001[Music] good evening the Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District board trustees is now convened in a regular board meeting on Monday February 12th 2024 in the boardroom of the Cyprus Fairbanks Independent School District administration building at 6 p.m. I'd like to welcome our members of the audience and our viewers online this meeting of the board trustees we are here to set goals listen to reports approve budgets contracts personal appointments and make policy for the district it's not the role of the board to make DayDay operations decisions the management and data operations decisions are those responsible as superintendent we have policies and procedures in place to resolve concerns and issues this is a public meeting of the Board of Trustees not a mean the public the meeting is open to all who wish to attend and hear
002the matters discussed AUD audience members may not participate in the meeting outside the design agenda items for citizen presentation or agenda comment disruption of the mean by any person including the audience is inappropriate and will be addressed by the board president or the board councel continue to repeat disruption of any board meaning by words or actions May Resort and removal part of the meeting board members received information related tonight's items agenda items may not res rep pardon me agenda items may not necessarily be handled in the order listed in the notice during the course of the meeting the board May determine that a closed session is necessary in that event the board meeting will be closed session matters duly posted in the meeting Perman by sections 551.071 through 55108 4 of the Texas government code
003these proceedings are airing live on the district website they're also available on the district's website following tonight's meeting for the video to accurately reflect the proceedings I respectfully ask you please refrain from talking While others are speaking and your cell phones are in the off or silent mode thank you for taking the time to join us this evening and your interest in Cyprus Fairbanks independ School District tonight we have Grace Hanley from Tom Oliver's office and we have Elizabeth Stinson from representative Paul Benton Court's office we also have the Boy Scouts troop the red wolf District troop is here from Boy Scouts are they here awesome thank you very much for being here at each open meeting the board patrons who have registered in accordance with procedures established in bed regulation May address the board
004during the agenda comment section prior the board's consideration for any action item listed unless the agenda is otherwise rearranged with the board president during the meeting agenda items will be taken in the order of the agenda item also in accordance with the procedures established by bed regulations patrons May address the board during citizen participation on any matters of Interest or concern they're not posted in aenda items for detailed information on on registering to speak under agenda items or citizen participation please go to the district website patrons who have registered to speak this evening may see the order of names listed on the screen behind me before your name is called please move forward and sit one the reserved seats on the front row when you approach the podium you'll see there are two one on
005my right one on my left you'll see a monitor inside the podium when you are time to be speaking a digital presentation time will be displayed on the monitor the time will be set in accordance with the number of speakers this evening there'll be a 30C and a 15-second warning light to wrap up your comments the invitation for tonight's meeting will be given by Josh G preaching minister of Jersey Village Church of Christ since 2012 prior 2012 John spent 26 years in the electronics Industry and two years as a golf professional he and his wife Lisa have been married for 39 years and had three sons three daughters-in-laws and three grandchildren John is an avid sports fan especially of the St Louis Cardinals and also passionate about cooking and barbecue John and Lisa love to
006travel and ride their bikes thank you John for being here tonight before the invocation I'd like to introduce the cyfair high school Air Force jrtc Cadets who are presenting tonight's colors this evening carrying the American flag is Cadet first lieutenant Steven Nicholson carrying the Texas flag is Cadet staff sergeant Anderson Fox on the on the American Rifle is Cadet Lieutenant Colonel Laney Simmons and on the Texas rifle is Cadet Captain Jamie Diamond these Cadets are presenting the colors on the direction of senior Master Sergeant Michael W calone retired US Air Force at this time would you please stand for the invocation in the Pledge of Allegiance let's pray almighty God we approach your throne of grace this night with boldness and confidence but with humility recognizing our shortcomings and how often we fall short of
007your glory I lift up this evening this meeting and all who are in who are here and present I pray for this meeting that it be decent and in order and that all the things that are discussed here and worked out here or for the good of the kids who are part of the school system I pray for the board for the school administration for their staff for the teachers and their AIDS for the police officers and all the support staff especially father I pray for the children and for their parents I pray that the goal of this school be to raise up and educate children who will go into adulthood as productive citizens and who would emulate those things that your word calls that all would love one another and treat others as they
008would wish to be treated themselves father we are so grateful that you have blessed us with life with health with families we're grateful for this school system I pray your blessings on all involved it's in jesus' name I pray amen board member Justin Ray will now read The District's vision and mission statement with honor Mr President our vision at cfis SD is formed from the acronym lead to learn Empower achieve and 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 the remarks and recognitions pors of our agenda the superintendent will make remarks regarding tonight's honors and achievements earned by staff and students in recent weeks and provide those updates to District community events Dr Kellan thank
009you sir cfic started this year off right in 2024 please enjoy this Jan recap video highlighting how our students and staff brought out their [Music] best [Music] the bringing out the best character trait for the month of February is compassion thank you for all of our campuses for emphasizing strong character for all our cfis students next uh the livestock show in sale it was another successful year for the 30th annual cfis Livestock Show and sale held on January 31st through February the 3D at the cfis exhibit center student projects generated an estimated total of more than 600 $100,000 please enjoy this video highlighting the [Music] event I am so excited to win a reserve it's been a lot of hard work between my family friends teachers honestly FFA for at Cypress Creek feels like a
010family we're able to do just a [Music] lot I really wasn't expecting it it was just after four years I wasn't expecting to win Grand Champion and being making auction the past two years just I wasn't expecting it it's just amazing I I can't believe we've got this great Arena here the community has helped us expand it so and it's full in there with the swine so there are so many people watching this thing and then now we're live streaming it too fantastic 11,000 Star Chevrolet 11,000 I'm generally surprised I wasn't expecting I put a lot of hard hours to me it's an art without welding there wouldn't be any tractors any tractor equipment i w first place in my class that was fun I thought that was going to be the end of it
011I didn't know like we'd have all this stuff after it's all worth it to be honest look at all this it really was an awesome event and I just wanted to say thank you to our a teachers and also our CTE staff it was an incredible experience for me um and just visiting with the kids it it was awesome so thank you very much for all that hard work um National African-American history month since 1976 every US president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month celebration of the achievements by African-Americans and a time for recognition of the central roles and contributions of black Americans to our country you uh can get insight into our District's history by learning about the early settlers of Independence Garden currently known as the carverdale community
012by visiting the district website a video posted on the site tells the story and includes longtime community members sharing their memories um since this is African-American Rec recognition U month I'd also like to just take a a moment for um Personal Privilege I'd like to recognize Ikea Kaufman Ikea was the first um black female drill instructor for Marine Corps Recruit Depot s uh San Diego so that's MCRD so being a marine I have to do a shout out to a marine so thank you so much for your service next it is also career and Tech technology Education Month every February the CTE education Community celebrates CTE month to raise awareness of the role that CT has in uh readying learners for College and Career Success cfis is proud to have more than 40,000 students particip
013participating in 30 plus career related programs of study each with certification opportunities more than 9,300 certifications are earned each year incredible work this is also love the bus month since 2007 if you didn't think there was a lot of things going on this month so it's also love the bus month since 2007 American School Bus Council has C celebrated the school bus influence on learning through stories that span the nation each February students schools and educators are invited to highlight the important role of the yellow school bus during love the bus month we certainly want to thank our cfis transportation team the incredible bus drivers to start and end our students instructional day on a positive note thank you bus drivers and transportation staff this is also National School counseling week last week February 5th
014through the 9th we celebrated National School counseling week a time to recognize the unique uh contributions to our school counselors in the US school systems and in cciir ISD thank you to our counselors as well and in addition to that is National School resource officer Appreciation Day the National Association of school resource officers encourages schools and communities to recognize the valuable work of their school resource officers during national school resource officer Appreciation Day on February 15th coming up actually this week I would like to also personally thank um officer ward he is our officer here in the central office thank you so much for being such a kind and Community servant and you just welcomed me to this district and I look forward to just your smile every day thank you officer Ward um also
015on a personal note I need to recognize officer um almanza um he is brand new to the district so I will just let you know that um it was unfair what I did to him at the ACT show I actually walked up next to him and started chatting him up talking to him and he said this was his first a show and he was really excited about it and talking about the district and just bragging about the police department and his fellow officers and then at the end that's when um he asked me so what do you do for the district and I just said well you know I hey I do the same thing you do I serve the the district and the community he pressed me a little bit on it and I
016said well I'm the superintendent he goes oh said you didn't say anything bad you were a great representation of our um police department and he was awesome I just wanted to let the police officers in the room you all need to call him out for his good service [Applause] so and then just if you thought it wasn't enough um for celebrations the National FFA week each year FFA chapters around the country celebrate National FFA week at a time to share what uh at at this time they share what FFA is and the impact it has on its members every day this year's FFA week will be celebrated on February 17th through the 24th congratulations to them as well and then this week is also or this month is also President's Day it's a Federal holiday
017celebrated on the 3 Monday in February this year's celebration is set for February 19th originally established in 1885 in recognition of President George Washington the holiday became popular popularly known as the President's Day and then we have a teacher work day coming up a reminder that February the 16th will be a teacher work day and student holiday and February 19th will also be a professional de development day and a student holiday I noticed the students get a lot more holidays than staff do so we might have to work on that um I also wanted to call out someone U very special in this office as well that kind of made my um made my last month very special um Joe um we call him Mr Joe um in the central office Joe Ruffin um Joe
018is a custodian in our office who basically the greeting committee for the central office so whenever you're walking through the hallways he takes time to say hi to you good morning he didn't know who I was the first couple days he just walked up to me started chatting me up I he asked me what my name was I said it was Doug he said oh that's nice and what where are you working at I said oh I work upstairs somewhere didn't tell him where I worked and all that good stuff but we chatted for a while he was just so kind and nice and then um a couple days later he walked up to me said you didn't tell me who you were so but you know what hey Undercover Boss he was fantastic fantastic
019he was the welcoming committee thank you so much Joe all right there there is a little bit of advantage to not being here for 12 years like uh Dr Henry so I actually can walk up to somebody and they don't know who I am so um please turn uh I'm I'm sorry I'm reading my notes so I'd like to turn it back over to uh scottt our president to announce recognitions and the bringing out best Awards go down yeah can I ask Justin to go down there we'll present out the awards for the different uh celebrations first um Mark Williams to come forward Mark is representing our CTE group and done a fantastic job the rodeo and everything else you do we want thank you very much and stay right there mark also got FFA
020week as well you get two that's a two for one special tonight they are different at the very end we'll take a picture at the entire board so be done love that bus month you know who's coming up next right Dr Smith if you have a chance be sure and go see the new telge center he'll love to show it around thank you very much Dr Smith the National School counseling week Franklin Samson [Applause] please charge of our gu guidance and counseling does a fantastic job for us celebrate him as well for our national School counseling week and then last but not least we have officer Jaz Moore and officer Martinez if youall come up here for the national school resource officers day only got [Applause] one oh you get the wrong around [Applause] you
021to get new ones for that get the board to come down real quick we'll take a quick pict of all these come sorry good if uh officer uh Ward would come forward is he still here he's coming he's probably greeting people outside exactly you come forward officer Ward we have an award for you as well the board has now put together a award for both a teacher and also a non-teacher position and our first award goes to uh congratulations to senior officer Eric Ward may know him as the gentle giant uh office of a has three decades of law enforcement experience is one of the original officers hired when cyfair was first started in 2012 office award is normally found around the admin building but sometimes you might find them around the district doing what
022has best protecting and serving students staff and property of the district you know it's um this month is compassion month if anyone describes that best it's you sir you are a true gentleman and Scholar thank you officer Ward for your enduring dedication your invaluable contributions to safety and being what is best inside Fair thank you very much and we do have a a trophy for you unfortunately got lost in the mail we'll get to you this week you know we're on that sciare budget so we got to be a little cheaper so we didn't do it uh we do have a certificate for you and um we're right here fantastic Bo can we go out there one more time for him Devon if I can get you come forward as well please sir bringing out
023the best also exemplifies someone who does a fantastic job in their everyday which is one of our I think one our great teachers from bridgin high school he was hired in 2019 to teach Robotics and Engineering he serves as a robotics uh Club sponsor which he's helped grow the campus's robotics program at this event with VRC robotics Devon host the anel bridgelin open the CF International robotics competitions and provides technical assant and refereeing at various robotics throughout the year serving as the brazas Valley Regional president for the robotics contest coordinator for Texas he assisted hosting the state robox championship with over 60 teams and I think a lot of us went to it as well he does a fantastic job his robotic teams gathered and they had multiple accolades all over the last five years
024qualifying for this the Texas VRC High School Region 3 Championship the UIL Texas state champion 6A and the Texas State Technology Studio Student Association con contest we're very proud to give you the award for bringing out your best for Devon for outstanding achievements and a positive impact you made on on this not is a great teacher as well thank you very [Applause] much last but not least I would like to recognize which we forget to do sometimes is birthdays for our members Lucas just had a birthday congratulations Lucas and also Julie's coming up as well she's almost a Valentine's baby then also t as well on the 15th is a Valentine's baby so congratulations that at this time I like turn over to Christina Cole to introduce uh Dr Emmy Frank thank you Dr Killian
025president Hen Henry and Board of Trustees I always enjoy introducing a new principal to you and this is certainly a special announcement as I introduce our inaugural principal for elementary 59 in the miror Messa um subdivision and one of the um awesome things about being an inaugural principal is that you get to work with the namesake you get to build that positive culture and then um just work with the parents and the students and the News staff to really really um make that a special school and it's it's definitely an honor and a privilege for our elementaries um to get to serve as an in inaugural principle with that being said I'd like to introduce Dr Amy Frank she is in her 31st year as an educator all in cfis Amy began her teaching career
026at Post Elementary and Hamilton Elementary with the focus on the intermediate grade levels following a successful period as an instructional specialist at shared in elementary she transition IED into Administration as an assistant principal next Amy served as an assistant principal at Sheridan Elementary and Wilson Elementary for a total of eight years in 2015 she was promoted to principal at Owens Elementary where she has dedicated the past eight years to serving the students the staff and the community Amy's contributions extend beyond her role as principal she has been selected to serve as a summer school principal an assistant principal mentor and a principal Mentor Amy holds her Bachelor of Science and in elementary education from the University of Houston um has a master of education Administration from Steven F Austin university and most recently she obtained
027her doctor of education and educational leadership from the University of Houston additionally um Amy has obtained her superintendency certification so watch out Dr Killian her continuous pursuit of knowledge is highlighted by her participation in programs such as the leadership Partners Executive Education Academy at Rice University and the Harvard University new and aspiring leaders Institute she is a certified Mentor recogn recognized by the National Association of Elementary School principles an interesting fact about Amy is that she is a product of Cypress Fairbanks ISD she attended matky Milsap Moore L and Cypress Creek and some of those changes were to rezoning Amy and her husband Don have two sons Taylor and Austin who are both graduates of ciir high school um in Texas Tech University and they both now live in Houston in November Amy welcomed her
028first grandchild in her Spare Time Amy likes to work in the garden travel and read so please join me in congratulation congratulating Amy Frank on this new leadership opportunity president Henry Board of Trustees and Dr kellian thank you for this amazing opportunity I'm thrilled to have been selected as inaugural principal of Elementary School 59 this is truly a dream come true for me and I look forward to building the culture of Excellence with my staff and my community I've been fortunate to have had some of the finest leaders who have mentored me and helped grow me as a leader in particular I'd like to thank Gina gidry Dr Carla Brosnahan Dr Debbie Emery Maryann Smith Cindy O'Brien Ann Wilcox Dr Carrie Mars and Dr Tanya gory I'm thankful for your mentorship and your friendship I'm
029also thankful for the nine years that I've had at Owens Elementary it's been a wonderful wonderful place to lead and to grow um it's probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do is to leave because it's a great place um I want to introduce my family uh first of all I have Taylor my son and his wife Chelsea and of course Patrick Taylor Frank the love of my life um my husband Don Frank of 33 years my son Austin um my mom Kathy and her boyfriend Bill uh I mean friend seems weird [Laughter] but oh god um my brother Stephen and his girlfriend Joanne Steven is also um a ciper educator he teaches at ciper high school um and I've got all kinds of friends and cheerleaders from my Owens crew and
030and from my Sheridan days so um thank you I couldn't be more pleased and honored for this next step so thank you all thank you very [Applause] much Dr Frank I didn't forget our discussion um as you reminded me you're my favorite right now right I thought I was supposed to say that since you were the first right the first person we there you go so I will remind the principles tomorrow before we take board comments uh Dr Frank if you come forward again we'll take a picture and then we'll take a five minute break five minute only break please that means 10 but [Music] five [Music] m [Music] n [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah [Music] yeah [Music] if you would please take your seat all the reserve people we'll now proceed with board
031comments board members may make comments during portion of the agenda regarding schools visited meetings conference attended District community events initiatives or continued education the bo may not take any action on items discussed I'll start to my left Natalie if would you like to go first please okay uh thank you we just appreciate everyone that's uh here this evening always to uh support our school district uh support democracy um just definitely uh make sure that our Educators and our kids have all they need um this was a big week we already mentioned all the different uh celebrations that we honored and so I repeat I Echo those um sentiments that we definitely appreciate all the different groups and people and uh teams that support the work for our kids and I definitely want to mention uh
032a counselor appreciation week uh this is a a meeting uh where a lot of conversation is centered around the counselor role and they are so critical and so important in our schools they do such amazing work and their jobs are incredibly difficult so we definitely want to appreciate our counselors I also want to appreciate um with just so many events that we were at over the last month since our last meeting and I want to appreciate those who work in our facilities teams and those who work on just in all the different roles that it takes to pull off those events um we have uh we just the different locations that we were at this month um we were here in this building with a reception and meetings in the Art Exhibit in the vpac
033the swimming facilities the um spelling be over Berry Center the FFA auction and and show over at our AB bar um again the choir at the vpac um and then just meetings upon meetings and like the calendar committee and others right here in this building and our National Merit scholar over uh recognition over at the um very center it just takes a whole team of people to make sure those events are pulled off with high class high quality to really honor those people that are being um featured and their students whose work is being honored and so I just want to thank all those teams for example the pair of professionals and others in the district who take time to do extra jobs so that they can pull off you know even the ladies who
034ride the elevator over at the uh wrestling event um and we just it takes a whole team a whole village a whole group of people willing to give up the extra time and to make these things excellent and so I just want to appreciate all that staff that pulls over those events and also just thank our our Administration if we were there they're there they work so tirelessly they're events upon events um we see each other every night of the week maybe and the weekends as well and so I just want to appreciate our Administration team as well for their dedication to that go go above and beyond to make sure they're there to support not just the activities that they oversee but also those of their colleagues and so thank you very much to
035everyone for your Excellence it's an honor to serve this outstanding group and honor to serve our community and our kids thank you Christine do you have comments yeah uh good oh sorry good evening cciir uh thank you for joining us this evening I just wanted to say it has been a whirlwind in the last month with many events some of that Natalie has mentioned um I want to encourage our parents local businesses the faith community and the nonprofits in the district to to volunteer as mentors and volunteers um we have trainings to assist you and I promise you'll be blessed by being involved in our schools um I also want to Echo some thank yous to the administration um for the training that we've received uh the hospitality of helping us with the uh various
036um events that have happened and the trainings that we've needed so thank you um also um um want to say thank you for the recognition that we received last month for the national school board month uh we received um books donated in our honor other gifts and certificates from various schools so thank you so much for taking the time to do that we so appreciate it um also I wanted to um mention just a few things that I was able to attend the robotics competition it was super impressive um watching the students uh create their their robots and to be able to do battles and and to Duke it out so to speak uh I want to congratulate every team that competed and the winners um shout out to the CTE welding and engineering students
037for creating the trophies the trophies were super cool if you haven't seen those um also um I attended some of the art shows uh cair Chamber of Commerce luncheon um was able to take in the bridgelin sfalls varsity basketball game that was intense very good uh also um met with the fellowship of Christian athletes and was able to visit with Kayla middle school and also attended cyfair High School choir showstopper Show and The Horizon showcase uh The District swim meet uh the US Navy band performed it was amazing in the vpac uh such a gift uh to be able to witness that and then also the tem tmea preview for sards and for bridin their choirs uh again amazing and then I attended the CLC committee um and the 69th annual National Merit Scholars Program
038Awards um we have such amazing in students teachers and administration in our district I just want to say way to go to all of you um and thank you again for uh the administration helping to get us up to speed on our training J good evening uh since the last board meeting there just has been mentioned there's so much going on in our district I've had three official campus visits to Lee Elementary to Samson Elementary and to Goodson Middle School along with enjoying all the extracurricular activities as mentioned wrestling swimming um uh and especially the art exhibits at the vpac have been some uh just fantastic um I've shared uh I try to share weekly updates of activities around the district uh through social media so instead I'm going to focus on sharing some other
039comments and observations in Hope of shining a light on ways we can work better together for our stakeholders um first of all when it comes to transparency I know this is something that's important to all of us um I encourage that as we move forward when discussing a district policy change that the proposed policy change would be available for the public to read in advance if it can't be pass posted publicly in advance um of the board meeting because of last minute changes which does happen um I hope that we could consider projecting the proposed policy changes onto the screens in the boardroom and for um those at home watching to be able to see that as well um there's also on another topic there's been some discussion about creating a board promotion plan this
040in includes creating a board Twitter account that will be managed by District employees creation of a Facebook photo album for trustees and individual trustee profile videos I question the use of District resources to promote individual trustees the role of the Communications Department is to promote the district our campuses programs departments teachers employees and most especially students they're an incredibly talented team in our Communications Department they do a fantastic job spotlight in all the great things happening in our schools my suggestion is that we continue to focus these valuable resources where they are most effective and benefit the whole District regarding board subcommittees as a trustee I am committed to working with my fellow board members and truly hope that this new organizational structure will indeed be effective in meeting our district goals I re I
041remain concerned regarding the inefficiency of adding several more meetings each month for board members and for dist District staff and for the lack of transparency of meetings that intentionally have less than a quorum present versus simply having two public meetings each month with all board members present as with standard operating procedure prior to January of 2024 another concern is the very large number of requests for information and data that were made prior to the first meeting of the academics safety vision and planning committee I'm not sure about requests that for information that were made by other subcommittees my suggestion moving forward is that any data or information request submitted to the administration for the purpose of a board subcommittee be made after all board members of the sub subcommittee confirm and agree to the need
042and relevance of the information speaking of board member request for information I have two questions for our board and for our Administration just to consider and think about for my fellow board members are we as trustees going to follow the board operating procedures for trustees regarding requesting information from the administration I reference page seven of the board operating procedures quote if an individual trustee requests that the administration prepare a report the board president will seek to determine if it is the consensus of the board that the report is needed the board president will inform the board of his determination regarding the request the second question is for the administration and general councel are all of these requests and their responses being tracked and will they be reported according to Texas Education Code chapter 11 section
04311152 let me give some context there's been a very high number of requests for information in the past 30 days there's no notation of why the information was being requested and how it was used often the timing is very short notice for example some reports were requested on a Wednesday a Thursday or a Friday in preparation for a meeting on Monday this caused staff to work all weekend one example of report that was required that required significant District time and effort a trustee requested report now eternally titled by the trustees name that required over 80 hours of Staff time to prepare according to board operating procedures page 10 as prohibited by law that's quote as prohibited by law an individual board member may not require District employees to prepare reports derived from an analysis of
044existing information or records I believe that some of these issues are just simply due to Growing Pains uh from new trustees or newest trustees as we learn and accept the role of governance that trustees are elected to perform as an experienced superintendent I have confidence that Dr Killian can offer guidance and support as we move forward to serve all stakeholders in cfis especially students thank you Justin comments well good evening everyone great to have everybody here um as everybody has said it is indeed been quite a busy month for the board superintendent staff uh we have had multiple board committee workshops um we provided some updates last uh work uh work session we'll continue to provide updates on those as well um one of the things that I realized pretty quickly uh as I became
045a trustee there were a lot of meetings uh and a lot of boardroom meetings and I got to the point I said it's time to go see some kids and so that's what I spent quite a bit of time this last month doing is going seeing our excellent student students our teachers our staff um all the different programs that are going on and um one of the things that was already mentioned was a robotics competition uh that took place at the Barry Center it was awesome to see all these mechanical Minds at work um unfortunately there were no BattleBots uh I was looking forward to that um I got my son out of bed and took him to that promising him there were BattleBots I knew there wouldn't be but I told him anyway um
046Devin Murphy was here as uh from bridgelin our CTE director Mark Williams great job I learned so much visiting with those guys at the robotics um event um I did go to as many kids as possible I did confirm they are not making Terminators so everybody rest assured humanity is safe no worries about that whatsoever right uh it did go to the K through2 Rodeo art show that was a gallery level presentation it was absolutely amazing um spoke with numerous art teachers one of the things I really enjoyed talking to all the art teachers about was just all the appreciable skills students develop by engaging in art um whether you know whatever the art may be because what ends up happening is you envision a project you make that project happen you work through adversity
047these are all skill sets that students need and you can do it through artistic expression in essence an art project is project management and it was really great to see all of it it was it was a fantastic event like I said it was Gallery level and really makes you really really proud to be a member of this community uh I did attend the Elementary District spelling be man we've got some smart kids here um one of the things so of course it's the younger kids right when when they lose there's quite a few tears that are being shed and it's kind of tough to watch and at one point I I kind of snuck out a little bit and uh I met some of the kids as they were exiting and I said man
