Board Work Session | May 7, 2026

001Hey, Good evening. The Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District Board of Trustees is now convened in a board work session on Thursday, May 7th, 2026 at 6:00 p.m. in the boardroom of the Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District Mark Henry Administration Building for the purpose of reviewing that portion of the Monday, May 11th, 2026 regular board meeting agenda designated as action items and to hear designated reports and recognitions posted in the meeting notice as required by Texas law. The board is here to set goals, review reports, approve budgets and contracts, and establish policy for the district. This is a business meeting of the board of trustees held in public but is not a public meeting. Audience participation is limited to designated times for citizen comments or agenda comments and we respectfully ask that audience members refrain from

002approaching the days before, during, or after the meeting. Board members have received materials related to tonight's agenda ahead of this meeting. Agenda items may not be handled in the order they appear on the agenda. If the board determines a need for a close session during the meeting, it will do so in accordance with sections 551.071 through 551.084 of the Texas Government Code. Tonight's proceedings are being broadcast live on the district website and will be available for viewing afterward. For the video to reflect the meeting clearly, please refrain from speaking while others are talking and keep your cell phones turned off or on silent. Thank you for the taking the time to join us tonight and for your interest in the Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District. The invocation, pledge of allegiance, vision and mission statement, recognitions

003and awards announcements, citizen participation, and board comments will be presented at the regular board meeting on Monday, May 11th, 2026. We will now proceed with public comments. Per beed local, patrons may address the board and make public comments on an agenda item before the board's consideration of the item. Patrons may address the board during the regular board meeting under citizen participation on any matters of interest or concerns that are not posted agenda items. Individuals must must register online in advance to speak. Registration opens the day the agenda is posted to the district website and the deadline for registering is 12 noon on the day of the meeting. To register, individuals must click on the register to speak link found under each agenda item for that meeting on the district website. This electronic form must be

004completed in its entirety. Any registered speaker who's absent from the meeting at the time of the agenda comments and/or citizen participation forfeits the opportunity to address the board at that meeting, but may submit written comments to the board. For more detailed information, please see the district website. There are no speakers for this evening for agenda comments. We will now proceed with the reports portion of the agenda. Item 6A, the administration will provide a report on the 2025 2026 Cypress Fairbanks ISD demographic study completed by population and survey analysis analysts, excuse me. Our presenters are Brandy Baker, Scott Tucker, Dr. Stacy Tempa, and Susan Kates. Good evening, President Heinman, Dr. Killian, board of trustees, and member of the cabinet. Tonight, we're pleased to welcome Dr. Stacy Tapera, and Susan Kates from Population and Survey Analyst, affectionately

005known as PASA, to present information to the board related to the 2025 2026 demographic study. For more than 40 years, PASA has partnered with Texas Public School District to provide expertise in demographic analysis, student enrollment projections, geographical mapping, housing and development analyst, long range facilities planning, and relative data services that support strategic decisionmaking for Texas public schools. CFISD has maintained a strong collaborative partnership with PAS since 2013. Through this partnership, our boundaries projection and planning team is able to combine deep institutional and operational knowledge of CFISD with access to specialized regional and statewide demographic data, residential development trends, migration analysis, forecasting methodologies, and external market indicators that would otherwise be difficult for a district to independently access at the same scale and depth. This collaboration provides a critical layer of macroeconomic analysis and perspective for

006CFISD. While our internal team develops the projections that are utilized annually, POSA serves as a vital resource, equipping us with the reliable long range data required for true strategic foresight. Their research strengthens our ability to engage in long-term planning discussions, allowing us the ability to operate and evaluate trends and anticipate shifts beyond the two to threeyear plan that we could typically forecast on our own. Without further ado, I would like to welcome Dr. Terra and Susan Kates. >> Thank you. >> Good evening, Dr. Killian, board of trustees. Thank you for having us tonight. This is this is great to be back. and let's get started. Um so while you see my face and Susan's face here each year, uh please know that we have an entire team uh behind us supporting each of these projects.

007Um and everyone has their own expertise. We have experts in um uh enrollment projections and long range planning and urban and regional development and uh economic development, GIS mapping. We have former um educators and former education administrators and everybody brings their expertise and their background to each of the projects. This is the demographic life cycle of any geographic area. This could be for a um a neighborhood, for an attendance zone, for a school district, or for the state in general. Um there are periods of um of of stability and then there's high growth once new construction starts happening you typically in a suburban area and then eventually that high growth begins to stabilize and approach uh stabilization and clearly Scyfair ISD has um has gone through the high growth part of the demographic life cycle

008and has reached the stabilization phase and while there are still parts of the district that are growing uh have not yet reached buildout. The majority of the district is built out and is seeing um stabilization and even declining enrollment in some areas and we'll talk about that uh coming up. So, first let's think about uh some demographic trends um that have been happening within the district. These maps illustrate region 4 and the um the the school districts that that make up region four. The blue school districts are districts that have declined in enrollment over the past 40 uh six years and the districts in red have increased in enrollment over the past six years. And now this this this blue central urban uh core surrounded by a ring of red growth is very typical urbanization

009patterns, right? It happens in every large city. Um and 10 years ago, Scyfair was still in the red ring of growth around the Houston area. And so as the the the district and the region goes through the normal uh development pattern that I just talked about, the the demographic life cycle, this has also been magnified in the past couple of years by the overall declining enrollment trends statewide. Um in fact on this map uh you can see that on the left shows the numeric change in enrollment. So of the 48 uh districts in region 4, 25 of them are blue. That means over half of the districts in region 4 have fewer students enrolled this year than they did uh the year before COVID. This is the historical enrollment uh for Scyfare ISD over the

010past 10 years. the uh turquoise bars on the left because of the magnitude of the the student enrollment it's hard to see any any uh significant change but the uh the graph on the right is a little bit easier to interpret that is the change in enrollment from year to year. So in the first uh four or so uh years, four or five years prior to COVID, um you can see that the district gained typically about 900 to a,000 students each year. And then there's the COVID year and then there's the COVID recovery year. Um and since COVID, uh the district has had a deceleration in growth and then a large decline in enrollment this past year. And so let's talk about this past year of of enrollment decline and what else can we say

011about what that looks like. So we can break down that enrollment change by ethnicity sub population. The top is the state of Texas. The bottom is Scyfare ISD enrollment. And uh for the past several years going back to 201819 uh the cha the annual change in enrollment by subopul is shown um each year and it's grouped by subopul so that you can see the changes that are happening by subopul from year to year. And so what do we see? We see that the the big decline that we saw on the previous slide for this year um is represented on these by the gray bars on the right side of each of these groups. And so we can also say that the the general trends the up and downs of these bars across the state of

012Texas are similar to the up and down trends in Scyfare ISD and by subopul. And so the Asian uh subop in Scyfair has been fairly stable. That's the first group on the left with slight growth after COVID. The black or African-American population has had steady deceleration since COVID. The red bar is the COVID year, by the way. Uh the Hispanic and Latino population has seen a steady deceleration since COVID with a larger decline this past year. and the white population has also seen a steady decline since COVID. One of the um driving factors that we look at and include in our analysis is how many babies are born to mothers who live in Scyfare ISD and then we age that number five years so that it lines up on this graph with the year that

013those babies will start kindergarten. And so on the far left side of this graph, which is between 10 and 15 years ago, you can see that blue line is births. And births were booming 10 to 15 years ago in this district. You can see that sharp increase in the Navy blue line. What you also notice is that the green line, the kindergarten enrollment is higher than the blue line. That means there were more children enrolling in kindergarten than there were babies born 5 years prior. That's because so many people were moving into the district um with zero to fouryear-old babies. And they moved in the district and they enrolled them in kindergarten. And then between about five and 10 years ago back those that's where those lines are pretty similar with the exception of the

014crazy co year. the the births in kindergartener enrollment is is pretty similar year to year. But for the past five years, we have seen this um this change in that in that the kindergarten population is lower than the number of babies that were born 5 years prior. And the dotted line is this current year. And so what this tells us is that those babies that were born in Scyfare ISD are not are either moving away or they are not all enrolling in public ISD kindergarten. Now let's talk about the current students and some past trends. The topic of recently declining enrollment across the state has been a very hot topic this year. Uh we have talked about this in every district at every conference. It is a big topic. Um it's a complicated and multifaceted

015issue and it's different. The details are different in every district. But there are some general trends that have all come together and coalesed this year that um that have uh that are contributing to this declining enrollment. So on the left we have a a graphic of kind of where things stood 10 years ago specifically or particularly in uh in Sciphar ISD. There were lots of new houses being built and lots of babies moving into those houses and babies being born into those houses and those babies grew up to be toddlers and more toddlers moved in because there were a lot of houses being built and a lot of in migration and virtually everybody virtually all of those toddlers were entering the ISD because that was kind of the default 10 years ago across the state.

