and we become much more in control of our own destiny and our own outcomes to get the healthcare plan we want at the cost we want. So, I appreciate your time and and and the opportunity to be here. Thank you for that and we're happy to take any questions you may have. >> All right. Mr. Kell and Stanback, thank you. Trustees with comments or questions? We'll go first to Mr. Mike. >> Thank you, Mr. Kell and um Ms. Stanback, very thorough presentation. Uh to see the effort that you all put into this and background. This is
066really really good presentation. I do have um a few questions. Uh I think it's it's eye-opening to see that there are 20 high-cost cases um that cost the district $11 million. Do you foresee that that is going to be a continuing trend or do you see that maybe some of those costs will go down? >> I think it's a great great question. The the high-cost claims throughout my career, whether it be here in this role to school district or in other HR director and senior leader roles I've been in other organization, it is very consistent that there's a small number of cases that consume the majority of your costs and they're almost always related to um illnesses that occurred over time like the cancers and the and the um heart conditions and so forth. I
067don't think it's an anomaly. I think the only way to get to it is to get to the root cause of those things that contribute to those conditions and it it's really hard to to get the organization and I don't mean our our school district, but any organization's momentum toward that because the return on investment really comes years later. The things we'd intervene in today would probably start off stop a heart attack or a cancer 10 12 years from now. Um and so but it doesn't mean we can't start chipping away, but I don't think it's an anomaly. I think that is typical. >> And then, um, just going to slide seven, that the clinic model, which I really am impressed with. Um, I see the one-to-one ROI. Is that one-to-one ROI just for the
068clinic model, or is that one-to-one for the entire, I guess, concept when we're talking about wellness and and everything? >> This right here is just for the clinic model, but I certainly believe that it would marry against what we're doing overall. And so, doing the wellness program that we have, whether it's enhanced or not, married with this, I think both together could really make a a big improvement. >> Yeah. I agree. I totally agree. And then, as far as the options, you've got four different options, and then you've got the cost estimate. Um, does the cost estimate cover, I guess, if you pick option one, then that cost estimate will still be the same, no matter which option you you chose? >> So, it's a blend of four. So, depending on the option, one of
069the one or two of the options is a little bit less. They didn't break down exactly which option was the two and a half million versus the three, but we could plan design it however we however we want. But, they did say in most these cases here, they'll run anywhere between two and a half million and three million per year. >> And then, I would assume that the employees and their family members who use these clinics, they would pay and we'd have a break-even point. >> There is a way to do that where the the rate's reduced for the employee, um, and and certainly you can add spouse and children as well, um, to that model as well. And they can set lower rates, which then bring, you know, lowers those those premiums that were
070that are being paid versus the claims coming in. Um, and so, it's it's really it's really plan designed, and we certainly can look at this model, and there's other models out there as well, based on what fits the need for Arlington ISD. >> Okay. Um, there was one more. Oh, yes, on on slide nine, the pilot the pilot program. So, I know um everything that you all have presented tonight, we're just researching, talking, doing all of that. Uh do we have any idea on when or how likely this pilot program would come online? >> So, the information I've that's been shared with me is that it is it is very imminent. Um I'm trying to to to let TRS lead in this. I I know they have to go to their board. They may or
071may not have done that at this point uh for approval. Um and when it gets firmed up and hopefully approved, uh I'm confident I will get a phone call very quickly. >> And And then do you anticipate um I know I've got all these questions, by the way. Um do you anticipate uh if that call comes that you're going to put together some type of this strategy with the wellness and clinic I mean, do you anticipate that's what you're going to do? >> Right. So, if the if the if the opportunity comes to fruition with a pilot with TRS, there is absolutely no reason that it can't also be complemented by these other other things. I think the timing of hearing this still gives the opportunity that it could be implemented with open enrollment this
072coming summer, but I have to let them lead on that because it it's obviously their their initiative. But, we have no intent of just walking away from everything else. I think the the objective is to put as many um as many pieces of leverage against this problem as possible to try and make better progress than we made in the past. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Yes, sir. >> Thank you, Mr. Mike. We'll go next to Ms. Fowler. >> Superintendent Choppa, thank you both for this presentation. I am very much in favor of a district care clinic. I think that's really something we need to focus on. I think our employees would appreciate it and it's a way to maybe bring down cost. You mentioned about, you know, that the smaller emergency rooms that people don't
073realize it's emergency rooms. Is there a way because the the the the smaller emergency room is not going to tell them, "Do you realize we're going to charge you emergency room prices?" Is there a way that we could flag an insurance card that would make the people say, "You realize this is the same as an emergency room." Is there anything that we could do on that to alert our employees? >> It's a really good question. The the answer is never going to be no. There's always something we can do that that's that's more informative and helpful than what we're doing today because it is a problem. I think some whatever version of marketing campaign, there's an opportunity to do some version of a marketing campaign of awareness. I completely agree with that. I don't know
074if it's a card or if it's something else. But the point is well taken. >> Maybe a list of available places, you know, and they have to go to they have to go to one of those, not these emergency room places. >> I I do want to share share something that I think is a value. We partner with communications in the fall and we sent out a memo. I think it went out in the December where we talked about this and coincidentally we looked at the claims data, December was one of the lowest claims months. It was in the low 80s and I was quite surprised because that's typically when people go to the doctor. I can't say with with all with all certainty that that strategy worked, but I think the strategies that we're
075doing are showing that our employees are paying attention. So I think that we can continue to market that information knowing that that happened and we can continue to look at the data to see if it supports, you know, the communicating more and putting that out to our employees and teaching them and you know, guiding them in the right direction. >> Maybe there could be a a way to log in cuz everyone uses their phone for everything and either an app or a login that takes them right to that information and then they could look and see the available places. >> Some some of the those are great ideas. Some of the challenges are at the moment we're in a TRS sponsored plan. At whatever point if we chose to be in a self-insured plan it
076was all ours. So, I think we can still market, we can still remind people, "By the way, your your cost and your premiums to go to this location that location is much higher." And that can supplement what TRS already does. Um whatever we do has to supplement it though versus necessarily being inside the TRS ActiveCare system. Um they've been very receptive though. I have to give them a lot of credit. They they have been listening and they have been trying very hard. They just are trying to serve the interest of multiple school districts. So, we're looking for those things that complement. Um but we will absolutely continue to brainstorm of what we can do to better inform our our employees. >> Good. Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Thank you, Ms. Fowler. Ms. McNamara. >>
077Thank you, Mr. Kael and Ms. Stanball. Um I know that all of these strategies um we are we are very much just exploring, but I I want to echo what's already been said and go ahead and say that my favorite strategy on here is absolutely the employee clinic. I think that the return on investment would absolutely be sustainable cuz that's what I'm trying to think of is what can be sustainable. As all of these strategies make an effort for us to take care of our employees, I think that the wellness clinic itself would provide for that that health measure that we have to my knowledge not not capitalized on as a school district yet. And for a district of our size, um especially given that a lot of our employees when I ask like, "Hey,
078why don't you participate in the wellness plan?" Um a lot of them just say, "I'm just so busy and I got to do paperwork and I have to keep up with this." And um, you know, actually when I was employed here, I was in the same boat. I never did tap into the wellness plan, even though everything was clearly there. I could have I could have done it. We have a lot of our employees that just don't. Um, one question that I had for you guys as we um, look at putting together um, in the near future our next legislative agenda. I know that our 2025 legislative agenda, we had um, a goal to continue to increase access to affordable health insurance options for public school employees. Are there any specific um, asks beyond that
079that you guys feel as though we should articulate going into the 90th legislative session? >> favorite question. Thank you. Uh, it's short answer um, and it it's it's a it's a difficult ask. But the it would be it would be game-changing for the state to fund school district health care to the same degree that it funds the the health care system that other state workers that other state Is it ERS? Um, are are a beneficiary of. It is very different. Now, some of it some of it so that full disclosure and we're being fair, there are different risk pools between those two the populations. There are elements like that that do differentiate the cost. >> Yeah. >> Um, but additional funding for health care to get us more um, competitive with the rest of the
080market. I dismissing the difference because it's private sector is not is not value added. It's still real. Employees can choose to go lots of places, including teachers. >> Right. >> And we are not funded for health care um comparatively to where other state employees are, and it would be really helpful to put some some spotlights on that. >> Yeah. >> And to really ask for some consideration. >> That's spot on, and in our conversations with with legislators, the question has always been why can't teachers and school district employees be um protected in their in their health care just as other government employees around the state are. No one's ever been able to answer that question because there is no answer. There is no answer. And yet, not one bill to my knowledge was filed last
081session to to do this. So, thank you, and I I hope that that is a direction that we take when we build our next legislative agenda. Um and I I really appreciate y'all bringing these great strategies to us tonight. Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. Thank you. >> Thank you, Ms. McMorrow. Mr. Wilbanks. >> Thank you, President >> Chappa. And to piggyback on what um Mr. Kellen in the question um comments Ms. McMorrow just made is I would absolutely be in favor of us um putting this front and center in our legislative agenda given the interim charge, and um I think there's going to be you know, if it makes sense given the hearings that are going to come up in June and August on the interim charges of both the House and the Senate, if
082it makes sense to go down and testify in this very issue to bring it front and center to our legislators across the state. >> Thank you, Mr. Wilbanks. Any other comments or questions from trustees? I I have a couple, Mr. Kale. On to Mr. Mike's point about the case the high use cases, so it looks like it's about 25% of our spend. Are I don't know you said that this that's not an anomaly across organizations, but has has anyone figured out a way to mitigate that effect of of the high cost cases? Is there any any tool available to do that? >> Yes. Highly leveraged and I'm I'm using that word politely, right? But leveraged in terms of of incentives and disincentives from a cost perspective to fully engage in wellness. Yes. 100% makes a
