Regular Board Meeting | February 10, 2025

001[Music] good evening the saers Fairbanks Independent School District board trustees is now convened in the regular board meeting on Monday February 10th 2025 in the Board Room of Cyprus Fairbanks Independent School District Mark Herer building at 6m i' like to welcome both our audience members and our viewers to the meeting the board is here to set goals review reports approv budgets contracts Personnel appointments and establish board policy for the district it's not the board's role to handle a daily operations that responsibil lie the superintendent policies and procedures in place to address concerns this is a board meeting of the board trustees held in public but not a public meeting audience participation is limited designate times for assistant comments or agend related comments we ask for cooperation in ensuring the meeting runs orderly and efficient as

002outlined in board policy disruption of the meaning by any person including audence member is not allowed will be addressed by the board president or counsel percent disruption can result in removal from them prises premises and in some cases may lead to legal consequences including arrest if you're disruptive individuals may be asked to leave and view from the gallery in the Overflow area board members have received materials related tonight agenda items ahead of the meeting agenda items may not be handled in order they're seen on the agenda if the board determines that a closed meeting is needed we'll do so in accordance of section 551.071 through 55108 4 of of the Texas government code tonight's proceedings are broadcast live on District website and available for viewing afterwards for viewing to reflect the meeting clearly please refrain

003from speaking While others are talking and keep your cell phones turned off or on silent thank you for joining us this evening and your continued interest in Cypress fairx Independent School District tonight we have Grace Hanley from representative alliv ver office and also Elizabeth Stinson from state senator Mitten Court's office thank you for being here please note that board members may not respond to public comments nor does that imply any validation of those comments participants should be aware that public comments are not protected against claims of defamation or maal privacy for detailed information on register and speak please visit the desct website at cfisd.net patrons registered to speak will see their names on the screen when your name is called please move forward to the front row is reserved for you when you approach the

004podium you'll see a timer on the monitor will be given warnings of 30 seconds and 15 seconds to wrap up your comments total speaking time will on the number of speakers registered for tonight the invocation for tonight's board meeting will Begin by Heather to tolerson senior Minister and at First Christian Church Katie thank you heather for being here tonight before the invocation I'd like to introduce the Cypress Falls High School uh Air Force Junior ROTC Cadets will perform tonight's Olive guard Color Guard we have the US guard Scarlet Zamara carrying the US flag is Lauren Miller caring the Texas flag is ISA Isabella Pang and the Texas guard is Isabella singer these Cadets present the colors news evening under direction of Lieutenant Colonel Chris Eckles US Air Force retired at this time I'd like to

005ask you to stand for the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance and the Texas flag will you join with me in prayer to the one whom we call Everlasting and steadfast we give thanks for the ways in which you have called us to be leaders in this time in this place oh God may you give us Hearts to truly hear those in our community may you give us courage to truly stand with and speak up to be the leaders in which you have called us to be for it is so easy in this time to let differences divide us and instead of unite us and so regardless of who we are and where we have been may we represent this deep and vast School District in all of its diversity and everyone who makes it

006up especially our students regardless of race or gender or class or our gender identity or expression or Sexual Orientation May you let us lead each and every student with dignity and respect showing them that they are a valued member of our school district that makes us strong may you allow us to leave our own convictions behind and truly embrace the leadership ship in which you have called those who have voice here tonight to give voice to may they in tune and always represent those in whom we look out for the children of God of this school district each and every one of them amen color H guard col it I pledge algi to the of the United States of America and toag you be seated trustee Julie hotman Now read The District's vision and mission

007statement our vision at cfd is formed from the acronym lead to learn Empower achieve dream lead our mission is to maximize every student's potential through rigorous and relevant learning experiences preparing students to be 21st century global leaders we'll now proceed with remarks and announcements portion of the agenda 1A superintendent will make remarks announcements regarding honors and achievements earned by staff and students in recent weeks Dr kilan cfd started uh this year off right in 2025 and please enjoy this January recap video highlighting how our students and staff are on the path to [Music] amazing yeah [Music] oh oh yeah oh oh yeah oh oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah oh oh oh [Music] yeah oh [Applause] yeah all right the bring out the best character trait for the month of February is loyalty thank you to

008all the campuses for emphasizing strong character for all of our cfis students well it was another successful year for the 31st Annual cfis Livestock Show and sale held January 30th through February the 1st at the cfis exhibit Center plea project student projects generated an estimated total of more than $625,000 please enjoy this video highlighting the event [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] winning this was just like we came overcame a lot of obstacles so it just feels amazing as all our hard work that we've done in the past couple months really paid off I'd like to thank my parents and Mr T because without them none of this would ever be possible with all their hard work and dedication every day at the barn morning and night it's a lot but it's definitely worth it in the

009end it's amazing like this is an experience I never thought I'd achieve my mom and my dad and they're all a big part of this and I wouldn't have been able to do it without them [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey you know a thing like the livestock show doesn't just go off um without a hitch it takes a lot of people behind the scenes and just a big thank you to the staff and all of the volunteers that helped making make it such a success because there's a lot of moving pieces behind to make sure that animal show worked and all the projects were seen so thank you for all the staff oh since 1976 every US president has a officially designated the month of February as Black History Month a celebration of achievements of black

010Americans and a time to recognize the central roles and contributions to our country you can get insight in in into the district's history by learning about the early settlers of the independence Garden uh currently known as the Carvel Community by visiting our district website a video posted on the site tells their story and includes a longtime community members sharing their memories so thank you for all the work that was put in to put that video together it is also uh CTE uh Education Month every February the Cent technology education Community celebrates CTE month to raise awareness of the role that CTE has uh to reading learners for College and Career support and success cfis is proud to have more than 40,000 students participating in 30 plus career related programs of study each with certification opportunities

011more than 12,000 certifications are earned each year and um as yall recall there used to be a time when we called um CTE something else and I was listening to an interesting podcast the other day and back in I guess it was in the 50s we used to call it vocational Arts because it was such an art and it celebrated the the art of Plumbing the art of carpentry the art of electrician the art of those Vacations so I'm going to try to say more often thank thank you for supporting the vocational Arts because it truly is an art form and we need to celebrate that even more in our country all right we got a lot of awards uh this month so um it is also love the bus bus month so since 2007

012American School Bus Council has celebrated the school bus's influence on learning through uh stories that span the nation each February students schools and educators are invited to highlight the important role of the yellow school bus during the love the bus month we certainly want to uh thank the cfis transportation team and incredible bus drivers who start and end our students instructional day on a positive note and with a smile for all of our kids thank you very much for our transportation department um it is also National resource officer appreciation day uh this month the National Association of school resource officers um encourages schools and community to recognize the valuable work of their school resource officers during the national school resource officer Appreciation Day on February 15th and I'd just like to personally thank all of

013our officers for not only serving our community or our campuses and our kids but also the entire Community because our officers respond and back up um the sheriff's office staff and also our consal staff so thank you very much for all the our police force and everything they do to make us safe in our community um it's also about to be National FFA week each year FFA chapters across the country celebrate National FFA week a time to share what FFA is and the impact it has on members every day this year FFA week will be celebrated on February 15th through the 22nd also like to just highlight the fact that I learned all the good stuff about how to run a meeting and all the proper ways to do Roberts rules in FFA meeting you

014want to see a meeting run well go to an FFA meeting run by the students it's outstanding um President's Day is a Federal holiday celebrated on the third Monday in February this year's celebration is set for February 17th originally established in 1885 in recognition of uh President George Washington the holiday became popular known as president day and here's a reminder I know the students aren't really going to need um a reminder that Friday February 14th and Monday February 17th will both be professional days and student holidays enjoy the long weekend students and celebrate that President's Day and next I'd just like to take a moment to uh for a special recognition I mentioned this on uh mon or Thursday last week about our pe's department our public education information management system that's our system that

015we report to the state all the data all of our attendance everything we have regular uh reporting periods throughout the month and uh Jennifer grim and her staff did an amazing job doing a transition for us to ed5 standards which was very time consuming um involved a lot of changes and a lot of resubmissions and we actually had a last minute glitch in the system when we were reporting to um our our agency we actually started deleting some of our files so our staff members came in on the weekend not this past weekend but the weekend before to make sure our data was absolutely fatal free there were no flaws in it so really wanted to appreciate uh Jennifer grim and I also just wanted to appreciate some leaders in the department that helped that

016submission go through Christina Maldonado Tina Miller Jennifer Sams Dora Garcia and Sarah oakw I hope I said that correctly um and then there was a number of just uh General Pam staff that also helped out so just thank them um for their efforts and uh keeping our data clean that's how we have our accountability that's how our finances go all that data is responsible for how everything is calculated going forward and then um I also have a special acknowledgement that I would like to say um we had an interesting situation in Pasadena that no one wants to ever have happened um our uh U band actually our drum line was competing about two weeks ago um and on the weekend on a Saturday most of them were done and packed up and leaving but we

017had a um a gentleman in that commity community over there um come into the building elderly gentlemen and um was obviously experiencing some problems and actually displayed a gun and shot um in the uh entryway and one of our staff members was there and actually stepped up and ran over and um tackled the individual to make sure there was no one else uh injured uh by him and then also I found out after I shared that with um our staff members that there was another person that uh does something for us that actually drives an 18-wheeler and it's part of a an organization that supports our transportation department and drives the 18wheeler the the uh cyfair High School um band um 18wheeler and he also came to assist along with the believe the four Pasadena

018dads that showed up as well um and because of their efforts actually I went over and and saw uh Juan Lopez who's a teacher over at uh Cypress Ranch High School and presented him with the superintendent coin I've only given out two of those um in the time I've been here and so it you know he was obviously a humble person didn't want to talk to Media but I just felt like we needed to recognize him and just say thank you so much um did Juan come by as a matter of fact did he make it he's right there all right could you stand up so that we can recognize you [Applause] [Music] um very humble person I was uh um went to his classroom to to talk to him and I presented it to

019him and I thought the class wasn't listening they were listening they rupt it in some chairs for him so it was really good so thank you for everything you do for us and in addition thank you for taking that extra step we do appreciate you and then the other person that um I found out about was Todd uh Todd uh Pew um he drives that bus that I was talking about so I'm going to reach out to him as well um he is actually working and so he couldn't be here tonight but I wanted to also take time to recognize his Valiant efforts to help out um and he'll be featured in our midweek uh this next actually this Wednesday coming out so thank you so much for your work all right finally I have

020something a little bit special so as a matter of fact I guess you can roll the special graphic we are officially approved as a TIA District we [Applause] passed so Tia is the teacher incentive allotment so it was uh created back in I think the 2019 legislative session and it um provides additional rewards for our teachers um for student progress and there was a long lengthy Pro process where we would to put an application in and we had a number of Staff members that were involved in a teacher incentive allotment committee to decide um how we were going to start it off collect all the data we needed to collect and then we had to send it off to Texas Tech uh to get it to uh get it looked at and make sure that

021our all of our calculations were correct and all the statistical analysis and the reason why I bring that up is because um well we couldn't have done it without a couple of folks that really poured their heart and soul into this because there's so much uh statistical analysis that goes into whether or not there was a statistically significant move of a teacher um in terms of what they did with a a student and all that related to uh a test um we had to do a lot of work on the front end before we submitted staff member names and um really um I'd like to thank Ashley Clayburn who in the audience as well who was key in that also uh Mo Wong who works in her Department a statistician I believe and nail uh

022let's see uh chof is that right CH chenu okay so thank them as well because they had to do a lot of work on the on the back end after we decided who we were going to start with and um what kind of um what kind of measures we were going to use to to send that stuff in and then it had to pass a statistician in Texas Tech and you know that's pretty hard for Texas Tech to do because they're not A&M so wow okay so it's Texas Tech come on um but they were able to match our numbers and so uh actually I have a little bit more information that I wanted to share with you what this means to us actually so of the 3,588 CFI teachers uh that submitted that we

023submitted for evaluation 1,75 were recommended for designation and they will receive more than $7 million that will be shared by them so this is the one that you probably heard a lot where we have different levels of designation and if you serve on an economically disadvantaged campus that has a high percentage of poverty um and you're able to move student performance uh you're going to you're going to make more money in our district not only will you get your regular salary and stiens but you're also are going to get a teacher incentive allotment and the cool thing about it it's good for a couple years um once you're designated you continue to get that money uh year-over-year and it's an additional pot of money that the legislature has set aside to reward teachers so we're

024super excited and we know we're going to continue to get more teachers designated and it's just going to mean more money keep them in the profession and um make this profession even more beneficial so thank you for all that that effort and congratulations to the [Applause] district and then finally I need to throw it over to our CH Chief academic officer Dr Tanya G and who is going to announce two new assistant superintendant Tanya thank you president Henry Dr Killian and Board of Trustees it is my pleasure to introduce two new assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction first Dr Vivian Bennett has been selected as the new assistant superintendent for secondary curriculum and instruction with 26 years in education including 17 years as an administrator Dr Bennett brings a wealth of experience leadership and a

025passion for academic Excellence to this position Dr Bennett began her career as a biology teacher in Al ISD before joining SF Falls High School in 2000 she later trans positioned to serve as an assistant principal at Hopper Middle School where her commitment to curriculum develop to curriculum development and instructional Excellence continued to exemplify and she transitioned to sanch high school fulfilling roles as both an assistant principal and a director of instruction before assuming her role as principal at David Anthony Middle School Dr Bennett holds a Bachelor of Science and biology education from Southeastern Louisiana University a master's degree in educational leadership from priew A&M University and a doctorate in professional leadership from the University of Houston she has also completed Advanced leadership training including the Rice University Executive Education Academy and the naesp leadership immersion

026Institute Dr Bennett's dedication to Student Success passion for education and extensive experience will play a key role in shaping the future of secondary education in Cypress Fairbanks ISD please join me in welcoming Dr Viv Vivian Bennett to her new role thank you to Dr Killian Board of Trustees and the cabinet thank you for the incredible opportunity to serve as the assistant superintendent for secondary curriculum and instruction I truly counted as a joy and a blessing to join the team that plays such a vital role in supporting student learning and empowering our teachers and campuses as you know in our intro videos displayed our District offers a diverse array of courses that cater to the varied interests and needs of our students and these efforts are essential in shaping the future of each cfd graduate I

