001[Music] good evening the Cyprus Fairbanks Independent School District Board of Trustees is now convened in a board work session on Thursday February 8th 2024 at 6 PM in the boardroom of Cyprus Fairbanks Independent School District for the purpose of reviewing the portion of Monday February 12th regular board meeting agenda designed action items and to hear design reports and recognitions posted in the meeting notice as required by Texas law I want to welcome our members of the audience and our online viewers to this meeting by the Board of Trustees we are here to set goals listen reports approve budgets contracts personal appointments and make policy for the district is not the role of the board to make DayDay operation decisions the management and DayDay operations District responsibility is superintendent we have Poli policies and procedures in
002place to resolve concerns and issues this is a public meeting of the board trustees not a public meeting not not a meeting of the public rather the meeting is open to all who wish to attend the matter is discussed audience members may not participate meeting outside the disign action items for or citizen paration disruption of the meeting by any member including the audience is inappropriate will be addressed by the board president or the board's counsel contining to disrupt disruptions of any board uh meeting by Boards or actions may result in removal part of this meeting board members received information related to tonight's agenda 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 Clos session is necessary in that
003event the board will meet in Clos session and consider matters duly posted for the meeting per by sections 551.071 through 55184 of the Texas government code these proceedings are airing live on the district website they're also available on the district website following tonight's meeting for the video to adequately reflect the proceedings I please please ask that you refrain from talking while others are speaking and that cell phones are turned off or in silent mode thank you for taking time to join us this evening we thank you for your interest in the Cyprus Fairbanks Independent School District uh tonight we have uh Grace Hanley from representative Tom Oliver's office Grace there you are and we also have uh Elizabeth Stinson from Senator bitt CO's Porton Court's office as well glad to have you here we have
004uh no boy scouts or girl scouts the invocation Pledge of Allegiance vision Miss statement and remarks and recognitions of the board uh board comments since participation in public car tions will present at the regular board meeting on Monday February 12th at each open board meeting patrons who have registered in accordance with the procedures established in bed regulation May address the board during designated agenda comments part of the board's consideration on actions or the item unless the agenda is otherwise rearranged for the board president during the meeting the agenda comment will generally be taking prior of each action item and also in accordance with the procedures as established by bed regulation patrons May address the the board during citizen participation on any matters of Interest or concern they're not posted in the G items for detailed
005information instructions to speak under agenda comments or suspenstion please go to the district website patrons who have register speak this evening may be an order of names listed on the screen before your name is called please move forward and sit in one of the reserved seats on the front row when you approach the podium as you see there are two one on my right one on my left may use the monitor inside the podium when it's your time time to begin the digital presentation time will be displayed on top of the monitor they'll be set in accordance to the number of speakers registered for this evening there'll be a 302nd and a 15c warning light on tomorrow to wrap up your comments the board now review the following consent agenda items then review the following
006items board members May review May remove one or more of these items at which time these these items will be addressed and voted on individually if any board member has a question regarding agenda item please ask to be recognized on the consent agenda items 6A The Bard consider minutes from January 9th 6B the board consider minutes of January 18th 6 C the board consider approving amendments on the periods of October 1st through December 31st 6D the board will consider awarding bids and contracts and authorizing purchas orders as recommended on the posted agenda items uh 61 recycling for nutrition services 62 Central production equipment for nutrition services 63 commencement photog photography Services 64 cooler and rollup doors for nutrition services 65 furniture and Equipment 66 refrigerated trucks and 67 school and bakery equipment for nutrition services
007are there any questions at this time for this item nope we'll continue on 6E the board consider approving the central uh excuse me Center Point Energy electrical easement at Cypress Ranch and authorize the superintendent or his designate to negotiate and execute the ray documents this item May discussed in in in close session pursuant to section 72 6f the board will consider approving construction proposal and contracts paid from bond funds to recommend contractors and authorize a superintendent or zign to execute all necessary documents related to such contracts 6 F1 2023 Dean Middle School renovation 6 6 F2 2023 Langham Creek High School renovation 6f3 2023 argon and Goodson Middle School Renovations any questions on these items any other items that we just discuss you'd like to ask questions on from the board all right we'll now
008proceed to non-consent items uh 7A the board consider proven a conveyance of track land located in the corner of Tel Road in US 290 in harrisy County to exchange for track located on Old Mai Road and will authorize the superintendent or his design to negotiate and execute the related contracts this item made discussed in close session perent to 55107 2 any questions on this board all right 7B the board consider approving on first reading additions revisions or deletions of District policies we do have several speakers on this item and we'll talk to get our speakers at this time our first Speaker tonight is uh Jennifer CET you ready good evening uh chaplain and cfd not certified by the State Board of Ed and because an amendment failed no parental consent is needed they are allowed