083difference. >> Okay. And then I had a question on the So, on the summary slide, we've got a lot of different options. My guess is that the ultimate is going to be that we do some combination of all of these things. >> Yes. >> On the developing on-site clinics, we're estimating potentially at a spend of 3 million a year. Some of these have other additional costs to add on to that amount. What what amount do we have any idea of like what spending money will do to save us money by implementing these things? Because right now, I think it looks like the delta on our cost to spend or um claims to is we got 45 million and we brought in 40 million in premiums. So, that's a $5 million delta. Do we think that
084engaging in spending more than say $5 million is going to save us save us more than $5 million? >> My my objective I I wish I had a balance sheet to show you. I I just don't have that that computation in front of me, but my objective is to spend money on things that I believe are going to reduce claims. Because if I can reduce it's almost like a road map. If I can reduce claims I don't want people who are sick not going to the doctor. If you're sick, if you if you need a doctor, if you need care, you should go. Please, I hope no one takes that message otherwise. However, anything we can do, whether it be wellness, whether it be uh a care clinic for accessibility, anything we we can do
085that will reduce claims cost, which we will closely analyze before we make a final recommendation of what we think is is the best interest of of the options we've given you, has got to be targeted reducing that because on that road map I referenced, if we can reduce the claims and get below 100% claims to premium ratio, we just became an enviable book of business for all sorts of alternatives, whether it be self-insured or otherwise. And so, while I don't I I admittedly do not have the the formula to directly answer the question, I can assure you that when we make a final recommendation, it will come with that, and it will come with the target of having a direct impact to reduce claims so we can get toward that outcome of having more control
086over our own plan and all the elements that go into that plan in terms of choices and size of network and the costs that are associated with it. >> Okay. And then on this last bullet point here, potentially pursue a transition to self-funded plan once claims ratios reach 95% or below. Are you aware of any school districts that that have reached that threshold? >> I am not aware of any school districts that have reached that threshold. I have complete confidence we can reach that threshold if we do some of the things that we talked about. >> Okay. Well, the TRS ActiveCare pilot program sounds pretty intriguing. I I hope that that to learn more about that. I mean, it it once upon a time, um you know, public sector work was it was maybe not
087the best pay, but like you made up for it in a lot of ways with great benefits. And over time, I think that's been significantly eroded in education. So, hopefully that's something that that comes to fruition. Um if there are no further comments or questions from trustees, then that's it. Thank you, Mr. Kell. >> Thank you for your all time. >> That brings us to our last report tonight. This is a key progress measures report on campuses in need of improvement. Dr. Smith. >> Dr. Champion is on his way. As we told you all we would be bringing you this on a monthly basis just to specifically talk about the key progress measure that we're working on to address some of our campuses that are struggling with some accountability ratings and he has a couple
088of amazing principals here this evening that are going to share their work as well. President Choppa, Board of Trustees, and Dr. Smith, it's my pleasure tonight to expand on our conversation we had at the last board meeting where we took took a look at some of our student results and then are bringing sort of the question, what about our schools that were rated D or an F and have have they made gains? What does that look like? And so tonight we're going to be focusing on that key progress measure and hearing directly from a couple of outstanding campus leaders. So tonight we're going to take start with taking that benchmark data that we looked at for the whole district last time and look specifically at our D and F campuses. But before we get to
089that data, I want you to take a look at this slide. This slide, the gray bars show our campuses that were rated D or F in the star accountability ratings in 2025 and then the dark blue color is what their most recent benchmarks benchmark score resulted in. And what you want obviously is things to shift to the right and that's exactly what what you see here. The the majority of campuses that were F's shifted to at least a D, maybe even better in some cases and D's moved to C's and B's. And so progress is being made. Another way to slice and dice this data is this dot chart. I want to thank our friends at research and accountability for putting this together for us. Um it takes a look at our schools and and
090if they grew or if they stayed the same or if they went backwards. So, going backwards is that pinkish color toward the toward the bottom. Um I've been told that's salmon. Um so, the salmon colors you see those those are those two schools that were that were rated uh F or D. Um they actually went backwards slightly. The three dots right on the zero on the on that x-axis, those are three schools that that their ratings didn't change. They that data didn't change. All those teal dots that show a flow kind of heading upward. Again, that's that's the direction you want to see. They those are all campuses that made progress. So, one of the questions that a trustee asked was, are we making progress? Are the things we're doing showing progress? And the answer
091is definitively yes. As a matter of fact, there's one dot that's way up there um in that far right-hand corner. Um that's Blanton um with their uh remarkable results that they that they got on the most recent benchmark scores. So, we had a trustee at the last meeting, trustee Willbanks, asked specifically about closing the gaps. And so, we have some data here that takes a look at that question specifically for our schools that um were rated D or F in the 2025 accountability system. Um and so, this this chart takes a look at at scores from 2024 STAR. That's intentional, not 2025, because closing gaps takes a little bit of time. Um it's also a year after the shift um in STAR took place. And what's happened? And so, as you take a look at
092those at the data from 2024 STAR to 2026 benchmark, um where did we see movement? Where did we move backwards a little bit? And where did we see see movement forward? The darker the red, the the larger the gap. The darker the green, the the the larger the increase. And so, um, you see some like again, bottom bottom right, um, the last row shows former special education in the master's section actually grew 12 percentage points. Started at nine, but still grew uh 12 percentage points. Overall, a lot of good growth. American Indian makes up about 0.4% of our student population. Pacific Islander makes up about 0.2% of our population. So, just a handful of kids in those in those areas obviously make a dramatic difference one way or the other. This is This happens to
093be math. The next chart is the same data, but for reading. And again, you see a lot of green, frankly, on this on this chart. Again, the question is, are we making progress? Are we seeing positive movement? The answer is, yes, we we are. Another thing I know we know that trustees are always interested in is, so what exactly are campuses doing? And so, I am honored to have two of our principals, Alicia from Thornton and Aaron from Workman, to talk very specifically about what they're doing on their campuses. And I'm going to turn it over We're going to start with Thornton. Alicia. >> Thank you, Dr. Champion. President Chapa, Dr. Smith, and trustees, um, I'm humbled to be here because when we talk about accountability, coming to share about what's going great at our
094schools, um, is something that uh I value and that I thank. So, I appreciate the time to be able to share about the highlights. So, I want to start first with uh one of our drivers, our campus improvement drivers. And so, while there's many, many things going on great at Thornton that are helping with improvement, these are the three that that are making the most impact. And so, the first one here is a clear focus on goals. And the two items that you see here are student trackers and teacher trackers. And some of these pictures actually go along with uh with several of those drivers. So, Christian, for example, one of the students there has a tracker on Imagine Math. And so, one of our um the things that we're working on are wildly important
095goals. And so, thanks to the district and some of the professional learning that we've been getting, we're focusing on wildly important goals. And so, that starts from the top. And we have one for reading, we have one for math, and from there it funnels down to what the teacher goals are and then to the student goals. And as you can see here, we're focusing on student goals and tracking their growth. And so, you also see another one there that also tracks their progress by the unit assessments. And so, uh teachers are having data conferences with the students. They're discussing their growth. Uh and then from there, that affects tier one instruction because then that's when teachers adjust what they need to do for their tier one instruction and then the small group instruction. And so,
096hence the third picture there as well um with with the teacher small group instruction. Um the the second driver for our campus is one that's dear to my heart because of the community that we serve. And so, we have best practices for EB students, our emergent bilingual students. And so, um 75% of our students are English language learners, EB students, emergent bilingual Spanish-speaking students. And so, thanks to the partnership that we have with World Languages and see the curriculum and instruction team, we are able to deliver some professional development that is systematic. And so, that's important and as far as feedback, we thank you because if we didn't have the professional learning that systematic, that support from the district, then some of this these things would not be able to happen. And so, we are
097a campus of one-way dual language and we have that from pre-K through third grade and we're adding fourth grade next year. And so, we are also a CB LI campus, content-based language instruction. And so, that can go for any EB student whether they speak Spanish or not. And so, the strategies that are embedded in the one-way dual language and the CB LI are all strategies that are good for for any student, but it but but especially important to our EB students. And so, while I know we have the big three that we focus on and the productive struggle, CB LI and one-way dual language, but particularly CB LI does focus on that because one of the strategies is systematic reading and writing activities. And so, for EB students, being able to speak in front of
098others, in in front of their peers, with their peers, and reading is very important because there's also a cultural piece to working with our EB students. And so, that helps with that productive struggle and being engaged in academic discourse for our students. We partner again with World Languages with that and again that helps our students be able to to articulate what they're learning in reading and writing activities. Um the third driver for our campus is systematic support for our teachers and students. And so for a campus our size and with the 75% of our EB students, that's very important. Uh so for our teachers we have instructional coaches that help support uh our teachers. We have the partnership with world languages and so they come to coach our teachers as well. And so when I
099say systematic, we started the training at the beginning of the year. And so planning was well in advance before school started. So we planned at the beginning of the year, delivered instruction, the world languages department provided the materials for the teachers, and then they came back, observed our teachers, provided feedback, uh met with the leadership team and then said, "Okay, you know, where do you fit in as far as following up on the support?" And so it it that has been going on all year. Same thing with CBLI. And so I'm hoping that there's a plan for the CBLI year two because year one is a pilot has been very very successful. Um it we systematic support for teachers we also have thanks to school improvement and instructional facilitator that's been assigned to our campus.