016So what has happened there? Currently uh because Scyfare ISD is reaching buildout, there is less room for new houses to be built. There is decreased new construction, new housing construction. Um there's lower birth rates overall. I showed you that birth line that had uh been declining. That means fewer toddlers. There is less in migration into the district. We have data that shows that of the uh existing houses that are not the neighborhoods that are not building new houses, there are fewer and fewer students living in those houses. So there's less in migration. And coupled with all of that, there are more students uh choosing alternative educational opportunities or charter schools, private schools and uh virtual schools such that all of this coaleses to mean uh a smaller incoming kindergarten class. And so to summarize what

017I'm saying is that the pot so to speak the number of uh of babies of children living in Scyfare ISD is getting smaller and the number of alternative educational opportunities that are pulling some of those students to other schooling opportunities is more. So it's a it's a onetwo punch. This illustrates the past enrollment numbers um for for the past decade or so. The red boxes represent the classes of with the largest the largest class for each year and the blue is the smallest class for each year. So that diagonal stripe of red that you see going through the table is a large cohort of several classes that have been aging through um the grade levels until now the the last remnants of that big bulge are now in 11th and 12th grade. So as those

018uh classes graduate in the next couple of years and they continue to be replaced by smaller and smaller incoming kindergarten classes that perpetuates this enrollment decline. Another uh factor that is happening uh within the district is the density of students per house is declining. So right now if you count all of the students that are living in single family houses divided by the total number of single family houses in the district the uh the that ratio is 0.54 students per home. 10 years ago that ratio was 64 students per home. So that's point number one is the overall density in single family homes is declining. Point number two is that even though the district rate average ratio is 0.54 that varies tremendously among different neighborhoods. And so for example the new new construction newer um

019subdivisions and master plan communities in this case have typically higher ratios. they grow in ratio in density as they are adding new students. Um for example, Cypress Creek Lakes, Bridgeland, uh Town Lake, etc. And likewise, the builtout neighborhoods um tend to uh once they have stopped building new construction, then they decline in student density as those empty nesters stay put in their homes because they don't want to lose their 3% mortgage or all of the reasons that Susan will tell you about in a few minutes. Um and those existing neighborhoods don't have any more new houses being built to add uh younger families, younger students. And so um we can see that um existing neighborhoods like Jersey Village and Copperfield um have significantly lower uh density of students than the new construction. But this also

020shows us that the new construction neighborhoods won't always have these high and large ratios. And so we we use past trends like this to understand what could happen in the future with um with student density. Now this map on the left is cycling through some data that shows in red are the neighborhoods where starting in 2014. You can see there's very little red on the map. The and there are few black dots. The black dots represent the charter schools in this area that are enrolling students who live in Scyfare ISD. The red areas are the attendance zones where those students are living who are attending charter schools. And so you can see pretty dramatically uh how over the past 10 years the number of charter schools the black dots is increasing and the uh the

021the pull of students from the areas the students living in Scyfare ISD who are attending these charter schools has increased uh dramatically. On the right is a graphical representation of the same data, but it also points out each year that major site uh new uh charter schools campuses were opened in the area all the way up to this year that um when the Bob Hope School and the Harmony Bridgeland uh campus opened. So, I think this really illustrates um the impact over the past 10 years that charter schools have had on enrollment in the area. And now private schools. These dots represent the private schools in the area that are enrolling students that live within uh Scipfare ISD and there are 146 of them based on our telephone interviews uh with them and we estimate

022that about 3.2% of the population that lives here are enrolled in private schools. So what is happening with the the the vouchers and TIFA participation? Well, this slide is already out of date because a couple of days ago we have we've had some new uh information released from the controllers's office. Um but uh in general uh we knew that the demand for um applications for uh vouchers and TIFA funds was um was strong um back when the applications were being um were opened up. Um but we know that the capacity of um of private schools is going to be a limiting factor as well as geography. Um so we know now that the um the tier one um applications that have been awarded uh have awarded about about 900 uh vouchers for residents of Scyfare

023ISD. But of those only approximately 480 um have previously been enrolled in uh public schools. And likewise the data that was just released about two days ago um tier 2 um was the next round of applications that have been accepted over a thousand um applications were awarded to residents of uh Scyfare ISD but only about 340 of those were previously enrolled in public schools. And so we estimate that around 800 825 um vouchers could have been awarded to students who previously were enrolled in Scyfare ISD. Again, these are still estimates. Um and it's very possible that the district has more granular data than that, but this is just based on on what I can get my hands on at this point. I'm asked every everywhere we go about homeschooling. The um the impacts of homeschooling

024are becoming significant. Um unfortunately, it's really difficult to prove numbers because Texas is one of 20 states that does not require registration of homeschoolers um or any any kind of uh following by the states. So, we don't have any good numbers. We know that the census estimates about 350,000 students statewide could be homeschooled and the Texas homeschool coalition says between 500 and 650 students statewide could be homeschooled. Um and so because of the difficulty in getting good data uh along these lines, PASA is developing a partnership um to to hopefully use geo fencing to estimate where these uh homeschooling and microchool populations are um are uh localized. Okay, so this summarizes the total impact of alternative educational opportunities. um on Scyfar ISD. So basically the bars show in blue the charter schools students going to

025charter schools um in red the students going to other ISDs and in green the students going to um virtual schools. So these are public options um students living within Scyfare ISD but attending other public options. The arrow along the bottom are the students living outside of Scyfare ISD who are transferring in. So clearly there is a net loss of students out of Scyfare ISD. Um and that is the numbers are reflected um on the right uh chart uh both for last year and this year. So to summarize about 90% over 90% of the residents of Scyfare ISD are enrolled in Scyfare ISD and this is down from last year from about 91.6% last year. And so if we look over time at the the green bars are the number of students living in Scyfare ISD

026and attending Cypher ISD. The gray bars are the students living here but going somewhere else. And so the red dot and the red line represents how many students are potentially living in this district that could be enrolled in Scyfare ISD if there were no alternative um opportunities. And so basically this this is this is your pool. This is your market of um potential students. And so at this point, I'm going to turn the mic over to Susan Kates, who will talk about uh the economy and new housing, and then I will return to wrap it all up. >> Thanks, Stacy. Good evening. Um I am going to go through this information pretty quickly um so that we can get to that student data that means so much to the decision decisions that you have to

027make for the district. Um, as we jump into our conversation about housing, there we go. Uh, we want to touch briefly on the economy. Um, we've had a very volatile u e economy and um, uh, we've lingered at this 6 to 7% mortgage rate and economists really think that getting below that 6% figure is what it's going to take to really reactivate the housing market. And even with the Federal Reserve dropping basis points six times since 2024, that interest rate has not budged below 6%. And so that is causing a cooling effect on the housing market in general. And we can see why when we look at the medium price, the the red line indicates, you know, kind of how that affects uh a a family's budget when they are paying a mortgage on a

028$400,000 home. And it's about $800 a month when you move from a 3% to a 7% mortgage rate. And for most families, that makes a significant difference to their monthly budget. And so that again is having that cooling effect on the um on the housing industry and high interest means it's hard for developers to get things moving and we're seeing months of inventory increase and all of that perfect storm means there just aren't as many houses moving as there were four or five years ago. But let's talk specifically about this district and what's going on in Scyfare ISD. Absolutely. In a stabilization phase um in regards to housing. On this map we're showing you um the currently developing subdivisions in green. Planned subdivisions are showing up in blue. And the numbers that I'm referencing have

029to do with housing units occupied over a 10-year projection window. You can see that activity is primarily in the west along the Grand Parkway with a few scattered um developments north of 290. Um again in this 10-year projection window, um Bridgeland will be the number one um source of residential occupancies. But it is very important to note that the top five that are in that chart will all build out within the 10year projection window. And in fact, the majority of the ones on that that are both developing and planned will also be projected to build out within this 10-year window. And there's not any large tracks of land left to come in behind that. So, what that means is we're not going to see the large suburban style subdivisions that we have been seeing in

030the Scyfair area for years. And future development is going to be smaller parcels, infill redevelopment as the community ages. And the type of the development that happens on those smaller parcels in infield redevelopment are higher density. And higher density usually has a lower student ratio. So again, we are going to yield fewer students per unit of housing over time. Um, in addition to just having fewer units occupied each year, interest in multif family remains high within the district. The development community is excited about multif family in your community, but regionally most new construction. Um, multif family properties are tailored toward young professionals and empty nesters who um, want to enjoy that kind of lock it and leave it lifestyle. Um, so ratios tend to be low. This is why even though the number of housing

031occupancies from multif family over this 10-year projection window is 50% of total housing occupancies. It's a little over 50%. This represents fewer than 27% of students generated from new housing occupancies. So that's key. And then conversely, older um multif family properties as they age tend to become a source for um affordable housing, workforce housing. So you will when Stacy mentioned that overall.35 student ratio for u multif family, new multif family is usually lower than 0.1, but those older multif family balance that out because you tend to see more students in those older housing types or apartment types. Overall, we're projecting 28,480 total new occupancies over the 10-year period. 45% of those will be in traditional single family residencies and a bit over 2% are in this kind of alternative residential uh type which is build

032rent communities or manufactured housing. Um we may see some shift from property that we're currently projecting as single family into builder rent and into uh manufactured housing because those are gaining momentum in the housing industry as uh affordable workforce housing and again I mentioned the largest contributor of occupied housing units will be multifamily housing at 50.4%. Um you will notice that total occupancies are showing a decline as we near the end of this projection period and moving beyond. when we saw this number um from the numbers we were generating, I went back and actually looked at um at the appraisal district data and when we compared 2023, there were 1,971 new single family homes added to the tax roles for Scyfare ISD. But when you go 10 years prior to 2013, there were 3,114. So

033we are projecting that continued rate of decline across the period. In summary, most of the uh prime tracks of land are already in the pipeline. Um anything that is large tracks of unencumbered acreage is already being developed. Um future housing growth will be driven by higher density development types like multifamily or town homes. And um those are the types of development that are suitable for larger uh or for smaller tracks or infill redevelopment and they tend to carry lower student ratios. Most notably, and this is the important point of everything that I've said, is that that number that you saw, that 28,480 new occupancies, that is going to serve to offset the student decline in your existing neighborhoods. So when you see that over 28,000, don't expect that's going to be an increase in your

034student population because of the regeneration numbers in your existing developments are yielding lower numbers of students. This just serves to keep that number from dropping even further. So regeneration is key to the future stabilization of the district. And with that, I will hand it back over to Stacy to tell you more about the students. You have heard a lot of information. I'm going to summarize um briefly um some of the factors that go into these projections because it's tempting to think we have all these new housing units, houses being built. How can we have declining enrollment with with this growth projected? And we are projecting growth. Susan told you about it. It's less growth than um than it was 10 years ago, but there will be new uh students yielded from these new homes. Those

035new students will be offset by many of these other uh factors. So, a lower birth uh rate, a smaller and smaller kindergarten sizes. So, the kindergarten class this year is the smallest it's been in 18 or 20 years, and it has been a a steady decline since certainly since COVID. Um, the aging of the student population. I showed you that graph with the red diagonal bulge. Uh, that impacts enrollment, the in-n-out migration of uh families into the district. And Susan mentioned the regeneration of existing neighborhoods. There are fewer students living in in existing homes than there were last year and the year before and the year before. And finally, alternative educational opportunities are um are creating a significant uh draw from uh enrollment in Scyfare ISD in that um as they open new campuses and