048you did a really good job or really proud of you then I would say well how old are you they said well I'm in fourth or fifth grade I'm like man you got a lot of years of spelling bees ahead of you keep it up you're doing a great job and we're really really proud of you and it was just a really moving experience and talking about smart kids man go to the National Merit scholar uh event right in which we uh recognized our National Merit Scholars uh Dr MCAS if I'm correct the most in cfd history this year is that correct that is correct congratulations to those kids and all the teachers and everybody involved in that that number of people making this very distinguished honor um what's really interesting about that so when
049you go to the National Merit scholar event they give you a big booklet and that booklet has all their names and their bio and everything that they've done and I half jokingly said I'm going to take this home and give it to my kids and make them read it uh so kids if you're watching right now guess what you have coming to you um but amazing kids and just um made you extremely proud to be a member of this community um as mentioned earlier today we did conduct our new member orientation as required by state law um great presentations with everybody uh all the command staff were there um all the support staff everybody was there uh and they put together great presentation answered all our questions fun fact I learned today cfd buses we
050bus more kids than Austin Dallas and Houston combined is that right Matt wow so that just goes to show you know how much priority we put on our students and their education if you want to get to school we're going to make sure you get to school and I'm just that just another thing that we do here at cyfair makes me very proud to be a trustee and a member of this community and uh those are my comments this evening thank you Lucas any comments yes sir sir thank you president Henry so as many of us have mentioned it's been a busy month and it is for every trustee every single month this month being no exception um I had the pleasure of attending numerous events and I'll go through them quickly to get to
051the primary comments the livestock show in Rodeo wow that was a professional level event I mean the facilities the students the uh my daughter had the opportunity to go back there was a community family that was their daughter was presenting and so we're family friends and we met them back there we didn't know they would be there and uh they had a goat and the goat's name is gunar and uh that goat was the cleanest animal period I've ever seen in my life that that that goat was living his best life and uh including when he started trying to chew on my daughter's shirt that was awesome and so we also had the pleasure of attending our the cipher High School uh showstoppers event wow that was so fun for those of you that have
052not been highly recommend it it was great my daughter loved it as well and so as we also mentioned earlier so the robotics competition it's so incredible to go out and see kids that would that are connecting with each other around an event of Robotics and technology and finding something and Building Things with their hands it's so cool because they didn't have I mean I was like you know when I was a kid the dead seat was just sick it was a long time ago these we didn't have things like that and now these kids have this wonderful opportunity to connect with each other and it's this whole new um friend group that is within our schools and it's important because that's where the kids get to try new things learn fail pick themselves back
053up try again Devon your leadership it's awesome when you go and try to talk to him he's not focused on the trustees he basically says politely get out of my way I'm going to go take care of our kids and that's exactly the way we want it so thank you Devon uh so for our fine arts program they hosted the first stop of the national tour for the Navy Band wow so as someone who is played more John Philip soua marches than I can care to remember as I told my other band director and band friends that's what it's supposed to sound like uh it was incredible and the one of the things that they said was folks we play in a lot of auditoriums but you all need to know this is the best
054venue that we've ever played in let that sink in for a second they said we don't get this all the time we never see this this is incredible what your community has is very special so hats off to our admin all the people that go into making the vpack a great place it's actually very important when why we do what we do and making sure that we have top-notch facilities because it makes people feel more proud it lifts them up it encourages them it makes the event bigger and that's what we heard from the Navy Band who came through and said this is an amazing venue thank you so much for having us it was wonderful and then lastly last but not least the dance off so my daughter and I had uh graciously had
055front row seats for the dance off and so it was just little girl dreams right my daughter looking at the big girls and that's what those events are about is little young children being able to look at older children and saying that's what I want to do someday and older kids being able to work hard and show off their stuff and so thank you to all the different programs that are out there putting in the work so with that I I want to Pivot real quick and um I want to have some comments about one of the items that'll be on the agenda later on tonight we and I'm answering the call regarding Community feedback so over the last few days I've gone through all of our email regarding the calendar and so I've taken
056a sample of that and I've effectively I just did an analysis anytime someone mentioned a specific point and those points were start date it was vacation October it was days after school and Memorial Day it was uh whether or not we were the community felt heard in terms of the survey and what did the district do so I want to raise a concern for from my perspective I didn't share this on Thursday night I wanted to see how everything kind of played out our community is very concerned that they were not hurt we have a super majori effectively in our our community saying we don't want a date earlier than a certain date and we exceeded that and we have folks that to look at that and go well how are we supposed to interpret
057this it's not a great look and it feels like they're not being listened to to and for all the stakeholders in the room the Administration has to balance the needs of the district the needs of our teachers the needs of our student the needs of our community there's multiple lenses we have to the our admin has to look through and as board members it's our primary job in many cases to listen to the community and try to funn all that information into a recommendation back to admin to take advantage prioritize Etc when I look at this 70% of the respondents and all this analysis is an email can be viewed 70% said we don't really care for this and of those 61% said the start date was the issue the next highest one was what's
058going on with the October vacation because now as a working parent I have to pay for my students and I can't afford it and it creates issues for a working family if we look at Memorial Day over and over I heard 34 4% of the time what are students going to be doing please tell me they're not going to be watching videos in class after Memorial Day is that an effective use of our time and the most disheartening one for me is that were we heard you sent out a survey I was so excited that I got a survey but now it seems like the survey was ignored and I personally never want to hear that comment again if we're going to send out a survey we have to address the piece of information that's
059in the surveys and relate it to what we're taking action upon people shouldn't feel that they're being ignored and that's a message that was sent meant or not meant it seems to be a message that's come through we should be doing better and um so you know there's the decision that we have on the calendar it's it's really tough there's lots of ways to look at it but when I look at the parents who say please I I can't I can't afford all this time off I've got to take every single day of vacation I have through my job to make sure I'm out when my student is out and I only have 20 days a year and now I have more than that that I've got to go pay for daycare I got to
060find something else it creates a challenge so I want to hear in our discussion tonight I want to relay that Community feedback and the look that I took I want to hear us answer those questions and if I'm looking at taking an up or down right now for our calendar as is I personally am not in favor so those are my comments go I want to thank everyone that uh all the students principls Librarians teachers and staff that sent notes of encouragement for Schoolboard appreciation month uh I will do my best to get out to meet everyone as soon as possible and I want to thank all the folks for their kind gestures very anxious to meet with principals teachers staff and and the students um got to share a few of the things that
061uh were given to me uh with my wife and I just got to tell you when when young students dra just draw a picture just just spend spend a little bit time to draw uh a picture it's kind of a little bit of a tear Jer tearjerker moment uh because you're like I mean they don't even know me and uh so I just really appreciate that and for the teachers and staff that uh that did that I I I really appreciate that I really appreciated um as far as events that I've attended since the last meeting the robotics competition Devon you did an incredible job as Deon de still here he's gone uh and and Mark uh head over over our CTE program he does a fantastic job I think I probably talked his ear
062off for a couple hours between the uh robotics competition and uh I snuck in after a after my meeting with the athletic director and their and her team uh for the cupcake competition as well so I didn't show up quite early enough um that would have been that would have been nice to to grab a couple uh a couple of those cupcakes from the kids uh also attended the District swim meet at The Natatorium uh at off Windfern uh enjoyed the the conversations I had with uh principals and staff members uh we had a district wrestling meet at the Barry Center uh state meet is coming up this weekend so I wanted to just uh share and and tell everybody good luck to all the student athletes that will be representing their repres their respective
063schools I was able to attend this the elementary school spelling be at the Barry Center and u i was thoroughly impressed with the uh well let me just say this I I I was expected to be there for about 3 hours and it turned out to be four and a half hours because we have such talented kids in the school district uh they they I was floored with with their knowledge and and the skills for for for their spelling so I would been knocked out in the second round just so you guys know so um also the art show at the Performing Art Center just catching up with some of the students and and the staff and the the amount of uh people that participated in that I I just want to tell you thank
064you so much for um for the uh display of just amazing talent that we have in the school district and and uh especially even the life skills kids uh recognizing the the job that they did and and and again the uh the passion that our our teachers have um after that tended to sfalls bridgland basketball game I know we got uh playoff playoffs around the corner are they have they started just yet maybe I could we're getting we're getting close I know that and then as far as my first official visit I went with uh Scott Henry to bridgelin High School uh met with Michael Smith I really I wanted to just tell him um send out a note that I appreciate the hospitality staff was very friendly and impressed with our special education teachers
065and their students um the passion the job that you do and the patience is greatly appreciated and recognized um so that's what I wanted to talk about today as far as that and then I also wanted to also touch base um a little bit with what Lucas touched base on you know one of one of the things that that uh I want to do uh from the seat that I'm on right now is I want to represent not just not just uh the students not just the staff but the entire cair community and I want and and and again we want to make sure that everyone's heard um I uh Dr mcus I appreciate the job that you do it is I I don't envy your job um but I think that we we need
066we need to maybe talk about some other options um when 70% super majority of our of the people that responded to to our um request for information um you know say Hey listen we want to the earliest when we start is uh August 19th I think that we we should listen to them that's that's a super majority right there so um I I understand that uh being a district renovation we wanted to be able to have a little bit more flexibility with our schedule but I also uh recognize that you know maybe maybe it's an opportunity for us to stair step this a little bit maybe not um go go so early the first the first year that we roll this out um so that's that's something I wanted to talk about and then also
067um the the biggest thing that I heard from teachers and and from parents is if we're going to if we're going to start this early why are we um having any days past Memorial Day so again I I I just I don't want to um Let me let me just say this I don't want to make teachers and Staff feel like I'm going against them because I don't really I I I I'm very appreciative of the job that they did I I think they did as good a job as they they possibly could do with the information that were they were they were provided with beforehand I think there was a lot of things that were sprung on them at the last committee meeting um that um maybe they weren't quite prepared for and I
068think the options what was told to me was the options that were presented weren't really their options they were someone else's options and so from the seat I want to be able to be a a represent ative of of all people and and uh the entire community so I just wanted to um just share those sentiments with everyone as well no I give comments but since we have a lot of speakers tonight I'm going to go ahead and just yield my time over to the speakers we'll now proceed with C participation of the agenda per Beed local patrons May address the board during regular board meetings under citizen participation any matters of Interest or conc concerns are not posted a g items items may only register once time per time for the meeting and may
069register one in advance just reminder patrons have registered to speak this evening may see your names in the order list of behind me on the screen before your name is called please move forward and sit one of the two reserved seats uh part BD local since we have 15 or more speakers we are unfor fortunately only one minute tonight uh to get through the meeting uh first speaker is Jennifer shanet followed by Lisa abuka please come forward both I was told that I had two minutes for citizen participation is that because it's because we have 15 or more perb ed local that's for the agenda item is that my email today said two minutes um I think we have 17 people correct ruce am once it gets to 50 right but my email said that
070we had less than 15 and I had two minutes I apologize for that turn your microphone on okay well I'll try to go fast do we have do we have 17 on there we do we have 17 speakers okay Chris schwart is not here so it's 16 I just want to make sure because I would have cut this down if I knew what compromise have a minute 30 will that work I'm sorry minute 30 will that work that's fine awesome okay oh let me know when to start then and then and then I think we don't have the buzzer in the new board meeting um and so the in front as a speaker the lights in front of you will tell you and so if just as speakers just a reminder because we have quite
071a few if people can watch and stop at the time that the that it goes off that would be helpful we're just going to do two minutes we can't do 1:30 so we'll do two minutes yeah it's only four we'll do two minutes go ahead okay two minutes so two minutes two minutes yes all your time is Accused go ahead please okay are we ready now yes ma'am yes okay uh I was born and raised in New Jersey that shouldn't surprise any of you religion wasn't an issue growing up I attended Catholic Mass with my best friend and I attended multiple bot mitzvah for my Jewish friends my grandmother was a devout Episcopalian my great uncle was an Episcopalian priest I have the family christening gown that is over 140 years old religion was between
072a person their heart their God and their place of wor ship it wasn't shoved in people's faces every day we stood for the pledge at school and that was it coaches weren't praying with their teams before games we moved to the South 17 years ago and that's when I really started to question organize religion I saw people who talk the talk but didn't walk the walk I saw people sinning left and right but then they would just ask for forgiveness and move along I think it's a whole lot harder and more noble to try not to sin in the first place usually the ones who are the loudest about their faith are the least Christian if you're a good Christian you don't have to announce it to everyone you don't have to plaster it on
073social media people will know it by your words and your Deeds the S SP 763 Amendment brings up the guidelines of the Department of Defense and the Federal Bureau of Prisons our students are not soldiers overseas our students are not prisoners our students can access their faith of choice outside of school with their families whenever they want let's keep religion a private family matter and not injected into our public schools because that's in violation of our first amendment thank you next speaker is Lisa bua followed by Tara Cummings please come forward I stand before you again today as a parent in a tial one neighborhood to speak about the lack of policies around Equity I would like to compare the pto's of Pope Elementary and Hoover Elementary which were both opened in 2017 Pope Elementary
074located in bridgelin the Cove neighborhood has a PTO that has the amazing ability to raise $80,000 in a matter of weeks have you seen their playground it has a volleyball court and a whole bunch of other things that a TI one school couldn't even fathom as being possible Hoover Elementary located at West Lor and Greenhouse the only pre- through second School in the district doesn't have a PTO in fact the principal told me last year that the district doesn't allow pto's to this day Hoover does not have a PTO VIPs board nor a parent advisory Council and feedback was not welcomed on the seot committee at a title one school have you seen their playground it's exactly what was built in 2017 with Bond money the lack of Standards accountability equity and fairness across this
075district is mindblowing how is it acceptable for one school to have so much while another gets so little where are the policies to ensure private money and in-kind donations are accepted accepted equitably thank you TK Cummings follow Follow by Mark wise as it is relevant to her work as a trustee I want to highlight some things about Dr blasingame that have been mentioned previously but which bear repeating especially in light of the discussion about School Chaplain Dr blasingame follows the Seven Mountains mandate an extremist religious ideology that aims to overtake Society by controlling the Seven Mountains one of which is you guessed it education while previously campaigning for school board she espoused the Seven Mountains mandate in an email where where she indicated that God spoke directly to her and said we will take our
076education Mountain she further stated the Lord put it on my heart that my agenda is to tear down the over interpretation of the separation of church and state that has shut God out of schools her goal is to quote set a template in cair for how it can be done and then quote set the new order for the State blasen game has clearly and unapologetically outlined her religious and political agenda as a trustee if you attended or watched the work session last week you likely noticed how doggedly Dr blasing game was working to insist that cfd create an official School Chaplain position this is no surprise given her self-stated agenda to indoctrinate our children in her personal religious beliefs she feels so strongly about it that she testified in support of s SP 763 and
077Austin during the legislative session she's told us multiple times at this point what her agenda is and on Thursday her comments Fast and Furious and frenzied as they always come when she's H in on getting her way underscore just how desperately serious she is pay close attention to her tonight and every single second that she serves on this board Mark Wise last call okay Amil I'm G pronounce this wrong Amil May I'm sorry thank you no uh Chris schager is not here I heard right Yen RAB followed by Mindy P panad please come forward good evening my name is Yan R I'm an educator and the Houston area chapter leader of start school later is a National Organization that brings uh public awareness to teen sleep deprivation when school starts in the seven early 7
078and 8:00 time uh how would you feel if you had to go to school go to work every day feeling sleep deprived well that's what H well how do you think teens feel when they have to work late at McDonald's Wing Stop cuz their boss won't let them out early and or students who have to work on their homework hours at night on AP class well that's that's what happens when T when school starts at 7 in the morning teens do not get enough sleep because of their circadian rhythm teens have a different circadian rhythm than younger children and older adults like us and so um they don't sleep until 11: or 12 o'clock at night so the recommendation by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the and um the CDC is that middle and
079high school start no earlier than 8:30 for our teens and when they don't they're more likely to be overweight not get enough physical activity suffer from depressive symptoms that's what you've been addressing mental health issues engage in unhealthy risk behaviors such as drinking alcohol smoking tobacco and using illicit drugs and perform poorly in school so my ask to you is to be proactive for our students for your students rather than reactive be proactive by starting school later sorry oh that's mine thank you exp part thank you Mindy and Then followed by T lamb good evening trustees I am the parent of a cciir student after observing Thursday's workboard session I have a few comments to make it is disgraceful to watch the four men of our board cross talk laugh about upcoming speakers on a
080hot mic and show generally you could care less about being here your lack of attention is the reason is that the reason why you asked your councel the same question four times are you that annoyed or intimidated by the women surrounding you welcome to the present fellas we're allowed to be here and we are speaking while I agree with Mr Ray's comments about how we need the three days in October for a break suggesting that teachers could go on a Caribbean cruise is really out of touch we sorry we can't all have a harl and crow in our pocket lastly I have concerns about SB 763 I'm opposed to it for legal budgetary reasons among others of which you are aware while we're worrying about chaplins in our schools I believe we need to worry
081about the unchristian like behavior that we've seen recently in this community the wife of one of our school board members has been exposed for making disparaging comments about our homeless student population it is disgusting to complain about the help that they get that is protected by mckenny vento to quote Julie they need assistance care and love not criticism is it upon your heart to help help or just complain more I expect this board to do better by this community remember we're watching thank you T lamb followed by Jasmine Telles I'm G have to push this button no I'm already on huh they left it on hi I'm Tana lamb I'm um here speaking about the massive amount of requests made by DR blasing that was extremely alarming to hear how much you're requesting from our
082mental health department so let me read an email why that might actually explain why it's so upsetting this email was received via a public information request from Dr blasing gang requesting information on students in an incident from February 14th of 2022 I'll be sure to email it to y'all later I'm just going to read some highlights because I don't want to talk about the school or the kids I would like to know and these are quotes from Dr blasing and in this very email I would like to know some background information about the students implicated in the event clearly I know to treat this individual information confidentially please provide me with student ID say for the name but can just say student 1 2 3 4 grade level reading level leaving fifth grade if no
083different current level State Testing score history course grades while in Middle School discipline infraction reason codes discipline codes any easily available other information in the system when they were enrolled in Cipher ISD in any Mobility including caused by school zone changes I also feel I would like more information and sooner as a board member so mental health information what is she requesting personal information of our kids that you're requesting because you know we don't trust that at all so it's pretty clear pretty clear that Dr blasing game has no quals about wasting District resources because how much time is being spent on all this stuff that's my taxpayer money and really crossing a lot of ethical boundaries to advance her own religious and political agenda and what I'm afraid of is that people are going
084to crack and give her personal information about our children which really I think is against veralos thank you Jasmine Tes and Then followed by Maran Jackson uh good evening my name is Jasmine and I'm here representing myself today as a community member and as a member of Texas Freedom Network I ask that you please vote no uh to allowing chaplain who do not hold the same license as counselors into our schools my counselors in school were a safe space for me they kept up with my transcripts and they showed genuine interest in my school work and my work in my life um I remember how crucial it was in high school to have recurring visits with my counselors for graduation class planning and College Planning she was a Community member her children attended my school
085and she was uh a certified licensed educor Ator who knew how to help all students succeed she was kind and gave me the best tools to help manage my schoolwork which in term helped my mental health in my academics school counselors help students apply academic achievement strategies provide counseling apply interpersonal skills and plan for after graduation a chaplain is trained to provide religious services and spiritual care not comprehensive educational or emotional guidance and any employee or volunteer who can pass a background check can receive the title of chaplain and this is simply not enough to ensure uh chaplain will leave out their religious bias when counseling our most vulnerable students including the lgbtqia plus students um chaplain and like counselors are not required to have the professional training required to care for the mental health
086health of all students they are not required to have any advanced degree to be certified by the state board uh for educator certification or be endorsed or licensed by any major or reputable entity over 100 School chaplain agree that this is not a good idea please put students first and vote against the adoption of the chaplain law in our school district thank you Maryann Jackson followed by Lucia Tes please come forward as a retired Texas public school teacher administrator college professor and taxpayer for many years I am very grateful for each of the members on the cciir board I have been hearing throughout the community the high expectations the citizens have for each of you uh some families count on you to educate their children others to spend their tax dollars wisely and some need
087you to do both I am also grateful for each of the community members who attend and speak at these meetings even if I disagree with some of the ideas and comments shared I appreciate the effort from each of you who are taking part in his or her Civic duties it takes a tremendous amount of time and energy to be informed on education topics topics then to turn your thoughts and concerns into a presentation and then Whittle them down into a two-minute or one minute speech you also then must sacrifice your free time to be courageous and sheer all while not knowing if your diligent effort is going to matter to anyone but some of us have learned that our government is run by those of us who show up and participate my advice to uh
088parents who have children in the public school system is to please show up and speak up often this district has a lot of influence over your child's life and your lives my advice to teachers and administrators is the same this is a treasured possession uh profession if it is up to us to keep the instruction and curriculum focused on what is best for all the children volunteer to be the committee that matters my advice to families who have left the public school uh is to stay involved in on all the state and federal levels because the government wants to control all the children the best way to control the children is to have the families accept the school voucher with strings beware of this Trojan Horse and I would like to just invite everyone to
089an event we're going to hold on April 23rd uh we will have Lyn Davenport with families engaged for Effective and education come and share in the community on some current events thank you thank you Luc Telles followed by Cindy Davies please come forward good evening my name is Lucia thees and I represent myself today as a mom and a Christian I ask that you oppose allowing unlicensed chaplain into schools my only goal as a mother is for my kids to know that they always have the ability to connect with God from anywhere they are whenever they need God I believe that all students and children have the freedom to speak to God and show God's love to whoever may need a word of Love and Hope America is the land of the free and I
090do not want any religion imposed on my children children at school freedom of religion means that parents not Public School Employees direct their children's religious education and development families and student in Texas practice various faiths and many are non-religious please don't vote not don't allow [Applause] it thank you please vote for the chaplain program because chaplain programs are not only provided in hospital jails and Military but also our US Senate Congress many organizations have a chaplain such as pto's law enforcement Girl Scouts Boy Scouts corporations businesses along with over 30,000 schools currently using chaplain with success in our country you already know the chaplain program does not rely on volunteers but did you know that 87% of the people serving as chaplain are certified teachers however they are paid to serve as chaplain school safety
091is increased by a chaplain partnering with the counselor faculty staff students and families they are trained to recognize safety issues with teacher resignations at an all-time high according to the Nea the chaplain is a safe person to discuss the challenges of our Ever Changing World mental health is a real issue today chaplain are not a therapist they can and do recommend if someone needs more help than they can offer but just being a safe person to share with someone sometimes all is all anybody needs they are trained individuals who first go through the background checks international national and state background checks including forensic social media review as essential Personnel on campuses they undergo safety training comprised of three certifications active shooter threat assessment and stop the bleed they may have other degrees such as education
092be ordained clergy and 6,000 hours of Hands-On full-time ministerial experience or at a minimum have a 2-year degree with 2,000 hours of Hands-On Ministry experience completion of the nationally accredited chaplain course from Oral Roberts University is good and their encouraged to go for a full-on degree in Masters please vote for the chaplain program in our schools thank you Andy good evening board um it's uh pull it up sure good evening board U my name is Andy Davies and I'm here for the uh chapy program this is my first time to speak before a board so I'm I'm one of those citizens that's decided to come out and and speak out so um there's two main uh points I'd like to make is that there's already momentum to this program you know your constituents have already
093voted in people to serve at the Texas legislature and so they've already voted for this so we've already got momentum behind this program um all the hard work actually has been done so I'm just looking for the uh local school board scair to go ahead and finish this job um the second thing is that um it's really based on our freedom of religion and that includes our schools I mean our forefathers knew this would happen we do know that uh when they when they came across uh to America to seek religious uh Freedom they uh predicted that this was going to happen they predicted that the fact that it would be suppressed and that's why they've uh based on the Constitution we want to protect uh the freedom um uh so in a personal note
094anytime you bring God into something uh certainly there's going to be an impact uh he will Pro provide wisdom guidance and he is our our creator so um vote for the chapy program and God bless America thank you I I received an email and I don't know why I wasn't on the on the agenda speak tonight are you on agenda item what was your name Sonia P yeah I believe you're on the agenda item page so we'll call your name later yep thank you we'll now proceed with a reports portion of the agenda the admin 4A the administration provide an update on the general operating budget our tonight presenter is Karen Smith Miss Smith thank you president Henry trustees and Dr Killian today I will be presenting an overview of the school Finance system in
095Texas it's important to understand how school districts are funded in Texas in order to make budget decisions regarding the general operating budget and to advocate for public education according to the Texas Education Code it is the policy of this state that the provision of public education is the state responsibility and that a thorough in other words adequate and efficient system be provided the total total cost to fund public education in Texas is shared between the state and the local cost the state funding system establishes the amount of state and local funding due to school districts in other words the amount of funding a district is entitled to which includes a combination of local funding from property taxes and state funding or state aid the entitlement is set therefore as property values per student increase State
096funding decreases another way to depict this concept is to look at State funding by the glass the glass size does not change the glass represents the shared state and local responsibility for financing a school district's entitlement so the local share is property taxes that are levied and collected and then the state share is the state funding once the district's cup size is determined or the total funding the state starts to fill the cup with local property tax collections first this is called the local share in some districts the local share partially fills the cup but in other districts the local share completely fills the cup or even overflows the cup then the state starts to fill the with State funds or state aid however if a School District offers tax relief which is a major