100And so with having that extra person support us, that's helping us as well. Um and then for teachers as well, we have the Bailey coaches. And so we have a consulting firm that thanks to school improvement and and the district that we have additional coaching support for our teachers. And so right now because it's reading and math science boot camp for star right now even the Bailey coaches are sitting down doing small group support to be able to to help close the gaps and so Bailey group has been very supportive in doing coaching but as well doing small group instruction because we can have a lot of coaching support but we our kids need a lot of help as well. As far as support for students we have student support intervention is that are integral
101to the growth of our students and so while at the very beginning of the year this was a pull out program it is now a push in for teachers because of the star boot camp and so we we've been able to redirect our resources and and the third picture that you see there is one of our fifth grade teachers with small group instruction and behind one of the smiley faces is actually another adult in there and so several of our classes do have two adults in there to be able to provide additional small group instruction. And so we have the student support intervention is the Bailey group doing small group instruction we have teachers that are supporting as well support staff that are helping to to to support with the small group instruction as well
102and so those are three of the the big things that that is driving the improvement and happy to say that for CA1 and for benchmark that we've made growth it is it's it's one letter growth and we want to have two. And and that's our goal. >> Thank you Alicia Rodriguez it is next up we have Dr. Aaron Fogelman to talk a bit about Workman Junior High. >> Thank you, Dr. Champion. Good evening. Thank you all so much for giving me a few minutes just to talk about the great work we're doing at Workman. We're really excited. We're digging in, we're locking in, and trying to make everything happen for our kids. First and foremost, it's really important that we all know and remember that every single kid matters. Every kid that walks through our
103door, no matter of the day they enter, could be yesterday. Doesn't matter. We're going to pull out all the stops for them. We're focusing here since spring break. All of our tested subjects are focused in our boot camps. And those boot camps for the wide swath are looking at our highest leverage TEKS. The highest leverage TEKS are things that we know that longitudinal data has shown us and current data shows us these are areas that our students truly struggle with. They're the hardest concepts, and if we get to small groups, station work, get make sure kids are engaged, then we know that we're going to help show those growth. The other more important granular work that we're doing is focusing on domain three. And domain three is closing the gaps. We've worked closely with research
104and accountability. The team, Natalie and Travis, have been amazing at coming to our campus and really teaching us and making sure we're understanding, you know, what exactly does it look like to look at each individual student. And so, what we've done as a team is we have pulled list of students for each teacher. Our tested subject teachers. And our teachers are able to now see the story of a student. In domain three, these are students that maybe were meets and masters and from last year's star to this year's benchmark, regressed. It might be students that are at the high approaches level and are just a couple questions or three questions away from getting to meets. And the reason why we're focused on meets is because when a student can hit the meets level, then we
105know that they have met grade level and they have a higher potential of being successful in the next school year. And we don't want our work to just be about right now. We want our work to be about the future as well. Um some of the teacher moves that they're making are for example, our math teachers. They have most most recently in the last couple weeks are pulling small groups of students from their domain three lists to provide a targeted instruction on areas that are specific to their needs. On on that student's level. And our other teachers are using the power zone. We focused this year on fundamental five which is the how in teaching. It's helping teachers get to the art of teaching. And living in that power zone allows our teachers to have
106multiple touch points with kids. And sometimes all it takes for our kids that regress from meets to high approaches or masters to meets is just that knowing that the teacher sees them. Knowing that the teacher appreciates them and wants to keep helping them work through their productive struggle and all the things that Alicia was saying. Most importantly, it's also we have to know that at Workman and as well as other schools too, it's not just our tested teachers that have the burden on their shoulders. It's all of us. So our counselors have stepped up to the plate and are having one-on-one regression conversations. We pulled lists for them that shows them who has regressed in math from star to benchmark, who has regressed in reading, and a specific list of who's regressed in both of
107those subjects. And these organic conversations have actually been pretty informative. They have had the opportunity to work with them on test anxiety. They've had the opportunity to help them understand that, "Hey, when you get that score report, your name is on that paper. That score means something. Um and what are you going to do about it? Are you going to just allow this opportunity to pass you? Or are you going to grab the bull by the horns and you're going to try your best and you're going to lock in every single day when you're in that classroom?" And so, that those fruitful conversations, what we have seen in the classroom, um and we did classroom walks today, Dr. Dollar and I, and what we saw was kids are engaged in the work. Behavior is better
108at Workman. The halls are clearer. Kids are sitting in their classrooms. They're working with their teachers. They're working with each other. We still have so much growth to do. We're not going to be happy until we get an A, right? Um but we know that it takes all of this, um just digging in and everybody doing their part. Another area that uh our teachers um reminded me this year, they're like, "Hey, don't forget about those uh you are a superstar cards." Uh but our tested subject teachers in tier one classrooms are writing handwritten notes, encouragement cards that are titled, "You are a superstar." And these are just authentic words from the teachers' heart that tells kids, "Hey, we see you. We know that you've worked hard. You've got what it takes and you're going to
109make it happen." And so, we believe in you, you know, whatever they want to say. But it's that personal message to show kids we love them. Um and you know, the all of this work that we're talking about tonight is data-driven, it's strategic, it's academic. We know what instruction is. That's why our kids are at school. But it also is important for us to illuminate the culture work that this is. Um kids are feeling important. Kids are feeling valued. Um it's sort of the when you think of the big jar uh and you put the big rocks in, right? That's the high-leverage teams. Then you start putting in the little rocks, and that's the domain three work. And that sand, that granular work, that tiny work, um is that culture work. And just to kind
110of top it off, and this is um kind of touches my heart, and I get a little sensitive about stuff like this. But one of my teachers, our orchestra director, emailed me the couple weeks ago, cup or admin staff. And he said, "Hey, I just want y'all to know that what you're doing is working because I overheard a Sorry. I overheard a group of girls talking about, 'Hey, we're going to do this. We're going to make Workman to see. We're going to lock in, and we're trying our best, and we're going to encourage each other.' And it's just, you know, it it's rewarding to know that our kids feel it. And the work we're doing matters. And so, thank you for the support you've given us through the PL, um Leader in Me, um Fundamental
111Five, allowing us to bring experts into our building to help us um have those tools that we need to really help our kids. And so, you're going to see great things coming from Workman. >> As you see, board, we talk about the fact that our that A3F matters and accountability matters, but at the end of the day, it's about every student mattering, um which is what these two principals do an outstanding job every day at their school. Um Dr. Smith always reminds us how we do business is as important as the business itself. Um and so, thank you for allowing us the chance to share with you a little bit about what's going on. What questions do you have for us? >> Okay. Open up for questions, comments from trustees. We'll go first to Ms.