009to preach they are not required to respect the cultural ethnic gender racial and religious diversity of our students in a district over a 100 languages and dialects are spoken they are allowed to let their religious beliefs conflict with the students issues which affects every single one of our lgbtq plus students there is an amendment that defines the word chaplain a person who is endorsed by an organization recognized by the United States Department of Defense the Federal Bureau of Prisons or the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to endorse chaplain this afternoon I had a 20-minute phone call with the executive director of the Armed Forces chaplain's board at the Pentagon the department of defens less 173 different religious endorsing organizations one person is attached to each organization that person needs to sign off on any chaplain
010that wants to be endorsed these chaplain need an appropriate graduate degree and two years of experience in Ministry teaching Sunday school doesn't count nor does baptizing people in home bathtubs like the wife of a sitting board member has done the amendment that failed DOD chaplain follow most of the items that were spelled out in it so we are in quite a bind with this vague Bill aren't we it would really be best to just vote no and not open up a giant can of worms if you vote Yes on this and your intent and the intent of the law is to actually help students then you'd better respect all forms of religion including no religion I hope to see Muslim leaders rabbis and Buddhist monks Walking The Halls of cfd otherwise you are in violation
011of the First Amendment and our right to religious freedom and the best part if this goes horribly wrong it is on you it is on this board we can't blame the old board members we can't even blame Dr Henry although I'm sure some people will try to vote no on chapter in our Public Schools thank you our next speaker is Tara Cummings and if our next speaker uh Wendy Gordon could please come forward as well I'm Dr terara Cummings parent SB 763 allows religious chaplain to replace counselors or provide services without any oversight as a multi-licensed mental health clinician I understand the need for training and for regulatory bodies to protect the public in this case our children school counselors receive specific education training and certification this ensures that they have met the minimum requirements
012to provide School counseling services should there be a concern about the competence or ethics of a school counselor they can be reported to the to espc for investigation and corrective action as warranted religious chaplain however do not receive the Education and Training required of school counselors and SB 763 does not identify any regulatory body that will govern them in the schools s SP 763 includes no protections for our children it does not prohibit religious chaplain from prizing to students nor does it require they obtain parental consent what happened to the frenzy around parents rights the law does not prevent a chaplain from denying an appropriate necessary support to a student on the basis of the chaplain's own religious beliefs it does not prohibit them from engaging in practices determined to be harmful to Children SB
013763 does not prohibit religious indoctrination in our schools and the law places ultimate total power in the hands of the Board of Trustees not parents not counselors Educators administrators or the superintendent the board and the board alone determines whether religious chaplain are allowed in our schools in an official capacity and what services they will force upon our children without our consent any policy put in place by the district at this or any other time is useless be because again the board and the board alone has the power to determine if and how religious chaplain operate in our schools let me be clear I don't trust this board and I don't co- parent with you if parents want their children to see a religious chaplain they can take them to church otherwise we should continue to
014trust our highly qualified well-regulated school counselors reject School Chaplain thank you Wendy Gordon the followed by Sonia Last Chance Wendy Gordon nope all right Sonia please followed by Christina Woods thank you for having me tonight my name is Sonia and I have two daughters Abigail and Naomi who love attending Kirk Elementary I'm here tonight calling on the board to reject School Chaplin as employees and a school volunteers under section 23 of the Texas Education Code cyfair is a large District in the most diverse city in America and our public schools are reflective of that diversity selecting a chaplain of a particular background is choosing a religious point of view to impose on students thus violating The Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution and violating the separation of church and state parents should choose what
015kind of Faith counseling their child receives from the hundreds of churches synagogues mosqu and temples in our diverse City my family is of Jewish faith and following the horrific attacks on October 7th anti-Semitism has skyrocketed and this bill only underscores the lack of respect for religions other than that of one school School devoted chaplain How Could my daughters feel welcomed in fact they would feel even more isolated moreover religious chaplain under this provision have no specific training in School counseling a subject that takes years of specialty training there are no requirements for these chaplain such as those that are mandatory in military or prison chaplain if my daughter has the courage to ask for help when she is depressed what kind of guidance could I anticipate a chaplain recommend she takes our students deserved well-trained