036as vouchers are awarded that will continue to uh be a destabilizing force to uh enrollment. So when we look back 10 years ago and look at these factors and the assumptions that we had to make 10 years ago um to to make these projections, it was a different world 10 years ago. So the new housing construction was booming as we've talked about and the ratios of students per home was growing. It was high and it was growing. So we knew that that we know that that now in retrospect um did not continue. So the ratios of students per home has been declining in um in new single family homes as well as in uh existing homes. Uh the birth rate, you remember that birth and kindergarten uh chart I showed you the graph where the

037the births in the kindergarteners were uh were really growing. Um and we assumed that those births would keep growing at some at that point 10 years ago, 15 years ago and that has not been the case. It has stabil stabilized and then has dropped off and um and all all of the factors that I just went through. Population mig migration 10 years ago the regeneration in existing neighborhoods the students moving in was enough to offset the students graduating and moving out. Um and so the the existing neighborhoods were a little bit more stable than they are this year. And finally uh alternative educational opportunities. You saw the the moving graph of the uh charter schools. Charter schools were not um a considerable um did not have a considerable impact on enrollment 10 years ago. But

038the uh growth in those uh campuses in this this area and across the state uh has really um impacted uh the enrollment projections. So these are the assumptions that were true and and that have changed. But then let's also think 10 years ago we didn't know anything about a global pandemic and we didn't know anything about the immigration policy shifts that have taken place recently or the state of school public school finance. There are so many big um issues that have changed in the past 10 years uh that really um have impacted uh enrollment across the state for for all school districts. So these are the past historical uh projections we have made compared to and each of the bars uh represents the low moderate and high growth scenario and the red uh represents the

039actual enrollment uh that year. So each of those had their own set of assumptions and so what has changed this year um in those assumptions that we made last year? Well, uh, as we've mentioned before, the the the density of students per home has declined, um, over the past year and and over the past decade. Um, homes built prior to 2016. I just mentioned the existing neighborhoods are not regenerating student populations enough to uh, replace those who are graduating or moving out. For example, the those houses built before 2016 house 4.7% fewer students this year than they did last year and 8.4% fewer students than the year before. So, and again, that gets back to what Susan talked about, those empty nesters are staying put in those houses. There's just not as much um turnover

040in the housing market. Um, I talked about the kindergarten class size being 300 students smaller than it was last year and the smallest it's cohort in 20 years. And alternative educational opportunities, there were two new um, charter schools that opened this year. That wasn't a surprise. We knew they were coming. What was a surprise was how full they opened. Um, in years past, charter schools would open at about 60% utilization and they would add students slowly over the next few years. And, uh, both of these opened it significantly full. Um, and also what was a surprise was the number of students from Scyfare ISD that were pulled into those schools rather than from other um, other surrounding neighbor uh, districts as well. So all of this gets rolled into our projection forecast. Um the dotted

041line represents our forecast uh for enrollment for the next 10 years. Um and that's bracketed in um with assumptions that that include what could feasibly happen under an accelerated or a reduced enrollment scenario. And each of those is um is based on a differing set of assumptions uh pertaining to all of those factors that I just uh went through that impact enrollment. So what does this mean for geographically for the district? These are the res codes, the residential codes uh of the district. And the colors represent how many students we project to be gained or lost in each of these res codes over the next 10 years. So those areas in orange and red are growth and those areas in light blue and dark blue are decline in student population. These are resident students. And

042so you can see that there is growth in some areas and decline projected in other areas. And so the next step is then to take this information and aggregate it into attendance zones. So we take the the number of students living there now and add in this growth or decline and group it by attendance zone. And then we compare that number in five years and in 10 years to how many students can be accommodated in the school. What's the capacity of the school? And that gives us the projected utilization in five years and 10 years. And so this map shows us that on the west we do still have some full utilization and overcrowding in the in the five-year period and then uh additionally more in the 10-year period. But we also have a lot

043of blue schools. A lot of schools that blue is anything less than 80% utilization uh both in fiveyear and 10-year uh period time period. So between that five and 10year uh range, the district might need to think about some some changes for uh utilizing the existing facilities that you have, the existing capacity um in order to accommodate that growth. uh but understanding that this might involve removing some of the prior constraints that have been on um uh boundary alignment uh processes for the district as far as um not crossing highways and things like that. So those issues the district can begin discussions um in the short term but this is really for a long-term um implementation. At the middle school level, uh we see similar um on the on the west side of the district.

044We have a couple of middle schools that are projected to uh to just barely exceed capacity in the first five years. And really long-term um row and and potentially spread might need some uh rebalancing at at some point. Uh but there is definitely um uh consider sufficient space uh available in um other middle school capac uh facilities in order to accommodate the projected uh uh population at the middle school level. And then finally at the high school level similarly we don't see any red on this uh on this map. Red is over 120% utilization. And so that is uh that is good news in that the overcrowding that is projected um could could be manageable could be uh could uh require some um uh mediation at some point but certainly certainly um not anything on

045a on a grand scale. And so with that, I'm going to summarize that you've heard about students from new housing and how the district is reaching buildout and the um density of students per house in new housing is declining and there are fewer babies being born in the area and the kindergarten is declining in size and has for a number of years. um the changes in immigration policy is really difficult to um to prove or to prove causal um association between policy and reduced immigration. Um but some of the indirect data um suggests like for example the um enrollment in your new arrival center the knack um is is down considerably this year and so that's some indirect uh correlated uh information but we we can't jump out and say uh that there's a direct

046causal effect um because we just don't have the data to prove that. But alternative educational opportunities um have have been uh presenting a challenge and will continue with the um with the the vouchers and the TIFA funds um particularly if um the budget for those funds is expand expanded in future uh legislative sessions. And then finally, the older um existing neighborhoods um are not regenerating with as many students as are graduating and leaving. And so all of those factors are contributing to the um for to the projected enrollment over the next 10 years. And with that, I can take questions. >> Thank you. Questions? Okay, Miss Gilmore. >> Thank you so much for the presentation. It's really interesting and informative and a lot to take in. Um, I may have missed this. Uh, around slide

04711, uh, we talk about charter school enrollment and private school enrollment. And I captured that we have about 6,000 plus students currently in charters, right? And then 3.2% of CFISD students enrolled in private schools. Can you help me with um an apples to apples? So like can I get percentages for both or is that up there >> on the right? Um the light blue is private schools, 4,033 students and that's 3.2% of the population. >> Is that what you're asking? >> Yes. Yeah. 3.2 for private schools and 4% for charters. >> 4.8. Thank you. Um, I don't know if this is a question for you or maybe somebody um, in our administration, but is there a way for us to find out more about the students who are choosing or whose families are choosing charters

048particularly like and and identify trends in terms of reasons they may be choosing the charters or even just like demographic trends? Yeah, it's going to be surveys mainly that we can do if they'll respond to them. >> Yeah. >> And then in terms of getting the details on private schools, that's going to be pretty pretty difficult. >> Um obviously charter schools, we can just look to their TEA. >> And I'm more curious about the charter schools really. I think um >> for for a variety of reasons. I'm more curious about that one. Miss Gilmore, one of the things that we've done um starting in the fall of 2023, we've taken withdrawal codes of students who were existing students uh because they get coded by our registars and we get withdrawal codes and then we send

049out it's a very anonymous survey. We utilize form stack. We send an anonymous survey to them and the reason we send it for them to respond anonymously is because we want honest feedback from that. So we've actually solicited that from probably over since fall of 2023 to current close to about if you're just looking at charters alone is probably close to 1,800 individuals probably only received back about 350 uh but they are very very similar to the basis survey that was done that information was shared so it's very linear in terms of the responses and one of the reasons we wanted to kind of validate not necessarily validate their data but see on our side are we getting things that are extremely similar and it is very similar across the norm there. Um, one of

050the things we did incorporate this time in it is we included an additional metric because we asked parents if they have a plan to reenroll in Scyfare ISD. The ones that mark yes and maybe we added logic in it. Can we contact you to discuss connecting you back on the path to amazing? We use that mission statement. And so we've actually been able to link some of those families who had gone to virtual schools that said they wanted to back to the virtual academy um for information. We've linked some of those that went to private charter. We've actually directly talked to them and said, "Hey, how can we reconnect you into Scyfare ISD or we've gotten them in touch with student services admissions." So an added layer to try to pull some of those students

051back from that. >> That's that's great to hear. Would it be burdensome for to see like whatever data we do have in terms of what folks are reporting about their reasons for moving out? >> We have it in the charts that we shared at DT previously. So, we could definitely see that get that um I can get that through Miss Baker to get >> We can we can include it in a Friday report. Thanks. >> I have another question, but I can Mr. Ray, >> Stacy, and Susan, thank you again for your presentation. Um, y'all's presentation every year paints a really important narrative and and a very important story that is very helpful in us and our budgeting and our um direction of the district. So, we're really appreciative of that. So, one of the

052things I'd like to understand is um have there, you know, when we're of the trends that we've seen in this presentation and previous years, our long-term trends, right? Uh have there been any noticeable trend differences between last year and this year, have any trends accelerated, deceler decelerated between last year's projections and what we're looking at this year? >> Yes. And so that is let's see there. So fewer new homes were built than projected, lower ratios of students within those homes. Um the existing homes have fewer students in them than they did last year and that was accelerated over the previous year. M >> um the charter schools that opened opened with uh more students uh uh closer to capacity and more of their students were pulled from Scyfare ISD than would have been um predicted

053or projected from previous um patterns. >> So that would have accelerated the reduction in students enrolling in Scyfare that that we were looking at from the previous year. Yes. All of those >> all of those things combined. Interestingly enough, going back, you touched on it a little bit. We touched on it several times about projected birth rates. On the slide in which you have projected birth rates and kindergarten enrollment, I do find it interesting that um starting in oh gosh, I need readers. Um starting in 26 27 uh you do show a bit of an incline in the birth rate. What do you attribute that to? >> Just more babies born. Um I I don't have any information about um there there it is about why that jump happened. It happened it across region four

054and it happened across Texas. You can see that that bulge. >> Well, I'm talking about going forward after this year. You're projecting births to increase in the you know next several years. I don't know if there's anything that contributed to that projection. >> So this slide does not have any projections on it. This is only the the blue line is the number of babies that have already been born. So everything to the right of the dotted line, those are zero to fouryear-old babies that were born in this district over the past four years. >> Because as I'm reading it and and I may be reading it incorrectly, but after the dotted line, which is currently where we're at in 26, 27, 27, 28, 28, 29, the blue line is births. >> The blue line is