112McMurrey. >> Thank you, Dr. Champion, Ms. Rodriguez and Dr. Fogelman. I'll be really brief. I just want to say thank you. I know that um we can call it a tip or a tap, and you guys get a lot of district level supports and some some even outside of the district, like the Bailey Education Group, but everything that you guys are um sharing about what's happening on your campus this year is also very much a testament to you and your leadership and the mindset that you bestowed amongst everyone who comes in and out of your campuses and I'm sure that families feel it, too. So, I just want to say thank you for sharing your story and for modeling that mindset and that that will to learn and lead every single day. Um as a
113board, we see it and we we would just want to acknowledge it and we're rooting you on. Thank you. >> Thank you, Ms. McBro. Ms. Richardson. >> Uh mine is in the same train of thought as well and I have a question for both of you as principals, if you don't mind. Just for a second, stepping up and answering, being put on the spot. As trustees, we often have to stay at the governance level of this and so your reporting, we get to hear it. Is there anything that you can think of top of mind that we can do to help you in this process? Is there something that besides just sitting here that we could to do for you to help? >> You go ahead. This is a hard question for me. >> I
114um over the years, um I've been with the district for a long time, so I know that this year there has been a tremendous uh effort from the district from the senior staff to from Dr. Smith to listen. So, I've had conversations where they come and sit down. There's no agenda. And it's about listening. Um we know we have a lot of work to do. We know it. But they remind us that um that they you know, that there's more than a rating. We know it's important. And so, the listening piece is super important to us. Um, everybody that comes into our school to walk the hallways, into the classrooms, validating the things that are going on. We stopped Dr. Smith at one of the um, so we talked about Imagine Math, but there are
115many celebrations. There's so much to say. Um, the 3 to 6 minutes here does not do justice to to what we really want to say. And then, you know, I'm thinking, "Oh, I could have said that as well." Um, but Dr. Smith, when you when we stopped at one of the areas where students you like you you asked, "What are What are these students here and what do these numbers represent?" It's the celebrations of our students. And And so, walking the hallways, listening to us, um, researching because somebody decided to do a research on um, or a study on the schools and and the um, opportunity to learn index. That to me was a huge validation. While I knew our campus was one of the neediest campus, to hear it from Dr. Smith, to hear
116it from the senior staff, you know, um, validated that oh, okay, they know. And now, there's action behind the the the study. And so, I can see that that there's money now, uh, staffing considerations, funding considerations to support our campuses. And and and I can see it uh, very, very clearly. And I appreciate that. >> Okay. >> It makes you feel seen. >> Yes. >> I don't know how I can do better than that with an answer. Um, I'll just add that um, yes, have I did had a walk and talk with Dr. Collins just the other day. Um, Dr. Smith was on my campus just the other day other day and walked with my Dean. And it makes you feel like you're part of this, that you're not alone in the work, um, that
117you have the support and and honestly, not to put you on the spot, but you can walk through the door of Workman any day you want to and we can go walk some classrooms so you can see it. Um, I know that might sound crazy, but it's an open invitation because you two are doing the work and supporting us. >> I don't think that sounds crazy at all. I I think actually what we are told though is we are not able to walk in anytime. Apparently we make people Apparently we make people nervous when we just show up. But we will But But we will organize a time to come see you. One of the things I was thinking about is you talked about It was your very last point that you did talking about
118the you are a superstar encouragement cards. If maybe there be an opportunity where you could drop some of those cards off to the district office and they could come to us and let us write some of those cards. And maybe it doesn't go to the students, maybe we could surprise some teachers who are having the test done that day and let us write words of encouragement to them. But let us be a part of that process besides just sitting here and hearing your results, but be a part and make sure that we are encouraging in the right way and making sure that they know that we care as well. >> I love that. Yes. One One thing that I would ask is continue to think outside the box for campuses that have high needs, you
119know, what what are we We can always rely on the traditional methods, um, but what else can we do that's non-traditional that helps make a difference because our our kids do need more than just straight up tier one instruction and and some encouragement, so so yeah. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. Thank you. >> Other trustees with comments or questions? So, I just I I think you answered the question that I was going to ask, which is, do you feel like you have the resources you need to continue improving the way that you're improving? And I'm seeing you say that you that you do. Um if we can go to the slide that has it's the one with the bar chart, I think it's slide five, and then I'm also going to roll over to
120slide six. I just want to make a couple couple just general quick points. Um this is massive improvement that you see here. The the reduction in the number the projected reduction in number of of F campuses from nine to one is is incredible. Um you know, we've we've talked about the trajectory of how this has gone many times and how in 2022, I think the whole district we had four or five campuses under a C, and then in one year we went to I think it was 34. Is that Is that right? 34. And so, in a very short amount of time, we have whittled that down substantially. I'm I'm not I'm not great at math, but this is, you know, on the magnitude of by 2/3-ish uh in essentially 2 years projected to do
121that. And if we go to the the one with the salmon dots, um the point I want to make here, and and I think we heard from from you know, Dr. Fogelman, Mr. Rodriguez, that the the work that you're doing that is necessary for the students, you know, I grew up right by Thornton. My wife went to Workman. Um that part, you know, we have students with very significant needs, and it's very resource intensive to get them to the place where they can compete with students who come from more affluent backgrounds. And that's just a fact. And we've we have been working on this a long time, but it is a resource-intensive thing, and we're very fortunate that that in this district 6 years ago we passed a VATRE, which freed up significant amount of
122money for us to spend on staff resources. We I know we have grants and other things like that. But this is this is why we need the the funding that we do because it's not something that you can do on the cheap to get this level of improvement um in in a place that that is very hard to to do to do that. You have to have the resources and I would say every spring um just a general observation, every spring it seems like we have folks um who come out of the woodwork who are who are semi AISD or education experts to tell us all the things that we've done wrong and and and what we should be doing here or there and how things are failing and we're not, you know, doing whatever.