027am particularly grateful for the welcoming support of Dr Bergman and the entire curriculum and instruction team who are making my transition seamless as we commit to the success of every student Anthony Middle School will hold a special place in my heart it's where I began my journey as principle over the past seven years and I remain deeply inspired by the students teachers staff parents and the community's commitment and they always exemplify Excellence I also want to take a moment to recognize two of my former principles Dr bourman Who's in the audience and Mr Bob Hull whose leadership and mentorship shape me to be the leader I am today I am grateful for the guidance and wisdom I have received from many others in this room as well as those who are watching online I am

028especially thankful for the unwavering support of my parents my mom is here with me my dad is watching from home today my mom is my role model who is still teaching and inspiring others today also who joins me are my children stay there Kyle Casey and Kevin all who are products of cfis D once again thank you for entrusting me with the responsibility of serving our students teachers and campuses I am committed to ensuring that all students experience maximum learning and success thank you [Applause] I am now pleased to introduce Melissa Martin the new assistant superintendent for elementary curriculum and [Applause] instruction Miss Martin is in her 20th year in education all of which have been proudly dedicated to Cypress fed Banks ISD throughout her tenure Miss Martin has served in a variety of impactful

029roles including classroom teacher assistant director of curriculum with Community programs assistant principal and most recently principal at frankone elementary under her leadership frankone earned the model School designation in 2024 and Melissa and her leadership team had the privilege of being selected to present on best practices at the prestigious model schools conference Mrs Martin's commitment to leadership and professional growth is reflected in her participation in the Harvard School turnaround leaders program and her active role in mentoring aspiring administrators and new principles within the district her dedication to academic success and Innovative instruction have consistently resulted in positive outcomes for students and staff Melissa began her educational Journey at Baylor University earning a bachelor in science and later obtained a masters in educational leadership and policy studies from the University of Texas at Arlington I am conf

030that her passion experience and Leadership will drive continued success for Cypress fanks I please join me in congratulating Melissa Martin president Henry Dr Killian and Board of Trustees I am so grateful for this opportunity and the circumstances that led me here 20 years ago my first interview at my college career fair was with cfd and since that time I've been blessed to work under truly inspirational leaders including three separate principal of the year honores and alongside some of the most amazing administrators teachers and support staff all of whom have helped me grow as an educator speaking of amazing administrators teachers and support staff I'd like to take a moment to thank the incredible team at Fran Con Elementary some of whom are here celebrating with me this evening representing the yellow and blue you all

031are the heartbeat of public education and I'm confident you will continue to influence more outcomes than you'll ever know lastly I'd like to recognize my incredible support system my husband Ashley who's here with me this evening and my family watching online from Waco Georgetown and as far away as California your support has always made the impossible seem Within Reach thank you all again for this opportunity to continue serving a community that is truly home and that I care so deeply [Applause] about moving on to recognition forc of the agenda 2A the board recognizes the cfis business partner for their outstanding contribution District Don Tron you are up good evening president Henry Dr Killian Board of Trustees it is my great honor and privilege to stand before you today to recognize and celebrate the incredible contributions

032of Memorial Herman Cypress Hospital led by senior vice president and chief executive officer Jerry Ashworth Jerry would you and your team please come forward Jerry your Hospital's commitment to our district is truly commendable Memorial Herman Cypress has has been a steadfast underwriter for the superintendent fundr run for years your support for the health Expo in November a collaboration between the cair Houston Chamber of Commerce and the school district has been unwavering additionally Your sponsorship of the VIPs luncheon has allowed us to recognize our business partners and volunteers your contributions extend beyond financial support Memorial Herman Cyprus sponsors the fall School nurses meeting and their end of Year celebrations facilitates School nurses comp competency Chuck offs and provides physician speakers for educational purposes throughout the year you also sponsor the community science night and actively participate

033in both business expos in August for cfd leadership and cfd news new staff orientation Memorial Herman cyprus's commitment to our district is evident in our annual advertising efforts including stadium and bus ads and your participation in the bus buddy program every year where we see Jerry sweating on a bus helping our Learners get home safely your support for October breast cancer awareness where you recognize survivors and doctors at a game and host a special uh mamogram day for cfis employees is deeply appreciated in the realm of Athletics Memorial Herman support is unparalleled you provide a comprehensive athletic training program that includes service to middle schools and high schools in our district each high school has two District employed athletic trainers and Memorial Herman supports six of those schools and 10 of our middle schools by

034adding an additional athletic trainer at each School your athletic trainers support the district trainers with daily treatments practice coverage game and event coverage and athletic physicals through your support we can provide each athlete with a comprehensive plan for prevention referral treatment and return to play from athletic injuries your generosity extends to donating items for principal's appreciation month hosting HOSA from s Woods every year where students get exposure to the medical field Memorial Herman Cyprus is a proud partner of the cipher Educational Foundation that raises funds for scholarship opportunities for our seniors last week you supported the students at our cfis D FFA show and we cannot thank you enough Mr Ashworth the support and dedication of Memorial Herman Cyprus has made a lasting impact on our community on behalf of the Cypress Fairbanks Independent School

035District I extend our deepest gratitude for your unwavering commitment and support thank you for all that you and your Dynamic team do thank [Applause] you we'll now take a short break before continue want the business of the board [Applause] PR [Applause] [Music] six week [Applause] [Music] e e e [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] we now proceed uh with board [Applause] comments if I can get your attention please we're now to continue on with the board [Music] meeting when proceed with board comments board members may make comments during a portion of the agenda regarding stent achievement District progress and data Community input concerns observations of school visits meetings conferences attendant district and community events initiatives or contined education the board may not take any action on i'ms discussed um let's start to my

036left Julie would you like to go first please good evening um this is an opportunity for board members to share um our time that we get to visit campuses and attend events um I try to do that on a weekly basis on my trustee social media on Facebook so I won't go into detail about my uh various uh activities and events around the district um there is truly so much to Spotlight and highlight but so I do want to just give a couple of shoutouts um from this past um week or two um I did have a visit to the Carpenter Center which is one of our special education campuses and what I truly um love about this campus is that even though that these students may have special education needs the director of the

037campus um identified that some of these students also have exceptional needs they they are also uh could qualify for gifted and talented services so she brought in um uh some testing for her students and found that there are significant number of her students who are considered special education but who are also qualified for GT and I love that that's an example of how we teach the whole child that we look at um students as individuals and that we provide the services necessary so that they can all be successful um I know we just said a a big uh celebration for uh the principal at Frank Cone Elementary but I also want to acknowledge how um incredible she and her staff are at empowering students um a teacher on her campus shared a book um about

038the Lunar New Year and her students were so inspired by that that they wrote her a letter and asked her to share it with nutrition services to ask if they could celebrate the Lunar New Year um in the cafeteria they specifically asked for dumplings um and noodles and it was spilled in a funny way if you saw the letter it was spelled funny um uh phonetically and uh I'm so proud that our nutrition services folks stepped up figured out a way to serve um dumplings and noodles and fortune cookies at every Elementary School in our district I just love that that's an example of how our Educators listen to students Empower them to use their voices and that our um service departments are then also empowered to um to provide F their students and and

039I just think that that's a lesson I fully expect that those two girls who wrote that letter will use that on their college essays their college applications I hope they do and I'll write a recommendation letter if they need it um I two more things I want to recognize one is um TR middle school um uh just competed at our high school district robotics competition they were the only Middle School to compete um this was very unique in that um typically we don't have robotics programs in our middle schools but the principal um Dr Williams found the resources to purchase a robot kit for his students and they um adjusted on the fly at the competition and they even beat some of the high school teams and I just again find that so empowering for

040students and that will for sure encourage them to continue um with their robotics education in high school so I just want to give a shout out to Dr Williams and to his team um who uh look for ways to overcome obstacles and barriers for our students to find success in school and then lastly I just want to acknowledge um that uh uh coach young at Campbell Middle School um recently passed away and he continues to inspire um the students students and staff um and administrators who've worked with Coach young and um and uh his family and his uh friends and his campus will um continue to be in our prayers next topic is uh we are in the middle of the legislative session if you didn't know but it's here we're in it um there

041have been several bills um filed that will impact Cipher SD um some positively and some negative negatively um I would say for folks that are interested in following the bill or to having an an opinion about them um the devil is in the details I would encourage you to read the bills that truly understand what the bills say it's important to have informed understanding and opinions it's easy to say misleading things like vouchers come from a different pot of money and they won't hurt Public Schools but the facts show that this statement is not truthful the details in specifically in that voucher bill um include $30 million to the comp troller office to manage the program plus $50 million to education assistance organizations which is another word for for-profit vendors to process the paperwork and

042collect student data these are dollars that could be better spent to support our local public schools as required by article 7 of the Texas Constitution um another um document to I would encourage you to look into is um the legislative budget board which is a u nonpartisan nonel group um that just focus on um statistical analysis of the financial impact of bills um in this case the voucher bill will start at $1 billion and grows to $4 billion per year as well as grows the number of people within the state government by 42 fulltime employees that's a significant increase in bureaucracy and cost for the State of Texas taxpayers I want to say thank you to community members and organizations that are advocating for our cfd legislative priorities specifically to address the underfunded areas of

043special education school safety Transportation this should be our number one Focus right now as we begin to prepare for the next school year budget cycle thank you thank you Christine good evening cyer welcome to February it's been a productive month I'd like to give a report for my academic safety vision and planning committee meeting uh in the meeting we had a a presentation by Hull and Scott Tucker on the enrollment and withdrawal analysis in our district um it highlighted some of the opportunities that we have to improve and it also shared um the challenges with state and federal funding um charter schools home school options and private schools um and Charter um the fact that we are facing a lower birth rate in our area and the challenge in the current housing market it's very

044expensive to own a house nowadays and people are staying in their homes rather than relocating and so that's a challenge in our district where we would love for young families to be able to move in but they can't even afford a house so um that's one of the challenges that we're facing and so we also had an update on strategic plan goal three with Christina Cole Mrs Cole provided an update on the reporting system used to collect data and Report the graduation rate um the system will be tracking the students so we're super excited this is real-time information that will be addressed this semester um a report on that will be provided in March to the board we also had an update on progress uh for strategic plans goals 1 15 and six by Dr

045Tanya gory uh Dr gory provided the results of the formative assessment we received those at the Thursday board work session I highly encourage you to watch that if you have not seen it yet to review it and then also uh we are uh pursuing a global volunteer reading and math plan by Dr gory we were pushing for reading and she said let's do reading and math uh to get our students up to speed and so she's going to be uh intentionally researching with her group group to look at reading and math materials that will be used to train Global volunteers who will provide addition additional support to students who struggle in these content areas this program will be implemented in the coming school year she also s shared the na results um and although a

046random sample of students take that um they the district does not receive the results for safety Safety and Security Chief Mendes shared a report and presented that at the Thursday board work session again I encourage en you to go back and watch it the report provided an overview of the department and the various statistics Scott Hudson provided an overview of Emergency Management the district safety security committee and intr Intruder detection audits uh also Mr Morgan gave us an update on the bus driver and the uh vacancies that we have uh to date since November 11th uh Mr Morgan shared that we've had 302 driver applications we've had 108 uh drivers not qualified and we also have 173 of those drivers in progress 37 are actually being trained and we still have 44 vacancies on our

047routes that we have in place right now there also were a few sidewalk projects that were mentioned by Aragon Burks MUD district 155 has donated a sidewalk to connect the pedestrian bridge to South Aragon to Pavement at Aragon this will also connect the walking trails at Brookside Court and Copper Creek and then also from Milsap in Precinct 3 a sidewalk will be constructed on shaft Road okay I also um wanted to just share a few comments I believe parents should be making the decisions for their students and we should be supporting them in every way we can I am hopeful that the state will fully fund our public schools and come up with a better solution for Alternatives um our district Focus has been the local optional homestead exemption again we give a 20% tax

048break to to our our homeowners and cyfair super proud of that that's been going on since 1983 that is to the tune of a loss of $91 million to the district however so we do not have those funds to utilize school districts with that that pay recapture receive a portion to offset that but again we do not and we're hopeful that this uh legislative session that will be remedied uh increasing the school safety allotment uh cyer received 2.3 million we expand we expended 51 milon slight Gap there so we need uh more inform uh more uh funds for the uh safety School allotment and we're hopeful for that our uh police department specifically had $16 million in personnel and operations and then also we would like to have an additional officer at each one of

049our schools that's to do an additional 60 officers that would be $9 million so those are some big numbers that we need help with special education the current funding model has been in place since the 90s we we received 99 million for special education but we expended $157 million and we also had a deduction on that on uh the Char's funding we've lost some funding from that hopefully that will get resolved as well um for the funding again we're asking for an increase in transportation funding as well cyfair received $8 million for transportation but we expended 46 million and transportation services um we are inviting our community parents extended family members citizens faith community business Civic organization and others to partner with our district on the reading and math initiative that's still in development we

050want to improve student outcomes and help with every student in the district that is behind in reading and math as our committee continues to meet and collaborate with District leadership we will continue to improve and refine student outcomes I also attended a number of events in our district I'll post that on my social media I'm very proud of our FFA students and our students that are competing academically athletically and Technologic technologically these experiences help our students to overcome challenges uh learn how to deal with adversity and learn to problem solve all will which will help them to function as well-rounded adults I did want to give a shout out to Cardin trong who is a junior at Cypress Woods High School he recently completed an internship in Washington DC at Senator John corin's office it's

051been a great experience for him and one that few high schoolers will ever get to experience to be able to serve and see how our government works at the federal level congratulations Carden I also wanted to give a shout out to our teachers so many of them are working countless hours to pour into our students help those students who are struggling while maintaining a huge amount of paperwork grading assignments individual education and specialized education programs I'm hopeful that our federal and state mandates on them will become more streamlined and less burdensome we have many great teachers and I would hope that we would be able to to our ad hoc teacher committee to continue to meet to help our teachers and help Focus bringing them more job satisfaction so I do so appreciate every one