055births, but it's shifted five years forward. So the the tiny text at the very bottom shows the range of years of months that those babies were born five years before the kindergarten year. So the the the 26 27 27 28 28 that you just referenced that's the kindergarten year and the births are shifted such that they line up with the babies born and the and the kindergarteners five years later. So that's why the kindergarten line stops at the dotted black line. So, but but nonetheless, the narrative is going to continue that it's going to be a decrease in birth. That's that's the narrative that we're looking forward to over the next several years. >> Yes. >> Okay. Um Susan, I really appreciated your discussion on the neighborhoods. Uh I found that very interesting. And so,

056one of the questions I have about that is, uh, you know, we we we kind of identified some of the older neighborhoods, right, that um are aging out a little bit. People are staying in for a variety of reasons. um you know uh Copperfield, Jersey Village, Hearthstone, um Steeplechase, the Cypress Creek neighborhoods. Uh you know, one of the things I've noticed, especially in say for instance the Houston area, these older neighborhoods uh with their mature trees, established homes, established infrastructure, they get rediscovered by young families at at a period of time, right? Uh the older families will eventually move out, make a ton of money, and sell the homes. Um and there are younger families that move and these neighborhoods get rediscovered. Um, you know, we've seen that happen in Houston, whether it be, you

057know, the Heights, Oak Forest, Garden Oaks, Maryland, Belair, and the list goes on. What impact have you guys seen rediscovered neighborhoods? What impact does that have on public schools typically? >> So, the fact is that even in those rediscovered neighborhoods, you will never attain the same level of students when they're rediscovered that they had when they were newly built. And that's because everybody moves in kind of at the same stage of life and everybody's moving into those new homes and they all have children and then you have a staggering effect. Somebody moves out, somebody moves in, somebody moves out, somebody moves in. So yes, you are absolutely right. there are um in really old neighborhoods and as the the community ages, we'll be having another um discussion about regentation and redevelopment in those neighborhoods. But

058in general, the regeneration of students never reaches the level that it reached that it attained when it was a new subdivision. So yes, we try to take those those things into to account as we go and survey the neighborhood and we look in the neighborhoods and we um look at housing sales um in the neighborhoods. We take all of those factors into account, but the but the kind of the bottom line is that we're still seeing those ratios drop from actual numbers. I mean it's I think we would all agree that it would never reach the level that it once was but you might in theory see an uptick because there are families moving in now they have a myriad of educational opportunities educational choices right some of them may be of higher means they

059want to go to private school because those those newer rediscovered neighborhoods tend to be more expensive than they were 30 40 50 years ago but nonetheless there are families that are moving in so there might be an uptick in public school um enrollment but it would never achieve the level or raise the level that it once was. >> Correct. >> Okay. Um speak and speaking of educational uh opportunities, the the slide that you know of course I think is very interesting to myself and all of our colleagues are the number of students that are choosing u educational opportunity educational alternatives. Um you know and and as we would expect we've seen it increase every single year, right? And I'm talking about the the green bars versus the gray bars. H is there any well is

060there any projection that that may number stabilize or is it always going to continue to accelerate? Is there any um projection on that any thoughts any historical data on that? Sure. There are uh certainly areas uh particularly in the Dallas Fort Worth area that have um sort of reached the um the saturation market of for charter schools and and there there will be that that uh arrives in in this part of the state as well. Uh when that's going to happen, I I can't really say, but um you can see that the um the the last few years of charter enrollment have not seen the same uh explosive growth. The number of uh new charters added have not been quite as um as frequent as they were five and six and years ago. >> But

061we can look forward to some stabilization at some point. when that is and what that number looks like is yet to be seen. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. Thank you again for your presentation. Very informative. >> Dr. Lane, >> how are y'all doing? Um thank you for the presentation. And I'm going along with they were discussing about the charter schools and the um private schools. So you showed us that over 146 private schools are within within the area and greater than 140 charter schools within the same are also within the South Air area. And am I am I correct with that? >> Yes. The um >> you said >> this number the greater than 40 140 charter schools that data comes from TEA. Yes. and and so that is any school that uh TEA reports is

062educating at least one student who lives in Scyfare ISD >> and the private schools those are based on our um phone calls to the private schools >> and I do want to noted that the district does not regulate how many charter schools and private schools they can have within >> absolutely not our boundaries >> no >> okay so in that as I Looking at the map, I've noticed that um in the projected years, when it comes to the locations of those private schools and charter schools, they're in the areas, the blue areas where we're going to already be fighting for additional students because there is a redu in the number of students in those individual areas. Am I if you could show that to um that was uh Look forward real quick. >> Are you

063looking for that map? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> So when Well, you can continue when we go if you move down to where you were showing the high school, middle school, elementary schools. Um so if you take a if you could superimpose those schools and those locations on those individual maps, we're going to be fighting for already a reduced number of individuals in those blue areas. So, one of the things that I saw and and colleagues brought it up where we where we're already trying to work with the virtual path pathways to get some of those students back and then also where we're trying to um find alternatives to say, okay, why are you why have you left? What can we do? Those are things that the district's going to have to really compete with

064because those numbers have reduced and we're going to have to try to find like you said, no more babies are being born. So, we got to do a little bit better. We have to continue working to uh get students back into the district and I and I'm done with that. Thank you. Appreciate being able to show that to us. >> Mr. Lacant, >> I I had a question for uh for you guys as well. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Uh Dr. Terra and uh Miss Kates. Scott, I I want to talk to you. I I know you've kept track of this as far as how many kids that we're losing uh that have maybe gone to an alternative education um opportunity, but are we getting feedback on how many kids are coming back

065after if they've if they've left and then came back? What what are some of the feedback that you're getting? >> It's a great question. We see on average, and it varies between years, students that leave, uh we're able to track about 6 to 8% year-over-year, it kind of depends that will have left and come back. The challenge is is some of those students will leave, come back, leave, come back. Um, and they they just kind of go around. Some of that is due to mobility. Parents have to move, different things like that. Um, others are situational and there's a lot that goes into why that happens. Um, but it's about 6 to 8% depends on the year. >> The way we track that is a withdrawal code. The student withdrew, we have an ID number

066they return. we can run that against the entry withdrawal numbers to kind of aggregate it holistically. >> Gotcha. So, a myriad of uh issues that we don't have any control over and it's going to we're getting curveball after curveball after curveball. Um so, this is uh going to be the wild west it seems like for the for the next next year or so. Um just to kind of see see what it's going to with this new educational opportunity um competition coming in. Um, so, um, right, as far as looking into this on the east side, like Dr. Lane was kind of talking about with less kids that that that are are going to be living in those areas and more competition. I I I commend you on kind of pointing that out. I mean, it's

067it's going to be tougher for for us. Um, we really need to kind of consider the next next four to five years what what that does to us. What? And I guess I was talking with Karen earlier as well about the term right right sizing. Um, you want to could I ask Karen a little bit about that Miss Smith? Sorry. >> Sorry, Mr. Lam. Is it regarding demographics or is it regarding budget? >> Demographic. >> Okay. I guess I I know what you're talking about as far as the budget, but I'm not following you on the demographic piece. Can you kind of clarify for me? >> Well, if we're we're going to have less less kids in in those areas, we've identified that from the passive report >> and maybe maybe this is more even

068for Dr. Killian. >> Have we looked at what that actually looks like moving forward? >> Yeah. Yeah. We had a peek at it during the the boundary discussion of long range planning committee and we decided to hold to see what next year looks like in terms of um what our what the voucher program would look like too. So and then we'll have to come revisit it. Right. So interestingly enough I mean if you look at it um look at the red to the blue. I mean, you're basically moving things from north to south and and west to east, but you're going to have to, if you're going to really rightsize campuses and all that, then it's going to be a leaprog situation where you move from one campus to another and then you take kids

069out of that campus to make that space and then so on. That is so popular. >> So, Yeah. Um, but that's the only way you can do it because you can't jump. I mean, you know, you look at the high school, Bridgland, Bridgeland's pretty full. I mean, you have to skip probably two high schools in order to to get to a place where that really works. So, you're driving by other high schools for to, you know, move kids and that that doesn't really work. So, >> I also want to I I had a couple of conversations with some some residents that they were talking about they had been at private schools or other opportunities uh with within our district and they came back and they said they actually tested these kids and they actually tested

070lower um being in the in the private schools and and that again I was it h it happens a lot. I wanted to kind of point that out. Uh so I guess maybe the point I'm trying to make is sometimes the grass isn't always greener on the other side. It's where you water it. >> Yeah. >> Any other questions? Um, thank you so much. We're very grateful uh to PASA for your partnership over all these many years. Uh, and we continue to lean on you for good information as we move forward with making some very challenging decisions. This obviously uh helps to feed into our long range planning process as we look at facilities needs um asset protection, attendance boundaries, all those things. So, and I know it's as Dr. Killian said, it's not a

071u sometimes those are hard conversations to have with the community. Um but it's necessary in order to manage the resources that we have um and to continue to provide services across our district. So, thank you so much. We appreciate you. >> Certainly. Thank you very much. Good night. >> Moving on. Item 6B, the administration will provide an update on the general operating budget. Our presenter is Karen Smith. >> Thank you, President Heinman and board of trustees. Let's see there. Okay, we got it up there. Thank you. Uh once again, I'll be presenting an update on the general operating budget. As the district's June 30 year end approaches, you know, we obtain additional information that helps us refine those projections. You have seen this information before that includes items that have either helped reduce the current

072deficit or have added to the deficit. At the April board meeting, the estimated deficit was 33.7 million and it was based on actual results through March. Based on actual result results through April, the estimated deficit at June 30, 2026 is estimated to be 31.7 million. The primary reason for the change since last month is moving of expenditures from the general fund to grant funds that had capacity offset by the decrease in enrollment and expected payment of the teacher incentive aotment. Once again, I want to highlight some of the factors on the right that could contribute to a slightly higher or lower deficit by year end, such as unspent funds or increases in expenditures due to inflation. TEA requires districts to adopt a budget for the general fund, the debt service fund, and the food service