123And I think this shows this chart shows very well um if anybody had the silver bullet we would all be using it, but we're all working very hard to improve our academic outcomes here and I think this chart shows that it's it is working. We have whittled the number of very unexpected jump from a handful to 50% of our campuses as a DRF in one year, but since then we've continued we've brought them down and we've continued to do that and show improvement. And so I'm very hope I'm very hopeful that this benchmark uh data is indicative of the results that we'll see later this year um because by these metrics um the vast majority of our underperforming campuses are showing significant improvement and that's very important to to note and it's due to the
124hard work of of people like y'all. And so thank you all for the presentation and I know Dr. Smith has something he'd like to say. >> Trustees, I want to say a thank you to you all. One of the things that Alicia mentioned was the campus needs index in the work that we had done and when we entered that and that was one of our key progress measures that you I I mentioned to you all that that is that is different than what we'd done before and I appreciate the support to do that because you hear the results of what it means to allow us to do those things. And it does mean shifting resources and allocations and it does mean having some tough conversations sometimes when not everybody gets the same thing. Why? Because
125our kids might need different things. And so I appreciate your willingness to trust us to make those steps because we're seeing some of these things pay off. I want to tell you two quick stories about these two leaders that are sitting in front of you and that were at the podium tonight because I think it talks it speaks to culture that we're trying to create. I was walking with Alicia Thornton and we're talking about as she mentioned some of the great things that we're seeing and we're in classrooms and and seeing progress for her students. And one of the questions I always ask our principals when I walk around with them is what can I do to best support you? And one of her comments is, "You know what I need? I need to be
126able to have an after school program for Thornton." Why? Because we need to keep going on this and we need to keep pushing forward on this. So this idea that the work is never done, that there's a culture of high expectations with a high culture of support. Alicia models that and pushes for that for her own campus. And I think that is a testament to her Alicia and her leadership. And Aaron is was one of the first visits that I did when I joined Arlington ISD when Aaron was a brand new principal at Workman Junior High School. And we had some very interesting things going on at Workman that year. And we walked the halls and I remember talking very clearly to Aaron about all of the things that she was working on. And there
127were some big things. And we as we walk her campus and I did walk recently with her Dean and not Aaron. And Aaron lets me know often when I don't when I haven't been there. So but I did walk recently with her Dean and not Aaron. And I can tell you the drastic difference in the things that I'm seeing at Workman Junior High is significant. Like it is clear as day that we have made extreme growth in student behaviors and a culture of learning at Workman Junior High School. Yeah, she said it. We have big work left to do and we all know that, but I wanted to make sure that I told some stories about these two because I think they model the culture that we want to see from our leaders and our
128employees in the system that it is entirely okay to challenge things and to push things hard and support at the same time because we can do we can do hard work together if we support each other well and these two are modeling that on a daily basis. So, I wanted to very publicly thank them for the work that they're doing. >> Thank you, Dr. Smith. Dr. Champion, thank you all for being here. >> Thank you. >> Okay, that brings us to the close of our report section tonight. We're moving on to action items. We have three tonight. Action item A is considered the approval of an exemption claim for Texas Senate Bill 546 on required reporting on school bus seat belt compliance. Dr. Smith. >> Trustees, this is another one of the legislative changes that
129happened that have implications for a school district. As you all know, there were more bills passed this last legislative session that had consequences for school districts, both positive and negative, than we've ever had before and this is one of those. It is a tricky conversation to have. Everybody knows that there are seat belt things that we we want to do and everybody knows that there's costs associated with that and Michael is going to walk you through what this Senate Bill requires and what decision we have to make this evening for an action item. >> All right, so thank you, Dr. Smith, for tuning in and up and uh I'll tell you it's really hard to follow a academic conversation like that with a compliance conversation like this, but you know, thus compliance. So, we'll get
130right into it. Uh Senate Bill 546, uh reporting of school seat belts and I've got uh Director Jason Gillison Jamal Harvey Harvey Hour, uh fleet manager here to ask any specific questions that you may have, but the purpose is basically to provide you with an overview of Senate Bill 546. Uh let you know where we stand currently with regard to compliance, look at some cost estimates and then uh basically options for us to consider as a district. In summary, Senate Bill 546 requires that every vehicle that traveled that transport students has a three-point seat belt, plus the school buses and activity buses, and it became effective in September of 2025 with the required compliance by 2029. We have a requirement by TEA to have a board action by the end of the 2026 school year.
131So, the options are the boards may comply with by adding three-point seat belts to all of the buses that do not currently have them, or the school boards may approve an exemption if funding is not available. Again, this decision is required to be made to TEA by the 29th of of May. Our current fleet status is that we have 71 school buses with no seat belts, 54 with two-point seat belts, and 106 with three-point seat belts. Important to note that every vehicle that we buy uh from that time point when we knew that this is coming does have a three-point seat belt on them. We're just talking with the team a minute ago. We have seven buses that are scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, all of them with three-point seat belts on them. Uh currently,
132we have 125 buses that are out of compliance, and all of these buses at various stages and ages with different miles. As you all may or may not know, we try to keep a bus for 10 years or 100,000 miles, 10 to 12 years, 100,000 miles, and then we just age them out. And so, we have over 25 that are out of compliance, they're within that area somewhere, phasing out within uh a little time. So, one of the requirements from TEA was that we actually go out and get bids to see what it would take to actually become compliant with the law. And so, these are the work that the team has done here to go out and get those bids, and you can see we've got a bid for a I think it's a
13352, a 72, and a 76 passenger bus. Don't quote me on those, but of those all of those it's about 3.9 million dollars to actually become compliant with the law according to these quotes in the 125 buses. So the things that we considered the cost versus remaining lifespan of the bus, the impact on the budget, the alignment with the replacement schedule, how we use the fleet. We keep a certain number buses to basically be on reserve in case something breaks down and then we just have to put in a sub bus and so how we use the fleet is was considered there and then this timeline for reporting requirements. So again we've got two options. One is to retrofit the fleet that is out of compliance to the tune of about 3.9 million or to
134do the lack of funding exemption and with that being said we would recommend for obvious reasons to approve the lack of funding exemption as a board and then we will uh take some questions or discussion that you may have. So. >> Just one moment my screen disappeared. Okay. Thank you Dr. Hill. >> Yes. >> Miss McMarrow. >> Thank you Dr. Hill. Quick question. So I remember you you gave us some of this information at our committee meeting with finance and academics. Did you mention that although the state legislature is requiring this an exemption or updating the vehicles, there is no requirement for students to wear the seatbelt. Is that correct? >> That is correct. >> Okay. And um anecdotally where we are right now, do most of our seat most of our students opt to
135wear the seatbelt? I'm just really curious as to what what we usually see. >> Voluntary, yes. >> Okay. >> Junior high and high school, we encourage them to wear them. Some do, some don't, but elementary will go on it. >> Okay. That was my only question. Thank you. >> Thank you, Ms. McGraw. Are there other trustees with comments or questions? Okay, seeing none, do I have a motion to approve the administration's recommendation of an exemption claim for Texas Senate Bill 546 regarding required reporting on school bus seat belt compliance. >> I'll make the motion. >> I have a motion from Ms. Fallon. Do I have a second? >> I second. >> I have a second from Mr. Wilbanks. We'll move to vote. Trustees, please vote. All trustees voting in the affirmative, the motion carries 7-0.
136Thank you, Dr. Hill. >> Thank you. >> That brings us to our second action item tonight, consider approval of Blanton Elementary Transportation Plan. Dr. Smith. >> Uh Dr. Hill is going to stay right up there as we talk about Blanton, and um we promised you all that after we went through um feedback sessions and uh closing discussions about Blanton Elementary that we would come back to you with some options to consider for transportation for families that are uh being asked to move to another campus because of the closure of Blanton, and Dr. Hill is here to talk to you about that tonight. >> All right, Dr. Smith, so we'll get right into it. And so, again, the purpose of tonight is to provide you with the transportation options to consider for students and families that
137are impacted by the closure of Blanton Elementary. Just a little bit about uh the background information y'all familiar with. Earlier this spring, uh you approved a resolution to close Blanton at the end of the year. Students were re-zoned to four other surrounding campuses, Bergen, Crow, Goodman, and Swift. Uh during these meetings about closures, we had a lot of conversation from parents about some of the concerns, and transportation was high on that list. Uh when we made that decision, you all asked that we go back to that community and figure out what can we do to potentially uh ease some of that burden, and so we did that. Uh the reality is about 50 students uh zoned to Swift would be eligible for transportation based on the 2-mile standard. Approximately 370 other students would not be
138eligible based on that current 2-mile standard. So, what we did, we uh surveyed the parents. We asked them with McDowell, the principal's help, put a survey out asking if they need would need transportation, would they need in the morning, would they need in the afternoon, or both? Are there any special transportation needs and things like that? And we got pretty good response from it. The survey was open for about a couple of weeks and just a couple of screen grabs on some of the survey data. But, in summary, the parents do need the transportation. Some say they don't know right now, but for the most part, they do say that they need that transportation. And so, what we've done is just looked at some options as to what would it look like to provide transportation.
139And so, one of the options is only provide for the eligible riders. Uh, that's that's an option. Option two, uh, which is the most efficient option would be to provide hub transportation for our blend families. Hubs would be determined uh after we find out every kid who would want to ride. We'd work the with the transportation department and the routers to determine every kid that want to ride, where they live, and then we would potentially put hubs uh in those areas. That is consistent with the method that we use for our our uh academies right now. And so, that's that. Or the option three would be the highest cost option, which would be a neighborhood transportation for all of those students just running through there. And so, what we would do, regardless of what option
140you would go with, we would conduct a formal review after 1 year looking at ridership, family feedback, the attendance impact, and just any other uh data data points that could possibly be there. Again, we know this right now that some parents may be closer to their new assigned school than the hub stopping. So, things like that is what we would look at. So, we always want to kind of look at the financial impact and so uh the financial impact of either of these options would be limited to basically additional fuel. And you may ask why? Well, we run a three-tiered system uh and basically each bus has three runs which equal a route. So, we either run an elementary run, I'm sorry, a high school run followed by an elementary run and then a junior
141high run. That equals their route. And so most buses only have two runs. They don't have an elementary because the elementaries are spread out all over the place and so it would be very easy for us to just add another run to uh take kids to these four campuses. And so, generally what would happen if I don't have an elementary run, I would run my high school, I would stage until it's time to go get my junior high. So, with the staging time, we would just say, "Hey, go pick up this Blanton route and take them where they need to go." Uh very limited impact staffing-wise, it would be just additional fuel would be the the impact financially. So, we would uh recommend approving option two uh for providing transportation for students impacted by Blanton
142and then we would monitor that throughout the school year uh and just report back as necessary, so. Questions or discussion? >> Thank you, Dr. Hill. Mr. Mike. >> Thank you uh Dr. Hill for this uh presentation. Um if we go to the three options on slide seven. Um I know that administration recommendation is number two. Is there anything precluding us from doing number three? >> Well, what we we wanted to try to be consistent with what we do right now for anything that's not the two-mile and the uh the academy was the closest thing that we try to wanted to stay consistent with that, so. >> And the the only only reason why I I bring that up, right, is because we made the decision to close this school down. Uh and these families are
143impacted by our decision. And many of them who came up here, you could see like there was camaraderie at the school, there was community at the school, but a lot of them they don't have the necessary vehicles to take their children where they need to go. I just option two for me right now with that caveat where it says that hub stop may be closer to the assigned school, it almost negates the impact of what we're trying to do to transport them. So, that that is the only hesitancy for me for option number two. And of course, option number one is just not viable at all. So, for me it comes down to number three as being the most meaningful impact for the families that are impacted by our decision. >> Thank you, Mr. Mike.