052of you I want to say thank you also thank you to everyone who called emailed texted and made goodies for us during National School Board month we felt very very loved and appreciated as safety is a priority let us continue to work together in our district to look out for each other in our community and our schools together we can achieve more thank you thank you Natalie thank you Scott um today um I'm honored to recognize National Black History Month as an occasion to celebrate the contributions of so many black American Patriots who have shaped our nation's history and our cfd community uh throughout our history black Americans have been among our country's most consequential leaders shaping the culture and the destiny of a really fine country um in profound ways uh we have national

053heroes Frederick Douglas Harry Tubman Thomas Su Justice Thomas and Local Heroes like stie Woodard and Ali May bird and countless others who represent what is best in America and her citizens their achievements which have advanced the tradition of equality under the law in this country continue to serve as an inspiration for all Americans and cfic community members um this National Black History Month um as America and cfic both prepare for the best ahead I want to extend a tremendous gratitude to Black Americans for all they have done to bring us to this moment and for the many future contributions that they our students our staff will make um as we advance into Limitless possibility um and uh close achievement gaps and ensure excellent outcomes for all of our cfic students I'm an immigrant and I

054acknowledge families like my own parents that have sacrificed much to realize the American dream for their children um there is no Nation like the United States of America in which they have access to equal opportunity as immigrants we work hard in school and work we follow the law we subscribe to judeo Christian values such as human dignity the belief that every person has inherent worth regardless of their background justice a core value that emphasizes treating others with dignity and respect honesty a value that emphasizes living a morally upright life faithfulness a value that emphasizes ethical responsibility to others and other values that are um ones that have influenced um the founding of this United States of America and our principles that we work towards as a community that can be shared in common with many

055faiths and um systems and Families and so as immigrants uh we do work to make our community better and we can control what we can control and so I speak to our cfcd families to say the content of our character um focus on that and trust God with your American Dream learning to read is and do math is critical a critical part of both closing that achievement Gap we talked about and realizing the American dream and this board set rigorous goals um achievement goals in literacy and math and we have in indeed are tracking every single student to make sure that they grow last Thursday we got this incredible report I want to thank the administration we weo by campus and by um different student groups to see uh who what are the students that

056still need to learn how to read um at the on grade level and um so I want to thank this the administration providing and the board my colleagues for setting these goals um we are it our incumbent on us to really push to see that we can give every kid the American dream or access to um uh excellent education in our through fifth grade data across approximately all of our elementary schools in the data in this District we had three thou this is students I'm going to go ahead and Define it before I say the numbers students who left the grade level before not reading on grade level and we're a huge system so no this is not every kid but these are each child right each child who can't so kids who left kindergarten

057last year not reading on level went into first grade we had 3,70 students who we this year need to make sure get there in second grade we had 3,653 students who entered second grade not reading on grade level in third grade 3,160 students entered not reading on grade level and we all know the critical nature of third grade reading in fourth grade and this is a proud fact to me we cut that number down to 1,368 students who entered fourth grade not reading on level and 1,73 again a reducing number of fifth graders who were not reading on grade level that totals 12,324 students who entered the this year's grade level in elementary school um not reading on grade level and so the amazing work of our campuses and there's some real standouts when you

058really look at the level of poverty they're dealing with and um there's students that and I just poured and poured over this data we have some campuses doing incredible work to move the work of the students but we also know every campus is we're moving the work and we have now a way to be able to track that but just tracking is not the goal the goal is to move the needle for our students and so we as um uh trustey colleagues mentioned we are looking to build a volunteer reading program and volunteer math program for those of you who prefer the math area I just happen to have a little bit of passion about literacy um as a great Gateway so we are looking for people to join and if you go to the

059cfic website if you go under cfisd.net volunteer or just go to volunteer you can see how you can contact the community engagement department and sign up as a global volunteer uh to be able to and we will train you Dr gory's team has already identified um materials that could be easily used by someone and they can learn how to read you can help a student in their comprehension the vocabulary and their fluency wouldn't that be so rewarding to know that you yourself individually can commit to a a student with other neighbors and then we can move the needle the program the administration is building it's uh it's a work in progress as um trusty comach mentioned um but we just want to make sure we start to gather everyone we can in the community to

060say hey will you come read with our students or do math with our students so I challenge you I ask you I beg you I ask you to talk to your neighbors can we all step up and help these 12,324 kids reach the mark of being on level in their literacy and you'll be able to see them move because we have measures now to say oh you're a second grader let's say you're a third grader reading at second grade first month you can do your work and see them move um through measures like to second grade second month second grade third month second grade fourth month and it's proven with time on task that you can accelerate the timeline of a student growing in their in their reading level and so I just ask the

061community step up and uh really uh be there for our students let's make sure we do close the achievement Gap um we do have a gap for our black American students in the school system and it has persisted since I started watching it in 2015 it's also a gap for our Hispanic students it has persisted since I started watching it in 2015 and so I hope that we can all come together to make sure we give the American dream to every kid um and that is like the basic thing we could offer at school literacy and math and so I I know that if this community Comm Miss we can do it and then finally um there's been some talk and the comments about school choice look I'm a public school kid I took my

062kid to public school I love public school and I want nothing but public school for my kid and for my family and for people our job as a school system is to make sure that we um are the very best school system and we are the best choice for every family that is what I even ran on voice choice and values and so I think the challenge for us is to be the best choice for every kid in our boundaries um and maybe even um attract students beyond our boundaries as the budget committee brought up in their report that's a way to make raise revenue to have students transfer in and so for us to do that we have to hear from you the community what can we design for you what programs what schools

063what strands what smaller learning communities can we fight the rules of the state for virtual options can we do value aligned specialty programs faith-based strands or schools themed or trade oriented Pathways programs to serve specialized needs such as a school that serves ADHD kids what could we do that would make every single person who resides in cciir I choose us for their students I think there are we are the hands down the finest school system in the state of Texas and there I don't think there's anything we could do if we have a sufficient number of parents who want it and teachers who want it um to do to offer it why couldn't we bring viable ideas forward that we could make sure our ones that would be chosen by everyone uh I know that

064the amazing Educators here the creativity the resources that we have in this system we can design something excellent to meet students needs and those families can still take advantage of our amazing extracurricular um opportun ities our facilities our clubs UIL competitions and all these things that you've heard about um this week I was at FFA just watching the incredible work that is and those beautiful animals and the everything about the discipline that takes I was at wrestling the level of skill and strength at the robotics competition the rooc all the different things that were happening even just in one weekend in this District I would want students to be able to have some schooling option and also be able to take advantage of our amazing programs and if you wonder there is a role of

065the board board the role of the school board according to the training that I partake in this is actually from a book by AJ krael um that's that's challenges school boards to lead and he says the job of the board is to clarify priorities identify Community Vision and values and adopt board goals and constraints and this board has been doing that monitor progress align our resources to those and communicate the results so it is our job to ask what do you want how can we best serve you so that each of you can choose CFI and so I U I'm committed to that cause I say communicate we don't have a very clear pathway we talked about it in committee uh send an email send a whatever way to communicate um let us know what

066are you looking for that doesn't meet your needs because that is our job as as to me I see that as my job as a board so listen to the community for what you want and get it done in the system for you I also want to say um thank you um the detail the detailed report that Mr Tucker and his team put together to was really assess our um and understand that the um people who do choose something else and the of our system I want to thank our teachers and our campus leaders our campus staff who are so amazing for our students every day um you are um you are the you are the the you're it you're the you're what makes it happen we're all here to serve you so thank you

067for the privilege of serving you thank you Justin well good evening everyone I wasn't able to attend uh last week's Workshop because I was on the other side of the world I was in India um I did get to call into the finance committee at 4:00 a.m. local time that was fun um when traveling I always seek out historical and cultural locations you know these places often have school field trips much like we have here in the states and I'm always amused watching these students interact with museums tour guides teachers each other at one of the Indian cultural sites there were multiple School field trips with the kids all decked out and coats and ties and somewh wander in off some were being handfuls for their teachers and chaperons just like here in the states

068um but these students will be on Pathways towards careers in medicine business engineering law these kids will be in global competitions with students in the US and it reinforces how important it is that we stay focused on preparing these kids here in the US for an increasingly competitive Global Workforce our priorities from the federal level to the local level should revolve around preparing our students to academically compete and Excel in This Global Workforce and of course funding our schools accordingly you know an argument can be made that making health class and elective we can ensure students receive important Health instruction while freeing up schedule space for additional rigorous classes to help them in the face of increasing competition for scholarships University admittance and jobs and that's a word that gets bandied around Austin a lot

069right now competition regardless what happens in Austin this session cfis D and Public Schools will face educational competition both here and abroad and this is a challenge that we're up to in cciir and that we will prevail but circling back to the home front I was very appreciative for the visit at Anthony Middle School with Dr Bennett who was here this evening and I was uh I had members of the student council serve as my tour guide and we're often provided tours by members of the student council and it's it's awesome they've got a whole itinerary planned out they walk you from class to class to class and they're so excited to take you into their class and introduce you to their teacher um it's it's such a a wonderful experience but when I do

070get a chance to have members of the student council interact with me in that way I like to always ask them a bunch of questions they ask me questions I want to ask them questions too so my questions are like how was your election what issues are the students focused on on your campus how do you communicate with your constituents why did you decide to run for Student Council I often congratulate them on running for office and to be proud of engaging in politics you know politicians get a bad rap but it's important to encourage these students to pursue elective office and statesmanship to look at politics is a noble profession where you can serve and better your community so this week the governance committee will meet to continue our work uh monitoring legislative action

071and to coordinate District advocacy I along with other trustees and District staff will be in Austin this month uh to continue promoting cfis and Gathering support for crucial funding that we need we talked about a lot I presentations on Thursday and we'll continue to discuss in detail about the the various items of funding that we're looking for including the homest set exemption including Transportation school safety and of course special Leed I know many in the community are reaching out to elected officials advocating for the district and we'll continue to work hand inand with you guys um in this endeavor and those conclude my board comments this evening Mr President thank you just Lucas thank you all for attending this evening appreciate your attendance at a public school meeting so regarding visits and events this past

072month uh so one of my favorites is our National Merit Scholarship Awards so I had the privilege to attend where we recognized about 750 students is that correct close and so last year we had what 500 so huge growth year-over year so in a it the the achievement that our students attained is amazing and requires the support of their parents their staff their teachers so congratulations to all of our families and students for your remarkable award that is outstanding I had a chance to attend the cipher isd's cupcake battle so there is a really sweet competition pun intended where our students have a chance to find something that is special to them and the culinary art program within Cipher istd is just one more example of the breadth of our offerings that allows our students

073to find a place to find a community find people that share common interests and the event was amazing our students had the had to compete within different categories work within a theme and then produce a piece of art that you could eat and they did amazing I wish you guys could have seen it uh trusty heinan joined and she was there as well and what we saw there was it was outstanding and the students were so excited so it's one of my favorite events and um hats off to all of our winners as well as our competitors it required a lot of effort thank you again to the families and staff that supported those kids again we've all heard this evening about our Cipher ISD Livestock Show in sale I've had family friends whose children

074compete uh that is a lot of discipline to raise an animal and it's a long-term commitment we heard it from the kids on the video this evening congratulations to all the winners as well as the participants it requires a lot of effort by the family again the supporting teachers and staff and our students so well done kids I had the chance to visit two schools so Cook Middle School with principal Sebastian and emit Elementary School with principal Hernandez so while at Cook Elementary School she made clear to me how they prepare their middle school students for high school so I had a chance to speak to my favorite the band directors I am biased I was a music teacher and she showed me the uh the girls one of the girls' programs for getting ready

075for girl Sports it was a great opportunity for those girls to be introduced to sports at the high school level and understand things that they might find interesting and prepare them to be successful as they entered high school at element at emit Elementary as Justin did I got the student Leadership Council guiding me around the school those are always so fun the kids are us they're so excited to meet you and as Justin said so full of questions and want to show you all their particular favorites and you know the favorites in this case was a reward system that the school has set up which is a big creative room go figure and it's a room where the students that had Strong Behavior and demonstrated excellence in different areas would win time in a specific

076room that allowed them to be creative I won't go into the detail of all the activities in the room but it was a a structured creativity where the students arrived and what I saw in principal Sebastian's processes was that the kids understood based on the structure that she and her team had implemented how to be and where to be at all times and so what we saw is that our students were able to be successful because they understood how to behave where to be and when they were there what Excellence looked liked so congratulations to principal Hernandez she's a reflection in her leadership and that of her team of every everywhere across the district and bringing out students best when they're at the elementary age level and so this month I have to give a

077shout out I I was not able to attend the drum line competition in Pasadena I do look forward to the drum line competitions coming up so I'll speak to those in the future as well as my coming school events I have an update as a chair for the policy and finance committee to my fellow policy members um I was sick the week prior so I apologize for not getting the update out but but the presentations that we saw on Thursday were what we reviewed in our policy meeting so you largely saw the same presentations that we did uh we asked some questions and the team was able to speak to those on Thursday night and then we also requested that we would have an update in March regarding Transportation so Matt Morgan will be giving

078us we'll have an agenda item where we can speak to transportation in more depth in March and our updates regarding our rates and how we're doing in our applications and what that process looks like as we move forward with all diligence and preparing for budget and in answering important Community questions such as buses um we also discussed our pee submission data you didn't see a report on it but Dr Killian did give a report during his comments again I want to Echo that our technology team did an amazing job of working over the weekend they're part of the unsung heroes that the community never hears about that work to make sure that we submitted our information to the the state of Texas on time and they actually became the model for excellence that the state

079of Texas looked to on how to get it right the next time so thank you very much uh to our entire technology team caring your staff is amazing uh lastly in our Thursday work session Dr blasing game requested additional work sessions on budget my perspective is that in our March work session we will have additional detail it will come forth and then in that meeting we as a board can discuss what we want to take in terms of next steps um my expectation is that in that discussion we'll start to pull new information uh our CFO has already published within the finance and operations committee the schedule for the budget updates have that been and you can't answer this question but that schedule will be released to the board so everybody sees it so that