097concern of the legislature and our governor through a local optional homestead exemption the state funding formula never fills the cup to further explain by offering a local optional homestead exemption property values in cfd are reduced by 20% taxpayers in cfis day pay on 20% less property value than districts that do not offer a local optional homestead exemption so remember earlier that I said is property values increase or decrease state aid is adjusted however the state funding Formula F funds districts as if they do not offer a local optional homestead exemption so this loss in value is not made up with State funding and comes with a cost to the district cfd loses approximately 81 million in m and ins property tax revenue by offering the 20% optional homestead exemption Senate Bill 2 passed in the
098second 88 special session prohibits removal or reduction of the local optional homestead exemption until 2028 so in essence Senate Bill 2 creates an unfunded mandated local optional homestead exemption the solution would be for legislators to modify the adjustment in the com controller's property value assignment for the local optional homestead exemption in other words pay state aid taking into consideration that we offer a local optional Homestead exension it would actually Le uh yield the cfis about about $63 million a majority of the revenue for Texas school districts comes from state and local sources with the remainder coming from federal sources for cfd you can see based on the 20 2023 2024 budget adopted and before the second uh special session where uh tax relief was provided uh the 57% came from local taxpayers 41% comes from
099State and 2% comes from federal sources however after sb2 was passed and voters approved the Constitutional amendment in November of 2023 you will see here 46% comes from Local taxpayers 52 comes from State and 2% from federal sources there's a misconception that the legislature provided additional funding that increase School District's entitlements due to the state legislature saying they increase funding to school districts because their piece of pie went from 41% to 52% but as you can see the pie or the glass if you will did not get any bigger so I'd like to go back real quick oh well actually I need went the wrong way let me go back so you will see here if you just look at the pie all that changed was the share see first I will review local sources
100which mostly come comes from property taxes the values are determined by the Harris County appraisal district and the state benefits whenever property values increase our tax rate is made up of the maintenance and operations tax rate which is comprised of the maximum compressed rate and enrichment pennies and I'll go into more detail about this in a minute as well as the interest in Sinking rate the maintenance and operations tax rate is capped and cannot be increased past a certain amount unless we have a voter approval tax ta rate election and then as I already mentioned the District offers a 20% optional homestead exemption compression compares the extent to which estimated property value growth exceeds 2.5% to determine the maximum compressed rate in other words this portion of the tax rate is reduced to compensate for
101property value growth that exceeds 2 and a half% the emo tax rate is compressed to the lower of the state compressed rate or the local compressed rate and typically what's been happening lately is our local values have been increasing by a greater rate than State values so there's been a benefit that the tax rate has compressed more to that to the local compressed rate the current year property values affect tax compression and determine what that'll be but State a is based on the current year values that the com controller sets through the property value study this graph just shows you again or this picture just shows you again the impact of the local optional homestead exemption so if you look at a $350,000 home and you reduce the value by 20% and then you look
102at the $100,000 exemption that's now offered by the state homeowners pay taxes on 180,000 value property value versus the 350,000 property value but as I mentioned the local optional homestead exemption comes at a cost of 81 million and this year cfd approved the lowest tax rate in 37 years at 1.08 one1 now I'll review the state funding side also known as the foundation school program which is the state program that establishes the amount of St state and local funding due to school districts under Texas school Finance law the program is is administered by the Texas Education Agency the fsp is our uh Foundation school program is meant to ensure that all school districts regardless of property wealth receive substantially equal access to similar Revenue per student at similar tax effort school districts have no control
103over State funding other than increasing attendance as the state funding formula is set in statute and districts can only spend portions of the funding in certain manner for example special education the basic allotment is currently $6,150 per average daily attendance which was last updated in the 86 legislative session the state funding formula does not include an inflation Factor therefore increased costs due to inflation are borne by the school district State funding is influenced by enrollment uh average daily attendance as I mentioned and our average daily attendance really since um covid has been down about 2% and so that equates to about 15 million less in Revenue the district is receiving also special populations enrichment prinnies and property wealth the foundation school program consists of tier one funding and tier 2 funding and some potential funding
104for debt the tier one funding is the portion that's for the basic program for the school district which would include the basic allotment that the District receives as well as a series of formulas for various special programs that I'll show you in the next uh Slide the tier two funding is the enrichment entitlement for districts and we're limited to 17 pennies above the maximum compressed rate the interest in Sinking funding that districts May re may qualify for is instructional facilities allotment in the existing debt allotment however most districts um have not they that have they have debt servic that qualifies but they're really not receiving state aid in this area the formulas are set in statute as well as how school districts can spend the funds these are the various areas where cfd receives additional
105funding in addition to the basic allotment you'll see it from the beginning you'll that it's kind of bigger up there where it says compensatory education special education and as you go down our funding amounts are less those with an AS are statutorily capped therefore they are pro-rated if the amount due to districts exceeds the cap there will be differences at campuses uh and different Staffing maybe because of some of these allotments for example compensatory education the more risk our campuses are when we might be able to provide other resources to maybe those campuses that another District another campus might not have that's less economically disadvantaged the tier one pennies that I mentioned to you before which is the maximum compressed rate uh the way to kind of look at this that that's important to note
106is that the tier one uh is subject to recapture and what that means is if there is a property Rich district and I'll give you an example such as HISD Spring Branch ISD then they are subject to recapture of that portion of the funding system because of their property value wealth but then the districts also have access if you remember I said enrichment pennies up to 17 pennies so it's eight golden pennies and nine copper pennies so you may Wonder well what is a golden Penny and what makes it golden well what makes it golden is the fact number one it's worth more money per Penny also it cannot be recaptured so all eight of those golden pennies the district gets to keep districts are allowed to have up to five golden pennies without a
107tax rate election we currently have five gold golden pennies so in order to access those additional three pennies we would have to have a tax rate election a voter approval tax rate election the tier two the remaining nine uh copper pennies the reason they're called copper pennies is they're worth less money as well as they are subject to recapture a portion of that by the state so that would make up the total of our maintenance and operations tax rate if you take those into consideration EX in this one this shows that um is looking at that some districts the calculated local share exceeds what the state says the district is entitled to so when this happens districts are said to have excess local Revenue remember I indicated that the glass size does not change any
108amount of local Revenue that is more than the size of the glass is subject to recapture by the state recapture as I said applies to tier one and then the the copper pen any portion of tier 2 I shared in the 2324 proposed budget presentation that payroll makes up 89.5 six of% of expenditures without additional funding from the state districts are faced with budget cuts this is very difficult when nearly 90% of our expenditures are payroll It ultimately can impact programs and services it currently costs a district about $9 million to provide all employees a 1% raise there is also a misconception when districts passed um Bond elections that we should have plenty of money for robust programs and salary increases however bond funds and The Debt Service fund cannot be used to pay teacher
109salaries for example a majority of our money is spent on instruction and instructional related items so this just is showing uh how how our money is spent and I want would like you to note it's kind of in the bottom right corner that 1.72% is spent on General Administration this is how we started prior to the 88th legislative session with the exception of the local optional homestead exemption which was one of our major concerns most districts had similar priorities the 88th legislative priorities related to funding that were approved by the board in December I won't go over each one of these but I'll over a few was increasing the basic allotment an inflation index for the to the basic allotment increasing special education funding and modifying the adjustment to State values for the local optional
110homestead exemption funding school safety and mental health just to name a few inflation increased in Texas 19% from September 2019 through August of 2023 in order to make up for inflation the state legislature would have to increase the basic allotment $1,100 just to get us even with where we were in 2019 as you know school districts are experiencing increases in cost cost and Staffing shortages when UPS or Amazon had to increase their uh their pay to their drivers because they were having trouble getting drivers they were able to pass that on to the consumer or the buyer school districts do not have that option to be able to pass pass on the cost to our consumer we are having to absorb the cost with no increases in revenues just so you know the cost per
111bium for a $100 increase in the basic allotment to for the legislature is $1.4 billion by waiting like like the state has they've created a huge price tag so where are we now and what came of the 88th legislative session four special sessions record 38.7 billion Surplus for the State of Texas and 4 billion set aside for school districts districts received an additional 28 cents per average daily attendance and 15,000 per campus for school safety for cfd the funding only results in an additional $1.3 million and with the funding there were mandates such as an officer at each campus as you can see there are challenges with how school districts in are funded there needs to be more of a balance of state requirements and mandates with the funding provided to school districts this this
112slide shows some of the state allotments compared to actual spending so it's showing the allotment means what we received this from the state to cover the cost and then what you'll see what we actually spent so in special education our allotment was $88.2 Million but the actual cost was one $ 12 128.3 million so a shortfall of about $40 million school safety which includes our police uh mental health intervention team Psychological Services and counseling our allotment prior to uh the bill that just re that I just mentioned um with the additional funding we got $1.04 million with the additional $1.3 million we still have a shortfall of about 44 million for school safety just looking at the cost in the general fund alone if you add that to the cost that we spend with in
113bond funds of $ 263.10 the 2019 Bond you can see the shortfall for transportation the allotment is $8.1 million but our actual costs were 43.4 million or a shortfall of $35 million the board adopted uh budget for 2023 2024 reflected 1386 million deficit the deficit assumes all unfilled positions in vacancies will be filled and all funds budgeted will be spent when the adopted budget was presented to the board last June we anticipated about 65 million would be remaining in federal stimulus funds to offset the deficit for new board members the federal stimulus funding must be spent by September 30th 2024 and we will not be able to offset the deficit like we have over the last several years due to the number of unfilled positions uh that we currently have interest rates have been higher
114than anticipated and uh We've also had a little more stimulus funds available we believe that uh you know our true deficit probably will be no more than $38 million that that can be impacted from different things such as uh we always appeal our property values with the uh State values and so sometimes we'll hear back and get additional State funding because of that we also don't really know until the end of year how our unfilled positions are they unfilled all year or they unfilled part of the year one of the items potentially negatively impacting the budget is a red reduction in Char's Revenue that I will go over in the next slide chars is a federal program that enables Public School District to seek reimbursement for medical services necessary and mandated by law to students
115with IEPs on November 30th 2023 districts were notified that the federal fiscal year 2022 cost report settlement notices would be delayed and the reason they were delayed is that there was a an an audit by the office of the Inspector General conducted that basically Chang was a change in methodology for the chars program and it uh was referencing the 2011 year that it was actually Federal fiscal year that was audited hhsc received this report in 2017 they subsequently filed several appeals and after all the appeals failed districts were then informed that our cost settlement would be delayed major changes were only recently implemented with uh less than two weeks notice to districts districts filed their Fiscal Federal year 2022 reports in April of 2023 therefore we budgeted the receipt of this revenue for 2324 on
116December 15 2023 districts received their shs cost reports notices which re included a rate that recalculated reimbursements for districts that were reduced by as much as 50% CF isd's reimbursement uh reimbursement was reduced by $10.3 million districts followed the guidance in good faith and are now facing Financial losses due to lack of clarity in the new requirements and without providing adequate training to school districts cfd has G uh engaged an attorney that specializes in the chars program that has assisted Us in filing an informal appeal the informal appeals were due by January 31st and we are waiting to hear back on that informal appeal the district has also sent letters to our legislators asking for their assistance but this is potential impact to the current budget and future budgets based on the change in methodology
117of the Char's reimbursements as I mentioned uh in the proposed 2324 budget presentation it was a transition budget so here are some considerations for the 2425 uh budget year uh they we still could possibly see which is very doubtful an increase in the basic allotment or other state funding because it would require another special session which is probably unlikely and also any additional State funding is being held hostage uh unless we approve vouchers so we're feeling like that is very unlikely also modifying the adjustment to the state property values for the optional homestead exemption and uh if they recognized 100% of this it would mean as I said earlier $63 million to the district also increase we could increase the maintenance on operations tax rate which would require a voter approval tax rate election uh
118an election just to get the additional 12 pennies that we would be be allowed to capture would provide about $105 million to the district based on the current uh funding formulas right now the district is considering establishing a committee to discuss efficiencies and sources of new revenue and potential budget cuts due to the lack of additional funding from the state in not having Federal stimulus funding available after September 2024 as I mentioned earlier the district uh has had about a two to 2% decrease in average daily attendance and um every 1% is $7.4 million for the district and proximally as far as expenditures are concerned I already mentioned to you about 90% of our budget is uh is payroll so that makes it very difficult in adopting the 23 24 budget the board indicated a
119willingness to utilize a portion of fund balance but is recommended that districts with a June 30-year in have at least four months in fund balance so that was basically what the board was looking at in 2324 you may have heard certain legislators refer to the funding Cliff after the stimulus funding as you can see based on the information that we that has been provided tonight the funding Cliff was imminent when the state has not increased funding and state funding formula does not adjust for increases in costs due to inflation now I'll be glad to answer any questions that you may have thank you very much Karen any questions from the board go ahead Natalie thank you Karen and your team very very excellent and very visual very easy to understand I actually got the pennies
120maybe for the for real and how you described them I appreciate that I did have a question question on um I was surprised to see that the safety portion of the little dollar bill symbol was uh 1.19% of the budget I was incredibly impressed with what we're able to do that's general fund are there other Federal and State dollars that go towards safety when you when you were uh probably when the one portion you're talking about the dollar bill that we showed yes that's just the general fund that I was depicting there but we have bond funds that go towards safety and we do have a little bit of federal money that might that can be used towards that thank you and then one more question on that chars I do know that that came
121out in the news and I was intrigued a little bit you said we got we followed the guidelines and good faith can you tell me a little bit about that process of of the guidance and then how we would like you know uh and going forward like where we get our guidance from I guess or and then also um what the remedy is that we think Could Happen out of this lawsuit you well basically what happens is school districts are required um to go through training we we have to say what are people which people will be involved in the program and we're required to go through training that training is um health and health and Texas Health and Human Services has assigned it to a company called Fairbanks and so Fairbanks does that training
122for us and tells us how everything's supposed to be looked at how it's supposed to be reported and all that kind of information we followed that guidance based on how we were trained and uh so basically what they're saying is Health and Human Services was probably qualifying some expenses as medically eligible when in essence they were educational more educationally needed than medically needed so to speak for the student but um so one of the things we've been doing is we went back through and got a list of all the teachers that were part what what they Health and Human Services does is they do what's called a random moment Time study and they'll pick a moment when they ask a teacher what were you doing during that period of time so depending on how it's
123answered it might come across as something not medically necessary when in reality it really is because it's in the students IEP so um we went through that process of finding the teacher tying it to the child and providing the IEP to health and human to Health and Human Services to be honest we're we're a little concerned um about what will really happened in the informal appeal We believe We may be having to go to a federal a formal appeal after that they start with an informal appeal and if that fails then you file a formal impal so it's possible we would have the 10.2 million would kit this year's budget what about moving forward with the new training and stuff do we have a a path where that should neutral out no what they're telling
124us is it depends what happens with with all this with the formal with the informal appeal and the formal appeal and if any kind of legisl ative action uh or I should say legal action happens associated with this and so if it does then it's and and they don't change it then that reduction will be permanent of about 50% of the funding way it is now so we're hoping so that's each year that we would have an impact but as as of now the current year it's it's a little over $10 million and those services that we're providing to children are required in their I EP correct so would there would we have to either make a budget decision or like have less services for kids oh no those we we are required to provide
125those services so the district would still be providing the services but we would just not be getting reimbursement for it thank you so in essence it becomes an unfunded mandate another one yes any other questions go ahead Julie um I'll just make comments uh Karen thank you so much for sharing the information I think it's important that we're having these conversations now um so that we can begin preparing for the ne next budget cycle um I think um you're you did a great job pointing out that not only are we already underfunded for um special education but that we we're now experiencing additional cuts and this is in a population of our student demographics that's actually growing absolutely um I think uh also you pointed out that the state had a $38 billion Surplus but
126uh we have not received any additional funding meaning our glass hasn't gotten any larger um uh for so for that would allow us to pay teachers more uh sustain our programs Etc um I also uh appreciate you're sharing with the community the penalty that Cipher ICD experiences because we offer tax prop uh property tax relief to our taxpayers and we have since was it 1980 19833 right so for a long time we've been providing property tax relief to taxpayers and what we've seen in in return recently is um a penalty of $81 million that um we could be using to fund our students and our educational programs um my last comment is um you mentioned uh creating a Community Committee to look at how we can possibly increase revenues and uh look at budget cuts
127I would encourage that we do that sooner than later so that we have plenty plenty of time to look at options and have those discussions so that we're not rushed when it comes to June thank you any other questions I just have a a couple of comments um Karen thank you for you and your team putting together the presentation it's great job as always um I think it deserves mentioning there's a couple of terms that we're used to hearing um among the administration probably probably a lot of the teachers and principes that are listening and among our staff but this notion of an unfunded mandate if we take a look at that what that term means for the general population if we look at we saw if you could go back to one of our
128earlier slides Karen where you go to the state allotments compared to the actual spending sure if I'm not mistaken slide 26 but if we look at the actual cost of one of our police officers or or funding that program versus what we actually receiving funding so like you know this past year officer at every school can you go briefly just high level what the funding was versus what we need to actually spend to get it done yes uh we we kind of we looked at that cost and basically you it to have a police officer uniform uh weapons as well as a car it's it's about $130,000 MH and what was our funding is per officer 15,000 per campus so for and is that pattern does that kind of pattern exist among other programs special
129ed Etc yes I know that we've got legislators around the state watching this evening and when we have these kinds of unfunded mandates and we had a special session in which we could have been able to pay attention to some of these needs it raises a question of what are our priorities um we need to do a better job as a state of being able to take care of our kids and these kinds of unfunded mandates that look good on paper but if they don't actually affect the reality of what's happening on the ground and get the true job done it we're we're falling short so when we're looking at budget cuts and when we're looking at ways that we can find Revenue sources we're going to be creative and we're going to ask the
130Community to Julie's point we're going to ask Community for input and participation it's going to be a long conversation that we're going to be having over the next few months and our goal is that we're doing it in a really transparent way so that everybody understands where we are today and where we're going to end up and we can all buy into the plan for 24 25 Etc we need to set ourselves up for success thank you just a couple of comments I know during the last budget session we talked about the forming that a committee which is a long time ago I would highly suggest we do it quicker as well um secondly as I know during your interview Dr killing you talked about a Vader election dropping and doing a Vader election uh
131I know that takes some time as well that might be something to consider as well very quickly uh to those options there's no other questions yes no just real quickly um Karen can you kind of add up what we're facing for next year um so you you gave us an idea of how much money that we're losing based on the optional homestead exemption and that that's really not an option to take out at this point and and really it's been a priority for this school district since 1983 since I was a junior in high school maybe a senior um so we're committed to that right so looking at the fact that the Esser money is going to dry up this year we're going to spend every penny of it because it's going away and looking
132at the deficit budget that we already had what would be your worst case scenario for next year's budget in terms of a deficit if we just spent what we're spending right now and I would say if we if you take into account the unfilled positions and I wouldn't take those into account to start off with then if youen that you 138 million okay so if we filled all the positions that are out there so how much are you banking on to save because we just simply can't find staff members where we need them my best guess right now is about 30 million okay so that's still a pretty large Delta between what we're going to budget for and what our revenue is correct so what's our option in terms of balancing our budget well our
133I would say um I know that you've visited you want to mention what you've visited with the commissioner yeah I don't know if we would be able to get uh did you want to share that first yeah I mean um two weeks ago I went to um midwinter conference and set up a a bunch of meetings while I was down there and one of those meetings was to go and talk to the commissioner about our local optional homestead exemption and how much money we're losing um in state aid because of that and um gave him the idea that you know really in law you can pay up to 50% of our loss as long as you have leftover money and I believe we had leftover money this session yeah so um and that that didn't
134amount to very much money total for the whole state budget so I did give give all him all that information along with the Education Code that um you provided as well and who all that impacts across the state so one of the the things that um was immediately apparent that there were some districts that were recapture Robin Hood so but those districts got a little bit of money in the funding formula to make up for that but since we're not Robin Hood and we do not have any recapture we simply do not make up any of that money at all correct so so I did ask that he would consider funding half of that that legally in the law he's he's able to do that so he was going to look at that in addition
135to that I did send some information that there's a um the Senate is asking for interim charges to study um over the course of the next um several months before we get to session and so I did ask um or send some information to Senator Bretton Court's office to also have him take a look at that um and his staff and potentially submit that charge so that we could look at how this is impacting those districts that obviously are efficient because what is it 1.7% basically administrative cost ratio if you look at it in terms of a dollar yes one well it's 1 point we 72% that we spend on Administration yeah our administrative cost ratio is a little higher than that 3 that includes the that includes principls and things like that yeah but
136that's still very low where the yeah very low one of the lowest administrative cost ratios in the state so I did put it out there for a couple of other legislators that what could you reward a district that number one provides a tax break and then number two has a very low administrative cost ratio and pay the local optional homestead exemption based on that because you're actually saying hey you're getting it done with less money and you're also giving the tax break that I think the legisl legislature wants so there was a couple of legislators that were intrigued by that but that's only going to get us part of the way there that would only get us about $30 million $32 million uh of course voter approval tax rate election is an option we've been
137looking at various Revenue options that we can consider to bring in additional Revenue uh looking at Cost efficiencies that's pretty hard you know when like I said when you're 90% payroll it's not as easy as you would like it to be but the thing is I would say the benefit for us is we've been fortunate that we've been able to balance the budget um with the Esser funds and so um we've utilized that to kind of save the fund balance if you will so we still have about six months in fund balance therefore we can afford to go into fund balance some next year and still being be you know uh within what we want to be as far as and fund balance conservative and compliant uh so we can basically I guess look at
138this in a maybe a couple year approach um in trying to figure out what's best to do uh and then of course we have another legislative session that'll start in 2025 no telling what will happen with that uh based on what's happened with this last legislative session but that's kind of where we are as far as funding okay so I I just just wanted to point all those things out because we are in a deficit budget we are going to use our Sr money and vacancy factor in order to help get us close to balancing this time but that's Sr money is not going to be there next year and unless we do start bringing some of that local optional homestead exemption money in from the agency at least at least 50% then we're going
139to be in a situation where if the legislature doesn't do anything in 2025 session then in our 25 26 school year looks like it might be pretty dire in terms of that correct without having something like a V8 which you really only have three pennies left that are golden um you'd have to probably go into the copper pennies definitely go into the copper pennies would we be subject to recapture in the copper side yes we would be subject to recapture in the copper side the last time I looked at it and I'll look at it again it would be about $6 million but we would net you know about 100 million so that's net that's if you tax if we did the full full 12 pennies that are available okay so just wanted to let
140the community know that and then obviously we're going to be looking at what we can do efficiency wise and we'll be looking for Revenue as well interesting Revenue options and so what we'll be asking from our staff and from our community are ideas that we might have to generate revenue or something you might see that we do as a district that maybe we could cost uh cost save some of those things so that we stay away from hitting student programs and again $9 million for a 1% pay increase correct so if we're going to keep up with the Joneses um next door and all the other school districts and be competitive in a time when there's a shortage of Educators we're going to probably have to look at doing something there as well which we
141haven't even calculated yet correcty um Karen uh thank you I did I hear you say I had wandered about that we had six months of fund balance because we had almost we had gambled that we might have to dip into that so I was glad to he and then you said in the presentation four months is sort of recommended for our June calendar so what is that difference what could be available between the four months versus the six months we have how much could be pulled towards well we had looked way we we had looked at it and what I have to do is go back and recalculate all that to be prepared for that for um like the next presentation but what we had looked at is that if we had realized what I
142was sharing that we felt we would be fine this year because of the Esser funding the stimulus funding available but I was sharing with the board that the true deficit would hit in 2425 and So based on that we would basically take ourselves to about four months in fund balance so it we if we realized all that we would be hitting that that threshold thank you and just for our public um the reason why we carry a fund balances uh one thing is the state doesn't pay us in a timely manner and our tax rate our tax uh bills as they come in they don't flow necessarily at the beginning of the school year so we still have to make payroll going into a couple months and so that's one reason why we do that
143say no more questions move on to 4B the administration will provide an update on technology objectives in the board monitoring system presenters are Karen Smith Paula Ross Charles Franklin Jennifer Graham Robin Mike and Jennifer Miller and as Paula's team is coming forward um I just real quickly wanted to mention or remind the board that we used to have all the technology related goals as part of goal five which is the was in with the finance portion and the board suggest that we maybe take those and break them out and really apply them to the area if you will that they really more reflected for example um maybe safety or uh instructional programs Etc so now I'm going to turn it over to Paula thank you Karen president Henry members of the board and Dr Killian
144technology Services is pleased to provide you with an update this evening on the technology objectives as outlined in the district's board monitoring system for the 2023 2024 school year I'm very excited to introduce the team the technology directors that play a key role in maintaining the district's Network first I would like to introd introduce Muhammad MCAS Muhammad is the newest member of our of our leadership team Muhammad is the director of network infrastructure and Communications Muhammad's team is responsible for Network switching Wireless connectivity firewall management server management the district's email system and phones in our classroom next we have Charles Franklin Charles is the director of device Imaging and integration he manages all endpoints inpoint devices plus the replacement cycle and inventory for these devices Charles and his team worked closely with instructional technology Todd