144Ms. Fowler. >> Thank you, President Choppa. I have to agree with with Mr. Mike. I feel like since we're the ones that are closing the school, we need to do whatever we need to do to make sure those kids get picked up and brought to the new school. A lot of the families told us they're used to walking their students to school and then meeting them after school and walking them back home. A lot of these families don't don't have cars and I don't think it's fair for us to make a decision that impacts the students and the families without providing the transportation for them. So, I'm more inclined to go with option three as well. Thank you. >> Thank you, Ms. Fowler. Ms. McNamara. >> Thank you, Dr. Hill. Um it's been mentioned that
145yes, this is an extenuating circumstance. I I did have a question. If we did go with the hub option, would we still have elementary age students crossing Pioneer Parkway or Collins? >> That would be determined again by where we place the hubs at. There is a possibility that that I think to the point that was made earlier, those families are are used to walking to Blanton now. >> Yeah. >> Current Blanton, there is no plan to really do anything like immediately. So, that could be the hub. And so, it wouldn't really change anything for those families. They would continue to walk to Blanton, we'd pick them up there, and then take them out to the other four schools. So, that's a possibility. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> It doesn't change anything that they're constantly con-
146already doing so. >> Thank you, Ms. McMurrow. Mr. Wilbanks. >> Thank you, President Chapa. I can see where option number two is the most efficient. And I would be more lenient to moving that direction now if I if we knew for certain that Blanton would be a hub, plus maybe a couple of other hubs um that could help reduce hazardous travel, like Ms. McMurrow said, across Pioneer and Arkansas. Um it how close are we determining where those hub might be? What do you need to make that decision? >> It would be a couple of data points. One, truly how many students are going to need the transportation. Again, this uh survey was out there, and where those students live. It's similar to what we do with academies right now. We basically take all the kids
147who are going to be at an academy, Jones, Corey, uh Wimbish, whatever, and just plot them. And then that the routers, they say, "Okay, here's basically centrally where we could pick up those those kids at." And so, it basically change It could change every year. >> Yeah, and I imagine as we go over time, the number of kids from that area that would need transportation will change. >> change, yes. >> It's um a fairly transient population. Um but I I'm kind of with my other colleagues on the other side of the dais. Um I'm strongly leading to option three, but once you do further study, maybe check back in December and see if we can adjust to a hub or something more efficient. And then, of course, once one school year goes and we see
148how it goes the next fall, continue to to um evaluate the necessity of this long term. But, um my first option is I want more information. I don't know how a hub system would work and have more assurance that, you know, at a minimum Blanton is a hub before I could vote for option two. >> Thank you, Mr. Eubanks. Any other comments or questions? Dr. I have a couple questions. So, I I um can you run back through what option three would look like in practice? >> So, option three would look like we would basically turn that into the two-mile. But, it would be less than two miles. So, you would be running through the neighborhoods, picking up kids basically at the bus stop at the corner. Determine >> would we would they would we
149would determine some points of pick up. >> Kids would go to them, the buses would go up and down the street. Okay. >> Correct. >> I'm in I'm curious about So, I I I I recall vaguely that there was a scatter plot during our discussion of the Blanton um issue that plotted where the kids lived and it looked like there was a real critical mass pretty much right close across the street. >> Yes. >> Um across Collins. And so, I if Blanton is a hub, I think that that's a really efficient solution. But, can I recall also that it's not a huge attendance zone to begin with. So, like comparing this to to me, I would I had to wrap my head around the idea that there was a hub because with academy transportation, we're
150talking about the entire district. >> Correct. picking hubs across an entire district. This is a relatively really small existing attendance boundary. Um so if Blanton was a hub, could we could the more the areas where kids are more sort of far-flung from Blanton, could we do neighborhood transportation for them and some kids are based on a hub? Like the ones who live It seems like the bulk who live across the street from Blanton be on a hub. >> We could definitely do a hybrid because again, as a buses leave Blanton, they're going to four different schools. If they have to traverse to Blanton to then ride right back where we could have placed a stop at, we could definitely do a hybrid, so yes. >> Okay. So then and then a question I had based
151on just the way it was worded. So I know we've been talking to families. I know that there are some families that um we have rezoned and and we have zones that maybe aren't ideal for the family because then they really live closer maybe to Rankin, but we couldn't draw boundary to Rankin and so they're going to transfer they're going to opt to transfer their kid to Rankin. For the families that choose to do that, are we going to provide transportation to them if they choose not to go to their assigned campus? >> Consistent with transfers across the district, we would not be providing transportation for any families that would like to transfer. >> Okay. All right. Um how would if we wanted to I guess we could craft it anyway. So we've got the
152neatly option 1 2 3 right now. If we wanted to do something that was we're pretty confident at least for this next year that Blanton would be a hub. It sounds like I have some colleagues who like that idea, but maybe don't like the idea of just of having multiple hubs where some kids are having to travel further to the hub to then to the campus that they'd have to get to. How would we would do we would we need to come back at some point for further action to approve a final plan or could we today just say if Blanton's the hub, Blanton's the hub, but we like option three or some other option for other hubs. >> I think you could actually make a motion just to say that you want a hybrid
153of option two and three with the parameters that you've discussed this evening and we can make that happen. Yes. >> Okay. All right, seeing no further discussion, do I have a motion to I do have com >> I'll make a motion. >> Okay, Ms. Richardson has a motion. >> And I'll second. >> Okay, let me finish the motion. >> Nope, we're ready. >> Um do I have I have I have sounds like I have a motion I haven't said it, but so I'll ask you to re-verify, but is there a motion to approve option two on the understanding that at least one hub will be Blanton Elementary with the option three for other portions of the current attendance zone? >> Motion. >> Okay, I have a motion from Ms. Richardson and I have a second
154from Ms. Flowers just to verify. Okay, and trustees will move to vote. All trustees voting in the affirmative, the motion carries modifying option two with a blend of three. All right, that brings us up to action item Thank you, Dr. Hill. That brings us to action item C, our last action item tonight. Um this is to discuss the proposed termination of a probationary employee. Uh this option this item has been discussed um under in closed session. Is there anyone who would like to have discussion on this item? Okay, seeing none, we'll move to um a motion. I'll make the motion. I move that the Board of Trustees terminate the employment of Justin Thompson at the end of the contract term based on the Board of Trustees judgment that the best interest of the district will
155be served by this action and and the superintendent provide written notice of this action to the employee at least 10 days before the last day of instruction for the current school year. So, I have a motion. Uh do I have a second? >> Second. >> Have a second from Mr. Mike. Trustees will move to vote. All trustees in uh voting in the affirmative, the motion carries 7 to 0. That brings us to our consent agenda. Are there any trustees who would like to withdraw any items from the consent agenda tonight? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> So moved. >> Have a motion from Mr. Willbanks. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Have a second from Ms. McMorrow. Trustees will move to approve or to vote. All trustees voting