080I want to assure the public and the board that there is a schedule in how the information will be made ready it's being made ready with all diligence in speed so that we can discuss it in open meetings as a working session uh and we've already had lots of discussion on the legislative topics I think I'm just going to end with a comment that I had feedback from parents this past month where they had questions about things that they had you know as their as their children is working through um progressing and growing up and working through being a third grader fourth grader high school middle school they had questions about what they were experiencing and you know a few surprises along the way and for our legislators without going into all the detail of

081what we spoke to the reality is is that a lot of it comes down to the time our teachers have and our administrators have to be able to do the best for our kids so the as we think about our legislative priorities as we think about our special ed our school safety our transportation all these deeply impact our ability to meet the needs of our kids as we think about our looh exemption and what we can do to provide additional funding to the district all of those things translate to more time on task for our teachers to be able to meet our kids' needs and support of those teachers by our principal staff so that we have sufficient training and guidance to those teachers I can promise you every one of these board members as

082we spend time in our schools our teachers are very diligent in being creative ative in trying to meet the needs of the students and coming up with their own ways to implement uh within the standards of Cypher ISD how do we meet the need how do we get it all done how do we meet and spend time with all the kids every single class how do we help Johnny and Susie next week the week prior how do we get them to understand a key concept all of that our teachers are exploring every single piece of information at their fingertips to try to get that done we are not Slack by any stretch we are the best at what we do and so when we have support from our legislators respectfully with deep respect to our

083legislators who are working through complex policy and balancing priorities we respectfully ask for additional support and funding so that we can meet the goals for all the parents that are in the rooms here thank you very much thank you Todd all right I I touched base a little bit uh got got into details on Thursday's work session had a lot of a lot of comments so if you guys want to have opportunity to kind of review that on the cyer district website but uh welcome for everyone that's here and for the viewing viewing audience I wanted to go over a couple quick things I'm going to keep it brief because we've had some long com long u discussion so far today so uh Lee Elementary School U I had the opportunity to visit Lee Elementary

084School principal Lori Johnson had a f fantastic visit with her again uh just another um campus that I would have no problem if sending my own children to she does a great job out there also read Elementary principal Karen Richardson um enjoyed my time uh visiting classrooms and and and talking with teachers as well over in in U at Reed Elementary so also in addition to that um checked out the goats and pig competition at the livestock cciir Independent School school district Livestock Show uh don't ask me how they judge these guys but uh I did find out what an honory goat was um at at one of the competitions so um it was good fun fun times uh for the parents that were involved uh involved in this helping out their students uh if

085if you don't for those of you guys that don't know the dedication and time at you know getting up at 5:00 in the morning to go go out to uh feed their animal um you know tend tend to whatever whatever animal that they're raising uh it's a total team effort by the family so that a lot a lot of uh time and energy is is expent on that and so I just wanted to recognize that for and and for the fine job that the students did at at that competition um I wanted to move on to the um athletic Port athletic portion of this uh recognize some performances uh from some of our student athletes um in the district uh so so for some of the athletic shoutouts District swimming and Diving the Cypress Ranch

086boys and girls uh were the district Champs and I wanted to say congratulations to coach Ricky car carnicle is that I just want to make if I if you if I butcher your name I apologize in advance uh District wrestling Cypress Ranch boys um were uh were were the district Champions coach John bonis uh District wrestling Langham Creek girls were the district Champs uh coach Tommy Murray girls basketball 176a champs Cypress Falls High School coach Lissa Lea girls basketball 166a champs Cypher Springs High School coached by coach Tanisha Rogers girls basketball oh actually this is this is a really big one Aya McDow at from cyer Springs High School uh was named McDonald's All-American um so we have a we have a McDonald's All-American in our district so just wanted to give a shout out

087to AA McDow she's also a University of South Carolina commit uh and then the Texas High School coaches association region five we had an assistant coach of the year Allison Brown from cwoods volleyball so uh congratulations Allison on uh being named region five assistant coach of the year um I also want to recognize some AC the academic portion from student athletes a lot I don't think a lot of people understand the time and energy that they're putting putting in uh not not just going to school uh but to keep their grades up while they're while they're committing sometimes 20 to 25 maybe even 30 hours a week um uh to their craft so I wanted to recognize uh from a high school standpoint uh during the academics during the second grading period uh we had

088high schools with n our total high school was 94% passing rate and we also had 50% AB Honor Roll rate and that was out of 2252 participants so that's uh giving a shout out to the student athletes absolutely great great work high school programs with 100% passing rate with zero failures and 51% or greater AB Honor Roll rate I'm going to go ahead and name those girls basketballs s Woods High School SC Springs High School and bridgelin volleyball langum Creek High School bridgelin High School SS Woods High School and S Lakes High School girls golf Sai Fair High School Sai Falls High School Cypress Park Cypress springs Cypress Woods and langum Creek in softball Cy uh Cypress Fair Sai Lakes Sai Springs and langum Creek boys swimming and Diving Sai Fair Sai Falls Jersey Village

089and langum Creek girls swimming and Diving Sai Fair sa Lakes sigh Springs sigh Woods in boys water polo we had Cypress Creek Cypress Fair sigh Lakes s Park Sai Ranch and s Woods girls water polo bridgelin High School uh Cypress Lakes Cypress Ranch Sai Springs Sai woods and Jersey Village girls wrestling Cypress Ridge Athletic trainers at bridgelin high school Cypress Park High School and Cypress springs Cypress Springs High School for baseball s Woods High School boys tennis team bridgelin high school Cypress Creek Sai Falls s Lakes Sai Park sa Ranch sa Woods Jersey Village and girls tennis bridgelin High School Sai Fair High School Sai Falls High School Sai Ranch High School and Sai Ridge High School boys of basketball we've got Sai Woods girls soccer bridin Cypress Lakes Cypress Ranch and SII Springs boys

090boys soccer Cypress springs for boys track Cypress springs for boys cross country we had bridgland Cypress Fair s Ridge Sai Springs Jersey Village and Langham Creek for girls cross country we had bridgelin Cypress Creek Sai Fair sa Lakes Sai woods and Langham Creek and for boys Golf bridgelin Fair Cy Cypress Fair s Lakes S Ranch Cypress Woods Jersey Village and Langham Creek uh also want to recognize our Middle School we had a 94% uh passing rate with a 52% AB Honor Roll rate out of 15,31 participants so the student athletes were getting it done as as well in the middle on the Middle School level campuses it had a 97% passing rate and a 50 53% or greater AB Honor Roll rate seventh and eighth grade girls at Anthony Middle School Goodson Middle School Smith

091Middle School span middle school sprag middle school R Middle School camel Hamilton Middle School and truid Middle School and for seventh and eighth grade boys we had sard's M middle school as well so thank you to athletic director Virginia Flores and Chief of Staff Teresa Hull for putting putting this list together for me I appreciate you guys we wanted to recognize our student athletes just a little bit more uh than just what the performance was on the on their fields so uh in addition to that let go ahead and finish uh in the policy Committee just giving an update on the policy committee um in the policy committee meeting held January 23rd we reviewed all of the second reading policies including fa local at the request of Miss Hinman the committee discussed tabling or delaying

092the second reading however the committee decided to move the policy to Second reading but did consider Miss hinman's request to review the definitions in the policy after reviewing information the department of education's website the def the definitions in the policy are consistent with the current information from the Department of Education in the event they issue further guidance in this area provides or provides different definitions the committee agreed that we would revisit the policy definitions if need and those are my board comments for the night thank you Todd just real briefly I want to thank all the principls teachers and staff who took the time to show me around the schools uh this past month uh seeing firsthand their dedication hard work and passion is truly inspiring um I know we talked about FFA and we

093want to definitely congratulate the students but the one person don't always congratulate is the parents uh taking them to school taking them to early morning then comeing back early night uh talking to the students that's a lot of work on them as well so thank you parents for your dedication as well along with our students just real briefly I know Christine hit on these things as topics for us for legislative updates but I want to hit on one that's very special near and dear to my heart which is special education funding uh special education funding in Texas stuck in the past uh the current model has unchanged since the 1990s and it really fails to account for the growing and complex needs of our students which require specialized services in s we do get about

094$99 million for special ed funding but our actual expenses are 157 million that's a gap of almost $58 million and this shortfall uh for US forces us to pull from other areas and it weakens the entire system we got to do better for every child regardless of ability deserves access to resources and support they need to reach their full potential we're not asking for favors we're asking for fair responsible and necessary fund that meets the needs of students we serve we're asking to fund the school that offer a tax relief like we do and protect our students with safety funding we're asking us for to invest in the student Education Services for special ed and to update our transportation system for funding the future of Texas is sitting in our classrooms right now their success

095is our success their struggles are our struggles I hope that we make the right choices and the decisions we make we're going to Advocate those for funding for our district to make sure that we get fully funded for the things we need for our district thank you we'll now proceed with citizen participation portion the agenda and I'll turn us over to our board secretary Justin ready continue per bed local 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 may only register to speak one time per meeting and must register in advance we have 18 speakers with each speaker receiving one minute before you speak we ask that you please come down and sit in the seats in

096the front our first Speaker this evening is an um evangela painter evangelon painter our next speaker is Kyle cumins you'll have one minute thank you there we go how's it going everybody uh I am with the county clerk's office uh for those of you who do not recognize me I'm the community Le liaison for the office and so just really quickly I kind of want to just put out statistics y'all cuz uh you made us work during uh the November elections and I'm sure everyone kind of wants to hear that so that being said we uh finally tallied the amount of uh voters that cyfair ISD actually had and we found a total of 200 ,500 23,8 32 votes in total in the cipher ISD so that is all addresses that are in the district

097and everything else and so that ends up being a total of 62.7% of the registered population in cyfair ISD I have to say you'll definitely made us work as uh you know that some of these bags were really heavy y'all and I actually had to take a little bit of uh a little bit of time because uh I actually did injure myself so that being said Thank you to the community for participating in elections some of y'all I recognize as judges and uh assistant judges during that time so thank you for that Kyle your one minute is up however we would really appreciate some of that information maybe you can get with our board president about uh having you come out at an additional time before we can give you some additional time to discuss

098this of course and just the one thing I want to say is thank you for uh to cciir ISD for allowing us to use some of your schools as polling locations as well thank you very much Kyle thank you thank you for the information Emory love hello thank you for having me here today I'm here to speak against the recent policy you instated the gender policy for cyer policy cyer ISD which mandates parental notification when a student uses a pronoun that doesn't align with their biological sex I believe it's not just misguided but it directly violates our right to self-identity First this policy strips away that support by requiring parental involvement we are putting students identities under scrutiny which can lead to increase mental health issues according to a 2024 survey conducted by the Trevor

099Project with over 18,000 lgbtq plus youth 39% of them seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year in conclusion in conclusion I urge the school board to stop or reconsider this harmful policy this is about our safety our identities and our future we must strive to create a school environment that is inclusive affirming and respectful to all students thank you again for having me thank you Jennifer shanet on Thursday there was talk about police being demonized you don't get to talk about that if you openly support a man who sat back and watched with Glee as his supporters attacked Capitol Police on January 6th you don't get to talk about that if you have stood at this microphone and lied about cfd police tasing students so yes police have been demonized you know who else

100has been demonized our teachers our Librarians our lgbtq plus students and now our hardworking immigrant families are being demonized and the district has yet to release any kind of statement about how they will keep students safe people love to scream about parental rights how about ice coming in to interview students without their parents consent I forgot consent is only needed for library books and sex ed the rule of law is starting to disappear forget about that silly Constitution and the Fourth Amendment the destruction of the Department of Education is underway and thus the destruction of our public schools let me know how it goes when you don't get your tax refund or your elderly parents don't get their social security check because president Elon Musk and a handful of 20-year-old kids have taken over the

101treasury Department Nikki Cowart [Applause] good evening as president of the cyfair Federation of teachers I stand before you with a clear message we the educators of cciir ISD are prepared to fight travel to Austin speak with our legislators and do everything we possibly can to get the money our school district so desperately needs and we invite you to join the fight with us so I'm doing something tonight that I've never done before I'm officially requesting board president Henry take action in adding an agenda item for the board to vote on at the next meeting if you truly believe our employees are the foundation of our public education system you can fully support them by passing a resolution in favor of our Educators Bill of Rights we heard in this room on Thursday night our public

102schools are facing a crisis and I so appreciate the cander of Dr Killian and the presentation given by Miss Teresa Hull during the work session we have a budget shortfall a crisis of Recruitment and Retention of Educators and this resolution addresses those key areas hopefully you've heard me and you support the resolution thank you thank you Leandra [Applause] Ramos hello we live in cfd zoned to Emory Elementry and my son is in the regional day school program for the deaf at Burks Elementary we were recently informed the program we merge and relocate to em Elementary in the 2025 26 school year while merging students with Ben will benefit the relocation is deeply concerning EMT struggles with a low attendance High staff turnover and a negative School climate it lacks the resources and support necessary for

103both its current students and the incoming deaf education program when adding additional CWD test scores with EMT they will fall further below state standards and the reality is there may not be funding to support them at Burks my son is thriving the staff is trained the environment is inclusive and the school is already equipped for Deaf education moving these students to an underperforming school with without the proper support puts their education at risk there's a time a fine line between fiscally responsible and sacrificing the quality of education for students with disabilities we need to prioritize what is best for all students thank you thank you Jim Drake Jim Drake Christian Kimbell in light of recent statements from our governor I would like to remind the board that Christian religious materials such as the Ten Commandments

104have no place in our public schools from our constitution Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof from the Treaty of triple signed by President John Adams in 1797 the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion from Thomas Jefferson in 1808 erecting the wall of separation between church and state is absolutely essential in a free soci Society from James Madison in 1823 a legal establishment of religion is no security for public quiet and Harmony but rather a source itself of Discord and animosity finally to those who keep pushing the state to mandate the teaching of a specific religion Benjamin Franklin states when a religion is good I conceive that it will support itself and when it cannot