145sapula is the director of instructional technology and he serves as the integration point between technology and curriculum next is Jennifer Grim Jennifer is the director of information Services her team manages the systems supporting the majority of of our district data including our student information system Finance System state reporting and the programmers that support those environments next is Jennifer Miller Jennifer is the director of Acquisitions and our customer care center the Acquisitions portions of Jennifer's team is responsible for all technology bids contracts technology purchases and expenditure tracking for federally funded programs whereas the customer care center is the team that provides support for our staff students and parents helping to protect the confidentiality integrity and availability of computer systems along with protecting networks and data from cyber attacks is responsibility of everyone including our cyber security
146team our cyber security Team Works closely with the above mentioned directors and team to protect our network from malware to provide training for all students and maintain our trusted learning learning environment seal certification to provide a context of how our data is presented this evening updates will be aligned according to the technology objectives as stated in the board monitoring system for the 2023 2024 school year the responsibility of meeting the target for each of these objectives resides within the area that each of these individuals manage as such each director will provide the status update for their area of responsibility Charles Franklin we'll begin the presentation with information regarding go one Charles thank you Paula cfis has established an objective to ensure students and staff have seamless access to digital resources necessary to support a 24x7
147learning environment this objective is achieved by providing High availability to digital resources through well-designed and Innovative Technology Solutions in order to understand our learning together everywhere LTE program we would like to provide you with a brief background regarding our student devices in the district's 1 to1 program in the summer of 2020 during the pandemic the board approved a proposal for cfsd to become a one toone District thereby providing every student with the learning device in order to support this initiative the team collected and distributed over 40,000 existing Chromebooks located on our campuses to ensure that every student had a device we ordered and distributed uh an additional 7 9,500 devices one point worth noting the 101 program was not originally part of our bond 2019 initiative however we have been able to take advantage of
148several federally funded programs that are helping to offset the cost of our new devices our next challenge was to determine what modifications were needed to develop a successful sustainable one toone program we transitioned this program to a Campus based model effectively decentralizing management of the program and giving schools more authority responsibility and flexibility we have also implemented LTE Central a software platform that is our One-Stop shop for all of our oneone management support and inventory lastly we have focused on documentation processes and operations for uniform best practices and communication to our campuses and our community in addition to student devices technology Services is also responsible for providing reliable and secure computers to our employees the team has distributed 8,230 teacher replacement devices based on the standards provided by our instructional technology department for our administrative
149teams we have deployed over 1,700 administrative computer Replacements devices for both our paraprofessional staff and our substitute staff have also been provided bringing our total total current devices replaced to 12,930 last year was our first year of State mandated online testing as such this was highlighted as one of Technology's board goals the support of online State Testing is now part of our standard operating procedure however we thought it would be interesting to share some statistics from last year's online State Testing as you can see by the numbers provided by our testing Department campuses successfully administered over a quarter of a million tests last year Gennifer Grim will now share and review our online digital resources thank you Charles as you all know learning extends beyond the school walls these days the graphic shown depicts the
150foundation of our digital environment each piece contributes to a seamless secure environment where Learners can succeed and thrive for our teachers systems integration is a GameChanger connecting the systems reduces time on management tasks and increases student and class engagement cfd has many platforms tools and applications that contribute to the overall environment such as our learning management system where you can find courses lessons and assignments an assessment system for checking on student learning productivity Suites like Google and Microsoft soft for collaboration and presentations our student information system where we house grades schedules and data on the students and many many digital tools and content which comprise the curriculum our single sign on Portal provides easy access for students and staff reducing the time that they must spend signing on and entering passwords the single signon portal
151was created in 2017 and it has continued to grow as as resources are added to the environment you can see on this list the top 10 applications by launches over the last year the top 10 highlights the use of many of our district supported tools Muhammad will now show share information regarding our district Network infrastructure thank you Jennifer the districtwide area network is designed with fiber links connecting campuses through two separate East West routes establishing connections to two data centers this design is intended to proactively address potential disruption ensuring highly available network connectivity to facilitate seamless connectivity for both students and staff across all campuses the districtwide area network is segmented into four quadrants that allow us for efficient 247 monitoring as you can see in the chart we were able to achieve a 99.99%
152network up time for this school year we attribute this total up time to a proactive monitoring that detects errors and abnormal behaviors in our Network closet as mentioned earlier within our Network we have multiple tiers of fiber and Hardware connections providing primary and secondary links for campus connectivity to the district Network the chart shows the number of network infrastructures distributed across the district as an example at one of our newest campuses spra Middle School we have 12 Network closets 49 Network switches providing connectivity to our Network 110 classroom phones and 154 access points wireless access points providing connectivity for Chromebooks Wireless laptops and other supported wireless devices the district is equipped with two independent internet service provider one at each data center this setup ures coverage in the event of downtime in one Data Center
153and facilitate proper distribution of inbound and outbound traffic between the two internet connections data center one is located at a district owned facility while data Center 2 is in a collocation military grade facility with a highly reliable infrastructure and the ability to scare to scale for future growth cyers Fair Banks ISD has a wireless network designed to host around half a million connections to our Network supporting a diverse range of devices the graphic shows four different type of wireless connections for a total of 92,000 wireless devices connected and online at one time to sum up a network connection I would like to present a high level diagram illustrating the network traffic flow for a campus student connecting to a learning management system the diagram outlined key components involved starting from the student browser to the
154Final Destination and within millisecs the student gain access to their requesting content Paul Russ will now share information regarding our next goal thank you Muhammad Technology's second objective falls under goal two cfd has has established an objective to expand measures to protect sensitive and confidential data and maintain cyber security Readiness the objective is achieved through providing multiple security controls that protect all Network users from vulnerabilities addressing addressing the rise in the number of cyber attacks requires a multifaceted approach our robust firewalls endpoint protection and email defense automatically blocks millions of threats each day while our cyber secur team continues monitoring and responding to thousands of additional threats one example of our protection approach is highlighted in the following statistic our email system receives approximately 1.4 million emails on a daily basis on average over 800,000
155of those emails are blocked and never enter our Network Jennifer Miller will now share information regarding our cyber security training program thank you Paula training is an important factor in our cyber security program over 73,000 training sessions were completed by our employees this year Cypress Fairbanks continues to administer fishing tests to all employees our email system contains a fish alert button that can be selected if employees are suspicious of a received email once submitted the email is then evaluated by the cyber security team in 2023 our staff submitted over 15,000 fish alerts as shown in the graph during our last fishing test the number of clicked emails decreased by 81% our staff is committed to do their part to keep our Network secure Cypress Fairbanks is in an elite group one of eight districts in
156the state of Texas that has earned the trusted learning environment seal through the Consortium for school networking or Cen this Remains the nation's only data privacy framework designed specifically specifically for school systems Cypress Fairbanks has continued to provide additional tools and strategies to facilitate the selection of Safe digital resources for students and staff beginning in 2018 when cfis first earned the tle sill we have successfully recertified every two years as required by the program Paula Ross will now share information regarding our cyber security foundations Paula the foundation of our cyber approach is based upon the National Institute of Standards and Technology nist the nist framework provides a comprehensive approach to managing and improving the security pro posture of an organization the framework is comprised of five key components identify protect detect respond and recover the
157team also follows best practice recommendations of the cyber security and infrastructure Security Agency sisa cfis has adopted Sis's tagline of secure our world and fully implemented the four recommendations highlighted at the bottom of the slide report fishing strong password policies multiactor authentication at multiple levels of our Network and keeping software and firmware up to dat Technology's third objective falls under goal five cfis has established an objective to develop a data governance framework that will lead to improved data data quality and increased access to data for all stakeholders this objective is achieved through standardized data policies procedures and systems Jennifer Grim will now share information regarding our data governance initiative thank you Paula the data governance project kicked off in 2021 to address the overall management control and protection of data assets and assure that centralized
158data would be easily accessible to all stakeholders data governance aims to establish a framework that governs how data is collected stored processed and shared across the organization ensuring compliance with regulations and promoting data quality and integrity since the board report last February we increased our data scope from 19 to 21 identified domains this graph highlights over the overall progress in increasing the number of completed domains while adding additional domains to assess 63% of the view is complete or currently in progress the governance team has prioritized student data needs first reports relating to assess data domains are being tested for 100% data Integrity before they are released for use as domain reviews are completed we begin to implement visualizations with the start of this school year campus administ administrators have utilized a campus attendance dashboard and
159a weekly automated email to help decrease chronic absenteeism the easy to visualize heat map quickly draws attention to opportunities for targeted Improvement it also includes a drill through feature that allows an administrator to get a list of students ABS absent for a selected date the dashboard and reports go hand in hand with the student services attendance campaign when you miss school you miss out the combination of data governance efforts and verified data dashboards provides actionable insights to key stakeholders contributing to District initiatives and goals Technology's fourth objective falls under goal five cfis has established an objective to develop a districtwide electronic documents environment including the development of Automated Business workflows since the August of 21 the Enterprise document management project goals have been the elimination of paper documents and improving business processes the project has
160matured from its original scope which included building a new repository scanning and migrating records quality assurance reviews were conducted at the end of phase one now firmly in phase two the focus for quarter 1 and two is on developing new workflows that will be ready for roll out with the 24 25 school year and partnering with the records management office as they are the true owner of our document repository Paula Ross will now share information regarding our final goal and objective Technology's fifth goal fifth objective falls under goal six cfd has established an objective to continue completion of Technology projects approved in the 2019 Bond referendum this objective is achieved through focusing and completing our phase five Bond projects evidence of this goal will be shared during the bond presentation later this evening technology services
161and information systems would like to thank you for your continued support we look forward to accomplishing these objectives to support the digital needs of our staff and students this concludes our presentation and we are prepared for any questions you may have thank you very much team um due to the late hour and everything i' ask board please keep your comments away just speak on questions please only any questions for the team wow I guess we'll hear my about the bond in a minute very you thank you thank you great job 4C the administration provide oral reports on the status of the 2019 Bond program Mr Morgan I believe this is you Karen Smith J Clayborn Paula Ross and Todd sp there are no speakers thank you president Henry trustees Dr kilan for an opportunity to
162share an update on the 2019 Bond it's going to take a while for me to get my hand eye coordination here uh in May of 2019 the community passed a bond referendum for $1.76 two billion would would like to say we are grateful to the community and the longrange planning committee for recognizing the facility needs of the district uh studies show that investments in school facilities have a positive impact on student performance and strong schools make strong communities thanks to community support the district has been able to make significant investments in Safety and Security enhancements for our campuses as well as build new elementary schools and new support facilities we've been able to expand and renovate our CTE facilities including the exhibit Center and the Leonard bran Center our student athletes now have access to
163some of the best baseball and softball facilities in the state the new and perform the new the new Visual and Performing Art Center is a beautiful facility it provides a venue for our students to Showcase their talents it's hosted numerous elementary middle school and high school student events since it's opening and there are a lot of more a lot more events coming I think it's completely booked up for the rest of the year but the vpac isn't just for students it's also a great facility to Showcase uh and provide a performance venue for our community I know we've had the founder United Methodist Church hosted the Leland concert in January the United States Navy concert band performed earlier this month the Houston Repertoire Ballet is scheduled for a performance in May and they'll be performing
164The Nutcracker in the fall as well so initially the 2019 Bond was seven phases because of inflation we have moved phases five and or moved phases phase seven to five and six and phase six is currently scheduled to to be complete August of 2026 when we're looking at phase and criteria we take into it we place the campuses based on Safety and Security needs critical Replacements student growth scope the construction market and coordination with the bond sale Safety and Security for students and staff is a top priority for the district so our open concept elementary schools classroom phones and other security items were moved to the front of the bond we also prioritized new construction to accommodate student growth and mitigate inflation I know that Dr kilan and the board me most well I think
165everybody on the board is new since the 2019 Bond was passed Julie was the chair of the committee but I want to give a brief history on our transition from the 2014 bond to the 2019 bond in 2015 we did an RFQ for architect services and that was approved by the board and these Architects performed services on the last few phases of the 2014 Bond but in 2018 as we again design on phase six for the 2014 bond with this group of Architects the 2019 Bond was being finalized with a longrange planning committee as we begin to design phase six for uh 2014 and we considered what was in the scope for 2019 it became apparent that if we move forward with the renovations on the 2014 campuses if the 2019 Bond was approved we
166would be going in and demoing or possibly repeating the work we had just done in 2014 and just to give you an idea for the 2014 there were 13 projects uh 11 elementaries and two three middle or 10 elementaries and three middle schools and that value was about $84 million when the 2019 Bond was passed the value of the work in 2019 was about 121 billion so combined it was 25 million we decided to postpone design on the 2014 work and if the 2019 Bond past to combine the scope so by combining the scope of the 20149 and or 2014 and 2019 Bond we were able able to realize economies of scale and reduce cost the 2019 Bond safety security features were added to scope which included security for open concept classrooms and when we
167go in and we do the security for open concept classrooms for all of these campuses it includ uded at class classroom editions because we had to make sure that we were meeting tea minimum requirements for classroom sizes so just as an example Milsap and Jagger each received a 14 classroom Edition Frank con received a 12 classroom Edition Lowry received a nine classroom Edition horn an eight classroom Edition William Owens hair Grove and Frasier each received six classroom editions Copeland Fe feast and shared and all received four classroom additions we also did additional card readers additional impact fact resistant glass we added classroom phones we included the security fencing and because we were finishing up the renovations we were able to include a furniture replacement at all of these campuses as I mentioned earlier Safety and
168Security was a priority in our phasing decisions because we already had Architects under contract working on design for the 2014 Bond Phase 6 campuses we were able to work with these Architects to develop design standards for the 2019 Bond work continue design on these projects and expedite the implementation of the Safety and Security enhancements so when the bond was approved in May of 2019 we immediately went into design on these 13 campuses we also started design on the security fencing by September of 2019 we began installing security fencing we sold construction dollars for 14 Phase 6 and 2019 Phase 1 in November of 2019 and by March of 2020 we were already taking construction contracts to the board Ward if you fast forward to September 2023 we've completed 50 Elementary School Renovations three Middle School
169Renovations all of the security fencing we've opened three new campuses and three new support facilities just as a point of reference the 2015 RFQ process took about six months we didn't take the first Major Elementary School renovation with additions to the to the board until I believe it was April of 2016 so it takes quite a while once you approve these bonds BS sell the bonds get into design and do a major Renovations like we did so it's difficult to quantify the savings we realized by these decisions in 2019 especially with the onset of the covid pandemic and the pandemic's effect on the market and Lead times but I would estimate it to be in the tens of millions of dollars just by not having to go in and tear out the 80 million that
170we would have put in for 2014 so really at this point in time the best objective measure of this decision of the results and I think our facility department has done an outstanding job Expediting the Safety and Security measures completing new construction and other facility improvements and at this time I'll turn it over to Mr Clayburn good evening I'd like to take a moment to walk the board through one of our typical Elementary School Renovations we've completed in the 2019 Bond on the monitor you'll see pictures of an Elementary School prior to renovation most notably you will see the open concept nature of our elementary schools which is great for Collaborative Learning but lacks areas to lock down in the event of an emergency shortly after the school year ends demolition begins our contractors go
171all out to try and finish demolition by the second week of June as you can see the campus is essentially gutted down to dirt in most cases prior to being put back together only only a few short weeks later in early to mid July the campus is starting to look like a school again the open concept campus is gone and PODS of four six or eight classrooms are created with the ability to lock down in the event of an emergency by early August hopefully the renovation is complete Furniture is moved in and the campus is made ready for students and staff to return in addition to Renovations we have also completed maau and BRZ thean elementary schools and spag Middle School elementary 59 is currently under construction and is scheduled to open in August of
17220124 the Mark Henry administration building Visual and Performing Arts Center and Jarvis Transportation Center were also completed as part of the 2019 Bond the next slide provides an overview of the renovation scope completed to date as part of the 2019 Bond program I would also like to point out that every construction project is a team effort involving every Department in the district there's no way we could complete an average of approximately 200 to$ 250 million worth of work per year without the assistance of every Department in the district combining new facilities and Renovations we have completed or have under contract approximately $1.1 billion do worth of construction in the 2019 Bond program we are currently bidding projects in Phase five of the bond projects this phase are slated to be completed in 2025 projects in
173phase six of the bond are just now kicking off design and are slated to be complete in 2026 I'll now pass the presentation to Mr Darren Crawford who will provide an update on the transportation related work in the bond thank you Jesse good evening um so in transportation in the 2019 Bond the primary focus was um completing our 12year bus replacement cycle um we are at 97% complete we have a few buses that are on order that were approved just a month ago and once those are in we'll be 100% complete with bus replacement um replacing the existing GPS Hardware that was done all over the summer last year when we implemented our new technology solution Tyler Technologies and this the final thing as it relates to school buses was all of the new bus
174purchases that we're making have the three-point seat belts um so that is 100% complete right now I don't want to be misleading though 100% of our buses don't have three-point seat belts 100% of the the bond money allocated towards that is all of our route buses of which we have 677 those all of the regular route buses all are compliant with the 3. belts all right uh police vehicle replacement schedule is my final slide um that was phased as well to do replacement on police vehicles in phase one we had 27 Vehicles allocated that is complete um phase three 31 vehicles that is complete phase four was 13 Vehicles phase five is 13 Vehicles as well those are all in process they are not complete um due to supply chain shortages and the complex nature
175of what all goes into a police vehicle the lead time on those is incredible um but those that hopefully will be complete by the end of this year and now I'll turn it over to Paul Ross thank you Dar campus switch replacement 20% complete depending upon the size of a campus each campus is designed with network closets that provide network connectivity for the students and staff to digital resources for example our elementary campuses will have three to five Network closets our middle school campuses will have 12 to 15 and our high schools will have 25 to 30 Network closets our department completed the upgrade of network switches at all of our high schools this last in 2023 and are currently working on our elementary campuses our uh Aruba wireless network the district has a robust
176wireless network you heard uh comments earlier from Muhammad about 12,000 of those access points are deployed across the district the wireless coverage provides connectivity both inside and outside our facilities since our last Bond update in June of 2023 we've completed the wireless access point replacement upgrade at all campus at all campuses Aruba clear pass Network act Access Control this will provide enhanced security and visibility for all of our devices on our wired Network we currently have this installed on our wireless network we're expanding to our wired Network this will alert our team when an unknown device is plugged into our Network replacement administrative devices 70% the new replacement devices have been distributed in approximately 70% of our administrative users the replacement of administrative device is based upon our current 5-year replacement cycle Horizon's virtualization this
177solution supports virtualized desktops and applications with a virtualized desktop we're able to provide users with additional resources needed to complete their workload for example we've been able to provide additional resources to students for example our CTE students they have the ability to ex educ the ability to execute more robust software applications using their Chromebook devices so also we provide remote access to our Network in a more controlled and secure manner for example our district supports a wide variety of software applications such as HVAC controls by providing a virtualized access method we can provide the hva support vendor access to his system without additional security concerns data center upgrades reporting 100% complete several Hardware upgrades and security focused projects have been completed at the data center level fall of 2023 we were able to finalize the
178F5 load balancer project load balance ERS Aid in the distribution of network traffic across servers our load balancer environment is being upgraded and expanded to include additional security features to protect to protect applications such as our finance system and our student information system enterprise Enterprise electronic documents management about 40% complete this project has completed phase one or the scanning phase of documents for the do for the Departments that have moved moved to the new Administrative Building we're currently conducting an audit and reviewing each Department's online environment once the audit is complete for a department we then initiate a phase two for that department phase two Begins the implementation of departmental workflows we currently have 27 workflows targeted for the completion by June of 2024 data governance about 60% complete data governance is the framework created
179that creates a set of rules and processes for collecting and using data approximately 60% of the identified domains have been completed including registration and enrollment special education planning projections residential codes attendance and Health Services one tangible benefit of the data governance is the development of District dashboards beginning with the 2023 2024 school year the district has had an increased focus on student attendance in September our team was able to work with a pilot group of principles devel validate student attendance data determine which campus reports were needed and frequency of receiving these reports and ultimately a dashboard was delivered to each campus for quick visual monitoring of attendance data next I'd like to turn it over to Todd saula who will share an instructional technology update is it just all right there we go all right
180before I uh share a little bit about the instructional technology update I'd like to uh to share uh I think something that's really important um the cfd community we were we're very blessed because the cfic community passed the bond which ensures that classroom technology as far as it goes to classroom technology is the same between all the different campuses we don't have Hales and have knots here in the district and I think that's a true testimony to the cfd community I wanted to share that just remember I always try to share that when we uh when I talk about the bond so Charles Charles talked a little bit about the one toone project um we completed phase one of the one to one project putting a Chromebook in every in the hands of every cfis
181student right now we're in phase two uh every Chromebook has an automatic update expiration date and that means that Chromebooks can no longer be updated so we are continually monitoring the fleet and making sure that we are um replacing those Chromebooks that have AED this is really important because the state of Texas requires that every Chromebook is able to catch a certain update or get to a certain update number to so students can take the star test um we are always ongoing in in on that process on the light speeed sound systems we are are at 85% so light speeed sound systems allow the teacher's voice to be equally dispersed in the classroom so this provides for a clear in clear listening experience for all the students no matter where they sit in the classroom
182it also leaves the teacher with more energy at the end of the day because they're not having to use their voice or you know strain their voice to make sure that they are heard so this refresh is almost uh complete where at 85% we have refreshed all the elementaries all the middles uh we're at the high schools and we will refresh will end will complete when we refresh row Middle School in 2025 the prometheum panels were at 65% so the prometheum panels are our interactive video display that is installed in every cfd classroom um at this time we've replaced all language arts at all levels we are in the process of replacing Math and Science and we're Gathering the information to start replacing social studies Lo and CTE and then lastly teacher laptops um we
183are at 70% teacher laptops have been replaced at elementary and middle schools and we are currently replacing or in the process of replacing High School teachers laptops and with that I'll turn it over to Karen thank you very quickly I just wanted to share with you how uh amount of funding left available for us to sell bonds we have uh 315 million of the 2019 Bond authorization that have been unissued and that we can sell at this point in time we're we're planning on selling probably in the fall of 2024 some of the items influencing the interest in Sinking tax rate during uh one of the things we do is we review all these different areas and I'm not going to go over all of them during the bond referendum process to determine the impact
184to the the tax rate and we develop assumptions so that we can project the tax rate what the maximum increase would be to the ins uh tax rate the items can fluctuate after the bond referendum has passed and we are re we review them on an annual basis when possible we tried to have the bond projects and the frequency and looked at the amount of the bond sales structured to minimize the impact on the tax rate to the for our taxpayers but some of the areas uh impacting them is property value change es and by we've been very fortunate I guess because the property values have gone up um that it's allowed us not to go up on the ins tax rate and uh our underlying Bond ratings whenever we go to sell our bonds
185we have to be reviewed by two rating agencies and our underlying Bond ratings have been good because of our strong strong financial position and that impacts uh the cost whenever we sell our bonds also we've maximized for example Bond refundings uh I guess if you will if you think of your house it's like when you refinance your mortgage and allowing us to refinance those those refundings also looking at our bond structures and maturities and the local optional homestead exemption also impacts on this side of the tax rate also but it's important to note that the um interest in syncing tax rate must be set so enough taxes are collected to pay our current debt service payments taxpayers which hold during the 24 14 Bond authorization that it could result in an increase in the ins
186tax rate of 4.5 cents however the actual ins tax rate decreased by one penny to 40 cents taxpayers were also told during the 2019 Bond authorization that potential impact could be an increase in the ins tax rate of 3 cents the current ins tax rate remains at 40 cents this slide reflects the tax rate history over the last 10 years and as you can see the tax rate has decreased since the 2019 Bond authorization was approved by the voters now we'll be available for answer any questions you may have Justin has a question go ahead yeah um thank you everybody for the presentation can we go back to that uh first slide uh the bond 2019 program summary I want to point out something that's I think is very telling and uh important for the
187community understand about our priorities um in the priority I'm going to talk about specifically is um safety so uh school school safety of course is a top priority of this board and I'm glad to see that it's also a top priority of our uh Bond allocation so when we get to the slide I want to show couple of quick numbers of course it's the first slide I asked of course um so okay when you look at the program summary and our allocations $200 million of the 1.76 to billion has gone towards Safety and Security enhancements but when you look at the $968 million and facility Renovations and additions there's actually an element of that that contributes to safety as well Matt can you talk a little bit about that like for instance one thing uh
188that I think Jesse mentioned was the fact that when we go from open concept and we change that you know that would typically fall under Renovations and additions but also has a safety element to it as well can you speak to that a little bit certainly you know with these with the open concept and the segmentation and security for open concept really the entire renovation is about safety because you are starting from scratch as J the pictures that Mr Clayburn shown we have to go in and those gut that school and then build it back up depending on the age of the school and the older schools that was pretty much it so where you may have carpet uh paint Lighting in the facilities Renovations the Safety and Security hands are going to be line