156in the affirmative, the consent agenda is unanimously approved. That brings us to our open forum for non-agenda items. Ms. Crossno, do we have speakers registered for non-agenda forum tonight? >> President Choppo, we do have four speakers, two in person, two virtual. >> Okay, we'll move to the uh in-person folks first, and then we'll we'll move to the folks who are virtual to give us time to get them online. Um our first speaker tonight in person will be uh Jeff Carlton. And as he works his way down, I'll I will read our rules, although Mr. Carlton, I'm sure you're not going to violate any of them. Uh this is a routine part of the board's agenda for regular scheduled meetings. This segment of the meeting provides citizens with an opportunity to share their views with the
157trustees on items that are not on the agenda tonight. It is not intended to be a discussion or a debate, and trustees will not reply to the speakers directly. Derogatory comments aimed at an individual will not be tolerated, and personnel matters are not appropriate subjects for open forum. You will have up to 3 minutes to speak, and when Ms. Crossno notifies you that your time is up, please end your presentation. And if you have any documents for the board to review, we'll ask that you please hand them to Dr. Hill. All right, Mr. Carlton, you have 3 3 >> Yeah, thank you. Uh earlier this week, I emailed you on behalf of 21 Arlington High families whose students came up through the fine arts and dual language program at Corey, Jones, and Gun. I encourage
158you all to look at the names of the people who signed that letter. Those are the parents of your top students. They're your PTA members and your booster club members. They're the volunteers on your district-wide committees. They're the parents who raise money for your foundation, who teach in your schools, and who advocate for our students all year round. We wrote because of the significant gap between our expectations for the FLES experience at Arlington High and the reality that we're seeing. We sent our students to Arlington High because of their phenomenal K-8 FLES experience and because we were promised a specialized program at Arlington High that built on those experiences. But instead counselors and teachers have told our students, "We don't know what to do with you." The advanced pathways and unique opportunities in the fine
159arts haven't developed. Fine arts teachers have said they would like to do more, but they don't have the bandwidth or the staffing to do so. The promised Spanish immersion classes are now only starting to come together as cohort as cohort one approaches the midway point of their high school careers. From K-8 FLES has been a huge success for our students in the district. Corey and Jones are top-rated elementary schools. Gun is rising fast. Their teachers and administrators like the phenomenal Matt Bernal are presenting at national conferences about the success of the program. But the vision or will to extend this program to Arlington High appears lacking. In the fine arts we're seeing advanced students who took daily art, piano, theater, dance, and choir classes at Gun for 3 years placed into level intro classes with
160classmates who are simply filling elective requirements. On the dual language side we're seeing a Spanish class once every other day, which really stretches the idea of dual language and immersion beyond recognition. All this can share slides from Arlington High presentations that showed us advanced tracks in fine arts and Spanish immersion classes on the social studies track. But that social studies track isn't there and when my kid tries to sign up for advanced theater courses, he's told those classes aren't available. We understand that Key Elementary acted more like a magnet school and AHS is a comprehensive high school, but what we're finding is that FALA at Arlington High means nothing more than a few additional Spanish classes in the exact same fine arts experience that they could get anywhere else. We're zoned for Martin. Four years
161ago, my son appeared in a high school play at Martin. They had roles for little kids back when he was just in fifth grade. He was so blown away by the experience that he spent all of junior high asking us to send him to Martin. We kept telling him no because Arlington High was going to be the fine arts academy with unique opportunities. We were wrong. If FALA has turned into a program that ends after eighth grade, we would appreciate if somebody would be able to tell us that. Um that way we can make the best decisions for our kids, some of whom are still rising in the program through elementary and junior high. This also needs to be said. Arlington High is a good school with great people. There are phenomenal teachers there. Our
162students have felt a positive, welcoming culture in many of the programs. The updated facilities make a real difference. What's lacking is the same preparation and thoughtfulness that Martin experienced at Jones and Corey and Gunn. Thanks. >> Thank you, Mr. Carlson. Our next speaker in person is Tiffany McGuffin. Ms. McGuffin, you'll have 3 minutes. >> Members of the board, Dr. Smith, my name is Tiffany McGuffin. I am a proud parent of two students in the Arlington ISD Fine Arts Academies. You won't find anybody in my professional or personal life that does not know the exceptional experiences that my students have been given in public schools. But I'm here today because I'm frustrated and disappointed in the program at Arlington High School. Arlington ISD built something truly special with its fine arts and dual languages. The foundation
163laid at Guns and Jones is exceptional. Those principals, those directors, they set a high bar of excellence in the Spanish language and the arts. They challenge students and nurture talent. They build both skills and passion. The level of excellence is why families like me chose Arlington High School in a district where we can make a choice. We had expectations based on experiences, but we're not seeing that. The name is on the building, but the program is not there. From our initial eighth grade meetings to now prepping for 10th grade, our concerns continue to grow. There is no intentionality, no exceptionalism, no enhanced opportunities, no additional faculty. There is no differentiation between students coming in with years of exposure and the rest of the student body. There is no curriculum that elevates this school from any
164other one in the district. TEA has 14 curriculums with TEKS and theater alone. Arlington High School offers three. That's not even enough to compete a four-way four-year pathway, let alone the three arts needed per year to graduate with the fine arts distinction we were promised. There is no vision of college and career readiness. Students have spent their whole academic years honing skills or sitting in classes that are repetitive and uninspired and they are losing interest. From conversations with family, I can't imagine the retention is very high. My advocacy for programs started on my own frustrations back in August, but what has pushed me to standing here today is the questions I'm getting from eighth grade families about whether or not it's a good choice for them to make. I understand that taking a program takes
165time, but I am asking for innovation, intentionality, and alignment with the standards that are already established by you in this district. Our students are talented, they are motivated, they have been trained by teachers and administrators committed to them, but they are not masters of their craft, and they are hungry for more. We should not have to be seeking out art opportunities while attending a fine arts high school. And that's what we're doing. With the right vision and the leadership, this program can be absolutely competitive and the true lighthouse that we thought you guys wanted. Arlington High School is a good school with good teachers, but this program has not hit the mark. Thank you. >> Thank you, Ms. McGuffin. We'll now move to our virtual speakers. The first virtual speaker that I have registered tonight
166is Jessica Meyer. Are you there, Ms. Meyer? >> Yes, can you hear me? >> We can hear you just fine. You'll have 3 minutes. >> Okay. Um I agree wholeheartedly with Jeff and Tiffany, and I just wanted to share some of um my my daughter's specific experiences in the Faddle program. Um she started in the second cohort of students at Corey. She's currently a freshman at Arlington High. She's into theater and piano and Spanish. Um she's taken piano every year since kindergarten. And in junior high, she took advanced piano one, advanced piano two, advanced piano three, where she would have four recitals every year. She would be able to perform a different solo at each recital, which really increased her um confidence. And this year, she was placed in piano one, and going into the
167school year, I was asking around like, is she in the right class? Piano one doesn't seem like the right fit for her. And soon we found out, cuz no one could really answer my question, soon we found out that her class was full of students who had never even played the piano before. They're having two recitals this year, not four like she had before, and in the first recital she wasn't allowed to do a solo because there wasn't time for everyone to do a solo. And we haven't had the second one yet. Also, at the first recital there was no mention of a fine arts academy, which is baffling to me. So, it just seemed like there's no cohesive feeling of pride or enthusiasm that Arlington High is the home of the fine arts academy.