105support itself so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the Civil power it is a sign I apprehend of it being a bad one thank you Austin McGowan hello I'm a proud father of a cfd kindergartener one of my favorite rituals with her is bedtime every night I read her a book or she reads to me more increasingly I tuck her in I give her a kiss on one cheek and grow blow a raspberry on her other one before I tuck her in every night except on these nights when I'm here at these board meetings on these nights that's taken away from me and I feel like that's all this board has done since last summer is taken away first Librarians then buses then textbooks Health classes and now they aim

106to take away student belonging and student safety many people will speak out today on various topics and many of them will be ignored because that's what this board does they'll do it with a smile while claiming that they're here for the parents but they'll ignore you nonetheless thank you Jill Center good evening Senate Bill 2 has passed the Senate and is moving on to the state house for consideration I urge this board and Community to contact your representative and state opposition to this bill that endangers public school funding and the quality of Education in public schools it says it will prioritize low income families but it defines low income as 500% of the poverty level or an income of $15,750 for a family with one child or $215,700 for a family of six it requires

107private schools that take the funding to post notice they are not required to follow or comply with Federal special education laws so they can admit children with disabilities and then not properly serve them it allots $110,000 per child to attend private school when the state allotment for public schools is $6,100 per student it uses the so-called rainy day fund and says it isn't taking money from public schools when the purpose of the fund is to support Public Services like education when they are in crisis what are we in now if not a crisis finally it threatens the already tenuous teacher retirement system thank you for your time thank you Andrew Ingram thank you for providing me the opportunity to speak my name is Andrew Ingram and I've been a resident of scair for over 10

108years now I am here to show my support for informing parents about non-sex based pronouns used at school it saddens me that we are having this public discussion boys are made by God and our boys girls are made by God and our girls we deviate we deviate from this simple truth at our own destruction but regarding the topic of restricting information from parents uh I strongly I I am strongly against any school getting in the way of a parent being able to make informed decisions regarding their own children if a school is supporting a radical worldview that gender is detached from biological sex the parents should be notified immediately fear of God and alignment with his revealed order is the guid and principle that will that will build a better school system thank you so

109much thank you Jared [Applause] hedler last week the Texas Senate passed the sb2 school choice bill this bill has only enough funding to support less than 2% of the Texas students this bill now will be heading to the Texas house to be passed and I've only seen one person just one person person from this board speak up instructing people to contact their representatives say no thism appropriation of taxes pay say not to this misappropriation of taxpayer dollars why is only one board member being vocal about school choice when there such a budget crisis kids are crossing dangerous thoroughfares and Walking In Ditches to get to school if you truly support public school then there's no way you can support tax dollars going toward private school tuition andless cfd is being fully funded which is not

110this money could much better be spent supporting public school systems such as maybe School transportation or campus staff raises instead of proing up as competitors who major clientele are the wealthy thank you Marcus Emanuel good evening I want to preference my upcoming words by saying that they're more directed towards the audience and those watching at home rather than the board member themselves really istically speaking the only reason board members sit up here and listen to what we have to say is to give off the illusion that they care about our problems I don't say this to sound pessimistic but instead and this is also proven by the fact that they have failed us time and time again whether it's with our trans students our buses our deficit or our Librarians and that's why I want

111those watching to use a power that's arguably greater than the power of our voice in this context and that's the power of your vote three of the board members are up for reelection this year if you have time to complain you have time to go out and vote and get families and F family and friends to go out and vote as well because it's evident that this board if we keep this board in power progress will only be stagnant thank you card trong good evening board thank you very much for recognizing my achievement in DC I also want to apologize for my atrocious attendance rate for the last five months I also want to bring up the issue of bringing in Street law K level recently I'm taking the street law L Lev class but

112I'm having an issue because the course isn't going as rigorous as I preferred and the teacher shares the same concern we were talking more about this and we were more concerned about how we need to have more curriculum or more material to teach the student we want to have more uh instruction more material for example uh learning more about specific law codes learning how to handle a hypothetical court case and we were and I was wondering if we could bring Street law K level for the betterment of this district and open up more law opportunities for students in this District as we lack law districts law uh opportunities for students in our district thank you very much Jeremy Eugene all good evening I lost my voice so my friend Sarah is gonna be speaking okay

113for the past few months the sciare ISD website has had a student code of conduct feedback form open for inut so the cciir AFT teachers union has come together to discuss the way that current discipline policies impact our students and if the policies could be improved we found significant problems causing both unnecessary and ineffective punishments we've used the feedback form to tell the district that we recommended they change the student code of conduct by creating a representative group of parents students staff members and community members throughout the district to reform policies with examples of punishments that are fair and consistent we look forward to hearing the district's response to our feedback and seeing them put this Democratic community-based plan into [Music] action thank you Christopher raspberry hey good evening board um so I'm a volunteer

114board member of uh the cciir iron Mains lacrosse team so just to inform the board of of Lacrosse in in our community we are a team that's been in existence for 25 years in the community all the students go pretty much to sfair uh we have almost 60 girls who play so it's all girls all the members are volunteers um we have um so lacrosse is an official Big 12 sport um two teams currently applying for UIL acceptance at the Texas level so it is coming as a sport in Texas um and so one of the things that we are um doing is um we are we have second grade all the way to high school girls who play we have excellent coaches who are also volunteers um we also go to D1 state so

115some of our girls have gone on to like Boston College which is like the number one lacrosse so all of our coaches so this whole thing in this community is um really growing as a state we compete in all the other schools in Houston area and I just wanted to inform the board that lacrosse is a growing sport here that I would like to see supported more the last thank you Christopher thank you that's one minute thank you very much Christina Woods Christina Woods Christian Kimble no Christian Kimbell okay I had you down here twice okay the report's portion of the agenda was reviewed by the board work session on Thursday February 6 however one speaker for this evening for this topic 5c Diana Alexander two minutes Dan you'll have two minutes thank you as

116a cfis employee and Community member I have some pressing questions on the Safety and Security of student staff and parents in light of threats of ice raids namely where is the public statement or communication from the district to reassure these folks of their safety in schools specifically staff in the district need to hear if cfd will cooperate qu freely with ice agents and allow them on campus a broad statement from the head of this district will front office staff have explicit protocols when communicating with ice agents seeking to enter campus will Transportation staff also be trained in case ice agents attempt to board school buses will register Stars be instructed of protocols if ice Personnel try to access student records including birth certificates we'll see if ISD Police cooperate with ice or abide by their

117protocols to protect students and staff or if parents are not there to greet students at the bus because they have been detained are their Provisions in place so fear is already causing parents to keep students home from school impacting attendance lastly could training be prioritized for campus with higher numbers of minority students and families you are the ones who are able to speak up for our community of Learners you are the ones with the capability to provide comfort and support in this time of turmoil no matter what your personal stance on these policies we are responsible for the children in in our charge while we may hope that every family remains intact and kids get to go home to their loved ones we must plan for the contingency of an ice raid this is not

118an abstract scenario but a looming threat for many in cfd thank you we will now proceed with the public Port hearing portion of the agenda 6A that his district will hold a public care and to consider the application from NRG thw GT LLC for limitation on taxable value of property for maintenance and operations at vorum taxes purposes as required by Texas government code B Karen thank you president Henry and Board of Trustees a representative of NRG thw GT LLC contacted me in February of 2024 to discuss nrg's plan to file a jobs energy technology and Innovation act application for the construction of a new power plant within the boundaries of its existing NRG Warton power production complex in Harris County croll uh LLC nrg's Financial Consultant provided a presentation on the proposed project to the

119finance and operations committee on March 20th 2024 it was determined that enhancing the reliability of electricity in the power grid would be beneficial to the district the NRG Jetty application was filed with the state controller's office in October of 2024 the com controller provided the district written notification that the project is recommended uh to the district and the governor's office cfd has 30 days from to the uh to recommend to the district or the project we have 30 days to actually have a public hearing uh to determine whether the school district is agreeable to the agreement The Jetty is once is one set of programs created by the 88 State Legislature through House Bill 5 in 20 23 to Spur energy facility growth to accommodate growing energy demand and to increase the stability of the

120energy grid for Texans these initiatives were born out of winter storm Yuri I think we all remember that very well and attempts to ensure that events affecting the energy Grid in Texas are lessened in the future this project is one of three generation facilities proposed in the Houston area here tonight is Anthony shum from Crow nrg's adviser for tax program applications David fre from NRG David Thompson from Thompson and Horton and Randy McDow from McDow School Finance Consulting so now I'll turn it over to Randy McDow to provide more information about The Jetty application Randy yes thank you Karen it's a pleasure to be here tonight and so uh so I am the school Finance consultant and did a financial analysis and worked with Karen on this of what impact would the jetty have on

121the school district uh both with and without so the project with and without the jetty agreement in place and so we've got some numbers for you and I guess Karen you're controlling it yes sir okay great and so Under The Jetty program uh when this was created in the last legislative session there were there were four different categories that were set up and so it's all based on population within the county and so you can you can see uh the different criteria here so the smallest is any County under 100,000 in total population the project has to be at least 20 million in value uh to qualify and then so we go all the way up to the top one uh which of course is Harris County qualifies under that with a population of more

122than 750,000 and so it does require an investment greater than 200 million to qualify and this application is in in excess of that 200 million million criteria uh the project and I'm just going off what was put in the application and as Karen said there's Representatives here from the company and their consultant uh but it is a power plant that would exist within the current NR GTH Warden power production complex that of course is located in Harris County and the plan project would add an additional 455 megawatt of electric uh Power Generation and consist I don't understand what all this means but I'll I'll tell you what it says the it consists of two natural gas fired combustion turbines in a simple cycle configuration and so obviously is to address the need for uh winter

123storms and things like that but also just growth that's occurring uh within Harris County uh the total capital investment that is estimated in the application is $317 million and the project could be operational by mid 2020 26 uh so the The Jetty uh again as you know this was uh developed in the last legislative session in 2023 so the application has come through the leftand side of this that's the blue part and so it's been through the state com's office and the state com's office has recommended that it meets the criteria and has now given it to the school district for you to decide if you want to enter into this agreement uh so we're in that middle phase I don't know if that's orange or brown uh but the the com's office did notify

124the district and the district has 30 days to have this meeting and to decide if this is something that you may be interested in uh and we you did meet the criteria for posting this public hearing 15 days prior and so uh So within that time period you have to decide once you decide then you notify the governor's office and the calm trol of your decision if you decide to move forward and the Govern Governor then has seven days to decide if he wants to sign off on it so it's really a three-party agreement uh between the controller's office or I'm sorry the company uh the governor and the school district and then the contor office obviously is involved in the analysis on what it does to the economy and things like that uh when

125we look at the Timeline up to this point in time uh this was initially discussed uh the the possibility of this project back in March of 24 with the board finance and operations committee uh the application was actually filed October 23rd of 24 uh there were some supplements that were requested by the com controller's office just for clarification more detail what is the project all the criteria uh that they were looking for so there were three different supplements actually a fourth that was done January 14th uh the board Finance operations committee met again on January 9th uh to to to get more informed on this and and understand what the impact ta s are and then we are here tonight uh or I'm sorry we're the counselor's recommendation letter came on January 15th which kicked

126off that 30-day window uh and then the board meeting deadline was 15 days prior and that was on January 26th and tonight on February 10th it is the public hearing uh for your consideration of the jetty agreement uh the anything that qualifies under a jetti does require are that it is located within inside a reinvestment Zone and the the NRG has stated that they would work with either the county or the city of Houston to establish that reinvestment zone that would be required uh to move forward with this project so one of the things that I did is I worked with Karen and so we looked at what is the financial impact of the jetty and uh so so we ran three different analysis all of these are based on current School Finance law we

127know School Finance law is going to change over the next 10 years but we can't speculate what that might be uh we also assume that you have flat enrollment that your average daily attendance and weighted average daily attendance stayed the same as it is currently and we did a 5% increase on on base property values not including the project so assuming property values uh would continue to increase when we did that uh the these are 10year numbers here your total general fund revenues that would include uh State funding tax collections on the maintenance and operation side less any recapture if applicable so it's it's those net revenues to the district and again these are 10year totals so assuming those assumptions and under current law the district's Revenue would be uh right at 9.5 billion over

128that 10year period or you could say an average of 950 million um the NRG with if we didn't have any agreement if they did build it uh it would be about 9 b502 million and the uh if the project is built with the agreement would be about 9 billion 51 million so about $750 million uh over a 10-year period of is the difference but is roughly the difference between if they don't build if they do build with the agreement or if it was built if the jetty application had never been filed and you could tax it full value so as you know School finances equalized the more you bring in on maintenance and operations side under that M Tax you get less state aid or you pay more recapture uh so but there is a

129slight gain in just being prop more property wealthy so the formulas typically work a little bit in your favor if you can be more property wealthy uh and so that's why there is some variation here when you're a little bit more property wealthy of 50% of the project it helps you some uh if you could tax on it at full value would help you a little bit more uh we also looked at The Debt Service side and so we took the numbers that were in the application the projected values over that 10-year period now remember these values continue after the 10year period uh the the project will stay online and the company could tell you more about that but it it doesn't just end a life at the end of 10 years so you still

130have these values that carry out uh we didn't look at that we just looked at the impact of the 10 years because we're looking at with and without the agreement U so during that 10-year period it would help you on your debt service or your ins side help pay bonded debt uh it would increase those values over $2.8 billion again uh that's the 10year total and so it would generate about an additional 11.3 million over the 10year period at your current 40 cents ons rate uh so you're looking at a little over a million dollars per year additional benefit on the NS side uh that could either go to buy down your tax rate it could help you issue additional debt uh pay off bonds early whatever the case might be you've got a lot

131of options there uh on the next steps is consideration tonight and then notify the governor's office like we talked about if you do decide to move forward and then again the governor has seven days to uh certify their approval or not uh and then if so then the governor and the school district enter into that go ahead and execute that agreement and it becomes active so in summary uh the approval of the jetty agreement provides 50% reduction in the emino appraise value for 10 years but then it increases back to the 100% after the 10 years on this slide is the recommended board action to be taken later in the meeting that you are agreeable to entering into an agreement with NRG so we are available to answer any questions you may have thank you