189item a small amount for Safety and Security segmentation card readers impact resistant glass but it really it's that renovation is all about safety and providing additional classroom size because we want to support the educational environment because we did not want to just go in and create Little Boxes where kids were safe you know we worked very closely with school leadership and our A&E teams and designing this to make sure that whatever we came up with for Safety and Security met the needs of our instructional Community which is great because when you look at those numbers in essence we are going above $200 million in safety expenditures probably quite a bit Above So qu a significant amount of our uh facilities renovation security enhancements a significant amount of that 1.76 two billion has a safety element
190to it for the elementary schools certainly absolutely thank you appreciate you I have one comment I have one question go ahead uh quickly again related to the point that um is being brought can you discuss the order of operations when we're thinking about safety did you prioritize one learning level of school over another learning level of school I.E Elementary versus middle versus high the order in which you would conduct safety Renovations and why did you do that we looked at the most vulnerable campuses and the most vul vulnerable campuses were the open concept elementaries high schools middle schools had the ability to lock doors they already had impact resistant glass they already had secure vestibules they had card readers but the elementary schools they were open concept no no further comments thank you questions to
191my left anyone no you get one more I'm allowed one more um police vehicle replacement schedule what's the lifespan of our police cruisers that is a good that was my one good question of the year so let's let's savor it while we can it is significantly shorter um than that of our school buses our school buses are on a 12year replacement cycle and right now that's one of the things that we are working on in anticipation of possibly doing another bond in the future is really looking at the police department and what is a realistic replacement schedule on them because they do spend a lot of time in a police vehicle where the vehicle is running but you're not necessarily putting on mileage you're putting on hours um so that is a thing that our
192transportation team is working with the police department on um there are some other options out there that will continue to run all of your accessories even when your engine is not running um so that's that really is a work in progress which I know is not a real answer but that is the real answer when when we go out for New Cruisers um do we have some sort of credit program where we can exchange our older Cruisers get credit towards new Cruisers um we do not at this point to my knowledge um so the other thing too is when when we go out for Cruisers going forward that's always going to have to be a bond we don't have any type of we in our M budget uh we don't have the ability to develop
193any type of vehicle replacement plan if we're going out for new Cruisers it's going to be part of a bond reference correct absolutely okay thank you you're welcome say no more questions we'll move on to the public hearing portion of our agenda 5A the board will hold the Texas Academic performance report taper public hearing to discuss the 2022 20 23 annual report we'd have one speaker Lisa bua M excuse me the Texas Academic performance report is a comparison between the 2122 school year and last year even though the 2023 STAR test has no comparison because it was brand new this report is politically motivated to make it look like schools are doing poorly so that Governor Abbott can appease his donors by passing vouchers so those same donors can collect 3% for administering the voucher
194program this is about profits not about student achievement the star test measured exactly what standardized tests measure the socioeconomic status of a student we all know this is federally mandated but can we please hear about map and in-class test results and how students are meeting their text level gradients things that actually matter how are students doing when direct evaluation of real learning tasks such as good teacher observation document ation of student work and performance-based assessments are conducted I would also kindly ask that the dips be updated on the website last year's has zero information in it as it was last updated in December of 2022 and this year's has zero progress documented even though it was updated on January 12th with a formative review due in November and again in this month thank you for
195your attention in this matter Dr P good good evening the Texas Education codee requires each School District's Board of Trustees to hold a hearing for public discussion of the annual report within 90 calendar days of the DAT of release of the tap of the Texas Academic performance report also known as the taper I believe we received the report in late December uh and in fact just last week we got uh another component of that's required for us to actually report so everything's kind of delayed a little bit the annual report must include the following the district accreditation status the uh taper report campus performance objectives information received from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and a report of violent uh or criminal incidents you may recall earlier uh this fall we shared with you the
196star and EOC information that information is part of the taper you might think we've already heard this and you have because it is part of the taper paper report additionally as you look at some of the performance objective uh of of the target uh you may also remember that we reviewed these with you uh last year and at time you at that time some of you even asked are those too high and we shared with you that we've worked with the campuses we're trying to get back to where we were in 1819 right before the pandemic and we continually work to reach that that point and then move forward so I'm going to turn the presentation over to Dr CL she's going to walk us through uh through this report I think I may not
197have the right clicker the Texas Academic performance report comprises three comprises the main part of the district's annual ual 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 and then click on school ratings from the school ratings page select the district or campus level the campus name and then click on 2223 Texas Academic performance report upon access the reports you will notice they contain a wealth of information including data on Star Performance star and EOC progress star data disaggregated by bilingual education in English as a second language star participation rates attendance graduation and Dropout rates college career and Military Readiness followed by student and staff information tonight we will share with the board star and
198end of course data taken directly from the Texas Academic performance report for Cypress Fairbanks ISD and surrounding school districts please note star and EOC data were shared with the board in the fall we have also extended the comparison groups to accommodate board member request this first table displays data for all students tesed in grades 3- 12 in all content areas combined the first column on the left hand side lists the district followed by the total number of students in the district the economically disadvantaged percentage of students in the district followed by the total number of tests and the percentages at the approaches or higher meets or higher and Master's levels these are data for economically disadvantaged students tested in grades 3 through 12 in all content areas combined here we have data for all students
199tested in grades 3 through 12 in reading or English language arts this slide displays data for economically disadvantaged students tested in grades 3 through 12 in reading or English language arts we know the board board is closely monitoring the performance of third grade students in Reading therefore data for these students are before you now now we will review several Trend analysis graphs with a focus on Star and EOC achievement we will begin with approaches or higher data for all grade levels and tests combined the black line depicts the actual achievement data for Cypress Fairbanks ISD from 20 2012 to 2023 and our forecast if nothing were to change in the district the actual numbers for each point on the graph are represented in a supporting table as seen at the bottom of the slide the
200pink line depicts the achievement of Region 4 districts with 30,000 students students or more these include Aline alaf Clear Creek Cypress Fairbanks Fort Bend Houston Umble Katie Lamar Consolidated Pasadena spring and Spring Branch there's a green line on this slide it's a little difficult to see that depicts the performance of the entire State the Blue Line depicts the achievement of the five largest districts in Texas including Houston Dallas Cypress Fairbanks Norths side and Katie in this trend analysis you can see cyfair outperformed all groups in all years at the approaches or higher level as we review the data at the meats level you will notice the scores are not as high as those at approaches the meets level requires a higher Mastery our campuses continue to work on increasing the number number of students scoring
201at this level once again the black line depicts the actual achievement data for Cypress Fairbanks ISD the pink line depicts the achievement of region four districts with 30,000 students or more the green line depicts the performance of the entire State the Blue Line depicts the achievement of the five largest districts in Texas and again in this trend analysis you can see cyfair outperformed all groups in all years at the meets or higher level as we review the data at the Master's level you will notice the scores are not as high as those at approaches or meets Masters is the highest level of accomplishment across all test once again in this trend analysis you can see cyfair outperformed all groups in all years at the meets excuse me at the Master's level due to the board's
202focus on reading we will now share the trends for all reading Ela tests for all students in the district at approaches or higher once again the black line depicts our district the pink line depicts the achievement of region four districts with 30,000 students or more the green line depicts the performance of the entire state the Blue Line depicts the achievement of the five largest districts in Texas in this trend analysis you can see cyfair outperformed all groups in Reading at approaches or higher now for the trends in Reading English language arts at the meets level or higher again you can see that cair outper performed all groups in Reading at meets or higher finally the trend data for reading at the Master's level in this trend analysis you can see cyfair outperformed all groups in
203Reading at the Master's level before you now were graduation rate data for the state Region 4 and Cypress Fairbanks ISD please note that graduation rate data are always a year behind in the Texas Academic performance report beginning with the district's accreditation status we will move into the portion of the presentation that will cover the additional required areas of the annual report Cypress Fairbanks ISD is an accredited District the financial section of the Texas Academic performance report is provided by the state funding division these reports may be accessed from a link on the last page of each campus in 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 their data and determines their progress to board meeting the
204performance objectives upon receipt of star data the campus Improvement plans are updated to include the current year star data to assist the campuses in their performance objective evaluations the campus performance objectives may be viewed by accessing the 2022 23 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 click on the 2223 school year and then click on 2223 campus Improvement plans 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 a evaluation of each local education agency's results driven accountability indicators in the special education program and four federally required elements as of December 2023 this information has not
205been made available to districts we're also required to share information on violent or criminal incidents that occur on each campus the board was provid provided the 2022 23 annual report on violence and violence prevention in your backup documents the data before you now are a district summary of the total student population total number of actions 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 cyer ISD local code of conduct our next set of data comes from The Higher Education Coordinating Board and these are the data we just received late Friday afternoon we'll be providing the entire report to the board in your Friday packet these are for the 2020 21 high school graduates
206enrollment in Texas public higher education in fiscal year 2022 these data represent the whole Academic Year and not just the fall semester these were collected by The Higher Education Coordinating Board based on cyfair graduates that they were able to track and their subsequent enrollment in 4-year 2-year or independent colleges and universities in Texas only we know we have several students who attend universities outside the state and those data are not included uded in the Texas data additionally we have postsecondary data from another source to share with you Cypress Fairbanks ISD subscribes to the student tracker program through the national student Clearing House this program provides us with data on our college-bound students they track 97% of all postsecondary students in public and private institutions across the United States the graph before you displays the percent
207of students enrolled in college in the fall immediately after high school you can see we had an uptick from 62% for the class of 2022 to 63% for the class of 2023 House Bill 3 passed by the 86 Texas legislature in 2019 requires school boards to adopt detailed plans developed by their District teams that achieve goals in two key areas Early Childhood literacy and math and college career and Military Readiness also known as ccmr tonight we will review The Early Childhood literacy and math plans along with the ccmr plans Texas Education Code 11.1 185 related to Early Childhood literacy and Mathematics proficiency plan requires that the plans must include the items on the screen before you now as Dr Ms has previously shared you will see that campuses have set High targets to help them
208return to whole where they performed and 2019 before covid let's start with the ccmr plans for our high schools beginning at the top of the table you will see a clear notation that the 2021 Baseline targets are identical to the campus performance in 2019 before covid please note there are not comparison data from the state the region or other districts to display tonight because each each district decides how to set their campus Targets this is an individualized process for each district across the state along the far left hand side you will see the student group names for which the campus is held accountable in this example it's 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
209total number of indiv idual students who earned meets or higher total number of students tested points away from the target the difference from the prior year and the growth from the prior year in this example the 2022 Target was 90% of all graduates earn a ccmr credit the actual performance of the campus was 72% earning the credit 623 earned the credit out of 857 graduates while the campus performed 17 points below the target the difference from the prior year was 4.9 points with a 7.2% growth rate this table displays ccmr Target data outcomes beginning at the farle hand side you will see the major student groups how many targets were evaluated for each campus us the number and percent of targets that were met or exceeded across all campuses and the number and percent of
210targets that were missed across all campuses now let's move to the elementary school reading and math targets again at the top of the table you will see a clear notation that the 2021 Baseline targets are identical to the campus performance in 20 2019 along the far left hand side you will see the student group names next you will find an explanation of the data listed in the table the Target and actual Raider 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 the difference from the prior year and the growth from the prior year and this example the 2023 Target was 48% of all the third grade students on this campus achieving the meat standard on Star reading the actual
211performance of the campus was 56% reaching the meat standard 58 met the T 58 met the target out of 104 students testing the students performed eight points higher than the target with a difference of eight points from last year and a growth of 16 point .7% from last year this table displays the third grade reading Target cumulative data at the meets or higher proficiency level while using the approaches standard would have shown an increased number of campuses meeting the targets it is our goal for all students to be at the meets level or higher this table displays the third grade math ma cumul cumulative Target data also at the meets or higher proficiency level part of our requirement is also to provide training and professional de development for our teachers to continue building that teacher
212capacity so these are these are just a just a sampling of some of the professional development that we're providing uh for our students you've heard of our digital learning conference that happens every every summer and it's opportunities for our teachers to uh learn how to use technology to engage our our students and continue with uh accelerate their learning we have a new teacher literacy Academy I think last year or last last month we talked about what are opportunities for teachers that are new to the to the district so this is an example a a a uh A literacy Academy just for new teachers our August professional development we've had two professional development in in the past and that is very much content specific for example this year one of the areas that that uh that
213we've targeted and we continue to Target in the just in time professional development is the new piece that's added to the to the star assessment which is the extended uh constructive responses and the short constructive responses which have been a challenge uh across the state uh never have they seen so many so many uh scores of a zero uh for for this area of the of the star test so that's something that we've continued to provide training for teachers we have a a time during our our day and our week at our campuses that we that we call closing the Gap time and that is specific time set aside to work with students who who uh need some additional support or who need the accelerated instruction that's required by the state when you when you
214do not you're not successful on the St test or just to accelerate what their what they're doing and so we have training for our teachers on uh how to teach that what are some strategies that can be used to uh also provide that additional support for kids and then we have weekly common uh planning with our teachers so our teams are out there planning uh with our teachers make sure that that they're doing adequate uh providing adequate instruction for our students and accelerate that learning as well and then we have ongoing teacher share sessions there are like many many little trainings for our teachers they come together for the different content areas um I think you've heard me talk before about our model teacher program and so we have teachers that apply to be model
215teachers uh they are interviewed they are uh we go into their classrooms and we we monitor or or we look at evaluate their their teaching uh they require references from their principles and so then we select teachers in from different content areas different grade uh levels and different areas of the district to service model teachers and so our principals have a list of these and they can if uh Linda msas need needs some uh training in in uh language arts and I'm a third grade teacher they can look to see where is another model teacher third grade teacher in a school that looks very much like them so these are just some examples of the different trainings that we're doing I wanted to add one more thing it's not it's not not really training but
216we're going to use it as part of training uh as well and that is that we have a think tank that that we have organized with surrounding school districts and uh we've invited them we've had our our first meeting right before the the right before the Christmas break we've invited them so we can all talk about all the newness of the star assessment and what they're doing some of them are scoring a little bit better maybe in this area and we're scoring better in the another area so we're all sharing uh what what it is that that we are doing to support our students then we're going to embed that in additional training for our students Ashley that concludes our presentation tonight we'd be happy to answer any questions starting our right any questions no
217left um okay thank you very much for the presentation y'all are absolutely spot on you know this board takes a lot of this very seriously and is prior prioritizing a lot of these reports so I know that there's definitely some interest in this and there'll probably be some followup questions as well one of the things uh when I'm looking at the performance over the years uh that is is kind of glaring and it's under the Masters um cyfair and other districts have all seen a drop off from 2022 to 2023 in Masters can you guys talk a little bit about have there been any significant changes in they scored the Masters that would have contributed to this that would have make it difficult for us to do a comparison to previous years well as I've
218shared before it is a whole different test that that our students took this past year including the test being completely online the the uh testing questions the design of the questions were completely different so you are correct we are we are uh like many of the state actually most of the probably districts across the state state that had a drop in both the meats and the Masters levels and one of our areas has to do with what I just mentioned those responses those short constructed responses uh that our kids have to now uh write all these responses and the way they were scored is very different from uh what we anticipated they were going to be scored and so we've got a lot of training that we're doing in that area so um I absolutely
219that that was my assumption as well and and I've heard us talk about those things uh before as well you know what's interesting though is Meats there's not that much change between 2002 and 2023 same thing with approaches is there anything specific about Masters that contributes to such a visible drop off between 202 because again the the the test was different a lot of it was online but at approaches and at meets we're we pretty much stayed the same over the previous years but but there was a very visible drop off in Masters and I didn't know if there's anything specific about that threshold that contributed to that drop off and there is uh uh I'm GNA ask Ashley to to share with you but there there was a change in the number of questions
220that needed to be um answered correctly to reach that meets level or that Master's level as well very good thank you very much Linda and team question yeah do you have any sorry sorry I didn't I was expecting this side to ask questions so so I'm gonna ask questions okay uh just real quickly for our edification you mentioned AI at one point during the presentation so I'm hearing that there's some issues related to artificial intell elligence in this last testing cycle can you share some of the things that you've heard about short answers and things like that so what we have learned is that uh and it was kind of massed as we as we've been learning about this new new new system um I certainly wasn't aware that there was a component of the
221scoring that was through Ai and uh and actually they call it a hybrid scoring model and so there is a A system that call the automated scoring engine ASE and that's the AI and so they're B basically putting the the responses through the AI system and then at least 25% of the student responses are then routed to human scores and so that's very different from uh anything that we have ever seen regarding scores um as I said they're investigating whether this is contri contributing to the massive scores of a zero on these responses okay so that's a little bit concerning that we have a computer grading our kids now so how are we going to take care of that in our own School District to where we going to have computers grading now we do
222not have the computers grading our our response at this point we're not sure how to train the computers to do that grading so we're doing the training with our with our uh live teach um and then as we learn more about it we'll make the adjustments we need to make Dr Killian okay it just it's concerning to me because you know one of the things we're real concerned about when we're we're doing open responses and short answers is in RoR reliability for test graders so what are you basing that AI on I mean is it the hardest grader or you know does it vary in terms of percent it just it concerns me so that maybe there's not a fair shake for some of our kids that are being rated so it concerns us as
223well and like I said we are learning more um about this we within our own systems have multiple Raiders of uh of our U responses and the state is saying that they see this as a another Raider but certainly it's different when it's through the artificial intelligence wouldn't it be convenient for us to have access to that Raider for our practices so that we see exactly what we're up against it would so also um we've got some new ratings that obviously we've uh filed a complaint against for accountability I know there was a speaker that talked a little bit about the test and the changes in the tests and they were quite big right so what were some of the changes in those tests that might have led to that dip that um TR our
224trustees um pointed out one one of of the biggest changes was in the ccmr the college material and career Readiness and the state when for example from earning an A in that area was was 60 points to 88 points and I think you've pointed this up uh before Dr Killian that change from a 60 to an 88 was applied to a group of students had already graduated they weren't here um any longer so that was a huge change a huge change for uh for our campuses with a a group of kids that they couldn't do there was nothing that could be done to to help improve those scores CU they because they were gone already gone yeah they were they were um already uh Gone another big change is the the state is is uh
225is using a um not a leveling what what am I am I using actually where where they're applying a higher they're putting they're putting more emphasis on on the on the schools that have the largest number of kids and so for us it's the high schools so when the ccmr scores Dro there and the most emphasis is on the high schools then that creates a drop for the entire District as well and then as I mentioned there was a a huge change in the in the question types uh these responses that I just spoke about and then in our district all of our kid well all kids across the state had to take the star um online so they did not know what they were being tested like what the test was like ahead of
226time so they didn't know what rules they were playing by that is correct and I'll tell you that even some of our sample um uh questioning that the state gave us or how some of these some of these uh items were going to be tested were different were tested differently on the assessment than what we had been prepar preparing our kids for based on inform we had received so the ccmr points the college career military Rous points were based on kids that were already out of the system um so effectively to use the Super Bowl analogy since we saw that last night you played the Super Bowl last year and the ratings came out for the game the next semester and they changed the rules and then we had a different winner that is correct
227and a different score yes so instead of 10 yards it took 12 to get a first down yes so okay that is correct I I have a a concern about fairness yes sir and um especially for teachers that prepared kids and did all their hard work to try to make up for all the all the things that happen over covid all the different learning loss pieces and then had a completely change in their rules that is correct and I I I just have to share that we have an amazing group of teachers an amazing group of leaders and curriculum team that have worked tirelessly to prepare our kids and um even though you saw from Dr clayburn's presentation that we are perform in all the different areas it it it's not enough for us we
228continue to work towards making sure we keep addressing the needs of our students yeah and I I want to clarify I'm not saying that I I don't agree higher standards and cranking those standards up over time absolutely not Texas teachers and Texas educational system has always risen to the occasion we've had since after I graduated we've had what tabs teams toss T well actually we had Sonna toss before that which was basically tis base toss and then we had tax now we've had star now we basically have star 2.0 but in all of those times we've never had an accountability system changed at the same time a test was changed that is correct and even and even in some of the testimony that ta gave uh in the um in some of the hearings they
229shared that they never intended to release a new test and a new accountability at the same time so no matter what we're we're going to release some ratings here at some point um that are based on an accountability system change um a retroactive change on things that already happened that we couldn't even take any action on with ccmr plus the harder test for um the elementary kids open response a suspect AI grading system I'm I'm just kind of laying it all out it's it's a little bit concerning that all this stuff was all done at the same time because in the past I remember when even when I was at the service center we would have a a a period where there would be a phase in Period where you'd say we're going for these
230higher standards but here's the phase in to transition from this test and the other so it's an akin to having a kid on an assembly line which kids are not on an assembly line but I just want to we like to talk about the business world so and somewhere in the middle of that assembly line we say you know what this is now the standard you're going to reach even though we've gone through all these grading years now we're going to hold you accountable for a test that that's a lot higher or maybe you have to change the curriculum in some way or the way we assess all that kind of stuff before you can come off that assembly line so it just you're not working with W widgets so you're working with kids and
231so it just seems fair even when we change something I know that the public would not want us to change the graduation requirements for the juniors for next year that would be patently unfair so when we change graduation requirements we change it on the incoming freshman so if you're going to change a test why would you not crank that test up over four years or whatever so that there'd be an ability to I'm sorry I'm now preaching I apologize and and Dr Killian you you are correct that there's been a phase in to to the standards but unlike this time with a new assessment districts have always had the opportunity to learn from the first time the assessment is given so we've always had that first year to learn to analyze to make adjustments to
232our curriculum before that counts the following year this is the first time that that doesn't happen Dr Dr blasing you probably can attest to that as well because we want to be successful for our kids so go ahead uh definitely um it had what are a lot of things stacked up but one thing that I would say to the speaker the map and mclass and teacher assessments I do feel like uh one thing I have I've also lived all those tests because I started teaching in 1992 um and I was a student in Texas as well but what I do know to be true is that if kids can read we and write which of course with the new assessment bringing the writing spread across if kids can read and write we any test will
233become um we can achieve what we just said uhuh so I would I really appreciated the thought and thank you for the way you presented the data I really appreciate it in the early childhood data how it says the number of students to the percentage so every time we can see that as a number of students that's so helpful because it personalizes the data a percentage is not as personal as a number of kiddos who are able to read or not read and thank you though for focusing on those key places in the day they did a great job you're welcome thank you thank you very much and last question no I just have one one quick comment simply that we knew just for the viewing audience um as we were coming into this taper
234report we knew last year what this effect was going to be so a little bit of the not asking of questions is that we knew this was coming this data point is not super relevant to Prior years because the star test is very very different and the way it's being measured is very very different so we're learning and we'll continue to learn going forward and that's really what we can say about it so we been going for a little over three hours um out of respect for administration I'm going let them take a quick break break so we're going to be back at um 9:45 stretch your legs please and we will have a quick [Music] break what thatal [Music] l [Music] n [Music] n [Music] he [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay we'll now
235proceed with a consent agenda items on the agenda I'll start reading these uh 6A the board consider approving the minutes of January 9th 6B the board will consider approving minutes of January 18th 6C the board consider approving amends excuse me budget amendments a period October 1st through December 31st in 6D the board consider awarding bids contracts and authorizing purchase recommendations and Postage and items 61 Balor recycling nutrition services 62 Central production equipment for nutrition services 63 commencement photography Services 64 cooler and rollup doors 65 Furniture 66 refrigerated trucks fruitrition Services 67 school and Baker equipment for in Services 60e the board consider approving Centerport Energy electrical easement at Cypress Ranch High 6D 6f the board consider proving construction proposals and contracts paid from bond funds for recommended contracts and authorized the superintendent designate to ex
236to execute all necessary documents related to 6 F1 Dean Middle School 6 F2 Langham Creek High School and 6f3 argon and Goodson middle school if any board member wish to remove one or more items of these items from further discussion please those as time we're not all here I'll wait a minute if not I return to motion when everyone gets here to approve the consensus items as recommended or amended but I'll wait till they get here back I think we have a quum so now I accept any motions I move to approve the consent agenda you have a second second all those in favor approving consent agenda please raise your right hand looks like it's unanimous hly thank you well now move on to non-consent agenda items 7A the board consider approving the conveyance track