073fund. Districts have multiple funding sources. However, most of the funding sources are restricted on how they can be spent. The maintenance and operations tax rate generates local funds for the general operations of the district, including salaries, contracted services such as utilities, general supplies such as instructional supplies and fuel for buses, and other operating expenditures such as property insurance, as well as capital outlay. The general fund has the least restrictions, but even the general fund receives state funding for programs such as special education that can only be spent on the specific students served. The interest in seeking tax rate generates funds required to service the district's debt that was approved by the voters in a bond referendum. The funds can only be used for current principal and interest payment on bonds and they cannot be used

074for the general operations of the school district or to offset the deficit. Both the food service fund and bond funds are restricted as to their use. The food service fund is subsidized with federal reimbursements and funds can only be used towards the child nutrition program and not for the general operations of the district. It is important to note that the district's child nutrition program makes a profit and does not require the use of the general fund. Although districts are not required to adopt a budget for bond funds, there's sometimes a misconception on what they can be utilized for. The bond or capital projects fund is made up of proceeds from bond sales. The proceeds must be spent on construction, renovation, or equipping of facilities including technology and buses. Once again, bond funds cannot be used

075for the general operations of the district or to offset the deficit. Although this was discussed last month, I want to remind the public of the primary factors impacting the deficit over the last several years, such as state funding increases not keeping up with inflation, state mandates without sufficient funding, the 20% local optional homestead exemption offered by the district, decreases in enrollment in average daily attendance, and a decline in the SHAR's revenue. Property values impact the tax rate and state funding. This slide reflects the history of the changes in property values over the last five years. Values in the 2023 and 2025 tax years were impacted by legislation passed that increased the statemandated homestead exemption and the additional tax relief to those over 65. Preliminary taxable values in the 2025 tax year actually increased by 7.4%.

0764% but final certified values reflect a decrease of 1.43% due the passage of House Bill 2 which increased the statemandated homestead exemption from 100,000 to 140 and the over 65 from 10,000 to 60,000. The 2026 tax year values are the Harris County Central Appraisal District's preliminary certified property values as of April 30th of 72.8 8 billion. Property values are estimated to increase by approximately 1.71%. And typically the values increase just slightly between receiving preliminary values in April and final certified values in August. The M tax rate is made up of two components. The maximum compressed rate and enrichment pennies. The maximum compressed rate is comprised is compressed or reduced to the lower of the state compressed rate or the local district compressed rate. Tax compression occurs when property values increase by more than 2 and

077a.5% from the previous year. Current year property values affect tax compression. The maximum compressed rate is expected to stay the same for tax year 2026 because the taxable property value is expected to grow less than 2 and a.5%. The district has accessed all five enrichment pennies that it can without a voter approval tax rate election. Although market values have increased from 2019 to 2025, the estimated school taxes have decreased. The CFISD board of trustees has continued to offer the local optional homestead exemption of 20% since 1983 and the state exemption has increased from 25,000 to 140,000 since 2019. Tax compression has resulted in a decrease in the tax rate. Based on all of these factors, the estimated taxes on the average market value has decreased from 2,131 to 1,493 on the average market value. Market

078value is based on preliminary values from this from Harris County Central Appraisal District. The appraised value is the market value less the 10% cap adjustment that is in statute if applicable to the particular piece of property. In other words, you can't go up more than 10% on that appraised value. And then taxable value is is that appraised value less the local optional homestead exemption which is applied first with um which is uh gets it down to 80% of the taxable value and then uh state exemption after that. Shown here is a comparison with the surrounding districts of the 2025 M tax rates. I want to stress that the increase in property values which can vary depending on the district affects tax compression and ultimately the M tax rate. In addition, some districts have additional pennies

079that they took advantage of for many years such as KDISD. Here is a similar comparison of the interest in sinking tax rates which is impacted by property value growth and decline as well as periods of fast growth. So for example, Spring Branch ISD, their property values are much higher and they are recaptured district. So they don't need as high of a debt service tax rate to meet their debt service requirements because of where those property values are. Conversely, if you're you have a lot of fast growth going on um that has happened over a period of time, that will impact what you have the kind of debt that you have to have to meet that growth. districts receive regular funding per pupil based on average daily attendance. As you can see, CFISD was the lowest

080in 2425 compared to our surrounding districts. And the reason we're showing 2020 2425 here is it's the most recent year with full actual results that we can share. Although districts are funded based on average daily attendance, districts must staff and we must plan our resources based on enrollment, which reduces the available funding. So you can see here that this amount is slightly smaller because it's based on enrollment instead of average daily attendance. This slide was previously shared showing the M compare rate comparison prepared by Mezero of Houston of Houston area districts with enrollment above 10,000 students prior to the legislature approving House Bill 2 and after the implementation of House Bill 2. Added to this slide is a comparison of whether these districts have a local optional homestead exemption or pay recapture. So you can

081see here like Katy ISD, um, Klein ISD, Tombball ISD for example, they do not offer a local optional homestead exemption. CFISD remains the lowest funded per pupil even after the additional funding from House Bill 2. increases and decreases that we shared with you last last month were compared to the 2526 adopted budget. The only changes from last month is a slight uh reduction in this slide in the in with the impact of the decline in enrollment due to how the preliminary property values received in April actually impacted state funding. So it's just a slight change in that amount with the decrease in enrollment. Then the budget was adjusted for the these expenditures and the only change here was an additional decrease of about $3 million in teacher allocations due to the decline in enrollment based

082on further review of staffing allocations. The departments cut their budget uh by $4 million and then we had a reduction of the net increase because of the miscellaneous expenditures res because u and and resulting in about about a half a million net increase there where it was previously closer to about $3 million. The 2627 budget does not currently include a raise for employees. And as a reminder, a 1% raise is about $9 million for CFISD. Based on the items discussed, the revised estimated deficit for 2627 is 67.4 million versus the 73.9 million shared last month. The decrease just as just to recap, the decrease from what was presented in April is due to receiving preliminary values which affects state funding and future uh evaluation of staffing due to the decline in enrollment. The district is

083waiting um on all of the federal fund grant amounts that for 2627 and if grant amounts decrease sometimes this can impact the budget. So just wanted to make you aware of that. This slide depicts what has happened to fund balance, the surplus and the months in fund balance and it has been updated with the changes shared for 2526 and 2627. The district has been able to maintain a healthy fund balance over time. However, you can see uh re with recent deficits, they have resulted um it has taken the months in fund balance, they have started to trend down. An adequate fund balance of at least four months in expenditures is important for districts with a June 30-year in order to manage cash flow low points, unanticipated revenue shortfalls, and unanticipated expenditures. The estimated months in

084fund balance at June 30, 2026 is now expected to be 4.92 months of expenditures. After the changes mentioned last month, it was 4.89 months. So, it's it's gone it's it's improved by a little bit. As mentioned, we estimate a deficit of 31.7 million at June 30, 2026, resulting in 4.92 months in fund balance. Based on the estimated deficit for 2526 and the changes in the 2627, it is estimated there will be 4.29 29 months of expenditures in fund balance at June 30, 2027, which is getting close to the four months in fund balance. In addition, enrollment is projected to decline another 2,000 plus students in 2728. Dr. Kian asked the at the April board meeting that finance provide the potential revenue that could be realized for each of the remaining enrichment pennies. A VATRE is

085a voter approval tax rate election. A voter approval tax rate election can only be held on the November general election day. Districts must select an auditor to conduct an efficiency audit no later than four months before the election. For 2026, the auditor must be selected by July 3rd, 2026. The election must be called no later than the 78th day before the date of the election. And since the general election is on November 3rd, 2026, the deadline to call the election is August 17, 2026. This is the same deadline for calling a bond election. As I mentioned last month, there's a total of 17 enrichment pennies available to school districts. School districts can access five with board approval and do not have to call for an election. So, those are the five that we have accessed.

086In order to access the remaining 12 pennies, the district must call a voter approval tax rate election. I'll go into more detail about the different type of pennies in the next in a in another slide. Dr. Killian also asked at the April board meeting to have the district's financial advisor determine if the interest in syncing tax rate could be reduced from 40 cents to 37 cents by restructuring the debt. As discussed at the February 5th board work session during the long range planning committee presentation, the district had already determined the debt rate could be reduced to 39 cents since one year of inflation was removed by reducing the period of time the bonds would be sold from 6 years to 5 years as well as confirmation that seat belts could be added to some of

087the buses to be in compliance with SB546 and maintain the warranty. The district has been conservative over the years with its estimate of the tax impact of a particular election and with the issuance of the bonds themselves. This conservative structure has allowed the district to maintain the INS tax rate since the 2014 bond election. Some of the basic assumptions that can be adjusted to reduce the tax rate are the term of the bonds, estimated borrowing rates, and other types of debt restructuring as we sell or we refund the bonds. In addition, you may recall there was not clarity on several of the hold harmlesses provided as a result of the recent tax relief. as we receive clarity on the additional hold harmless on the debt side for the decline in property values due to the

088increases in the state exemption and the over 65 tax relief. The financial adviser was able to confirm this positive impact along with the other items mentioned that the debt service tax rate could be reduced to 37. Of course, these assumptions are based on currently known information at this point in time. CFISD is considered a chapter 49 district which is the term for potentially being subject to recapture. Districts can be subject for rec capture in tier one up here as well as tier 2 on the copper penny portion. CFISD is currently only subject to recapture in tier 2 if we accessed any of those pennies which we do not have access we have not accessed at this point in time. The maintenance and operations tax rate is comped of two pieces the or tax it's the

089maximum compress rate which is tier one and enrichment pennies which is tier two. I already discussed the maximum caress rate earlier, but districts submit certain information to Texas Education Agency on property values and then they determine what that MCR is based on statutory formulas. As I mentioned, there are a total of 17 enrichment pennies available to school districts. And those 17 pennies are comprised of eight golden pennies and nine copper pennies. The first eight pennies are called golden pennies because they yield more revenue per penny and they are not subject to recapture even if a district is considered a recapture district or a chapter 49 district. CFISD has captured five of the eight golden pennies. So there's three remaining. The remaining nine pennies are called copper pennies because they yield less revenue of $49.72 compared