132very much questions Justin sure um let's start with the uh tax increment reinvestment Zone the turs so uh it's either the county or the city right that um that you would have to get a turs in order to move forward with the jetty right that's true it could be any of the taxing entities that are that it's within how's it so if if there's no turs there's no Jetty yeah so it's a it's a reinvest yeah it's a reinvestment Zone but yeah that is required under the agreement that's correct how's the progress com along with that are are do you see yourself is it going to be with the the city the county What's the progress on that right now yeah the the company saying the city I'm not involved in that part and so

133uh join the party yeah thank you yeah uh Tony shum director for site selection and senes advisory for croll uh we're advising NRG on their pursuit of the Jedi agreement with the the school district um we have a meeting with Gwen tilletson at the mayor's office of Economic Development tomorrow um we also have an inquiry out to Cynthia Ramos um at the governor's office to think about whether or not the um Cipher istd School District could create its own reinvestment zone or if it would fall to the city or the county but traditionally under chapter 403 or other typical incentive programs in the state it is the city or the county that designates that reinvestment zone okay so and so if it's the city or the county that the the uh increase in the property

134value is going to be reinvested however since the turs is with the city or the county other taxing jurisdictions like the school district won't be subject to that so the property tax increase we would receive the actual benefit of that correct so absolutely if the project goes forward and and everything gets built and everything getss um functional and uh is the 10e value limitation period extended all the way out through after SE whip um and the and the value stays on during that value limitation period the the value will be limited and then after that value limitation period falls off 100% taxable for both M and ins purposes so yeah the the school district is essentially a stakeholder at the table much like the city or the county or any other taxing jurisdiction over the

135parcel yeah but we wouldn't be involved in the actual turs agreement that that and it's Vision that we would not be part of a tur agreement so yeah so so tax increment reinvestment zone is a separate program than just the establishment of a reinvestment Zone um under chapter 312 of the tax code a city or a county is is empowered to create that Zone on behalf of a district uh specifically for the contemplation of the chapter 403 Jetty legislation um if that zone is created the city can also use it for its own purposes and we've met with I think 60 or 70% of the city council members on this project uh and almost all of the Harris County Commissioners so going back to the projection models the revenue projection so it's $9.5 billion to

136the state general fund over 10 years correct that that slide was a little confusing to me yeah no I'm sorry so that that is an accumulation so we actually ran that by year and then we rolled it up into what's the 10year impact so that's the 10year revenue of Cyprus Fairbanks ISD uh without the agreement with the agreement at 50% or if you if you didn't enter into the agreement and the project was built at 100% okay under current law current law and those assumptions that we talked about and then and and then additionally um the the 11.3 million in ins revenue is that included in that number or is that no that's separate separate so we looked at the general fund and then we looked at the Deb service or Bond side separately because

137remember remember we'll benefit from the um ins right you tax it 100% every year that's right okay thank you the answers my questions Lucas you have questions uh Justin got to my question I was also looking at the jetty the energy no Jetty agreement versus the with Jetty agreement and the balance of how do we think about the post 10year mark and was that calculated into the difference here so you're telling us no right correct no I'm sorry and so yeah the the after tenure wasn't considered any in this analysis I will tell you the Project based on the company's projection holds value pretty strong out for another 10 years uh So based on their projections yeah there's even more benefit after that 10year period at that point you'd be comparing with no project versus

138the project being built right and trusty Scandal I can I can give you a great proxy there are other power generation operating on that site that are 5050 years old well and as a resident of Cypher ISD the outside of the school district the benefit of the community is that we have newer power generation coming into our district for the purposes of the residents for cair correct yes sir okay higher quality power being closer to the electrons right yep and the translation to me is that in another winterstorm you're it won't be 50 degrees in my house that's right this is the facility on 249 correct the the yeah the the the facility being uh if if there is an existing power generation facility it's marked in the in the map of that we've got

139other reinvestments you are correct that's correct there's there's two other uh two other projects that the governor's office is working with us so want to make sure we don't complate those two good it's close to Jersey Village thank you we need the help thank you and one more followup question actually I've got two uh so another one is that you mentioned that you had coverage I'll use that word with speaking to City Council Members as well as other stakeholders what's the general consensus that you've obtained th far yeah so I think there's two schools of thought um higher quality power for residents and then uh one of my colleagues Jose baso used to work for the Greater Houston partnership we recruited him over to croll he works for us and has been done so for

140about two and a half years now and when he talks about all of the capital intensive power intensive industries that Houston is trying to recruit including uh decarbonized jet fuel being one of the major ones uh all those Industries take an extraordinary amount of power um AI driven data centers another thing that the state is trying to either manage a recruit and so when we look at the urot projections for Demand on the grid it is astronomical over the next 7 to 10 years so we need power desperately both to make sure that citizens lights stay on and we can recruit the next generation of high-tech Industries understood all right and uh I think my last question Doug to you as the leader of this admin so I've got the recommendation from Karen in the

141slides themselves do you have any other comments regarding your recommendation no I I just think it's good for the community in terms of the power generation but also in terms of um our taxpayers especially on the ins side from the get-go it's going to provide some additional um value that we we're going to obviously be able to tax to pay off bonds and things like that and then also obviously we'll still have some money coming in on the M side too Nell go ahead um as someone who house flooded during Yuri I definitely understand the power part I just want to clarify on the reinvest ment Zone versus a tax increment reinvestment Zone and which ones at play here right so this would be a a uh statutorily required reinvestment zone so now no tax

142increment from The Zone would be provided to this project so those are those turs are typically done in in order to provide infrastructure dollars back into a project that's not applicable here it would be a standard reinvestment Zone in order to declare that the project is eligible to move forward thank you very much appreciate it say no more questions thank you very much thank you very much for your consideration we appreciate it thank you 6B the board will hold uh the Texas Academic performance report taper public hearing discuss the 2023 2024 annual report Dr gory and Ashley gayor Dr GL thank you president Henry Dr Clayburn will lead the presentation this evening Texas Education Code requires each District's Board of Trustees to hold a hearing for public discussion of the annual report within 90 calendar

143days of the date of the release of the Texas Academic performance report also known as taper the Texas Academic performance report comprises the main part of the district's annual report therefore we will begin with this piece the reports are currently available on the district website to access them simply open the district website click on our district then click on school ratings from the school ratings page select the district or campus level the campus name and click on the 2324 Texas Academic performance report tonight we will share star and end of course data taken directly from the Texas Academic performance report for Cypress Fairbanks ISD and surrounding school districts this first table displays data for all students tested in Reading language arts English one and English 2 with the data sorted by percent of economically disadvantaged

144students in each district the first column on the left hand side side list the district followed by the total number of students in the district the economically disadvantaged percent of students in the district followed by the percentages at the approaches are higher meets are higher and Master's levels this table displays data for all students tested in grades 3 through 8 math and Algebra 1 here are data for all students tested in grades 5 and 8 science and biology finally data for all students tested in grade 8 social studies in US History also taken from the taper are graduation rate data for the state Region 4 and cyfair ISD for the class of 2023 the reporting of graduation rate data are always a year behind beginning with with the district's accreditation status we will move into

145the portion of the presentation that will cover the additional required areas of the annual report District accreditation statuses for the 2023 24 and 20242 school years have not been issued as the issuance of the a through F ratings under the 2023 and 2024 rules are pending and subject to change each District's ual report must instead include the 2022 23 accreditation status and as of that date we are an accredited District the financial section of the taper is provided by the state funding division these reports may be accessed from a link on the last page of each campus and the district taper reports each fall the Board of Trustees approves the performance objectives in the campus and District Improvement plans then each spring the campus evaluates its data and determines its progress toward meeting the performance

146objectives the campus performance objectives may be viewed by accessing the 2023 24 campus Improvement plans through the district website simply open the district website click on our district and then click on school ratings from there select a school level select a campus and click on the 2324 school year then click one more time on 2324 campus Improvement plan each year we are required to share the special education determination status with the board this label represents an integrated determination level status based on an evaluation of each local education agencies results driven accountability indicators in the special education area and four federally required elements our current status is meets requirements the highest level that may be achieved we are also required to share information on violent or criminal incidents that occur on each campus the board was

147provided the 2023 24 annual report on violence and violence prevention in your backup documents the table before you is a district summary of the total student population total number of incidents and the total rate this statistic includes only data that are correlated to specific Texas Education Agency discipline action reason codes therefore it does not include every infraction detailed in the Cyprus fairbank's local code of conduct Texas Education Code 51. 403e requires postsecondary institutions in Texas to report student performance during the first year of enrollment After High School graduation to the high school from which the student graduated displayed before you our College enrollment data for the class of 2020 2021 and 2022 that is the latest year the data are available these were collected by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board based on cyfair graduates

148that they were able to track in their subsequent enrollment in 2-year 4-year or IND independent colleges and universities in Texas only we know that we have students who attend universities outside the state therefore we subscribe to the student tracker program through the national student Clearing House this provides us with data on our college-bound students they track 97% of all post-secondary students in public and private institutions across the United States for the same years currently tracked by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board 2020 2021 and 2022 the national student Clearing House has found a consistent 66% of our students were enrolled in college at any time during the first year After High School House Bill 3 passed by the 86 Texas legislature in 2019 requires school boards to adopt detailed plans to develop excuse me to

149adopt detailed plans developed by their District teams that achieve goals in two key areas Early Childhood literacy and math the plans are set for each elementary school they're set for five years they're based on third grade star data at meets or higher and they're set for student groups with 10 or more students additionally we must provide a report to the school board each year post the data on the district and campus websites and provide professional development when targets are not met before you now is an image of the data tables provided to the board and those that will be posted on the district and campus websites please note that the Baseline targets were set in 2021 1 based on star performance from the 2019 school year additionally there are no comparison data from the state

150region or other districts because each district decides how to set its campus Targets this is an individualized process for each district across the state as you direct your attention to the far left hand side of the table you will see the student group name for which the campus is is held accountable this is just one example the all student group Next you will find an explanation of the data listed in the table the Target and actual rate or performance for that school year total number of individual students who earned meets or higher total number of students tested points away from the Target and the difference from the prior year also including growth from prior year please note that the number of students for 2024 earning meets are higher and the total number tested needed for

151this specific report are not currently available from the Texas Education Agency once the data become available the board will be provided with updated data tables and the updated tables will be posted on the district and campus websites house Bill 3 passed by the 86 Texas legislature also requires school boards to adopt detailed plans developed by their District teams that achieve goals in college career and Military Readiness the plans are also set for each high school for five years and set for student groups with 10 or more in each group additionally we must provide a report to the school board each year and post the data on the district and campus website ites before you now is an image of the data tables provided to the board and those that will be posted on the district

152and campus websites please note that the 2021 Baseline targets are identical to the campus performance in 2019 again there are no comparison data from the state region or other districts to display because each district decides how to set its own campus targets this concludes our presentation for tonight and we will be happy to answer any questions thank you very much uh first I want to say thank you for adding on some of the local districts and we ask that for I asked that personally last time like Tom ball and others so thank you for doing that any questions from the board members see you n thank you very much we appreciate the board will now review the following consent agenda items during a review of the following items any board member remove one or more

153items at which time these items will be addressed on vote on individually board member has a question regarding any these items please ask be recognized for the consent agenda items 7A minutes of January 13th 7B uh budget amendments for period of October 1st through December 31st 2024 7 C consider approving construction proposal contract 7 C1 C Ridge High School renovation 7 C2 Jersey Village High School renovation 7D appr approving Awards um awarding bids contracts authorizing purchase order 71 breakfast cart 72 Cisco phone system 73 content filter quote 74 furniture and Equipment 75 ground coffee 7e the board consider granting temporary easement to Harris County Municipal district 15 five 7f the board consider granting temporary construction easement Harris County 7g the board consider granting water easement to Harris County Municipal districts 165 in 7h the board

154consider authorizing superintendent that need to negotiate final contract of procurement of electricity I get a motion to approve the non excuse me the consent agendum as posted I move that we approve the consent agenda as posted I'll second all those in favor is unanimous we'll now proceed with the non-consent agenda items since we have some hourly uh lawyers on the clock I'm going to uh move one item up uh so we can have this thing here uh I believe it is I believe it's 8 F and 8 G is that correct that is correct is 8 F 8 f f and 8 so I'm going move to 8f without any objection the board consider determined that Cypress F Independent School District is agreeable entering agreement for limit ation on taxable value for property of maintenance

155and operation have Lor tax purposes pursuant to application filed by NRG thw GT LLC subject upon District's future consideration approval of a final agreement containing of such items for limitation may I please get a motion president Henry I moved that the board determined that the cyer Cypress Fair Banks ISD is agreeable to entering an agreement for a limitation on the taxable value of property for maintenance and operation add foror tax purposes pursuant to the application filed by energy thw GT LLC subject to and only upon the district's future consideration and approval of final agreement containing the terms for such a limitation I'll second look like unanimous thank you gentlemen for being here and you can leave if you'd like to unless you want to hear more riveting information thank you David I do G as

156well all right let me do AG as well then apologize I do one more thing procedurally it's also it's just all the Fe stuff all right and H as well yeah all right AG the consider adoption of resolution con uh approving a contingently uh fee legal service agreement including findings for submission of contingent fee for Legal Services an agreement exp expedited review of the Tex attorney general this item was disclosed closed in closed session mayia please get a motion so moved I'll second any questions with discussed in close session we really have any questions I'll take a vote all those in favor it is unanimous and then now 8h the board consider approval contingent legal fees for service agreement with Thompson Horton uh Elliott and bondam PC and oh Hanam and der in Castello this