168Um she's also in the wrong Spanish class. I was told she would take DLI Spanish 4, which is geared towards dual language immersion students, um but that class is not offered at Arlington High. It's offered at Gunn, but not Arlington High. So, she's in regular Spanish 4, which I don't think is challenging her enough. Um definitely not enough to continue increasing her Spanish language skills, especially now that um there's only one other Spanish class, um that's math, whereas before they were taking math and science in Spanish. Um she's also in the wrong theater class. Um she took advanced theater classes at Gunn, and um the class that was made for fatal students at Arlington High didn't fit in her schedule, so she was just placed in a regular theater class. No one mentioned this to
169me or asked, you know, which classes would you like to prioritize? Do you want to change anything in your schedule to make sure this class fits? Um so again, the lack of transparency is very frustrating. Um and due to these experiences that she's had, she's sadly going to drop out of the program to pursue other interests. Um I did have to sign a form in order for her to drop out, but no one asked me why. Um I would recommend doing an exit interview with families that want to drop out and take that as a learning experience to try to see if anything could have been done differently. Another idea is to have maybe one or two counselors that um serve all the fatal students that are experts on the program and can answer all
170of our questions. They can advocate for these students and the success of the program. Um when we started at Corey >> your your time has has expired. So, if you can wrap it up in the next say 20 seconds or so. >> Yes, absolutely. Just going to say that I we lived in we were zoned for Martin before and we just this this year moved to a house closer to Arlington cuz we had faith in the program and knew we would they they would end up there. Um sadly they're not going to end up staying in the program, but I am still happy to be at Arlington High cuz I'm an AHS alum. However, not all families will feel that way. So, I hope this is helpful and will bring on some effective changes that
171will keep the momentum going for this great program. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Myers. Our last speaker tonight who's virtual is Megan Noble. Miss Noble, can you hear us? >> I can hear you. Can you hear me? >> We can hear you just fine. You'll have 3 minutes >> Amazing. >> starting now. >> Okay. All right. Hi, my name's Megan Noble and my zip code is 76016 and I have four children in AISD public schools. This is my cat. My oldest is a junior at Martin where we're zoned and is on the district champion swim team that was here tonight and as well as in Martin Corral and they sang. He wasn't there tonight because he was singing with Arlington Master Corral. So little bit of background when my oldest was first in first
172grade at Wood Elementary in 2016 which we loved at the prompting of friends I went to Corey Elementary to hear Dr. Matt Varnell's pitch for a new fine arts and dual language academy for um uh for his brother who was then an incoming kindergartner. I'm a theater professor currently at UTA and so of course I was immediately intrigued both by the prospect of my children learning a second language um to all the way to fluency by the time they graduate high school and also by the offerings like dance and theater and piano beginning at in kindergarten. Amazing. I remember vividly Dr. Varnell saying that in um that that same meeting that uh learning one language really helps children to see the world with more than one eye. And uh that went for Spanish but I
173also consider the arts to be a language in and of themselves as well. Um so my application for I submitted um I in 2019, 2022 uh for my now third grader Corey, my now sixth grader at Gunn referenced the very same quote. And at every step along the way despite my hesitancy dropping my baby off at that first kindergarten year in the midst of like major construction with water dripping from the ceiling in his kindergarten classroom and then in my sixth grade in sixth grade dropping him off as a baby 11-year-old at the huge junior high school, my doubts over that decision had always given away to confidence that Fed Law was absolutely the right choice for my kids despite his their brother having a different track. I've seen Dr. Varnell, the leadership, the teachers,
174the Corey, Gunn pave the way and deliver on so many promises that made uh that they made back in that first information session. And that changed actually this year when my second son became a freshman. And now I'm driving all over Arlington to four different schools. Um, I do want to see my kids through Fabela and be an advocate for the program. I'm in the arts. I work down the street. Um, but since we're zoned for Martin, I have a kid at Martin, I'm a Martin alum. Uh, I do find myself scrutinizing over what Arlington High is offering that's different from Martin or any other high school in our district to make it a true fine arts and dual language academy. Can it really call itself a fine arts academy if it's theater, piano, dance
175offerings appear to look the same as every other school in the district to my limited knowledge, of course. But can AHS really call itself a dual language uh, academy if emphasis is not on encouraging kids with this incredible foundation in the Spanish language to continue their path forward towards fluency through immersive opportunities, travel, uh, community service among Spanish speaking populations, anything to >> Miss Noble, your time has expired. Is am I done? What do you say? >> Your your time has expired, but you if you can wrap it up in the next 20 or 30 seconds. >> Oh, I can Yeah. >> Yeah, and I you can't hear you can't hear the the the buzzer and so >> Oh, okay. Oh, thank you. Okay. So, I'm just writing. I'm struggling to convince my headstrong ninth
176grader that the pursuit of becoming bilingual is worthwhile. And as I see him giving up on purpose because he says he can't write a sentence in Spanish for a test, I wonder why the privileged challenge and gift of learning another language seems to be lost on him completely. And I'm questioning whether programming has been put into place to show the practicality of having language skills in the real world. I'm questioning whether the long drive from 76016 is worth it and at this point, um, am I just forcing my kid to continue Spanish because it's the only thing that seems to be different from any other high school cuz there are additionally no advanced performing arts classes or programming for kids who have been in these classes since kindergarten. So, I'm having a hard time justifying
177continuing with the program and the district has put so much money, leadership, vision into Fela. So, the question I'm asking tonight is does the program come to an end, a natural end in eighth grade, or will additional personnel and curriculum be added to ensure the retention of those students who have invested so many years of their lives for the sake of the the vision that Dr. Varnell presented so many years ago. I hope this is the beginning of the new conversations about continuing to vet invest in these kids who have hung in there. Thanks so much. >> Thank you, Ms. Noble. Okay, that concludes open forum for agenda and non-agenda items tonight. We'll move on to superintendent's comments. Dr. Smith. >> Trustees, I think I, um, didn't give a superintendent's report last time. So, we're
178going to give one this time and I want to make sure we hone in on marketing and engagement this time and specifically the engagement portion of our priorities to talk about involving our community stakeholders as valued partners in student learning. As you all know, we had a recent state of the district and I want to start by first thanking the chamber because, uh, sitting down with Michael Jacobson, um, in, uh, September of last year and saying, "Michael, I'd like to start making some changes to the way we do the state of the district." And Michael agreed to allow us to do, uh, some changes to a a chamber-hosted and sponsored event was a big deal. But, he went along on the ride for us and one of the key things that we wanted to do
179was start to elevate student voice so that our partners, our community partners at the chamber level and in local businesses could see, hear, and feel the experience of students in Arlington ISD. And so, we started to make some plans in beginning in October. Again, I mentioned earlier Portia Ena, but Portia Ena and others were along for the ride, and we started for with a room of about 15 people in the conference room upstairs and laid out the vision of what we wanted to see. We wanted to see the idea of having students take place in the State of the District event, and our community members being able to experience some of the things that student were experiencing in our system. In short, getting them back in our schools even though we know some of the
180people in our chamber, in particular in that stakeholder group, don't have kids in our schools anymore and don't walk the halls of our schools or go to our performances anymore. And so, the goal was always to try and get that experience to happen in our school system. And from there, our team our communications team our academic services team, CTE our athletics department, our fine arts programs, they all started coming together on a regular basis, and I wasn't involved in all of that, and they made this experience come to life for our community at that point. And I want to make sure that I acknowledge them and the experiences that you see here. Just the fact that we were able to start to have community members see phlebotomy in action. I still am a little um
181I can't believe that we actually drew blood at a State of the District event, but we did. And that experience in itself, I think opened people's eyes to the work that happens in our schools on a daily basis that are extraordinary things that are happening for kids, giving them college and career opportunities that when we all went to school, frankly just did not exist. But for a student to walk out the door and be certified to go be a phlebotomist right when they're done graduating from high school while they're pursuing potentially a career in the medical field or actually just going into the workforce is something pretty spectacular. Our gentleman at the top right who began learning piano at Martin High School as a freshman in high school. And to have that piano one experience
182that we just heard about, but that investment in those experiences so that students can learn and perform is pretty extraordinary. I want to make sure that I thank very specifically Taina and our communications team because a lot of the burden felt on fell on them to plan things, but I also know that there were a whole lot of other departments that were involved in in organizing this. Our CTE presence there was extraordinary. And Sarah took that and ran with it because we were in the middle of a CTE transition at that time. So together I think we were able to create something that from the feedback I've heard from our chamber partners was extraordinary for them to see. You all get to see it as trustees, but the goal again was to bring our people
183in our community into our schools to see the great things that were happening. And if they weren't walking through the halls of the schools, we created something pretty extraordinary for them to see on the lawn that day in in the those two venues that day. So thank you to you all for being willing to allow us to make some changes. And thank you to our team for making the vision start to come to life, and we can't wait to see what next year looks like. We appreciate y'all. >> Thank you, Dr. Smith. Are there trustees with reports tonight? I see Ms. Fowler. >> Thank you, President Choppa. I want to give a shout out to Arlington Collegiate High School under the supervision of Principal Jeff Krieger. Once again, they have finalists for the Gates Scholarship.
184Uh for the last 4 years, they've had finalists, 2 years with winners, and one of those years with actually two winners of the Gates Scholarship. This year, they have finalists Jayla Anderson and Brooklyn Buchanan. And I think the awards will be announced at the end of this month. But they're just doing incredible things over at Arlington Collegiate High School. And year after year, they have finalists for the Gates Scholarship, which is an incredible scholarship and award. So, I just wanted to do that shout out. Thank you. >> Thank you, Ms. Fowler. Any other trustees with comments or reports tonight? Seeing none, that brings us to our secretary's report. Secretary Richardson, do we have any items to report? >> We do not. >> No items to report. Then, all matters on the agenda tonight have been
185addressed. Now, we'll adjourn this meeting at 10:34.