090to the golden pennies that yield $129.52 and they are subject to recapture. The copper pennies are subject to recapture. As I said, CFISD is considered recapture district in tier 2. So if we accessed um all any of the copper pennies, we would be subject to a small amount of recapture. This slide reflects the revenue gained by accessing 1 to 12 pennies. As I mentioned, there are three remaining golden pennies and nine remaining copper pennies. Each golden penny would yield an average of approximately 16.6 million and they are not subject to recapture. Each copper penny would yield an average of approximately six million net of recapture. Note that these amounts could change slightly when we receive estimated certified values from Harris County Appraisal District at the end of July. Another way to highlight the impact of

091enrichment pennies is look at the revenue per ADA under several scenarios. So you will see our revenue per ADA for 2425. what it's estimated to be in 2526 which is $9,274 in 2627 um if there was no VATRE and it was at the estimated tax rate that we're estimating estimated tax rate we would expect to have 9,829 would be the revenue per ADA then as you see I gave three different scenarios here just to give an example one with three pennies ones with seven and one with 12. And as you can see, that revenue goes up to over $10,000 per ADA uh with those additional pennies. To further illustrate the impact of accessing additional enrichment pennies, this slide shows several scenarios for a homeowner with a home value of $350,000. All scenarios are based on

092estimated M 2026 Mino tax rate of 6669 and an INS rate of 37 cents. Now this is subject to change whenever we get the maximum compressed rate from TEA um and the property value we're assuming the property value is remaining at $350,000. The first scenario assumes assessing the remaining three golden pennies, which would be an increase of 49.7 in general fund revenue. And it would which is also an increase of $482 net revenue gain per average daily attendance based on uh the fact that it would go up three golden pennies and down three pennies on the INS side. If it if the home value stayed at $350,000, there would be no change in school district property taxes on a $350,000 home. If you access three of the golden pennies and four of the copper pennies,

093then it would be an increase of 73.4 million net of 2.2 2 million in recapture in general fund revenue with it which is an increase of $712 net revenue gained per average daily attendance and would result in an increase an annual this is annual increase of $56 in school district property taxes on the $350,000 home. Then the last scenario is accessing three golden pennies and nine copper pennies which would be an increase of $103.2 $2 million net of 5 million in recapture in general fund revenue, which is an increase of 1,01 net revenue gain per ADA and an increase of $126 annually in school district property taxes on the $350,000 home. But I do want to highlight that this analysis includes the 20% local optional homestead exemption provided by the district. A homeowner with a

094home value of 350,000 saves approximately $747 to $810 based on these different scenarios listed here. Finally, a survey was sent to the board to obtain each board member's priorities. These priorities as well as the superintendent's priorities will be utilized to develop consensus at the May 21st special called workshop. The budget workshop will operate similar to last year where the priorities are ranked by each board member and the superintendent to develop the consensus. The budget must be adopted by June 30th, 2026. Before I open it up to questions, um Dr. Kian, do you have anything you want to add? Oh. First, I want to start by just thanking um Karen and Amanda and her staff for doing um all that extra work to come up with all the different comparisons and all. Um I want to

095go back um and just highlight a few of the new slides that she put together to kind of paint a picture for us. Um and they did a fantastic job with this. So, uh, the first one was, oh, that one. So, what I asked I I keep hearing, um, that, uh, people's taxes have gone up, their school taxes, they keep going up. they're they keep being elevated. But the only way I could think of capturing what all that looks like um on average would be to look back in 2019 what the market value was and then apply the tax rate at the time so you could see how much people were paying. Um, and remember this doesn't this doesn't really include like the $2,131 as $2,131 in 2019. So those dollars were worth more back

096then. So um, and then on the 2025 obviously market value because people complain about their their their market value going up and then of course that causes their taxes to go up. But what's happened over this whole time is a series of of basically the the exemptions that have been passed by the state to compress the rates. So just wanted to show that they actually have worked. I mean I've seen them on my own taxes on my homes over the years watching my tax bill go down for the school district. So and really it's been in lie of some of the increases that we were expecting in terms of our funding to take care of inflation. So, not only are you looking at a quite a bit of a drop um in terms of that

097average, but you're also looking at a dollar that's worth a lot less than what it was back then. So, um yeah. So, I just wanted to share that because I thought that would be gerine to okay, we're going to hear about that. Is it true? Is there a way to look at it to see and this is the only way I could I could see where it'd be fair to look at it. Um, now everybody's individual situation they'd have to look at. Obviously, if your home value accelerated faster than that, that kind of stuff or if it if it actually went down, you would see even better results from the compression and all that. And if you're 65 and older, you might and you've stayed in your home, you might see even better um better

098results from that. And then this one um I thought was interesting um because you know we're we're compared a lot to Katie. So and this is what Katie spends or what Katie collects for M taxes to run their school district to pay those salaries and and compete. So that's what we're competing with. And of course you can see Spring Branch with a recapture district is above us too. I mean, really, you're we're only talking about um Tom Ball and and Waller being potentially lower and Waller's not going to stay. Um yeah, it's they're they're going to be they're going to be an issue with the growth and this is where you see that because Waller is going to be up there for a while as they just try to keep up with the growth. And

099you can see Tombball as well. Um, and then Katie's inched up toward us because they've continued to grow over the years and have to build more facilities. Spring Branch, of course, isn't really growing. They're still uh paying for some bonds that they had, but also their property values are are better than ours, higher than ours. Um, if that's better. Um, and and that's kind of the comparison. So, and then I just wanted to to just point out to you too, remember we're talking about trying to compress that uh INS rate to uh 37 cents. So, we get down to 37 cents now. You know, Katie and Waller and all them and Tom Ball are all outpacing us, right, for the debt service. So, and then just go back to here. We're not generating a lot

100um in terms of um with that tax rate because then she goes into sharing this per ADA. This is quite striking I think. And I just wanted to show this is what we're up against. So, not only uh one of the things that's been saving us is how efficient we are for our size, but then also the fact that our administrative cost ratio is so low. Um and the support that you see around the district is there's just less of it, right? And that's because we generate less money um in revenue per ADA. Um and then you look at this one, if you look at it per student, it's it looks even worse, right? Um, and that's, you know, and and we're not that far away from from Katie in terms of size. Katie's right

101on our heels. And look how much more money they're generating per student. So, if you're going to keep up with the Joneses, that's a problem. That's a big problem for keeping staff and um keeping folks uh in our school district long term. And then the thing that really strikes you is when you're looking at this one. I'm sorry it's so small. Um it just that's the way it comes up on the screen. I wanted to go back to Oh gosh, where is that? So I'll just call out a number for you. So um this this year that they did this study, we were at $9,798. So, um, the average in the Houston area was 11,165. So, if you'll recall, none of those VAT pennies got us to the average. It just it's just not going

102to do it because that's the inequity now in the system. um with the combination of the lowhe and then just that some districts have access to pennies that we just simply don't have access to. Um that's it's unfair. So, and you think about some of the smaller districts that even get more revenue per student because they have a small small and midsize school adjustment. So, just wanted to share that. And then finally um on um on the uh on the budget um on the fund balance. So we are getting a little bit better in what we can expect um into the 26 27 school year um or into the yeah into the next year but we'll hit four four months right there. So we really don't have any wiggle room anymore um to spend some

103of the fund bounce going forward. So, we just want to keep that in your mind when we start talking about budget and ads and all those kinds of things. Um, a lot of those things are going to be quite impossible to to pay for because we'll end up below four months worth of operating at the end of next school year. And then um I just wanted to call your attention to uh again to the the fact that our uh our folks did a good job of reaching out to our our um FA and talking to them about um reducing the the debt service rate, but I want to stress that it's at a cost, right? So if we lengthen our terms, we're going to pay more more interest over time. So now in the in

104the current piece, it'll help our taxpayers now. Um, but it just means it's going to be bore over more people for a longer amount of time. So just just to put that in perspective a little bit. Um, and then um, thank you very much for showing all the enrichment pennies and what those would generate. I think this is a pretty striking chart. How much did we say we were going to be in deficit? 60 was it 67? Yeah. So we don't even get to 67 until seven pennies. That's when we get over 70. Yeah. Million. So just putting that into perspective. So if we did decide to call a VAT and we um called it for three pennies, all you're really doing is providing 50 million and we're still in deficit and you haven't solved

105anything going out any longer than that, right? So we we still can't spend fund balance, that kind of stuff. Um, so you have to kind of get to seven pennies before you're anywhere close to neutralizing it. Now, of course, we're going to still do some budget things. We're going to still look at um our our building usage, all that kind of stuff. We're probably I'll just put everybody on notice. We're probably going to try to zerobase budget next year, completely zerobased budget everything, and justify everything um for the the following year. That's going to take us a while to work through all that. Um, but I don't know how much that will save us. You know, I'm getting suggestions, oh, you need just just look at all the software. Well, we did that a couple

106years ago when we had to comply with the new laws. So, we have a lot less software that we utilize now and and technolog is doing a good uh job of trying to track what is being used and and updating what we're uh what we're tracking with so we can we can get more detail with that. But really, if if you're looking forward to trying to compete with the Joneses, um you almost have to go all the way up to, you know, 10,830 because otherwise you're nowhere close um to what even the average is. and that and um you've got shoot I'm looking at and the these numbers that you have on the box chart that um from mero those don't adjust um their district money. So while we're adjusting um if we ended up

107doing something with a VAT their numbers are going to move too um just by the formulas and the way they work they're going to move slightly but there you go. So, I just wanted to share all of that and thank you very much for the impact to the taxpayer and pointing out the LOHI. But I I will go back and uh if you if you look here, the LOHI provides uh better tax relief for our um homeowners than No. Yeah. Than a VAT. I I want to stress it's better not to get rid of the lowhe and ask for VAT pennies for from the taxpayer because that impacts them less as a homeowner. So they don't have to pay as much. So and it also does something else that a lot of people don't think

108about. Right now the state's holding on to our money. They've collected it from a variety of different sources. If we don't go for golden pennies and get weighted money from the state, that money stays up there and they get to do whatever they want to with it. And so far, that hasn't been to support public education really. So, and I know we're going to have some of our our folks reach out to our legislators say, "Oh, but we gave a historic increase to uh everybody." Well, that's great, but not in um it's slightly more than what we got in 2019 in terms of total money, but it's not in inflation adjusted money. So, if you adjust it for inflation, they gave us less money um than they did in 2019. So, just a dirty little