157item was disclosed discussed in closed session may I get a motion I move that the board approve the contingent Legal Services uh legal contingent fee Legal Services agreement with Thompson and Horton LLP Island and Bonin PC and oh Hannan dith and Costello PC I'll second that all those any questions first seeing none all those in favor is unanimous thank you for your patience on that uh 8A the board consider approving the new vision mission statement we have one speaker Jill Center you are up ma'am good evening again a school's mission and vision statement serves to clearly communicate the core values goals and aspirations of the institution acting as a Guiding Light for students staff parents and the community outlining what the school aims to achieve and how it intends to do so ultimately creating a

158shared sense of purpose and direction for the entire School Community my family has been connected to sfair for over 20 years we have seen the hard work staff and teachers put into this District when I decided to move my children here we were told that the district practiced lanap that little bit of extra on purpose that that was a spirit and a purpose that I saw from campus through Administration the board has put forth the for consideration changing its mission and vision statements I question the move from creating leaders to equipping students from dreamers to followers from maximizing to cultivating Potential from rigorous and relevant to realize from lanap to just enough the suggested changes to the miss and vision statements appear to be another step to change the culture of cair from one of

159Excellence to Conformity I hope this is not the case as mahat m Gandhi said a sign of a good leader is not how many followers you have but how many leaders you create thank you on 8 a may I please get a motion I move that the board approv the vision of mission statement as presented and discussed second any questions at this time seeing none we'll now take a vote all those in favor of 8A please sign be raising your right hand it is unanimous 8B the board consider approving emergency operation staging area site agreement with center point energy for use of the Berry Center in pigon stadium parking lots in event of widespread power outages may I please get a motion I move that the board approve an emergency operation staging area site agreement

160with the center point with center point energy for the use of the Berry Center and printed Stadium parking lots in the event of widespread power outages second any questions seeing none we'll now take a vote all those in favor like it's unanimous again Holly 8C the board consider approving on second reading additions revisions and delions of District policies um we do have several speakers uh we'll start with the speakers first if you'll please come forward if we see your name on the board uh Chris christien Kimble followed by Caleb Penrod you each have one one minute uh to speak there's not much I can say about this disastrous parents rights policy that has not already been said instead I will note that all three of the trustees up for reelection this year voted last month

161to pass this awful policy and no doubt plan to reaffirm that vote tonight you have proven that you prioritize special interests over the needs of this community and that our voices do not matter to you I want each and every one of you to know un equivocally that when your tenure on this board is done you will have left this District worse than you found it every child made homeless because of this policy is on you every child that faces abuse at home or at school because of this policy is on you every child that attempts suicide as a result of this policy is on you I'd say that it's not too late that you can still choose not to implement this policy but we all know you've been ordered to vote Yes despite overwhelming

162opposition from this community to everyone in this District when you go to vote in the next school election vote for the candidates who actually care thank you Kaleb Penrod followed by Jennifer CET hello I'm a trans man and a former student of the cfd district and I am ashamed at how far this district and this board has fallen the policies this board has focused on instead of anything that be a Monica more helpful is appalling the fact that this was even proposed even more so to those who vote in favor of this policy shame on you shame on you for the sheer disrespect of many students privacy that this policy is endorsing and for putting so many students in unsafe homes and even more dangerous situations because of your hateful ideals the state we live

163in is already dangerous enough for individuals like me so shame on you for making their lives harder this policy focus on an aspect of a child's identity that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with their happiness and safety is harmful inhumane and completely apathetic Jennifer shet followed by Olivia Penrod so teachers can get in trouble if they encourage a student to not tell their parents about gender identity issues yet other teachers have permission to allow their sincerely held beliefs to get in the way of teaching a student so one teacher is actively supporting a student while the other is discriminating against them but these same teachers aren't allowed to choose their own hair color how exactly would the district treat gender dysphoria if it could School nurses can't even administer Tylenol

164without a consent form District staff will notify parents if their child request an accommodation to their legal name so if I request to be called Jen instead of Jennifer you're going to call my mom what if I want to call someone by their middle name instead of their first name Marie Lisa Allan Forest Huff Alton it's about ownership of oneself it's about empathy towards others empathy can be gained by reading about certain topics yet all those lgbtq books are being removed from our libraries this policy says a student can't borrow a book from a teacher's collection about these issues how could they do that anyway teachers have already been forced to catalog their private collections this is all excessive and a waste of time and it's to satisfy a very small group of adults and

165it will hurt actual students Olivia pin Rod followed by Jame new new I'm just going to keep this short and sweet and get to the point this board is nothing but hypocrisy you're say you're going to protect the students but this policy isn't protecting them stop making up problems to solve and focus on ones that exist instead we have more important tasks to focus on like bringing back our buses making sure we're safe from gun violence and so on vote no on this policy Jamie W followed by elain paa good evening I would like to speak in opposition of hc4 according to the official document quote parents have the ultimate responsibility and role to guide the beliefs and protect the health and wellbeing of their children end quote while I believ the previous statement to

166be true is this policy truly protecting the health and safety of children the Trevor Project states that 38% of transgender girls 39% of transgender boys and 35% % non-bar youth have experienced homelessness or housing disability with most being kicked out of their hom like parents or caregivers this policy will contribute to those percentages by outing trans students to their parents does that sound like he does that sound like protecting the health and wellbeing of children to you I know what you're going to think the parent has the right to know students can't lie to their parents but to that I pose a question do you lie for fun I don't think so students and people in general do not lie for fun they lie in fear for their safety instead of looking at gender expression

167of the problem consider the issue located in the student's home and of exposing children to be punished for deol and disowned consider providing a safe space where they may be comfortable to express themselves thank you la paa followed by Austin mcgaan I'm Elie Pena and I am a student at ccii high school and I speak for my family within the trans Community who do not feel comfortable speaking here tonight not everybody goes home to an accepting family by exposing identity of a student who is not exposing it to their families yet you have no idea how much danger you're putting them in you're risking a students physical and mental health as well as the ability to express themselves and learn to become who they truly are if you simply think the parents deserve to know

168you clearly never experience having to keep Part of Yourself secret and nor have you felt that protective nature nature to keep a loved one safe because they don't feel safe around their own bloodline there's nothing wrong with trying to figure out who one is and feeling comfortable in their own skin it helps us grow into healthy people we want to be but the path of this policy can and will negatively impact that ability to grow so that is why I kindly ask you please reconsider passing this policy Austin McGowan followed by Jill Center hi uh this is my third time speaking on this topic I think this policy is very shortsighted I understand that some people will frame it as parents need to know they have a right to know but as teachers our job

169is to protect students and build relationships with them and our default is keeping information from parents when a when a child is listening to an explicit song We Don't Stop the class and call their parent to let them know when a child is doing anything not related to academics or anything of that nature we don't we don't rat out our students for no reason this is not related to academics it's not related to safety this is just targeting a group of kids for no reason and I don't think it's right Jill Center followed by Remy speed my name is Jill but that is not my first name it is on my birth certificate but not what is legally required to be on my identification it is my identity but not what the state makes me

170identify as I was born in the Philippines and lived there until I was almost five I am not Filipino but every time I have to trot out my Consular birth certificate I have to defend my identity in the simplest terms the state could correctly say I am a Filipina named Melissa I am not we all deserve the autonomy to name ourselves without interference that's all these kids want to safely name themselves don't take that from them protect all children denying existance does not mean they don't exist thank you Remy SP followed by Alysa sandria good evening my name is Alysa Sani and I'm currently a junior here at cciir high school we have all told you that when this policy gets passed the group that is going to be hit the hardest is the youth

171that are already in dangerous situations domestically we have already told you that 1,600 students will risk- facing homelessness and that of these youth over half of them will consider suicide and we have already told you that these students are three times more likely to experience physical violence and sexual assault you already know these things so today I stand before you to ask one simple question when this policy gets passed and when 1600 students face the risk of homelessness will you members of the board will you take them in will you house them and feed them and care for them like your own if a child's safety is what you are concerned about then I ask are you willing to do what their parents will not and if the answer to that is no then I

172beg of you to leave this hateful piece of legislation behind thank you sherah D followed by jiren B Burton Sher Sherry sorry okay yes um basically I wanted to come tonight to support the board on your approval of the new policy parents rights and responsibilities it is correct that parents have the ultimate responsibility and role to guide the beliefs and protect the health and well-being of their children a parent has the right to full information concerning their student apparently teachers have asked for guidance on how to deal with gender identity I don't know how we got to this point but I hope this policy gives teachers a Clarity they need to engage with parents effectively while fostering a supportive learning environment for the student my church will be partnering with partnering with ciir high school

173and we look forward to being more involved with this District thank you for your dedication and service on this board Jaren Barton followed by Valerie patino hello board my name is Jared Burton as a student from kdd who has been living under this policy for the past year and a half that you will be voting on tonight I I started to realize that its most Sinister implication is not even found in written word in its Pages a policy that outs students to their parents serves two functions to punish those who deser who dare to be themselves authentically and to scare students of ever coming out in the first place this policy is both a weapon and a deterrent in 1930s Germany a Nazi Student Union began purging the country of ungerman literature their first Target

174was the world's first Institute of sex research which housed some 20,000 books and documents of research into gain people all of which were incinerated I urge you to pay attention to the rise of fascism in America because the first books they burned were queer I bring this up not only to draw parallels between the common hatred you share but to remind you that we have always been here and you cannot legislate us out of existence I know that I won't change your mind you'll continue misappropriating Dr King's words and ignoring the voices of your community but I ask of you one thing look Us in the eye when you raise your cowardly hands to P this policy [Applause] Valerie patino followed by Jeremy Eugene my name is Valeria patino and I'm a Christian Catholic and

175I find it appalling that I have to stand here and explain how this policy disregards students rights and promotes discrimination this District Champions their religious freedom yet it refuses to extend that for gender identity you require a Suicide Prevention hotline number on every student ID yet ignore this very risk that it creates when passing this policy forcing teachers to report these transgender students to their families will likely increase their suicide risk transgender youth already face the highest suicide rates um um suicide rates and in in the nation um that is 7.6 times more that attempt suicide more than cisgender peers enforcing this policy you can directly contribute to those numbers you claim to stain by faith values and righteousness but know this you the ones casting judgment you will bear the weight of these students

176suicides caused by your actions it's not protection it's harm and it's on your hands chairman Eugene followed by Bonnie Flint got your interpreter again when this policy was first talked about in the January 13th meeting a question was asked to the board what caused you to want to make this policy several board members said that teachers had concerns about the lack of a clear policy but this proposed policy does not give clear guidance it creates way more confusion for the teachers it says that there are two exceptions to parent notification one we would notify parents except to the extent prohibited by law this policy is already arguably against federal law secondly we would notify parents except in cases of suspected abuse this policy does not show how to determine whether abuse may occur after a

177parent is notified to properly advise teachers a much better option is for the district to use the organization we already get most of our professional development from the ascd has published several evidence-based approaches on how to both protect gender diverse student populations and communicate with parents respectfully thank you Bonnie Flint followed by Mindy Wilson in the US and many other countries trans and nonb binary people are extremely vulnerable facing discrimination exclusion violence and poor health they have high suicide rates not because they are trans or non-binary but because they suffer discrimination abuse and lack of social support as this research article in the Lancet and many others show if students cannot safely reveal who they are to a teacher without their parents being notified they may be completely without support by enforcing this policy we

178will alienate vulnerable students potentially leading to severe mental and physical health consequences including self harm and suicide in implementing this policy that endangers students is unacceptable Mindy [Applause] Wilson I'm speaking on 8 C2 I'm a special education paay at a demanding Middle School in the district I work full-time dutifully supporting Ela classrooms all day and pouring my heart and soul into every student I work with and my take-home pay is $0 and0 starting in October when the district began withdrawing deductions for my uh paycheck for health insurance I watch my very modest salary decrease to zero I have copies of my pay stubs if the board would like to confirm my compensation my child has a disorder that requires special uh specialty medications requiring me to carry CF isd's most expensive insurance plan for him

179to get the care and treatment that he needs because cfd contributes very little to employee health plans and some salaries are below poverty level Educators like me are stuck making impossible choices to meet the needs of our families I know that employee retention is important to cfis making decisions that ensure educators are paid a livable wage and compensated appropriately is vital to keeping dedicated people like me working with students who need us most Marilyn Marilyn all right hc1 DC oh you're here sorry you Marland Ro Maryland are you Maryland okay this there you go um I am a very old ex school teacher who taught school thousand years ago I also am a parent who had to deal with these issues with a very effeminate son who today praise God is happily married and has

180children the issue at hand isn't just right now it's pretty much based on an emotion and how you feel but when you look at yourself deeply there there is a way that you are created physically that transfers into you emotionally we are created in a special way I've had to ask repeatedly and guided with my son because many are telling him please W up that he is feminine and he is not so I encourage parents to reconsider I or I appreciate all of you it's a tough decision for you and I just want to say I appreciate you thank you sorry did we miss Remy SP did we say that name there on my list did you get the go already or no yes sir go ahead my name is Remy SP I use heem

181pronouns and I am a sophomore at cir trans kids are going to be harmed if you imp this policy a study done by UCLA states that transgender people are four times more likely to experience violent victimization including sexual assault aggravation or simple assault this will grow if implemented while the Trevor Project stated that 51% of trans youth considered a school safe a safe place and a St contrast to the 32 who felt the same about their homes students with a secure environment at school are at a reduced risk of suicide and this number will decrease if this is implemented the trust that will be broken between kids and administrators will be destroyed which will disrupt the learning environment and there's a part of this policy that states that they won't report it if it's potential

182abuse one it is very hard to even prove that someone's getting abused two parents not uh the parents might not be violent until the kid is forced out so for the sake of creating a safe Environ and safe environment where kids are safe to be themselves this policy should not be passed [Applause] hc1 dce local Employment Practices other contracts hc2 dce local compensation benefits leavs absences AC3 D GBA personal management relations employee complaints grievances hc4 fa local parents rights and responsibilities Miss H requested that the vote on hc4b separately so vote first on hc1 hc2 8c3 May I please get a motion I move that the board approve on second reading the revisions or deletions to District policies DEC local Employment Practices other types of contracts revise DEC local compensation and benefits leaves and absences