237of land located at Tel Road in 290 in Harris County exchange for track located at Old Mass Road in 290 and authorized the superintendent or is it designated to execute the relayed documents this item may have been discussed in um close session pursuant to 551.071 may have a motion please I move that the board approve the conance of the tract of land located on the corner of tgy Road in US 290 to Harris County in exchange for a tract located at the corner of Old masy Road in us290 and authorize the superintendent design to negotiate and execute the related documents may have a second second are there any questions uh seeing none we'll take a vote please raise your right hand if you're in favor look like it's unanimous 7B the board considered approving on
238first reading additions revisions and deletions to District policies 7b1 CQB technology resources cyber security 7 B2 DP Personnel positions Revis 7 B3 gkg community relations School volunteer program we do have some speakers on this in fact we have quite a few um our first Speaker tonight is Jennifer shanet followed by Sonia please come forward 26 yeah fortunately we're going to have to go to one minute but I'll be generous with your overtime let me know yeah ready okay uh as a kid I love the Poetry of shell Silverstein when I think about the chaplain issue I think about the poem about Little Peggy andne McKay who said I cannot go to school today I have the measles and the mumps a gash a rash and purple bumps she goes on and on listing how sick
239she is then at the end she says what what's that you say you say today is Saturday goodbye I'm going out to play far-right parents have screamed about parental rights with everything but oh Chaplin in our schools yay no parental consent is needed they have screamed back the blue oh we can hire chaplain let's use our school safety funds to pay them they have screamed about indoctrination and grooming but they are totally okay with strangers preaching to our kids in school as long as the label of Christianity is slapped on there apparently it's okay we are looking at unlicensed people talking to Kids in Need there's no licensing body that oversees them there's no code of ethics there's no training on confidentiality as a licensed clinical social worker for 27 years I'm required to abide
240by a code of ethics I'm required to take continuing education specifically in ethics cultural competency opioids and human trafficking human trafficking that's a whole other concern schools are the perfect place for worker bees to find their next victim spend some time thinking about that thank you excuse me our next speaker is Sonia Follow by lorenza Garza no Sonia F so Lorena Garza is up next followed by Patricia Spore thank you can you turn your mic on please all right here we go thank you superintendent and Schoolboard trustees my name is Lena Garza and for the past 14 years I've been a faith leader and the sponsor United for Christ at Dickinson High School I'm also the director of chapl affairs with the National School Chaplain Association we are serving 28,750 schools in 23 countries providing
241services to over 23 million people giving us a massive database Pro proving schools that employ chaplain show a drastic uh reduction in school violence violence in the home alcohol and drug consumption and decreased bullying there has been 37% increase in high school graduations 80% reduction in team pregnancies and zero reported suicides I am glad that for some of the families here represented that the students have a strong support system but Chaplin are also there for the students that do not have a strong support system like the ones that you guys are saying here chaplain are there to work alongside the counselors to offer hope for the students and for the teachers I myself have helped many students that are facing hard times I'm glad that I have been there for them some of the uh
242problems that they have faced are Beyond academics that they're facing at home thank you thank you PCA Spore followed by Clifford height that Patricia yes you're up ma'am thank you yes thank you I am chaplain Patricia spor uh I have an associate in biblical studies from College of biblical studies and drawns business school in Nashville Tennessee I've received my C certification from the U in Oklahoma under the National School Chaplain Association I have certification of Alice training threat assessment which is the same used for the US Secret Service and stop the bleed first aid I am a chaplain with also Boy Scouts of America and I'm also with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and after hearing some of the comments at the school board meetings I thought that this would help clarify any misinformation
243regarding our credential but we appreciate the opportunity to apply as a School Chaplain thank you thank you Clifford and Then followed by Paige heitsman thank you very much um like I shared with you last time the positive influence that my coach in FCA had in changing my life around making me a better students to respect my teachers to respect my peers and just to become a better person I went on to college I was not planning going to college I got my degree became a teacher eventually an administrator 35 years with a Houston Independent School District with a masters and a pH degree and I think his influence was what helped me to get there and chaplain were're they're already in the hospitals and the you know Corporation sports teams military ships prisons the government
244Etc and they provide positive role models and they're there to lend a listening ear to the students because I being 35 years in the in the as a teacher as an educator I realize teachers counselors administrators they don't have that much time they're just so busy I know there's so much to do I know from experience but if we could have somebody there to lend an ear to these students I think this is something that will make a positive influence in their lives helping them to redirect their lives and become more successful uccessful in life thank you thank you Paige heightman followed by Peggy Merkley I am a parent of three cfd students as you prepare to vote on SB 763 I ask that you please vote against any edits to current policy that widen
245the entry point for professional staff or volunteers based on the grounds of their being a chaplain chapy is not a qualification that should supersede an otherwise qualified candidate in our public schools in an open letter to Texas school boards over 150 chaplain write as trained chaplain we are not qualified for the duties envisioned by S SP 763 not only is serving in public schools likely to bring about conflict with the religious beliefs of parents but chaplain serving in public schools would also amount to spiritual malpractice by the chaplain please uphold the excellent and integrity of our district and reject SB 763 thank you Peggy Merkley if I pronounce that right yes thank you so much for um apologize I'm sorry say it again go ahead give me again thank you so much for uh being
246here tonight and for the great job that you guys do every day and uh I just want to say that for I've lived here for 43 years in the cyer district and uh for 18 of those years I have booked speakers to go into schools all over the United States I work with former NFL players uh Harlem Globe Trotters music artists and Olympic athletes and I cannot tell you the amount of messages that they get that the kid says I was going to commit suicide I was in depression there's so much fatherlessness there's so many kids that are suffering so terribly and I'm so grateful for the parents that are here that are so much into their kids lives that they are teaching them the things that need to be taught I really am but
247we've got to realize there's so many kids out there that don't have what a lot of these children have and we need chaplain in these schools the violence is not going to stop the mental health is not going to stop we have to have someone that's in their Corner please vote Yes for chaplain thank you Julie I believe Chris scher's not here correct uh Jill Ricks followed by Lisa ubo a paid chaplain position is an offensive strategy to establish and have God a good Godly influence in s Fair a pay chap position solves problems that in that reveals posture towards God and desires his Blessing sets a moral compass and a practical solution to be a helping hand to an overburdened counselors and a good alternative to put an end to the division created by
248school choice at least three layers of pro protection that would prevent Bad actors from filling a chaping position state of Texas requires background checks an entity like nsca has an additional forensic uh social media review requires two years uh uh degree and 2,000 hours of experience to even qualify to enroll in a chaplain program and be trained and certified and finally the board can make any rules and regulations they see fit this is more than enough and I truly hope this board chooses to be the groundbreaking pioneers of a paid chaplain position Lisa bua followed by uh Miss was it qua Simmons I can read what I have not heard discussed are the penalties for not taking a vote on this clearly unconstitutional law if the Texas ledge wanted to help schools they would fund
249them or change your requirements that made it difficult to find school counselors in the first place if the vo does vote Yes I would like to remind you that making sure there are chaplain represented the most diverse County in the US would be quite the undertaking in addition to the more than 185 sect of Christianity there's Islam Buddhism Hinduism Sikhism Judaism ISM taism Satanism indigenous and tribal religions Cults let's not forget the satanic temple rastafarianism frisbe tarianism and my personal favorite the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster it seems like this undertaking isn't in the budget is unconstitutional would end up in the courts and then how will you identify which kids get which chaplain that will end up in litigation then what will you do with agnostic and atheist students the ACLU is chomping
250at the bit for you to vote Yes if you need if a vote needs to be taken the only option is to vote no thank you qua Simmons followed by Heidi rochel please vote in favor of funding the chaplain in 2002 I was in sixth grade I was just 11 years old when my mother was murdered as you can imagine I was devastated shattered and abandoned after the loss of my mother I met weekly with a counselor at the school and at the end of the day I hadn't experienced much healing and I had no hope or clear direction for my future it wasn't until I was 19 years old that I had an encounter with Jesus and began to experience the life-changing power of the gospel and God's love if I had a chaplain
251in my school and encountered the love of God in my life at a time when I needed it most it would have greatly impacted and changed the trajectory of my life there are many children silently hurting broken and even suicidal our children need not only support from counselors and peers but also spiritual support from the chaplain to know the love of Jesus Christ this is not about control this is about working together for the best interest of all the children in Texas God's heart and values need to be placed back in our schools and our children and having chaplain present is the first step in the right direction thank you thank you how rild followed by Christina Woods um good evening and thank you very much for this opportunity um my name is Heidi wrathchild
252and I'm a retired sciare school counselor uh and I am opposed to having School Chaplain in our schools at official School Chaplain in our schools and I'd like to share from my perspective why that is true you know all human beings have very fundamental need to belong sadly as a counselor I spoke to too many students who feel like they don't belong at school um mostly because or frequently because they don't fit into the sfair typical sfair mold I've lived in cair for more than 40 years or almost 40 years and I'm very familiar with that mold um the typical sciare family with the typical way of being in the world religious affiliation is part of it and being an unchurched family in cair can be very uncomfortable having official chaplain in our schools would
253raise that discomfort to alienation it would serve as a daily official reminder to non-religious students that you don't fit please wrap up in an American public school this is just pling wrong and I ask you to vote for a clear no to School Chaplain thank you Christina Woods followed by Olivia Bernard good evening I'm a stakeholder in CER ISD replacing guidance counselors with chaplain seems to serve two nefarious purposes that clearly don't serve the best interest of students one is that such a policy distracts us from the real goal many conservative State lawmakers along with school board board trustees have for public education which is to dismantle it these conservatives like uh board president Scott Henry who attended a pro voucher event at Cypress Academy last year want to return public education to the days
254of separate but equal they wish to recreated as a system accessible only to those with proper Christian beliefs and the proper bank account balance we can easily predict which po populations of students this will hurt two is that supplanting guidance counsel with chaplain erodes the structural support systems on campus that address student mental health needs student safety and well-being and academic planning these supports are complex and require trained skilled professionals guidance counselors to provide them not a chaplain or even a PhD the alian thank you Olivia PR followed by Maryann Jackson um how much time do I have you have one minute okay hi I'm my name is Olivia I'm a current CFI student and I hope and I oppose having chaplain replace counselors in our schools I have recently experienced bullying at my school
255I saw this bill and thought what would a chaplain have done in my situation instead of a counselor counselors teach us how to stand up for each other and deescalate situations what chaplain know to do the same thing my counselor is really nice and has made me feel at home and safe in my school I can't say I would feel the same if I had a chaplain instead I am also agnostic and I don't follow a specific Faith how would this new chaplain Bill affect me how would it affect other students of other religions as well Chaplin are typically of Christian or Catholic faith so how would this be fair to stud to other students of other religion thank you for your time thank you Maran Jackson followed by Dave man our world is a
256fallen place but evil people and Impostors will flourish they will deceive others and will themselves be deceived 2 Timothy 3:13 there are plenty of false churches all around us and this is concerning to me according to George barner's research less than 10% of those who attend church regularly have a Biblical worldview and less than 37% of the pastors the chaplain program is misleading for True biblical Christians and a poor solution for families we don't need to stack more Progressive ideologies in the school cciir needs policies that ensure referrals for outside counseling include therapists with Tim honored Traditional Values and conservative beliefs the district should not be endorsing mostly Progressive counselors to families for treatment the counselor in the school district should not be used as a therapist or for treatment let parents choose their own
257pastors or religious leaders for their families no to chaplain in school thank you thank you Dave man followed by Jimmy gonz good evening board and Dr Killian thank you unlike several speakers Thursday and tonight I am an actual resident and parent in Cipher ISD after Thursday's meeting it seems to me that the board intends to punt the issue a yes vote with the caveat that the board won't be adding new roles but rather changing the policy language to make it clear we don't discriminate against Chaplin is a cheap way out just say yay or nay with confidence that said the majority of parents in this District are firmly against the establishment of school chaplaincies because while the law is vague in its language the religious zealots behind SB 763 and people like Rocky Malloy are
258not vague in their intent it's creepy Christof fascist nonsense and it doesn't belong in our schools just Google it and see for yourself the very notion of School Chaplain in our public is and therefore secular schools is constitutionally questionable at best it's certainly unamerican do the right thing protect religious freedom protect parents rights vote no Jimmy goens followed by terara Cummings hi Jimmy goens I have five kids that have gone through the scair school district since 2016 my oldest graduated I am the product of a chaplain I grew up in gangs I wasn't a Christian I got locked up I spent over a year in juvenile and a chaplain out of that process walked me in didn't bash me over the head with Jesus he just loved me and gave me a voice we are
259living in a world today there higher suicide rates drugs depression anxiety kids are searching paranormal you're flooded with universal about Marvel and everything why because kids need an answer to what counseling and psychology is not answering today okay c um chaplain aren't going to come in and bash your kids with religion they're going to give them a voice and they're going to help the teachers in the process what's in now isn't working this has been proven in South America it's worked in over 26,000 establishments it raised up the bar in all of them and it's changed the culture down South America why don't we give it a try something has to work here because what we have now is not working thank you Tara Cummings Follow by Monica Hatfield I want to re reiterate the
260consensus that president Henry acknowledged on Thursday we do not want anyone to function as a Chaplain in our schools regarding policy revisions what are they how can the public be informed and speak to the revisions if we don't have access to them uncomfortable as the fact may be religious leaders including chap are a primary group of child sexual predators in 2014 a Cypress family sued for the sexual assault of their 12-year-old by a youth pastor do you know where that Pastor initially met that child right here in cfis where he was a mentor that student needed protection I request that the following language be included in the revisions employees or volunteers who happen to be chaplain may not provide any service to students without written parent consent must Pro protect the free exercise of religion
261may not prze or impose their own values and beliefs on students must respect cultural ethnic gender racial and religious diversity must promptly refer a student to another professional if the Chapan is unable to support a specific need due to the chaplain's own religious beliefs thank you Monica Hatfield followed by Lucas cof good evening my name is mooh Hatfield and I'm a senior at cyfair high school I attended the last board work session and the policy revision that was mention concerns me Senate Bill 763 is very vague as was discussed during the work session and I am worried that the proposed policy revision regarding the employment of chaplain could count as the board allowing the hiring of chaplain and could open the door to chaplain's taking the role of counselors in this District in the future
262if the board chooses to approve this policy revision I would hope they would amend it to put in security measures to prevent chaplain from being able to take the role of counselors in the future as a student I would feel less safe in a school if there were chaplain instead of my school counselors school counselors are vital to students for the resources they provide and having a chaplain take place of them is unethical and unhelpful for students thank you Lucas Croft and Then followed by Monica Dean my name is Lucas scor I'm from South Africa 20 times world record holder author speaker mindset mentor and youth Whisperer when we came to America when I became a chaplain in America and held this badge it says first responder which I've been doing for 36 years in
263South Africa in schools all across the nation my daughter said Daddy how do I become a chaplain she's 12 she immediately started memorizing your Anthem and she said Daddy we have to fight for the children and I'm looking at this child and I'm thinking to myself how are we going to get America our big brother South Africa's big brother to stand up for yourself fight for your children because the hope of a nation is the next Generation Monica Dean followed by Julie Pian I am in support of the current policy for allowing chaplain to be volunteers but against them being employees over a 100 Texas chaplain wrote a letter to districts urging them to reject this program because they don't want to be a replacement for counselors or school safety if so few in America
264share a true biblical worldview then what religious faith if any would chaplain represent if atheists prefer no Christian influence and biblical Christians like myself do not want Progressive Warriors influencing children then who gets to choose I recommend writing a policy that allows a family to request their own pastor church and permit them to meet at the school with their child during school hours this respects the parents authority to manage their child's religious influences removes any liability from the district and relieves some of the burden from our overwhelmed counselors I pray for your discernment Jill Pickin followed by Rocky Malloy Schoolboard trustees thank you for your service to the parents students and taxpayers of your school district I am honored to represent and serve 2 and a half million Texans and 10,000 square miles of the
265great state of Texas constit constituents have reached out concerning Chaplin and schools now would like to provide you information for you to make a well informed decision the Texas School Chaplain Act passed by the 88th legislature was signed at a law June 2023 the Act created a new chapter in Texas Education Code te23 for employment and volunteer purposes of School Chaplain chapter 23 is solely for the employment of chaplain so they do not compete with any other District employee or volunteer position the funding and duties of School Chaplain is found in Texas Education Code 48115 and list the responsibilities you may employ or contract with School Chaplain to provide services that are funded through the school's Safety and Security allotment and grants throughout America chaplain have been a great resource for suicide prevention and post
266treatment and March 2023 the US Navy announced a record number of suicides the Department of Defense who has an incredible amount of funding and access to every mental health professional their response to the high suicide rate was to add 3,000 chaplain for the military Additionally the Texas prison system utilizes chaplain for the benefits of inmates guards and our society and Texas has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the country and a lot of that is accredited to prison chaplain taxpayer funded chaplain are legal and constitutional throughout our state and nation and are employed by airports hospitals Department of Defense federal and state prisons US Congress Texas House of Representatives fire departments police departments and the CIA thank you thank you Rocky Malo followed by Jos Malloy I pronounce that hello I'm Rocky Malloy the
267founder and CEO of the national school ch Association it's over 600 pages of evidence there's been a lot of testimony up here on misinformation we have over 30,000 schools with chaplain I've got the evidence the same evidence that was used to pass this bill and currently other 15 states the same legislation is being passed right now because we need it we had an experiment of taking God out of school we're talking about spiritual Services according to the research scientist working with the US Army not providing spiritual care as delivered by chaplain creates mental illness vote Yes on the evidence that I'm looking for anybody else's evidence that'll stack up with this right here thank you Jos Malloy my name is josea Malloy I'm married to Rocky Malloy he's a wonderful man I've married him 34
268years he has five kids wonderful father takes care of them has four grandchildren attends to them he's a wonderful man I'm thank I'm very thankful all of you do not judge anybody on their worst day in their life thank thank you very well thank you very much Board of Trustees Chaplin are made available when public traumatic events occur in school you see it all over the United States why are they not available when there's private traumatic events happening in the lives of your students but more so in the lives of your student your teachers why not professional chapters should never replace counselors we're against that counselors are very much needed counselors counselor chaplain give spiritual emotional support and guidance in secular institutions act SB 763 addresses the funding of chaplain not the legality of it
269please the funding of chaplain thank you very [Applause] much Mar do you have a presentation moving to the next agenda item and if the presentation will come come up oh thank you okay thank you so um I wanted to provide some written information um so that you could follow along thank you for the feedback and the suggestions I do agree that getting the information to you guys uh late and just as this information is coming late just because of the um timing of of acting and and requiring action by March 1st so I do acknowledge that and apologize and so I hope this will be uh more effective and plus you don't have to listen to me read to you um so just to summarize what I shared with you on Thursday and based on
270your feedback I have some uh additional language or different language for you to consider but again a summary of what is um Senate Bill 763 I don't I'm not going to read to you but that's where it's codified what it provides as uh stated that we can applo or accept as a volunteer a chaplain and um there are no certification requirements if um a chaplain is hired or allowed to volunteer um Senate Bill 763 also has another requirement which is why I'm coming to you um that you have to take a vote on whether or not to adopt a policy authorizing the employment or accepting as a volunteer a chaplain so basic on the feedback um the administrative recommendation for the for the things that I shared um as I said we looking at the
271Budget moving forward the administrative recommendation is not to create um a new Personnel position however I do want to acknowledge Dr blasen game and I talked back and forth as I read the law I believe that we need to be clear that even if we're not adopting a policy that that we still um allow faith-based leaders including chaplain to volunteer or serve in another capacity of which for which they're qualified but I heard um her feedback and I and I want to offer this revised language which would be clear and I even think Miss Hinman was kind of asking for some more clear language so it's really both of you where um in DP local we would add the section School Chaplain and state because in legal um and I'm glad Dr blast and game
272asked us to pull that because it hadn't um gone through our adoption process yet but it is actually a restatement of the law and legal so then this companion heading would make sense in the local and it would state that we have not created or the by this policy and the Personnel provision the district has not created the position of a School Chaplain but a chaplain or other faith-based leader may be considered for any other position for which you know he or she qualifies the summary and so that is what I heard um based on feedback that's what I heard for one option and then um based on um specifically talking with Dr blasingame and taking her feedback um during the meeting she I have option b for you all to consider which would be
273to create uh the position of a School Chaplain uh we would need to determine their specific um support services and program in accordance with the law we would need to put in an exhibit and I would need to bring that back to you for approval and then I think um we would also want to clarify because I do think the law requires it that um that again otherwise qualified individuals including those who may be um a faith-based leader uh are eligible for employment in for any position which they qualify and the companion to that would be the volunteer policy again um um talking about um mentors and Global volunteers I talked about what each of those were on Thursday I won't go over that again but we would State the district has not if you
274vote for option A the district has not created the position of a School Chaplain but we do um allow qualified chaplain or other faith-based leaders to serve as mentors and the companion um language for Global volunteers and um a little bit different here on option b um if we if you adopted DP local option b and um we created a position of School Chaplain then I would not recommend uh creating a volunteer position we just simply wouldn't uh we don't do that you wouldn't want to have a paid position then also have volunteers in the same position and so I would recommend that if you choose option A but then you want to allow volunteer chaplain then you would only look at um option b for gkg I hope that makes sense and again the
275language would be that um we have not created a Personnel position but we may accept as a volunteer a chapain mentor to provide support service etc for students um and then that really the global volunteer language would need to read like the other which is that if you were qualified otherwise qualified then you could serve as a global volunteer anybody have any questions does that make it easier as we were talking through the language to hopefully have that um with you I've also given you a hard copy in front of you so you don't have to Crane your neck up at the screen but hopefully that makes it easier for um people at home and in the audience to understand what we were talking about so breaking it down again based on feedback option A
276for DP would be not to create a position but to be clear because I do believe that the way the provision reads um I would like to clarify that we will allow otherwise qualified individuals even if they happen to be you know a faith-based leader um to either be employed in in a position as a guidance counselor you know in another position or as a volunteer or mentor you done Marty yes any questions from Mar this time let me go back to an interpretation of the statute s SP 763 also requires that each Board of Trustees of a school district take a record vote by March 1st 2024 whether op a policy authorizing a campus or the district to employ employ or accept as a volunteer a chaplain as you're reading that Marne can we
277make a choice to do one or the other or do we have to have a policy that states both our position on both employment and volunteerism you can do one or the other so you have to say like say for that's the point maybe I'm I'm make sure I'm answering the question that you're TR that you're meaning to ask that's why I was saying if you chose option b and you chose to employ then you wouldn't um you wouldn't have volunteer chaplain you would have employed chaplain so so you could do either or I think if we are not creating position of chaplain then I recommend I believe you would need to clarify that um faith-based leaders can serve in roles that they're qualified for and they can mentor and volunteer if they're qualified let
278me ask it another way so we have two policies before us uh a policy to DP and gkg could we take no action on DP and not address the employment uh component of it at all and only just address gkg and would that be in compliance with state law well as it reads it it is disjunctive and so it does say or and so you could do either okay that answers my that answers my initial questions I'll turn yes yes I will relinquish my time any other questions um Council I have a question on the uh volunteer position option b so in the language it says the district has not created a Personnel position of a School Chaplain but may accept as a a volunteer a School Chaplain Mentor School Chaplain mentor to provide support
279services programs for students that's determined by gkg exhibit which shall be approved by the Board of Trustees so can you explain um a chaplain Mentor is that them working in a as a how does that what is that uh Mentor described or defined as that was my attempt and I can tweak the wording if it's um confusing looking at gkg if we were to say we're not going to create a Personnel position but as a board you were going to create a volunteer position it seemed to in my mind fit better under the mentor section versus the global volunteer um and so that's the reason I I placed it there um I [Music] can and I suppose the word could be um May accept as a volunteer a School Chaplain without Mentor because it's still
280under the mentor section correct yeah yes if that was more clear yeah I was not trying to um muddy the water I was just trying to distinguish between the the me because it in my mind um it would better fit there um um second question is our our legal policy and do both of these areas both DP and gkg state the law is that correct both of them state the law applicable to those statutes the uh SB 763 is codified and DP legal only so we could have a policy legal that exists and then we could have either no policy in DP local or would we be could we could have clashing policy from legal to local um well if there was a conflict between local and legal obviously legal would control but um there
281are times um where there is a statement of the law um and it's it's codified in the legal policy and there's not a companion local because there's not a a local decision to be made and so yes we do have some provision um some policy Provisions that are legal only there are times where um policy service chooses to codify in one section EF comes to mind um some of the First Amendment um cases regarding um access to both instructional and self- selected materials like library books books are in EF even though our local policy where we choose to enumerate because we've chosen to segregate instructional materials um and Library materials where so local we address the EF legal in EFA and efb so there are times um just because the as I said the policy
282service provider may choose to codified in a particular um section it may be that we address some of the options that are given to us through the law maybe in some other policy Provisions as well local policy Provisions thank you yes okay um starting with um agenda item 7 B2 uh where we're looking at modifying or revising DP local um I I once again question adding a heading of School Chaplain when the policy is titled Personnel positions and even if you look at DP legal it includes principals counselors School nurses and other mental health Provisions I'm still challenged by adding a Heading an employee heading of School Chaplain um if the district if the board chooses not to create the position of a School Chaplain I question if there's a need to revise DP at
283all going back to what Justin mentioned if there's even a need to to revise DP um regarding 7 B3 um there's been the addition of words the words providing supports and services for students and so I question who's defining who what those those supports and services are for those Volunteers in the previous version of the policy it was the principle but under Senate Bill 763 the board the School District board defines supports and services so for gkg who is defining what are the supports and services and who will be defining them will it be the Principal or will it be the Schoolboard so I'll go back to your first question and I'll start from the top so um DP legal um I do recommend using the word School Chaplain because the law that's the verbiage
284in the law and in DP legal that's the specific section so in DP legal it says the district May employ or accept as a volunteer a chaplain to provide support services and programs to students so then logic ically we would then in local say under the school chaplain's heading the district has not created the position of a School Chaplain okay slow I'm slow but I'm eventually getting there you're saying in order for us to say we are not going to create a position we have to at least label the position that's my recommendation based on the requirement in Senate Bill 763 that the board State whether or not it will adopt a policy and then in DP legal there is the heading School Chaplain and it says you may so that's why logically I just