109secret there. And then that's really what I wanted to point out because I think really Amanda, thank you so much for your work. Thank you so much for your work to uh Karen and then anybody else in the um business office that helped produce some of this numbers. This these are really good charts that really painted a picture. Thank you. >> Okay, questions. Miss Karina. >> Yes. Uh thank you Dr. Kian. Uh well, thank you all uh for the work that you've done, but you brought up a a point and I wondered if you could kind of just explain it a little bit more maybe both of you, but when we're looking at that last slide where we were talking about the VAT versus the lowhe can you Yes, that one. Um and and kind

110of the reduction. Can you explain that? I know you said it it it definitely provides better. Can you give a little bit more deeper understanding or depth of explanation in this? >> Yeah. So, the the local optional homestead exemption applies just to homeowners, right? So, um that it gives them an automatic 20% reduction before you even start applying everything else. Right? So with the VAT that applies to the entire tax base, which is everything, businesses, anything that's out there that colle that property taxes are collected on. So when you spread the tax rate over more total dollars and that has less impact for everybody, um I guess the businesses might not like that. So I'll point that one out. But I think I think it's good, you know, I think we should all want to

111invest whether you're a local business or um individuals who have bought houses in here, right? We should all want to invest in our public schools because how successful our public schools is also demonstrates how successful our community is as a whole. Um and it's part of that economic cycle that you see whether it go from you know workforce development you know education workforce development and then kind of continues on and it's important for people I think to understand um what what's going to benefit them the most and especially as a homeowner where we know that inflation is hitting all of us everywhere um and hitting our pocketbooks pretty dearly but then you also have conversations with individuals and I just had one the other day was someone who was was telling me the story. I

112remember y'all saying people had called and said, "Why do I have a zero tax bill right now I'm supposed to be paying?" And the sentiment of this individual was, "My grandchildren are here and so I need to be paying something because I know that I'm investing in my grandchildren and then sooner or later my great grandchildren." So, >> uh, Mr. Mr. Ray, >> I'll reserve the majority of my u budget related questions to our meeting later this month. But one thing uh to trusting Camarina's comments about the low heat and it's worth addressing again. You know, Dr. Killian's comments were about the actual low he rate that the actual homeowners are playing. There's another way that we can address the lowhe as well, which is we've we've done legislatively and we'll continue to do legislatively

113is the state portion of the LOI as well. um if that was actually addressed that would be a gamecher for us and would have no impact on the sci-fi taxpayer. So that's definitely another way. So when we talk about LOI it's important for everybody to understand that yes there's the the rate in which they pay which in theory could be addressed or the state funding side in which the LOI is actually applicable to. So we're we're attacking that from multiple ways. But one question I have for Karen and Dr. Killian and you you it may lead to speculation. I'm not sure but uh the charts uh in which we compare all of the districts the funding they get compared to Scyfare. I found it very inter interesting. There were several school districts that had a

114similar 20% low heat and got significantly more money than us. Galina Park is a good example. Uh they get, you know, $12,700 per student. You're looking at Sheldon ISD, Deer Park. any speculation as to what contributes and what factors go into that uh M funding per student with that homestead uh exemption as compared to us? I have some I have some guesses myself, but I don't know if you guys had had any insight into that. >> Well, the first one I would come up with would be an example of Spring Branch. So, Spring Branch is um property wealthy, the Robin Hood district. So in tier I guess in tier two that's where they would get the benefit for >> they would actually benefit in tier one. >> Tier one. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm showing my

115I know just enough to be dangerous part. >> Is it safe to say that some of these districts may have had a a Vader election in years past which could have contributed to this as well? >> Correct. >> That's that would be my guess as well. in in a few of the districts that are smaller, I'd have to go look at how many students they have like Sheldon, but you know, I would have to see if they get the midsize, you know, aotment uh associated with that. I'd have to go look at what that amount is, but there are some districts that a few of them, most of them are may not fall in that category, but there might be a few. >> I was just curious because I mean there are examples of districts

116in which they have the homestead exemption. They are getting the funding that they need, but they have to go through a couple of different things to actually get it, which we may have to as well. Thank you, >> Dr. Lane. >> Uh, I just want to say thank you for the information you put together. Um, Justin, I I love that that uh tables and I always like to make sure that's seen by the community because it does relate us to our surrounding as uh um Dr. Killian said, you know, if we're trying to keep up with the Joneses, we didn't built this beautiful community, all these individual facilities, we have to do what we got to do um to make sure that we take care of it locally. So, if we sit here and look

117at what was been presented and those individual pennies, that does give us a little bit more local control of of our destiny, wouldn't you say? >> Yeah. Um Justin's point about the low he was well taken. Um obviously the legislature could do something about it and help us. Um but we we would be waiting yet again to see what happens in the legislative session and then by that time we would have exhausted the rest of the fund balance and we would we would be sitting at the end of the year and the the the soonest we could do any kind of VAT would be after we were already making cuts because we would have to make cuts going into the 2728 school year um and then we couldn't even do an election till November. of

118207. So, but um I I will say this, I am repeating my efforts to reach out to the commissioner. We just finalized a letter that's got our current data asking him because he can fund up to 50% of our LOHI with his uh FS FSP surplus um which is foundation school program surplus. Right there you go. Um I told you I got just enough to be dangerous. So um but uh yeah, so he could do that, but the last time he did not do that two years ago. So I'm just I'm I'm going to send that letter to him because it's about time for him to declare that surplus towards the the end of the summer. And then um um I will send copies of that letter to the board members, but then also to

119all of our representatives to see that we're still trying to fight that battle. And I know that we've got um one representative in particular who said that he was going to refi refile the the lowhe bill. So again, you know, I I've not seen the legislature in two years in a row do big increases for PubMed. Once they do it, they normally wait five, seven years before they end up doing it again. So for us, that would be catastrophic to have to to wait that long for it. So, yeah. So, I'd have to go back to your your uh comment that that would be the only way we we can actually have our our um our future in our own hands. Yeah. >> Uh Mr. LMO, he did ask me for >> Karen, uh thank

120you for your presentation on this and al also we had an we've had multiple conversations. Thank you for spending so much time with me. actually uh Christine Kbach actually attended a meeting as well and uh and Miss Camarina as well uh last Friday and with Matthew Mr. Morgan uh as well. And so I just wanted to tell tell you guys thank you this this slide that you have right here. I'm I'm glad that you put this together. I mean I I know we we had talked I was like you can we have something that we can show our community how much value that they get from our school district and I just wanted to just stress I mean you know the numbers don't lie. I I any anybody that that that is a reasonable person

121can understand there there's you have a certain cost that you that that these goods or our product is or the education of our of our um community's children. It's I'm I'm I'm probably the only business owner here. you get to a certain point where you know I've got I I charge a a rate for our our services and it has to be a competitive rate but if I drop it too low then it affects the the the the talent that I hire there's only so much so it's a you know um that costbenefit analysis I guess but you get to a certain point where okay we we need more funding we need we need more revenue coming in there there's no denying this this this chart. Um and given the competition that we have in

122the area, I mean again any reasonable person can understand that we are giving great value to our school district and our or to our district residents as well. So Karen, thank thank you for putting that together. I also had a couple questions. This this bond uh one of the concerns we have with going below four four months and and uh in bond rating, I know we we kind of touched base on this. What potentially if we were to go below four four months and and u and fund balance, how how many millions of dollars are we talking that could could potentially be affected? >> Dr. Killing, is that a Dr. Killian question or is it a >> Well, I mean I I could say I mean I can't say exactly what that would be, but

123what typically what will happen with that is it affects your bond rating. Your under what's called your underlying bond rating. we get what's called we get a a the best bond rating because of the permanent school fund. But the way that investors look at it is they look at that underlying bond rating too. And that helps determine what your borrowing rate is. So if as your as your as your ratings go down, your borrowing rate may be more. And so it could impact the borrowing rate which then it could impact the debt service tax rate. >> That that's uh that's where I was going to go as well. And um you know I've been on a lot of those rating calls with the agencies and their questions. They look back at what your trend line

124was for your revenue expenditures. Are you digging into fund balance? Why are you doing that? What are you doing to mitigate that? That kind of stuff. it it's going to be very difficult um without going for more revenue to keep that that number up. So that rating up >> and and going back to our our lowhe issue, this is something that we can't change until 2028. We we don't have we don't have an option. Um >> we we we did approach our legislators last time out didn't did didn't get what we wanted. Um Mr. Mr. Morra, the TEA commissioner, he he could potentially help again. I I'll I'll do whatever I can to uh to uh help help with that cause as well, but uh the reality is that's not guaranteed as well. So, just

125want the community to to understand those things. >> Okay, go ahead. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um Dr. Killian, I want to check my understanding. So, I'm gonna sort of uh say what I think I'm hearing and you if you would tell me whether I'm getting this right. >> So, if we were to wait on the Vader, then the next opportunity we'd have to do it, we'd already be making cuts. >> Correct. Because um you're already through you're already into this school year. If le let's say we did try Let me just play out some scenarios. So, let's say we did try to to ask the voters for uh VAT pennies and it fails in November. Then what we would be faced with um going into December and January is trying to make the cuts

126that will get us budget even for the next year so we can maintain that four months of operating. And that would have to be done over that rest of that winter and spring. And if we if we waited until um the November election in 27, well, we will already have gone through that because we're already at four months. So, >> thank you. And so, if we're already making cuts at that point, that is going to have implications for our competitiveness, right? because we so much of what our community values is all the programming as well as the academic excellence that we can offer our students and our families. And with uh declining competitiveness is going to come more declining enrollment which comes more declining revenue and it sort of becomes a snowball. Um and and

127then one more thing I wanted to check my understanding on and maybe this is Dr. Killian, maybe this is um Miss Smith. Could we go back to the projection on what the impact on people's property taxes would be with the Vader? Just want to review that again. Do you mind summarizing you yes I mean it quickly is basically in looking at it way we looked at this is I is it we estimated what we think the M tax rate will be and it's based on what has happened with property values based on the preliminary values we got at the end of April and so that's comprised of the which gave us a maximum compressed rate of 6169 you add the five pennies that's how we get to the 6669 and then looking at going down