183resi revise and D GBA local personnel management relations employee complaints Grieves revised I'll second that any questions on these seeing none and I'll get a vote all those in favor of ac12 and three that is unanimous we'll now take a vote on AC4 may I please have a motion I move that the board approve on the second reading the additions revisions or deletions to District policy fa local parents rights and responsibilities add a second any questions to no questions okay go ahead Joe okay um this policy was presented at the two board meetings in January and I shared concerns and asked several questions regarding the need for this policy given other parents rights policies and statutes already exist in Texas Education Code and in cfis board policy I also asked questions about the source of

184this policy the inaccuracies within the policy and the unintended consequences if this policy were to be implemented in addition to my concerns about added bureaucracy and the need for detailed regulations to be created as a reminder Dr Killian I have requested a copy of the regulations when they are created for this policy I sent three requests to the board policy subcommittee by email on January 18th for consideration at the January 23rd policy subcommittee meeting and I received a response this evening to my requests just to inform the public what my requests were my request was that the board subcommittee discuss tabling the proposed board policy fa based upon Community feedback that request was denied I requested they discuss reworking the proposed policy fa local to address concerns expressed by the community regarding inac accurate uh

185definitions redundancies lack of clarity and lack of content related to parent responsibilities that request was denied I asked the board committee to discuss delaying the final vote on proposed policy fa local until the federal investigation of KD isd's similar policy is completed that request was denied we've heard from students parents and members of the community through email and in person today I would love to hear from my colleagues in January we had no discussion uh from other trustees regarding this policy my question for my colleagues is how does this policy improve reading or math proficiencies or any of our other strategic goals such as our graduation rate okay um then I will just uh do a quick review of the process of how we got here an anti-public education organization sent an email to trustees

186pushing this policy one other school district in our area did indeed pass it but they're the only ones and as I pointed out they are under federal investigation this policy was considered behind closed doors in the board subcommittee the new policy was presented at the board meetings in January and we heard overwhelming opposition from our communities no discussion was held by the board it was voted 6 to1 without public discussion by any other trustee as we have seen again here tonight I ask is this good governance I'd like I'd like to read the policy the entire in its entirety parents rights and responsibilities uh fa fa local Education Code chapter 26 definition of parent for purposes of chapter 26 of the Education Code a parent includes a person standing in the parental relation who is

187listed as a parent or legal guardian in the records of the district the term does not include a person as to whom the parent child relationship has been terminated or a person not entitled to possession of or access to a child under a court order Education Code 26.2 biological sex in accordance with law a person's biological sex is identified on the person's official birth certificate provided the statement was number one enter entered at or near the time of the person's birth or number two modified only to the extent necessary to correct any type of scrier or clerical error in the person's biological sex see birth certificate statement FM legal education code 33.0 834 gender fluidity is defined as any belief Theory or ideology that number one espouses The View that gender is merely a social

188construct and or number two espouses a view that it is possible for a person to be any gender or not or no gender I.E non-binary gender identity defined as any belief Theory or ideology that number one espouses The View that an individual's biological sex is different from that person's biological sex or should be changed to match a gender different from that person's biological sex and or number two supports hormone therapy or other Medical Treatments or procedures to temporarily or permanently alter a person's body so that it matches a gender different from that person's biological sex parental Authority is defined that par parents have the ultimate responsibility and role to guide the beliefs and protect the health and well-being of their children a parent has the right to full information concerning their student except as limited

189by law an attempt by any District employee to encourage or Co a student to withhold information from their parents is grounds for disciplinary action and that's Define uh Education Code 26.8 and 26. z85 except limited by law that a parent is entitled to access all records of the district concerning the parent's child including health and IM immunization information teacher and school counselor evaluations reports of behavioral patterns and other items Education Code uh 26.4 the district may only withhold information from a parent to the extent authorized by law and only to the extent reasonably necessary and that's in the Family Code 32.4 the district shall not diagnose or treat gender dysphoria parents have the right to determine when and if to seek professional psychological psychiatric and or Med Andor medical support for their children related to

190gender dysphoria and that's from the Texas Attorney General um let's see this KP kp- 0401 and that's that's in 2022 biological sex specific spaces district schools shall maintain sex segregated restrooms locker room rooms and other similar facilities designated for and used only by persons based on the person's biological sex in accordance with cs local except as provided below an inter Scholastic athletic team sponsored or authorized by the district may not allow a student to compete in an athletic competition sponsored or authorized by the district that is designated for the biological sex opposite to the students biological sex an inter Scholastic athletic team sponsored or authorized by the district may allow a female student to compete in an inter Scholastic athletic competition that is designated for male students if a corresponding inter inter Scholastic athletic competition

191designated for female students is not offered or available that's Education Code 33096 and I believe that's also from our Texas Attorney General overnight travel accommodations related to team sports and and other extracurricular activities requiring hotel rooms will be separated based on biological sex accommodation plans in the event a student or a student's parent specifically requests or directs the use of specific pronouns for the student District staff shall review and consider the request with the student and parent together and create a written plan for the student providing reasonable accommodations in the event District staff indicate that as students accommodations interfere with a sincerely held belief the staff member May request a reasonable accommodation through the human resources department except to the extent prohibited by law or in cases of suspected abuse District staff will notify parents

192if their child requests a reasonable accommodation related to the use of the Student Legal name or use of different pronouns from students biological sex at school as part of the interactive dialogue process to create reasonable accommodations for the student gender identity or fluidity materials defined as no course of instruction or uh no course of instruction unit of study materials instructional materials or any other curricular or District sponsor extracurricular offering shall adopt support or promote gender identity or fluidity as part of any District instruction this prohibition also includes any library or instructional materials that a teacher or administrator might seek to provide to any student including any situation and while in in in which a teacher or administrator would allow a student to borrow such Li library or instructional materials from The District staff members Private

193Collection any library or instructional materials accessible in any way to the students must be in compliance with EFA local and efb local and and EFA local and efb local no District staff will instruct refer or otherwise guide any student to any internet website chat room or other online form for publication for instruction or other information regarding gender ident ID or fluidity unless such website chat room or other online Forum has been approved for use in the district's instructional materials CFA information collection surveys parental consent for surveys number one District staff will not survey students without affirmative parental consent number two upon request any survey proposed for student completion must be provided to a student's parent or Guardian for review prior to administ uh Administration to a student and number three a completed survey by a

194student must be made available to the student's parent or or Guardian upon request I also want to make make a comment fa local is a policy that addresses parent rights and is consistent with state law federal law and case law regarding a parent right to direct the education and upbringing of their children the policy ensures that parents are informed partners with the school in all aspects of their education and well-being this policy aderes to Texas Family Code and chapter 26 of the Texas Education Code furthermore I believe that it to be imperative that we Implement these policy Chang changes to prevent the loss of federal funding taking no action could affect Federal programs such as feeding our children it would be a disgrace if some of our children went hungry at this policy fails to

195pass for many of our students it could potentially be their soul meal of the day Dr K do you have a oh okay yes yeah no I just want to wait to be recognized um thank you Todd for reading the policy I think it is very helpful for um folks to know what the uh exact um words are in the policy um as you shared almost everything um it cites um a code or a cfd policy so there is actually nothing new in here except for three areas which um do not currently exist in uh Texas Education Code specifically chapter 26 or has had an opinion from the Texas Attorney General or is currently in Cipher SD um policy as you did State um several CFI policies already address these issues whether it's CS um

196local having to do with facilities or efb local which has to do with Library materials and instructional materials at CFA um the parts that are um uh unique to this policy and that do not have any backup in code or um existing policy are the definitions um for gender fluidity and gender identity um that's something I question those definitions were actually provided by tppf they're not standard definitions um uh from any other organization in the US um and also the section on accommodation plans the concerns I I raised regarding accommodation plans was just a lack of clarity um from HR how they would um handle these requests from teachers if a teacher said they didn't feel comfortable um educ having a student in their class would the student be moved to a different class would

197the teacher be moved to a different class would the teacher be allowed to take leave um there's just a lot of lack of clarity into what those accommodations would mean if a teacher had a sincerely held belief that would prevent the teacher from educating a student in their class um I also expressed concern or just questions about um training for our counselors in terms of how to better identify um the the risk of abuse for students um given that this policy specifically targets um a um subpopulation of our students and then finally I asked for Clarity on the information collection surveys um just uh just more clarity about if these are online surveys if this is um you know uh I think I said raise your hand if you prefer Pizza you know raise your

198other hand if you prefer hot dogs um or if it's uh just some more guidance for our teachers around what um defined survey for this purpose so that's why I asked for some uh additional consideration to address just some of the lack of clarity um within this policy for the parts that are not not already covered by Texas Education Code or cfis D policy um Marne I just wanted to ask because I've been concerned about some of the students that are speaking today that think that somehow we're going to change the way we interact with uh students when they come to a teacher about a concern or about a change or anything else um is is there a difference in this this policy and how we have been working with uh Insider regulations um currently

199um no um our practice has been um anytime a student asks for an accommodation something outside of um the policy and practices that typically that will go through the counseling office so if a classroom teacher if a student requests something cont to like I said standard policy or procedure then they would be referred to either the administration or the counselor and then we do work with the students and the parents and we talk to the students and say you know if you're going to request this we can put an accommodation plan um in place we involve um the parents they're that's been um the guidance from our state for several years now so that's been our practice so since we and that was actually prior to that guidance that was already our operational practice this

200was to um involve parents in the conversation um have you know kids at the table with their parents and then we have a conversation about you know what accommodations are you looking for what can we facilitate what can we accommodate within you know the school setting and we go from there so this does um somewhat codify that so we're going to continue to operate the way we were before which to miss hamman's point is we already have this in terms of our procedures so is it redundant because it's being put into policy so I I get that but at the same time we're not changing anything because I've heard a lot of people come to the dice about being very concerned that somehow we're doing something different that's going to make a major impact on

201uh kids um in the in our practice and we're we're not doing a change there are we in terms of accommodations and practice with working with children um our our practice how I've trained since even prior to getting that guidance from the state has been that we involve parents in that process um in accordance with chapter 26 they're partners and in the students education and when we do put accommodation plans um in writing we are typically going to um have the parent sign off and be part of that so uh my one of my other concerns is obviously the whole idea of abuse or anything like that what is required of all Educators in the state of Texas if they just suspect abuse well chapter 261 of the family code um makes educator certified Educators

202in our state what we call mandatory reporters and um along with you know medical providers certain classes of individuals who have access to students to children I should say to be actually more precise and so what that what those Provisions in chapter 261 one tell us is that if a mandatory reporter including our teachers have reason to believe or suspect reason to suspect abuse or neglect may be occurring it's not their responsibility to investigate they're not trained to do that it's their responsibility to report in the the reference to the accept in um uh instances of suspected abuse or neglect that's in the policy that is exact statutory language that's required because there are Provisions in both chapter 26 of the Education Code which is the parental rights and responsibilities chapter and then Provisions in

203chapter 261 that cross reference that basically say parents are entitled to information unless for instance um they are the the person who may be suspected potentially of the abuse or neglect and then that is one of the instance in which that type of information may not be uh shared at least at the same time as the so for instance when I was teaching first grade and I saw some marks on one of my my kids and I pulled them to the side and talked to them for a few minutes and found out that those marks were where his dad was putting out his cigarettes when he was upset with him I had a mandatory requirement to report that to CPS along with I reported it to Administration and I did not tell the parent okay

204that that would be an example of how those two statutes inter interplay okay so I I just want to to let the kids know that we're going to report those kinds of things um because that's why that's why we're in the business to protect uh children and it's also a legal requirement for us as well so okay you need to talk okay ma'am this is a board meeting please thank I know this is important but we we have to we have sections in the meeting where the audience can participate and we're not in one of those sections um I just wanted to let people know though that it it is a requirement for us to um report those things and we will be reporting them and we will give training on how um we're supposed

205to do this and we have given training on how we're supposed to do things like this so I just want you to know that we will do that so any other discussion say none we'll now take a vote on 8 C4 parents rights all those in favor all those against parents rights one so it's 61 Holly 8D the board consider approving a service agreement for region for professional developments for School nurses we have a motion please I move that the board approve a service agreement with region4 for professional development of School nurses second see no one I to vote all those in favor of 8D raise your hand it is unanimous 8 e the board will consider consider approving the interlocal agreement with Department of information resources Dr may have a motion I move that

206the board approve the interlocal agreement with the Department of in information resources Dr and authorize the superintendent or designity to execute all necessary documents related to the agreement I'll second any questions seeing none will now take a vote all those in favor it is unanimous HG and H bre down so H excuse me 8i the board consider approving the superintendent recommendation give notes to the individual listed here pursuant to section 21. 211 of the Texas educator code that her employment with the district and the term contract is terminated this item was discussed in close session may I please get a motion I move that the Board of Trustees give notice to the following person that her employment is under a term contract is terminated second we now take a vote all those in favor that's

207one two count that right one two three four okay four um those against and then those abstaining I'm understand that because you weren't here that's four and then rest exemption 8j the Border consider making determination that good cause not exist is required by law for the individuals listed in the posted agreement to resign their respective employment contracts is automous assessed and Clos session may I please get a motion I move that the Board of Trustees render a finding under Texas administrative code chapter 2 49.1 7D that good cause did not exist as required by Texas Education Code sections 21105 C 21.1 160c or 2.21 c for the individuals listed to resign their respective employment contracts and notify these employees in accordance with the law that the district is submitting a complaint to the State Board

208of educator certification for contract abandonment I'll second that any questions seeing none when I'll take a vote all those in favor three four five and then two extensions 8K the dist District consider a level four appeal Zachary of a level three decision this item was disclosed discussed in close session may I please get a motion from the board I move that the board uh uphold the level three decision made by the Admin by the administration and amend the previous decision made by the administration as follows uphold just sorry I'm sorry to uphold the to uphold the level three decision made by the administration a second all right we now take a vote all those in favor that's three four five and then two extensions right here I believe that's all the items is that correct

209Holly make sure I miss anything i' like to thank everyone for being here tonight also like to thank those who are viewing watching from home may I please get a motion to adjourn so mov second all favor we now adjourn