285think it will be easier to find it and easier to and the heading is um under the canons of construction headings are um informative but the text whether it's a law or a policy provision the text is going going to be what controls but um we can certainly talk about that but I just wanted to explain no no no why behind that that makes sense to me now is it is an option just as Mr Ry asked and I'm asking again do we need to even revise DP at all well as we look at and so let me um just take us you know back to the language it just says that you know we have to determine whether or not to adopt a policy authorizing um employment or accepting as a volunteer so what
286I might suggest is if we're not going to address it in DP through policy the employment policy and we are going to um address it through the volunteer policy I would just want to make sure that um our minutes or the motion or something was just clear that it wasn't that we forgot to address it's just we're choosing to address it through the volunteer policy to that point can I offer an alternative I know you've given us some sample motions may I offer an alternative motion yeah at the time I gave you uh motions just so it would be easier because I know it's been confusing but um the motion is is whatever any trustee wants to make and with a second and then there's a vote if it carries it carries if it you
287know if it doesn't then we have to have a second motion so would I offer that now or would I wait until after a motion's been made and then motion move to adopt to amend the motion well there hasn't been I'm just doing a presentation right now so there has there's not a motion on uh the de for you guys so yeah but if there were a motion and then you wanted to amend it then you know we get into that fun robbert's rules I know I'm trying to avoid that so uh I guess just during my comments then what I will share is that uh a motion that I would recommend making is that I move that the Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District will not adopt a policy authorizing a campus of the district
288or school to employ or accept as a volunteer a chaplain under chapter 23 of the Texas Education Code and oh I'm sorry I didn't so far as GK G I didn't answer that question okay Miss Hinman I apologize so let me get to that so um under the current gkg um there's supports and service is uh for students um when you're talking about mentors then that is determined well to a degree somewhat through the um Community um Ser Community engagement thank you the community engagement Department I mean they're going to do the training set the parameters Etc now operationally you are correct when a volunteer shows up on the campus then the principal's going to say you know help us diecut this or I need some additional eyes in the lunchroom that sort of thing
289um the if we were to consider an option where we were creating a volunteer chaplain position then the supports um and services would need to be determined by the board because that's what the law provides so it so in summary if it is just if you are otherwise qualified you can volunteer just like anyone then that provision is as it currently reads and stands does that answer the question yes okay thank you yes question Justin yeah they can just adopt no policy and not put in uh Julie would you okay so mechanically you so you let me do it this way would you repeat the uh motion that you would prefer that you would that you would intend to make somebody oh can do two at a time that's okay that's okay I move that
290the Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District will not adopt a policy authorizing a campus of the district or school to employ or accept as a volunteer a chaplain under chapter 23 of the text Education Code so uh mechanically I'm going to talk about just mechanically I'm going to actually talk about the subject matter itself so mechanically you would have you would be addressing the employment which would be DP then you would also be addressing the volunteerism which is gkg so that's just that's just a you would you would basically have to have two separate motions in which you address D because you're having one blanket motion that covers both employment and volunteerism in the same motion the motion it it covers the requirements of of the act that was P of Senate Bill 763 because in
291Senate Bill 763 it says each Board of Trustees of a school district shall take a record vote no later than six months after the effective day of the act on whether to adopt a policy authorizing a campus of the district or school to employ or accept as a volunteer a chaplain under chapter 23 Education Code as added by this act I literally am just taking the actual understood right so and turning it into a motion so uh let me let me pivot and let you talk ask you a question about the subject matter itself isn't a motion of that and a policy like that inherently discriminatory against chaplain because specific to chapter 23 you're in essence saying that if you're a chaplain that you are not going to be allowed to participate as a mentor
292or volunteer you no it's not no it's specific to chapter 23 of the Education Code so in other words simply because it references chapter 23 of the Education Code that language is inherent ly not discriminatory against chaplain because you're saying that chaplain are not allowed to participate as a mentor no that's not ex that's not at all what I'm saying at all it is it is specific to Senate Bill 763 that is not that that does not PR uh prevent a chaplain from serving as a volunteer or as a mentor I don't see how chapter 23 of the education code I don't see how the reference to through the specific uh Education Code would prohibit that language from being inherently discriminatory against somebody who happens to be a chaplain do you think the language that
293is in the current policy is discriminatory the current policy doesn't reference chaplain yes because we don't discriminate against chaplain as we have chaplain and face space that serve now as mentors we don't say we don't say anybody I mean there are some things that we don't want you know register sex offenders and things like that but we don't discriminate against a sect a class of people to participate in our schools as a correct this language would in essence do that no I disagree I just would do that well and Marne can can fill the fill this in but we were if we're not changing if there's no changes to DP local or to gkg if they're not discriminatory now they're not being changed so they would continue to not be discriminatory the motion that you're
294making where would it be in policy would it be under DP would it be under gkg where the mo it's not under a pol it would not change the policy so policies would stand as they are now so you're making a motion but we have to actually have make a policy change and we may need some clarification from Mar on that we have to actually have a policy change per state law no the I'm moving that we not adopt a policy I'm moving that we do not change policy that is what my motion says that we do not change DP local that we do not change gkg they not discri what you're saying is you want basically no action taking place on the current agenda items that we have I am saying that according to
295Senate Bill 763 it says each Board of Trustees shall take a record vote on whether to adopt a policy I'm saying we will not adopt a policy but we actually any I'll go ahead and relinquish my time for I know Dr blasing game wants to speak was so Marty can you answer that question please so what I would suggest because when you read it I had the same sort of reaction as Mr Ray because that's kind of what I've been saying all along the language is so broad what I would suggest um is that like to the end of your sentence or something like in the role of a chaplain because that's where that's the struggle I've always had with the language is because we've never engaged in Viewpoint discrimination and so that's why I
296thought well since this law is saying you have to adopt a you have to you know one way or the other say if you're going to adopt a policy I thought it was um just because of the confusion that the law May create that's the reason I was suggesting that we clarify in our policy that if you are otherwise qualified we are not not going to exclude you based on you having a you know Biblical viewpoint um and so I I understand what you're saying and if it were the motion and the action were be were to be we are taking a vote saying we are not adopting any policy that would satisfy the law but I would I would respectfully say that I think we need to be clear that that's only in the
297role of a School Chaplain and I think that would address what Mr Ry is getting that makes sense getting at okay um I would just read the law again I think we're missing a key word which is an affirmative word called authorizing so it says each Board of Trustees of a school district shall take a record vote not later than six months after the effective date of this act on whether to adopt a policy authorizing so that's yes so the policy is saying yes they can vote up or down everyone says yes or no on the policy authorizing so it's not a saying on a policy that says yes or no it's saying you either say yes or no to a policy authorizing the district to employ or accept as a volunteer or chaplain in
298the chaplain role so this is a yes down vote a yes no vote on a a policy authorizing so to me I would like to go ahead and throw out a motion maybe I don't know if discussion's ended but I would like to make a motion myself then that just lets us do just what the law says can you hold just one second till we get all the questions answered that you can sure thank you sir first it's fine any questions so do we have to break out employee would would you advise Mary to break out employee first and then go and then obviously have a policy for volunteer as well that's what I recommended to attempt to address it again because of the the breadth of the language and wanting to be clear that
299we are um still going to continue the practice of non-discrimination but as it reads Dr blasen game just read it aloud it is TR I mean the law says that you have to take a vote on whether to adopt a policy um that authorizes the employment or accepting as a volunteer a chaplain in the role of chaplain uh to be clear so if you were to say I am going you know we are taking a a vote um I'm trying to think of a crafting a motion that would address one not the other um but if you were to affirmatively address one then you would not have to address the other does that make sense because if you you can either employ or accept as a volunteer so as I was sharing with Mr Ray
300it is I mean it is dis positive I guess that's that's one of my questions is okay so we can't discriminate based on Viewpoint what are the what are the requirements to be a counselor right now what are the requirements I may have to lean into Mr Samson but I believe um uh yeah I was just gonna say I believe in addition to to um the the teacher certification you have to have a master's degree and at least two years of experience as a classroom teacher so um it is you know it is rigorous but I guess I I have Miss Cole within my eyesight I shouldn't have made Mr Franklin come all the way down but is that right Franklin or Miss Cole okay okay there so what you're suggesting is if they meet
301if if a chaplain meets all the requirements to be a counselor that we cannot discriminate against not hiring them is that correct yes based on the fact that they you know are a you know are a faith-based leader um on you know on the weekends um so is that am I answering and then I guess the other question I had because just for clarity you're saying if we hire this person as a counselor he just so happens to be a chaplain but we can't do a a volunteer situation as well for chaplain what I was saying is um and I'm sorry I wasn't more clear talking about the different options if we were as a board and then subsequently as a district were to create a position of School Chaplain as you know as a
302Personnel position I would not recommend creating a volunteer position for the exact same thing like we don't have paid guidance counselors and then volunteer guidance counselors that would just be inconsistent and I wouldn't recommend that from an employment standpoint that's what I was trying to convey thank you for providing Clarity go ahead Al um actually I would like to question that um you went on for a little bit last meeting about budget as a reason why we wouldn't look at this policy that the law is requiring us to to look at and take a yes no vote on authorizing them and so I would say that the budget is tight so to me they are completely discreet that's why they're in discreet policies that you should be able to hire a chaplain and if we
303can't afford to pay chaplain because of the budget year then we should be able to allow volunteer chap happens that they're not mutually exclusive it might be that someone like uh the gentleman I mentioned at Booker T Washington High School who chose to donate his time to the school should be able to do that if one year was you know the legislature came through with some great funding and we were able to pay someone to do it um I would say that those are not mutually exclusive and I'm not sure how legally we would decide they were first I didn't mean to go on quite a bit about the budget um I was trying to give you the uh basis for or one of the bases for the recommendation and second what I'm sharing is
304that if we have a paid position if we create a position and we have people employed and in that position I do not recommend for a a variety I could call Street up here you for a variety of employment perspective reasons not to have one class of employees who are paid doing a job and one class of a position of volunteer doing the same job so that is a that is an operational recommendation and so that's not um that's not what I would recommend if the board were to want to do that then we would just do our best to figure it out and put parameters in place that would you know address you know maybe some of the employment concerns that we might have but if you were to do an uh a paid
305position or excuse me if you were to choose not to do a paid position but only do the position position as a volunteer position then I that would not have the same conflict well I think one of our speakers laid out actually a good list of qualifications that I agreed with wholeheartedly as far as what would be and so to me there may be some differences I think the um rules and the parameters around prizz and all the other things that are are are this is not this is to offer support and presence for kids and so I think there could be some differences in how a volunteer is lined up as far as their qualifications and their training than an employee and then those are different enough to where you can consider them as
306separate classes within the HR and the volunteer protocols um is that legally possible yeah I mean we we just have toig we' just have to figure it out wouldn't we Sharita so that's what I would have to highly advise against having two classes of employment because what happens when someone files a complaint that we hire we didn't hire them under what they wanted or maybe they were volunteering and they go back on us about about money um that they think they're owed I just that that would be my main concern operationally because what if someone volunteered to be a counselor in our district and met all the qualifications for a counselor but we didn't actually hire that person then came back and made a claim against us that once we brought them in as a
307volunteer that we had effectively employed them and that we misrepresented I I just think there's it creates other problems if you do it that way well I have a question on that um we're looking to build a incredible volunteer program we have 13,000 kids who didn't reach approaches right so if we do volunteers to come in and teach them how to read we give them training on how to teach our children we give them the best read and recovery and science of teaching reading and whatever other training would that be the same kind of issue that a volunteers teaching reading to our children and that's could be they could come back say they should have a teacher job no because they are they're being they're a volunteer and they understand volunteer and we don't have
308a paid category of volunteers we also have a qualification though either that they be teachers in the first place to be a volunteer so then we could fix this through not through the how we look at that volunteer role and it's um how we Define it fix fix what sorry in order to answer those human resources concerns about how we would then have a policy for hire chaplain and a separate policy or position of a volunteer Chaplin I mean yeah I mean I said we I mean if if that's the decision of the board we would you know do our best to figure it out I don't recommend it but that but that's I mean you guys get paid the big bucks to make those decisions not me so so all right question over here
309from Justin or Lucas I'm sorry I'm not really sure to direct this question to how is the can someone I know this but I want it set on record so from a mentor assignment perspective what does that process look like permission for children I mean like a mentor for schools M like what how how is that arrange because I know that mentors sign up and then there's a assignment process that happens at the school or in the admin how is that process formed how is that done hi I'm Don Trion director of community engagement um and I'm glad you asked um so uh we um well currently I want to state that we have over 35 churches that have adopted a campus and currently work with with um our schools and many of those churches
310the congregation um provides mentors so we already have really great relationships with some amazing faith-based leaders uh but our Mentor program um is offered I train mentors once a month our mentors register uh online on our website uh at in that instance their um account through raptor is put on hold and then they are required to take a 1hour training um with the community engagement department and then after that training um we release the hold in Raptor and we email the mentor liaison every campus has a mentor liaison and we email that liaison letting them know that this person has been trained and is ready to serve and we also ask our mentors um what level they prefer and what campus they prefer if it's near their job or where they work or it's near
311their church or their house so we give them lots of information about locations and schools and opportunities yes isn't there also a background check and also does the parent give permission yes great question both are true yes so when they register through the application system online it prompts an automatic background check and so they sit in a holding pattern until that background check is clear from HR and then once it's clear we get that email and we invite them to the monthly training so we want to get mentors on campus every month we don't do them just in the fall uh we're constantly seeking and looking for and recruiting new amazing mentors and so we're always uh doing fa facilitating that training but yes background check and then what was your second question parent permission
312is also part of the process correct part of the process yes parent has to get permission uh the liaison would send home the letter to the parent letting them know that there will be an adult working with your child 30 minutes a week during the instructional day only on the campus um to serve your kiddo and so that permission is granted and that relationship begins also that there's no personal information shared for example out of Mantia High School I never had her phone number she never never had mine so there's also some protections that way correct absolutely absolutely we have mentors that have been with students since second or third grade and you do develop that relationship with a parent that can be obtained those phone numbers or information through that liaison so that Mentor
313might say I'd love to speak with Jenny's mom that Mentor liaison would have to call and say may I give her your email and if the mom says no I'd like it to be that's fine but there are instances where the mentor would like to engage that parent um in that relationship uh strengthens so I I think one of the questions in front of the board right now is that is there a separate class of Mentor a separate for being a chaplain Rel correct if you were to adopt option b for gkg correct um then that that would be what the board was deciding got it and what what I'm hearing right now miss Tron is that you currently have what 35 churches that are currently participating in the mentor program yes and people from
314those churches people identify and say I would like to help some kids they pass the background check they go through the training they understand what they can can't do they go out 100% okay we just went to Prince of Peace a week ago and trained about 15 retired ladies to join us and we're super excited and we went to them and brought the program to them and walked them through registration and yes yep yeah uh my wife is a mentor and um it is been really just listening and helping this little boy to learn how to read and asking him questions about his day but it's been time that he finds valuable and uh you know she got a hug last week for the first time in I think like five or six months made
315her day and has Communications with the dad um but it's a program that offers value just to listen and be heard and help the teachers be able to reach those kids so yes and our Natalie we don't our mentors do not tutor so the reading and the math and biology chemistry that's all left to the teachers and so they're there as an emotional support uh to listen and encourage and um yeah and let me let me clarify the student wanted to read and show her what yes that's fabulous yes right so let me let me clarify she's not instructing yes I I heard the mumbles the audience yes no I'm not saying that but while you're at the mic uh let's build it let's build the tutoring program it's going to take the entire city
316all these people at home ready to work with kids so that we can build uh increase our reading scores with free labor with a limited budget that's ahead um I'm wondering if we are ready I would like to make a motion if it's that time or not oh Justin has a question then kilan oh and then Todd do and TOD Miss Tran not done yet Mrs Tran quick question do we currently have chaplain that are already volunteering in this school district I couldn't say for sure we have faith-based leaders we have congregations coming so do we ask them their titles no thank you Marney just procedurally if if anybody wanted to not pursue the employment option and wanted to focus solely on the volunteer aspect and and in essence wanted to reaffirm our existing policy
317of allowing chaplain to serve as volunteers and mentors which one of these this proposed language A and B would be the best Standalone option um option A on both okay so so just to be clear if a board member wanted to pursue an option in which we did not pursue the employment but simply wanted to reaffirm our esta established relationship with the faith-based communities and U pastors uh and chaplain volunteering we could support option a uh probably no motion and and the way it is on the agenda that would be no motion on DP and then we would make a spec a specific motion on gkg under option A does that procedurally make sense yes so um I would say the motion would be to remove DP from the agenda and to take no action
318on it and then to adopt option A for GK G okay um Let me let me just kind of I'm going to go ahead and cut to the Chase and just give everybody my opinion not making a motion but just my opinion on my on our recommended um course of action you know as I I may have alluded to Thursday night I alluded to uh just now as well you know the faith-based Community has has been engaged in scair for many years um I I'm discussed last Thursday night how I was engaged with Fellowship of Christian athletes and I remember our youth pastor being on campus that had we you know cyfair schools and the cyfair district has had a long-standing engagement with our religious organizations in our faith-based community and that is a good
319thing um I encourage pastors I encourage religious leaders to volunteer to mentor to stay engaged um number of our speakers tonight spoke about the the very difficult ult set of circumstances our students are dealing with right now um and they need as much help as they can get the things that I do want to be clear that everybody needs to understand and I've heard some some again some comments this evening there is no option on the table right now and nor there has been any discussion that we are going to replace C counselors with chaplain I have not heard any of my colleagues Express that I don't support that nor does the language before us or reiterate that we do not have before us a plan to have unqualified ified chaplain or any person serve
320as a school counselor in the instance where a person is a chaplain and they also happen to have the credentials and the education and the experience to be a chaplain we are not going to have Viewpoint discrimination and that person can serve as a as a counselor where I'm at on the Motions before us this evening uh I think that uh the best option for us is to continue our existing engagement um with the faith-based community I believe that it's in our best interest to continue having chaplain and people engag in our community as volunteers and mentors I would recommend my colleagues to support uh gkg option a um and have no and take no action on DP this evening Kelly you have a comment just had a question for um Karen actually so in
321terms of our school safety money because it's been brought up about school safety money potentially being used for this how much money do we get again we're not we're not getting much money um you're talking the school safety allotment or okay we are going to be getting about 1.3 million additional dollars based on the the additional 28 cents per student and the 15,000 per campus so $155,000 per campus plus 28 cents which brings us up to a dollar what per kid it's not very yeah it's not very much so yeah like like I said it's about 1.3 million additional and we're already supposed to employ police officers correct or whatever with that yeah or some kind of armed Personnel okay we against so I this this may just be a crazy observation but you know
322I've always been told if you want something to happen you incentivize it financially correct so there's no incentive incentive to do this and hire chaplain because there's no money for it so it was so important to the legislature with a 30 something billion dollar Surplus they passed a bill with no money attached to it basically okay that's all I wanted to say see we've exhausted all the questions at this time I'll take a motion um I would like to uh make a motion um that we off for it's going to be Personnel positions option b because we need to obligate the law says that we shall vote Yes or No our speaker said just vote Yes or no um so policy option for consideration option b School DP Local School Chaplain the district has created
323the position of a School Chaplain to provide support services and programs for students as determined by DP exhibit which shall be approved by the Board of Trustees additionally a chaplain or other faith-based leader may be considered for any other position in the district for which the chaplain or other faith-based leader qualifies so can you put put that in a motion please I move that we um accept and vote on option b which was just read DP loan option b which maybe is on the screen that's a can we please move it to B and also the provisions for c q see as well I'm only handling one I guess we have to we have to do the whole thing I'll do Yes actually I I have a RI and I I make a motion that
324we um for consideration School volunteer program option A under gkg local um the first paragraph um will stay as stands for purposes of this policy a mentor engages in regular onetoone interaction with a student providing supports and services for students through the volunteer program the district has not created the position of chaplain so I would change the language there to say the district has created the position of chaplain but qualified chap or other faith-based mentors may serve as mentors in the second paragraph for purposes of this policy a global volunteer participates in volunteer activities providing supports and services at a campus at which the volunteer does not have a child or grandchild enrolled the distri district has created the position of a School Chaplain and qualified chaplain other faith-based leaders may serve as Global Volunteers
325in the chaplain role adding in the chaplain role at the end of that line and making sure the not created is created uh can I have a point of order uh from our parliamentarian um under this there's a motion on the floor um if if a couple of scenarios if this motion fails to pass because lack of a second was are we allowed for a secondary motion yes if this motion P if this motion has a second but also fails in an up and down vote can we then uh will there be some sort of motion for reconsideration or would we have to or would we be allowed to just continue working on that particular agenda item you would continue working on the agenda item until there was a motion that passed secondary motion yes
326sir so just to clarify you're going to move to adopt the proposed revisions to CQC local as recommended and move the board rev revised DP local option b revise gkg option b if I heard that correctly no that's gkg op excuse me gkg option A or B let me see if sorry maybe it's B yes yes we'll provide yes uh in the role of Mentor though under the global volunteer so again just to make sure we had this correct and so our bar stands you're going to move to adopt the proposed revisions for CQC local as recommended I also move that the board c l qqc local no I'm I'm just looking off the sheet forgive me yes onize local CQB local as recommended also move that the board adopt uh DP local revised option
327b and revised gkg local option b morning is that right amend yes and as further revised um by Dr Blas she added some additional language on the gkg but yes you are correct because we do need to also address the policy that nobody's asked any questions about cyber security policy sorry Karen fine thank may I get a second please what is I'm sorry so it's option b and option b on this piece option b and option A sorry we'll clarify it's option b on Personnel DP DP DP local option b that's School Chaplain district has created the position of a School Chaplain to provide support services and programs for students as determined by DP exhibit which shall be approved by the Board of Trustees additionally at chaplain or other faith-based leader may be considered for
328any other position in the district for which the chaplain or other faith-based leader qualifies and option b on gkg local for the purposes of this policy a mentor engages in a regular onetoone interaction with the student the district has has created so take out not has created a personel position of a School Chaplain but may accept as a volunteer School Chaplain without the word Mentor School Chaplain to provide support services and programs for students as determined by gkg exhibit which shall be approved by the Board of Trustees for purposes of this policy a global volunteer participates in volunteer activities at a campus is with the volunteer does not have a child or grandchild enrolled a qualified chaplain or faith-based leader may serve as a Chaplain or a global volunteer a mentor or a global volunteer
329in the sorry as a mentor or a global volunteer in the chaplain role added is it option b is saying there is going to be a School Chaplain option b g kg says that it the district has not created a Personnel position of School Chaplain well I read option A and I changed the language to has created language so and and I wrote the I have the revisions that you proposed down so Holly if it passes I can get over there and make sure you've got it down read it no I got it I got it but well unless the rest of the board needs to understand and so what Dr blasen game is proposing is option let me just do this for clarity option b for DP which would be to create the uh
330chaplain position and then also continue to allow um others to be hired in roles for which they're qualified and then option b which would uh be to allow uh in addition to a Personnel position to also create a specific volunteer position um for mentors and Global Volunteers in the chaplain role effectively hearing a motion may I get a second the motion fails any other motions Mr President I'd like to make a motion at this time I motion that we approve uh local technology resources CQB and that we approve ckg option A under community relations volunteer school program just for clarity um the motion is to adopt the proposed revisions to CQC local um and then I'm assuming move to remove DP local uh and the consideration of employment of chaplain from the agend agenda and
331then adopt revised gkg local option b a a a sorry a I thought I had it down um that affirms the ability of chaplain to serve as um volunteers and mentors in the district and just for clarification you said CQC but it's CQB oh my apologies thank you so the motion on table is I move that the board adopt the proposed revisions through CQB local as recommended also move that the board remove uh the recommended revised DP local option and revise gkg option b a a you said a sorry a sorry local I'm the one that mess that up Scott Mr Henry that was my fault does everyone understand the motion no I don't no okay then sorry I don't either can you put up option A on gkg it's up there and that's the
332one we're voting on basically all that's it if I may Mr President uh the reason behind my motion was that it was simp it would simply basically preserve our existing policy in which we allow chaplain to participate as volunteers and mentors if a chaplain wanted to be a school councelor uh I don't think we you know we're we're not even addressing the concept of U of A U of chaplain being uncertified school counselors in essence basically what we're saying is that we're this this motion is intend to preserve our existing policy allowing chaplain to be volunteers and mentors in our school district Clarity so we would need to determine if there was a second before we had discussion is there a second a second here in a second are there any questions yes I just
333want to for clarity uh the word not is not not struck is that correct so as I understand the motion before the board is to adopt CQB I apologize for misspeaking CQB as recommended to remove DP local in the consideration of the employment of chaplain from the agenda and to adopt G kg option A as revised and shown here on the screen does that answer your question Mr L yes okay and and Marney just can you uh give me a little support on this my assessment of supporting option A is a standalone option would indeed reinforce and recommit us to our existing policy of allowing chaplain to be volunteers and mentors in our schools yes absolutely some of the first language version we talked about in policy committee I had and the district hereby this
334policy codifies its existing practice and then I decided to be a little less uh veros so but yes that was originally um I had in there to you know that this will memorialize what we currently do so you are correct and Council can you please discuss why removing DP from consideration makes sense if we're making a statement that a we're not going to create a role for it B we're not going to discriminate against a a faith-based leader as being an employer if they are otherwise being an employee for a role for which they're otherwise qualified can you walk through that please yes and so by removing DP we are um DP legal does give the option if we're silent in um DP local that's where we would have um that's where we would have