128three pennies on the debt service rate that Dr. Killian asked that we look at if our financial adviser felt we could do that and he said yes. And so with with with doing some you know changes with our debt management. And so um basically if you look at this what we shared with you is if there were three golden pennies as part of the VATRE basically if this tax rate stays where it's at and property values don't in the property value remained at 350,000 they would not see a change they wouldn't have a change in their tax rate but they would also not have a change in their property taxes if property values went up. That would be different. Um, but then on a $350,000 home, if you had the three golden pennies and the

129seven copper pennies, then it would increase the tax the taxes on um a $350,000 home based on the tax rate I shared by $56 annually in property taxes. And >> and that's sorry, that's four or $5 a month, >> right? And then on the uh three golden pennies and the nine copper pennies, that's accessing all 12. The annual increase would be $126 in school district property taxes based on this tax rate in a $350,000 home. >> Thank you. And so that would be 10 or $11 a month. Um my husband and I are both educators and homeowners. I feel like we could afford that. Uh, you know, I'm just thinking that, you know, in general, we invest in what we value, right? And, um, so that's really got me thinking about making what it would

130mean to make an investment and that would, uh, be local control and keep us competitive. So, a lot of really good stuff to think about there. Thank you. >> Any additional questions? No. Thank you, Karen. Appreciate you very much. Moving on, item 6 C. The administration will provide a written report of the school health advisory council shack annual activities. This is questions only. Are there any questions? 6D. The administration will provide a report on compliance with Senate Bill 546. This is a presentation and the presenters are Darren Crawford and Dr. Kain Smith. >> Do you need a I think I got one here. All right. Oh. All right. Good evening, President Heinman, trustees, Dr. Killian. Uh this evening, I'm going to present an update on transportation services, and I'm going to try to make it

131a brief presentation. Uh specifically, Senate Bill 546 uh from the 89th Texas Legislature and how it will impact uh Scyfare ISD. So in short, Senate Bill 546 eliminated the exemptions of model year for the seat belt requirements on school buses as established by Senate Bill 693 in the 85th Texas legislature, which effectively said 2018 model year buses and newer had to have three-point seat belts unless the board in a public meeting voted that we didn't have the budget to do so. All of our buses since 2018 have been purchased with three-point seat belts. Senate Bill 546 mandates that all school buses must be equipped with threepoint lap shoulder belts by September 1st, 2029. Senate Bill 546 requires a presentation to the board of trustees and a determination be made if the district's budget allows for

132the purchase of school new school buses to replace those that would not be in compliance with Senate Bill 546. If the board determines the district's budget does not allow for the purchase of new buses, then a report must be made to TEA detailing the information listed in front of you by May 29th, 2026. So in front of you is an overview of our current school bus fleet. And is important to recognize that through proactive planning through our 2019 bond program, we are actually in a pretty good position with already 77% of our fleet equipped with three-point seat belts. We're also anticipating the number of buses needing these threepoint seat belts dropping as we have 10 new buses that are scheduled to arrive in August, replacing 10 older buses in the fleet. However, because we are

133a large fleet in a large district, we are still looking at 219 new school buses, which will cost um exceeds $44 million. There is an option outlined in Senate Bill 546 for retrofitting as long as the retrofitting does not void the warranty of the school bus since we've purchased buses already with three-point seat belts in since 2018 and warranties are typically for 5 years. That's not going to impact us. That exemption is not going to impact us. However, we have to consider two factors when talking about retrofitting. First is the manufacturer's verification or certification of the retrofitting work that's done to the school bus. And that's an extensive process of removing seats, possibly removing the flooring of the school bus, and installing new flooring, installing new seats that are should be compliant uh with FMVSS

134and Texas state school bus specifications. There are some manufacturers who won't even do that. They just have already sent out letters and said, "We're not going to uh retrofit school buses. We're not going to do that. Uh second, um buses that can be retrofitted, we're looking at costs anywhere from $ 35 to $40,000 a school bus. And that is a large investment on a vehicle that may be getting close to its end of life cycle. And you know, a school bus that's coming at the end of life cycle, we auction it off, we may get $5,000 in auction value out of that vehicle uh once it's uh sold. Therefore, after looking at our fleet, we've identified 78 buses that could be suitable for retrofitting and the remaining buses uh would not be viable uh for

135retrofitting. Uh and all this information has been presented uh to that to the long-range planning committee and was presented uh as part of the long-range planning committee to you. So, I'll be happy to answer any questions you have. >> Any Dr. Lane, >> uh thank you for the presentation. How long does it usually take for a retrofit to take place? Well, >> currently, um, we're looking at, when I originally made the phone calls, we were looking at 6 to 8 weeks, and that's to get the parts, all the equipment shipped in and actually get the work done. When you're looking at 1,200 school districts in the state of Texas possibly looking at doing this over the next two years, we can expect that timeline to be much longer. >> Thank you. Any questions? Miss Gilmore.

136>> Um, just for the community, I wanted to check on the bus routes that our students take every day. Are those buses compliant with the threepoint seat belts? >> Yes, ma'am. All of our assigned route buses are uh equipped with three-point seat belts. The ones that do not have three-point seat belts, we have as our spare buses. They're used if a route bus is down for maintenance or they're used mostly for in town athletic trips. >> Okay, that's reassuring. Thank you. And um I apologize if you mentioned this already. Uh this this legislation uh does did not provide funding, right? >> At this time there is no funding available. Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions? No, >> I would probably go ahead. I would I would have probably posed it this

137way. So, if it was so important to the legislature, did they provide funding? >> So, it wasn't that important to them. >> I'm thinking about how we invest in what we value. >> Great conversation. Yes. Uh we'll add that to the list of unfunded mandates where our local commun community is expected to um make those investments uh and be and locally funded through things like bond programs. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> The board will now review the following consent agenda items. During review of the following action items, any board member may remove one or more of these items, at which time the items will be addressed and voted on individually. If any board member has a question regarding an agenda item, please ask to be recognized on consent agenda items. 7 A.

138The board will consider approving the minutes of the April 13, 2026 regular board meeting. 7B. The board will consider approving the budget amendments for the period of January 1st, 2026 through March 31st, 2026. 7 C. The board will consider approving on second reading the additions, revisions, or deletions to district policies. 7C1 DBD local employment requirements and restrictions, conflict of interest, revise. 7 C2 DC local employment practices. Revise. 7C3 DEC local compensation and benefits leaves and absences revise. 7C4 DFBB local term contracts non-renewal revise. 7C5 FFB local student welfare crisis intervention revise. 7C6 FFF local student welfare student safety revise. 7D. The board will consider granting a landscape facilities maintenance easement to Harris County Municipal Utility District number 166. 7E. The board will consider awarding bids and contracts and or authorizing purchase orders as recommended in

139the posted agenda item. 7E1 CFISD student technology safety and digital wellness platform. 7E2 mobile pump and fill station for nutrition services. 7E3 print shop equipment leases monthly maintenance components and click charges. Are there any qu questions on the consent agenda? Seeing none, we will now proceed with the non-consent agenda items. 8.A. The board will consider approving on first reading the additions, revisions, or deletions to district policies. 8A1 BBD local board members training and orientation revised. 8 A2 BBFA local ethics conflict of interest disclosures revise. 83 BDB local board internal organization board committees revise. 884 BDF local board internal organization advisory committees add 85 CJ local contracted services revise 8 A6 CJ local contracted services background checks and required reporting revise 8 A7 CKC local safety program risk management emergency plans. Revise 8 A8 CQB local

140technology resources cyber security revise. 8 A9 CSA local facility standards safety and security. Add 8 A10 C local facilities construction revise. 8 A1 E D local instructional arrangements student schedules LDU revise 8 A12 F EF local attendance released time add 8 A13 C sorry my bad G K local community relations conduct on school premises revise Phew Any questions? Okay, good. 8B. The board will receive legal advice from the general counsel on a matter in which the ethical duty of the general counsel to the board of trustees clearly conflicts with chapter 551 of the Texas government code on status of pending litigation in Nathan versus Alamo Heights Independent School District number 25-50695 Fifth Circuit April 21st 2026 and pending litigation and consideration of a settlement agreement in administrative hearing cause 25-0281- K, Cypress Fairbanks Independent School

141District versus Texas Department of Health and Human Services. This item will be discussed in close session. 8C. The board will consider making a determination that good cause did not exist as required by law for the employees stated to resign their respective employment contracts. This item may be discussed in close session. 8D. The board will consider the superintendent's recommendation to extend the 30-year chapter 21 probationary contract for the teacher listed and approve a fourthyear probationary contract pursuant to Texas Education Code 21.102C and board policy DA legal. This item will be discussed in close session 8. The district will consider a level four appeal M. Jackson of a level three decision. The board will consider and take action on Thursday, May 7th, 2026. This item will be discussed in close session 8F. >> Can I just >>

142Oh, sure. Of course. Um, I just wanted to before we close and go into close session, I just wanted to just thank the board because I know a lot of people were out there didn't see any questions um by the board on some of these items, but that was because y'all really did help us by getting those questions in ahead of time and I just wanted to thank thank all of y'all for doing that because we were able to get a lot of information out and that's our purpose. >> Thank you, Dr. Kellian. 8F. The board will consider approving the superintendent's recommendation to give notice to Mary Jackson that her employment with district under a probationary contract is terminated at the end of the contract and authorize the president of the board to notify Mary

143Jackson of the action pursuant to 21.103 of the Texas Educator Code. The board will consider and take action on Monday, May 11th, 2026. This item will be discussed in close session. The board will move and meet in close session this evening regarding discussion item 9A districtwide audit report findings and corrective actions. The board will now move to close session to discuss agenda items 8B through 8E and 9A. Following the conclusion of the close session, we will return to open session to take action on item 8E. May I have a motion to move into close session? So moved. >> Thank you. May I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. All those in favor? The motion passes. We are now moving into close session. The time is now 9:33 and we are now back in

144open session and we'll continue with agenda item 8E. 8E. The district will consider a level four appeal M. Jackson of a level three decision. The board did hear this matter in close session and will take action on Thursday, May 7th, 2026. May I have a motion? >> I move that the board uphold the level three decision made by the administration. >> May I have a second? >> I second. >> Are there any questions? Seeing none, we'll take a vote. All those in favor, please raise your hand. The motion has passed. The board has concluded its business meeting. We appreciate your interest in CFISD. Hearing no objections. Oh, this is not true. Hearing no objections, we're going to go back into close session uh to continue uh with the rest of the board meeting agenda.