335added that position so by taking it out and leaving it silent you are not you are choosing not to create through policy that position um but because of how I believe how broad the language is I I do recommend and that's what I said earlier I do recommend that we clarify uh so that there's no question that we are going to continue our current practice of of um welcoming and having great support for our local faith-based leaders as mentors and Global volunteers to vote any there questions Lucas you're on still can I make an amendment what's that I'd like to amend that we accept uh option b well we already had a motion on the table so either have to vote or not vote okay so are we clarifying are we does this say that
336the qualified chaplain or other faith-based leaders may serve as Global Volunteers in the chaplain role as its current practice no this it does not state that and that's not what the uh motion uh includes this is our current practice and we're clarifying it in policy so have we even answered the law which says that we have to consider for employment yes no or for volunteer yes no in your opinion legal counsel I think we've I think we've been very clear and had discussion about whether or not to adopt a policy we posted for the policy we've now removed it through the motion to say we are not going to create we're not going to adopt a policy that creates a chaplain position so absolutely we've addressed the law it actually says it in the second
337paragraph and Marty just for clarification this is a two reading correct so we have one more reading next month is that correct yes and that's what we discuss yes this is this is our this is what we've talked about and this is what's proposed and then we're going to have another month where we will you know take input and um you know reach out to some specific groups for feedback and then we will um do this all over again in March and we're in compliance I I just want to make sure that we didn't have to have an official vote by March 1st well this is a record vote this is a record vote okay all right yeah this is a record vote and with that being said when I'll take vote please raise your
338right hand by make on the based on the motion at hand all in favor all all opposed extenstions two all right are you guys voting no abstaining obain two exensions okay and then one two three h got that did you get that hauling because we'll just need to yes and so we need to record how how each person vote which we did do in the minutes anyway okay okay the next fun event 7c we do have some speakers V as well let me read it real quickly that thing went the will consider approving the calendar committee's recommendation for the 20 24 2025 instructional calendar uh Linda do you you don't have a presentation correct you don't have anything here we already went through the presentation you have nothing to add correct okay we have three
339we have four speakers first speaker is Michael followed by uh last name is corta they're still here your number two is Michael still here and I apologize to keep right late nicha's not here then Mr gter you're up go ahead and hit the on button two minutes reset your timer good evening members of the board and everybody I know it's almost coming to be good night uh would like to speak about the calendar and I thank the trusties have already voiced their opinion uh being a publicly funded school and being in the system I would assume that the opinion taken on the service would have been considered while preparing the school district calendar however despite more than 50% waiting for a 26th August start date the calendar showed a start date which was much earlier
340and this is again in conflict with the code section 25 0811 and I'm assuming the calendar has been prepared in consideration of the weather conditions that will be available in the second week of August compared to last week of August given that all of us are living in Houston our summers tend to be significantly hotter even in the first week and second week of August and it's very disappointing that the feedback has not been taken and I would request the committee to reconsider the proposed schedule and rework on that at at your earliest and lastly uh for the further board meetings I would request if an agenda can also have a time schedule so that all the topics can be presented in a timely manner rather than being a fill Buster conversation that we saw
341some of the topics today thank you Olivia is Olivia still gone okay ter Cummings thank you I'm I on during the discussion about the proposed calendar on Thursday trustees Ray and L comp demonstrated just how out of touch they are and how little respect they have for teachers Mr Ray you repeatedly made comments about teachers wanting a break in O October so they can travel you specifically mentioned the Caribbean how much do you think they make do you know how toned deaf and condescending you sounded teachers aren't trying to Jet Set to Luxurious locals in the middle of the school year although more power to them if they do they need time to breathe to decompress to enjoy their own families without work worming its way in maybe instead of reving so much in the
342sound of your own voice you should take some time to really listen to the needs and concerns of our teachers like for example the ones who served on the calendar committee speaking of teachers who served on the committee Mr LMP a teacher came to the podium Thursday to express her offense at your comment about the committee being exhausted and that being the reason for their recommendations that took so much courage on her part and what did you do in response you doubled down you argued with her about it insisting that you must be right because some committee members were taking breaks near the end of the night the closest you came to an apology was I'm sorry if I used a poor choice of words that is not an apology you too could benefit from
343truly listening to teachers and staff they deserve no less since there's no presentation I have to get a motion if you want to discuss this so we have a motion to discuss yes we have to have a motion to discuss just Roberts that's all so we we can always change it once we do the motion exactly so can I get a motion please I don't even know what my motion would be motion to approve motion to approve if you want to approve it I move that the board approve the calendar committee's recommendation for the 2024 2025 instructional calendar can I get a second I will second thank you now we can have questions and I'll start to my left this time sure down here no questions Christine you have a question just a quick comment
344that um echoing some of the things I know the calendar committee has worked very hard I know the Administration has worked very hard to try to put together a calendar that will be um pleasing to to families and teachers Administration um and it's been very difficult um I would encourage uh that we think about the start date and uh being a little bit later perhaps but trying to end before Memorial Day because it seems like that last few days of of uh of the school dist school year is not uh very effective for student learning um I know there needs to be some breaks in there and uh Dr msas um and and the calendar committee know that we need to have instruction for the students um so that they're learning as much as they
345can uh but I'd like to see something that uh with my fellow uh board members to be a little bit tighter this year and maybe roll out a bigger adjustment next year Natalie questions comments um yes I I just have um a concern based upon student input those who are in sports play football specifically and in the band um this year because of the late start they played several games where they weren't in school yet but Tom Ball Waller and I'm not sure how the new U realignment will impact calendars and I'd like to know if anyone has information about the new UIL but how many schools will we be playing against who have a way earlier start date if our kids would go back on the 26th because that did impact our students heavily
346we're going to pull that up we haven't we did not look at that specifically um yeah I was at G case I was with the board member from Waller and that's what made me think about it he said oh we're all against you now and so I was intrigued to see if that start date would cause that same issue for our athletes go ahead the schools correct so Dr blasting game we can share with you the start dates for the other schools so you mentioned Katie so Katie start date is I'm sorry August 14th Waller August 14th that's proposed August 14th who I'm sorry to mention is that all you mentioned just two those who are in UIL against us in the re Reign I'm sorry I didn't think to ask this sooner I just
347um I can tell you the list of schools that we have yeah I I saw that and most of them were the 14th the 14th the 14th yes Houston is a 12th that's proposed Umble is a seventh Spring Branch is a 15th spring the 14th Klein the 14th so those are ones who are in our UIL regions right but the one half and the other half okay thank you so much that's the information I needed here Dr Dr msus if we were to start August 19th do you think that that would have an impact on us retaining teachers you think it would have a a positive impact do you think it have a negative impact what are your thoughts my thoughts are that because of the DOI there is flexibility with a calendar and that's
348uh approach that the that the committee took and of course that's the option that you have as a board to be able to provide that uh that opportunity I I will share Mr LM because I know you shared earlier about some of the teachers saying that uh there were somebody else's opinion I will share that during the calendar committee process and some of you were there at the committee um we the administration provided three sample calendars that they could start working from One calendar uh started school on the 26th One calendar started school on the 19th and one calendar started school on the 14th and then after every cluster of every feeder pattern provided their own calendar they voted on the calendars and there were were two calendars that surfaced the one that's presented was
349the one that had the majority vote the other one had a start date of the 12th okay um what were the end dates that you had on on that on those proposed calendars for the 26th the 19th and the 14th um ashle do you have those calendars with you can you bring them up I didn't bring those with me in addition to that one of the one of the comments that was was talked about was when the proposal was sent out to everyone including parents to get feedback at that point had you revealed or did did parents know that we were going to be increasing from 168 instructional days to 173 instructional days at that point no we didn't we did not share that we've never shared that that's always been a decision that's made
350by the administration as I shared we've have we've had up to 177 days of instruction we've had 175 days of instruction and so forth and that's never been on the calendar survey okay and and uh um as as you know the calendar survey uh had 26,2 responses but that was duplicated there were responses from an IP address that had 80 responses so we had we had so when when we D duplicated it there were 14,299 responses from everyone that represents about 15% of our like if I figure out how many kids we have about 15% of parents when I figure divide that by the um 117 118,000 students and the calendar Committee just to just so you all know they took all that information very seriously they they we walked them through all of the
351responsive calendar committee of the survey but they didn't just look at the survey uh responses they also looked at responses at the uh the input from the from the student leadership uh group they looked at at uh at the surrounding school districts Region 4 and lonar college so that that was one piece that they looked at as they were looking at making decisions but they did take that seriously and they did look at all that okay so overall the percentage of the people that fill out filled out a survey with unique IP addresses what percentage of the of the folks wanted an August 19th or later start date on that here give me a second to get to it I think that was over I think that was over is it just 40% um I
352thought it was over 60 it's higher I want to make sure I can I'm at the all okay so all participants okay so what is the earliest this is all the all participants what is the earliest date you would like to see school start for for students in August 40% 46% said August 26 and when we we did the um when we D duplicated it 47% said August 26th 23% said August 23rd the all incl including the duplicates and when we D duplicated it 23% said August uh August 19th so essentially 70% is that roughly yeah of the community 18,000 respondents the committee was also very clear that we would share with them their recommendation that it is a recommendation and that you as a board would make the decision uh regarding the calendar another
353question that uh teachers have been asking me is uh obviously 2016 2017 we increased uh the work day uh by 15 minutes and then in 2020 2021 based on obviously the effect from covid we increased it again to 15 so some of the questions they're asking me is okay so we're going to go up in instructional days again but are we going to get any relief from the minutes so the minutes in the day was not a discussion with a calendar committee because it's not a calendar committee decision that is usually a decision that is made through management regarding the instructional time but I can't share with you that as we look at the region four districts because we again we have a we have a surve from them the minutes range from 135 no
354435 to 470 minutes across the Region 4 area so we're kind of like right in the middle and um I think somebody had shared that uh Katie had fewer minutes Katie also has a lot fewer economics advantag students so I just wanted to point that out as well I'm just I'm struggling with the fact that we're not listening to their to our community I'm struggling with that I mean we're talking 70% that's a super majority well Mr LM would you would you um consider the coun committee as part of the uh part of the community and would you consider the deic as part of the community I I would throwing that out that that that they also had a lot of input just throwing that out some more feedback that I've gotten so far is
355the amount of breaks this this proposed calendar has we've got a lot again we we are in a community that has economically disadvantaged families correct that is correct my wife when I woke up up this morning she reminded me when we had daycare there were no partial weeks there were no partial weeks so you can't pay for one two three days you have to pay for the entire week so it's like I understand and again just just so everyone's clear I am absolutely appreciative of the job that the teachers that the that the parents the community members everybody I I'm I'm I'm ecstatic they work very very hard on this but I'm getting I'm I'm getting overwhelming feedback and I believe the board board can attest to this as well because we're we're seeing these
356emails come through this is not a normal you know line item I mean this people are pretty passionate about this so you know I guess one one of the things that uh was proposed or or a thought that I had was instead of moving it from I mean are we just voting on this particular calendar this particular calendar start dat this particular C calendar end dat I mean the other thing is we're going to start so early why are we not done by Memorial Day so I mean I'm getting so there's so many things that that are are being you know discussed with me and I'm like okay well is would it would it be that difficult to go back to the drawing board for you know and and finalize this in an in an
357hour session I mean you got the bulkload of the calendar would would the board consider or would Administration consider um maybe not kind of again what what uh Christine said stair stepping this because we're we're giving folks what five six months heads up some of the again some some people have uh camps that they're going to um some people plan vacations I'm not in that in in either one of those but I'm it's something that you have to consider and it seems like that's a lot a lot of the feedback that we're getting via email to the board uh Mr Lan we'll do whatever the board uh as a whole asks us to do and like I said if you want us to the board wants us to look at some different options right now
358we can work through some of those and uh this as I said it this is a board this is a board decision it's not it's not it's not my calendar it's I'm just representing what what the committee sent forward and and I understand there's going to be people that are disappointed on both sides I I understand that so I'm trying to look for a compromise the 14th is clearly too early for a lot of these folks a lot of these families could we consider going to the 19th but maybe looking at the October days where we have three three days there you know again thinking about the families here I mean where where we at 59 60% economically disadvantage is that correct over 60 I mean this is this is hard for Working Families this
359this amount of breaks is is going to be difficult for working families and I just want to that's that's that's really where the passion for this comes from it's like look I understand I've I've been there I get it and the community we ask for feedback and you got overwhelming feedback we got overwhelming feedback 70% said August 19th or later and I understand and I appreciate everything that that the that the committee did I don't think that any one of us were expecting the overwhelming responses that we've we've gotten and and this is just the people that have responded back to the board that have engaged with the board I'm not counting the people that you know I talk to I just I just go out and and people are approaching me hey what are
360you guys seriously going to approve this you know I'm uh so I motion that we amend this calendar or I actually have a question let me back up let back up I don't think we're done and I know that that is you don't want to hear that because I know that there's a lot of people trying to build a lot of information so we have two options that I can see in front of us one is that we try to make a recommendation back to you and make a decision tonight without the input of the calendar committee or we say go take a look at it and try again with same committee but with prioritization one gives us if we make a decision tonight if I'm not mistaken the pros would be people might have
361information to work from and things can go forward but I would really like to have the input of the calendar committee and not make that here ourselves well Mr scanon I I think the calendar committee has provided you with a recommendation now it's up to to you as a board to decide if I'm clear on that you want to accept it or as a board you can make whatever modifications okay well all right so I'll go and do it u i i motion that we make some modifications and we send this back to the calendar committee for review Dr Kell you have some comments well okay procedurally help me understand how we need to get this done we'll get there okay just let him he has a couple of comments go ahead well sir I
362I saw a lot of those emails as well and so part of the problem I think for the community obviously is our our fast timelines so you know if we had had a DOI in the fall and then we could go and do the calendar Committee in December and then have all this input and then by January had made this decision obviously that would have helped us quite a bit more so and then I do see from the emails you know we asked for public opinion on a on a oh cool someone was obviously trying to steal the building is that late 11 sorry about that um so going back to to what I was talking about so obviously um we asked for some input from folks as well and I could see from um
363some of the comments that we were getting um via email was that they felt like hey you asked us for uh comments but then the the calendar that we ultimately saw didn't look like um what we' asked for right so I I think that's a weakness for us as well and so if we had had more time I think what I would would have suggested was instead of having a survey about what they want just go ahead and put out there these are the calendars that we've developed in a range and let's vote for the calendars versus with some options some different options right it probably would have been more choice and voice um versus what we're dealing with right now and um certainly it's it's what I see in the community it's a pretty
364big change to obviously go to an earlier start um I came from a place that has had an earlier start for years and years and years right and the place before that had an early start but that's obviously an issue for our community right so maybe we can um make a lot of people not happy by trying to go in the middle and um trying to take some of this comment and um address maybe the start time and then maybe do something with the days in the middle um that we've been talking about the October days that are going to be Troublesome for some of our families which I certainly get that hey if you're going to have to pay for daycare for a week but you're only getting two or three days that that's
365tough that's really tough to stomach so I mean one of the reasons why we went to a full week at Thursday too or a Thursday full week and Thanksgiving um I was thinking about Thursday Thanksgiving um was because people didn't show up on Monday and Tuesday um we had to have grandparents day in order that people come to school on Monday and Tuesday that was one of the reasons why we had that then um to get the kids into school so maybe we can um make some minor adjustments honoring the fact that the the teachers um on the calendar committee and the calendar committee and the de took a look at it but just tweak it a little bit to where we try to bring in some of the comments that we we saw but
366then also honor the work of the committee it doesn't make everybody happy but it tries to maybe get more to some Middle Ground where maybe it does ease us into um a DOI earlier start and all that kind of stuff so just a suggestion um the one thing I want to say and I would highly recommend we not pursue is kicking this back to the committee um I mean it's already February 12th my recommendation to the board is if we're going to make any decisions we make it tonight and we pass a calendar now we may amend it we may pass it as you know the motion on the table right now is to pass it as if but of course there's options for amending it so this you know the way I look at
367it this should be an opportunity for us to discuss making some specific proposals uh I heard a couple of as well but uh my recommendation is and again there's a timeliness factor to it I mean we have to we have to approve a calendar uh we don't have time to kick it back down to a committee um I take the cons I take the committee's considerations very seriously I think there's a lot of good things to this calendar I made my comments last Thursday I also look at that at as the calendar going forward school districts need to have creative calendars and use it as a tool for Teacher retention and teacher attraction I want us to consider to review that but I also concern you know this was a pretty fast change and a
368pretty new change so I'm sympathetic to that as well um I I see a lot of good with the calendar but if my colleagues want to make some spec specific recommendations I'm having a hard time with that word tonight if someone wants to make some specific recommendations I think we should put that on the table and we should have a vote on any alterations or amendments I would have two recommendations one is that we start on the 19th and two we would end before Memorial Day I don't think you can do both so that's that's where I'm going then at least I think the the data that I saw because what I saw was that the overwhelming majority was concerned about the start date far less so about Memorial Day so the the numbers that
369I got and so I I did it it was 70% of the respondents that when I'm against the calendar 70% of them said I want a later start date 23% of them said I it's either 32 or let's just go with a higher 32% said it was uh in before Memorial Day so there's a pretty significant difference in who mentioned what in our emails over the last five days Mr scanland may I just add just for if you want to simplify a little bit okay everything that's in blue is a student day and a and a staff holiday so anything in blue teachers don't have to add another day to the it doesn't reduce the teacher contract days so we don't have to find another day for teachers to work and we don't have another
370we don't have to find another day for kids to go to school does that make sense so anything in blue we don't have to it it it it's a student and teacher holiday so it's not taking a teacher contract day and it's it's not taking a teacher day just if that eases it in any way everything else anything you move you got to move something else Linda is it possible to again start on August 19th maybe give October 14th as a three-day weekend eliminate the 15th and the 16th and actually have them as regular school days okay so let me write that so start on the 19th eliminate which day the 15th and 16th 16th in October need one more day February 14th does that does that work February 14th so we we so when
371you when you start in the 19th you took one two three teacher days mhm so we need to add we need to find three teacher days somewhere so that would be the 15th and 16th and you need one more teacher day February February 14th is it typical for us to take off Valentine's Day no they just add they the teachers were wanting a day sometime in February so that that would take care that would allow you to start on the 19th um have one day that's a student teacher holiday in on the 14th and you still have the the 187 days for teachers and 170 three days for students just thinking about that I'm thinking about it um I think you're thread the needle pretty good with the October one obviously you're trying to address
372the comments about parents and not having the child care or being paid for the whole charge for the whole week but still giving a day in the middle of October for a long weekend do I'm sorry they're doing math over there this one here but right now on this one we took three days is it election day no oh good Friday good yeah yeah no and and the truth is if you go that late um you're not helping very much with instruction to add that day back in because of a lot of testing has already happened or in progress around that time and I wouldn't suggest doing the April date it's looking like that would be the only one could you so January the 6th is a PD day because you know remember we have
373te days so if you made that a school day because they've already been out for two weeks um and then you could put that PD day maybe on the 15th and then if campuses one to do a Time equivalency um then that would give staff two days and would give them the 14th and 15th I'm sorry of October what you're taking you're taking another the campus is like having that day when they come back and to do either data or different things like that we do it on January the 3 I think no yeah I I I think the 14th is a cleaner day I'm not doing that to teacher no 14 is cute for kids you you really do need to take out one of the teacher staff holidays or go to 172 instructional
374days instead of 173 really need okay so I so I've got that first part the start on the 19th have October 14th as a student teacher holiday the 15th and the 16th are are uh instructional days the 14th is an instructional day no February 14 not getting rid of the 14th February 14th we're actually talking about not getting rid of the 14th and just they want to get rid oh they want to get rid of the so those would be the three days so those three days balance now with the three days that we that you just removed starting on the 19th the 14th is the student teacher holiday the of October October 15th and 16th are now student days uh February 14th is now a student day and so now those Balan we just
375took three away and added three that is correct and teachers school starts on August 19 and school starts on August 19th yes Teresa yeah I mean it's it's not a I'm sorry it's it's not a huge change but it doesn't get to that break in February other than a work day and in a professional development day unless you want to move could you do the work day could you do the professional development day on the 14th and then just do the uh um the work day on the what is that 16th yeah the 17th have a four day week and then at least you know kids will have a four day week and then um teachers at least will have two short weeks and it's a long weekend for kids yeah so what I'm hearing
376is move the PD the 17 the February 17th professional professional development day to the 14th and leave the 18th to the 17th so just so just move one of those days to the 14th is what you're what you're suggest yes okay and then so we still have the same number of instructional days and then we have some break a break in ooc middle of October it's a three-day weekend instead of a Fed Day weekend um and obviously that helps our parents that have a child care issues and then we're still giving some type of break for the students in the middle and a break for the teachers from the students it's not much of break yeah because you're doing PD and work but at least you got a work day in there so Tuesday they're
377back for the rest of the week yeah anytime you use use it uh work I mean you're going to reduce the number of instructional days but uh you also have to make sure you have enough well you're not taking away a staff to Calendar's fun what do youall think I think you you just trade it days out and it's you still have the 173 days of instruction um holiday youer you have yeah at least a holiday on October 14 so teachers at least get one day a three-day weekend on the February days um can one of those days uh be designated as an optional campus time equivalency day we will work with the campus to determine the campuses so the campuses and the and the and the district will work together to determine which of
378these days are time equivalency could be time equivalency and which of these days are professional development days that's a campus decision sometimes the campuses choose to do time equivalency days and sometimes they choose to use them as data planning whatever so there's a possibility there' be more days off it is an early spring break if that also impacts maybe that February load at least they're not waiting till the middle of March absolutely you want me to repeat it again once you repeat again we'll right down all right the start date on this on the calendar will now be August 19th instead of the 14th teachers would report on the 5th no you you can't have them report on the fifth oh I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry you're right you're right I'm sorry I'm sorry
379I I didn't go back to do that teachers will report on the 7th that's right ders will report on the 7th we did three days so that's on a Thursday so teachers will report to work on Thursday the 8th students would report on Monday August 19th when you when you get to October October 14th remains a student teacher holiday so that's a 3-day weekend October 15th and 16th become uh instructional days November stays the same December stays the same January stays the same when you get to February February 14th becomes a teacher professional day and the 17th uh continues or at 17th become becomes a teacher work day March stays the same April stays the same May stays the same February yes yes it's only one day okay so teachers report on the 8th we
380started the 19th October 14th is a holiday October 15th and 16th are instructional day days February 14th is a teacher PD day February 17th is a teacher work day work day correct work day is a a school day it's an instructional day oh okay there that's it is to make a motion to am that's a question y'all had carefully considered the State Testing calendar do we need to rify like that February 8 because it was a holiday so it couldn't be right yeah we they've already verified the the the testing calendar Dr bling all right can I get an amendment to the motion then so president Henry I amend the motion that we have a modified calendar as as we've discussed with the dates such that we are starting teachers would report on upon August
3818th 8th yep August 8th that the students would report on the 19th that on in October there would be one student teacher holiday on October 14th that in February that there would be a teacher I'm going to get these terms wrong PD there's a PD on the on the 14th and their professional development day on the 18th no 17th 17 a work day sorry 17th and those are the uh changes to the calendar school day on the 18th school day on the instruction on the 18th thank you he didn't say anything about October he did I did instru 14th a holiday 15th and 16th instruction that and further amending that 14th would remain a student holiday and the 15th and 16th would be October 15th and 16th would be instructional days may I get a
382second second second all those in favor please raise your right hand no right okay it is unanimous we have a calendar and we did it today 1159 we will make the changes and make sure it's posted by tomorrow we did it today all right 7D the board consider making good ter good termination excuse me making determination that good cause do not exist is required by law for the people listed in the agenda to resign their respective employment contracts this item was discussed in closed session pursuant to section 551.074 may I have a motion please I'm move that the Board of Trustees render a ruling a finding oh sorry um render finding under Tac 24917 that good cause did not exist for the set employees you have a second second question yes question I had a
383question um didn't you tell me that there was one person to pull off this list that's correct and I believe that Holly removed that name from the list and we sent the board president that information I just wanted to confirm that we took that person off that is correct I was s notified okay can I get a vote please sing by your raising right hand is unanimous 7e last item the board consider a level three discipline appeal of a level two Cypress Woods High School decision made by the disciplinary Review Committee this item was discussed in close session section 551.071 and section 55108 2 there is a motion language here to choose from if you'd like may I get a motion please president uh Henry I move that the board uphold the level two decision
384I'll second is that exactly what you want to do should be that means he returns that means he returns to that's uphold that's up we got a second so it's a discussion now that means he returns back to want to amend oh okay so I'm saying you got to read one guys you can just take a vote and if it doesn't pass then you can have another motion we can amend it as well correct uh you can amend it can I make a motion to amend yes yes yep right am amend that that he uh just read the motion sorry all right get it correct I move that the board uphold a level two decision regarding expulsion but amend the remainder of the consequence to be completed at the Alternative Learning Center have a second
385second we got a vote please right hand are you not clear okay all opposed so we have four four and three opposed okay motion carries I would prefer that like to thank everyone for being here tonight also i' like to thank those who are attending and watching from home for still on uh may I have a motion now to adjourn a meeting so moved and a second all in favor raise your right hand we are adjourned thank you very much