016counselors who can properly diagnose mental health issues and properly manage learning disabilities not chaplains who do not have the experience and tools to diagnose properly deal with and Aid in an accepted and conventional path to a solution thank you very much for your time and vote no to chaplain Christina Woods Follow by um Allison Fitzpatrick please the question I have about the chaplain policy is as board members for an insanely diverse District who will you serve we know the job of our counselors they must spend two years in the classroom have a master's degree complete a school counselor preparation program pass a state certification exam and a background check to become our highly trusted guidance counselors It's this training and vetting process that puts them in a position that prepares them for stewarding students and
017academic planning assessing and supporting students facing suicidal ideation and depression and abuse they also lead our IEPs for our specialed students and much much more so who will you serve when you deliberate about whether potentially untrained uncertified and unvetted chaplain will supplant our beloved and revered guidance counselors will you put the academic and social emotional needs of our students above your own beliefs values and religious ideology or will you put our students at risk passing a policy that allows uncertified untrained and unvetted chaplain to front as guidance counselors puts our children at physical emotional and academic risk we know that students who wish we know that people that wish to do harm to students such as pedophiles are attracted to these kinds of jobs we know that people whose goal is to indoctrinate children into
018the teachings of their religion which serves to will serve to harm our students this is exactly why we have the separation of church and state most of you preach about parents rights rights I assure you that this is the worst kind of violation of parents rights decisions have consequences putting our students at risk with re Reckless policies will have consequences thank you Allison F Patrick followed by Reverend Les Carpenter thank you I have grave concerns that members of this board are looking to use SB 763 to indoctrinate students in the public school system with their own personal religious ideology this is a quote from Dr blasing game the Lord put in my heart that my agenda is to tear down the over interpretation of the separation of church and state that has shut God out
019of our schools she then went on to say her goal is to set a template in sfair for how it can be done well it's been put in my heart to defend the separation of church and state and the religious freedoms for all students in cyfair our public schools are meant to be inclusive diverse and secular spaces where children from various backgrounds and attitudes towards religion come together to learn and grow introducing chaplain could inadvertently favor one religious perspective over others potentially making students of different faiths and students who are agnostic or atheist feel ostracized and unsupported by hiring or allowing chaplain in schools in a religious or counseling capacity cyfair opens themselves up to costly lawsuits that will divert resources away from the primary goal of Education lengthy and expensive legal battles over the
020separation of church and state have been fought in the past and should this board vote for policies that violate religious freedoms of the families of this District those legal battles will be fought here and members of this board will be responsible for the Fallout the board must vote no and uphold the separation of church and state as well as the values that underpin our public education system to ensure that every student feels welcome and respected regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof thank you re Les Carpenter followed by Chris Sher hello my name is Les Carpenter and it is really interesting for me to be here speaking on an issue usually I'm leading a prayer um and it is uh uh I'll be honest with you it's uncomfortable to me to be speaking on
021an issue in general because my work is more on values I don't like to speak on issues but I feel like in this I have a unique perspective that might be useful to the board for their consideration I've served as a religious leader as an ordained religious leader for 15 years I've worked with um other uh uh Aspire other new clergy in training them for five um there's something about religious language that has a categorically different kind of weight when you call someone a chaplain or a pastor or a priest it comes with a different kind of authority something we call pastoral Authority in my um uh in my tradition um and it takes a special kind of training um and a special kind of support and a special kind of accountability to do that
022well I'm concerned about this policy it might be weird to have a religious leader come out against the idea of having school Chaplin and public schools but I think that it's important because like I said I want to do right by our kids and make sure that they have the kind of quality support that I don't think that this with deep respect I don't think that our district is tooled to give the kind of vetting that's needed um as has been mentioned before military chaplain College chaplain uh uh sorry military chaplain or um uh Hospital chaplain have uh a kind of background have a kind of uh system of training and support that are required it's one thing to be able to recog ize a wolf in sheep's clothing it's another to be able to
023recognize a wolf in a in Shepherd's clothing and our district isn't tooled for that so I think that this would be a mistake thank you very much Chris schwager followed by Lorena Garza hi my name is chrish wart I'm here to speak about SB 763 I have two children who attend cyer schools my oldest graduated in 2019 my youngest is in eighth grade considering chaplain as counselors is deeply personal to me both my children have been helped in many ways by school counselors the counselors of my oldest child helped with a stay way order when my child was being bullied helped with a school transfer when the bullying didn't stop and provided a safe place for my child when they became overwhelmed the counselor for my eighth grade grader has helped us so much I
024recently lost my husband my child school counselor has been supportive of our entire family the coun contacted the attendance desk to let them know my son would not be attending school she contacted his teachers to let him know what happened she got us in touch with District Counseling Service say she texts me just to check on me and she provides a safe space for my child when he feels overwhelmed in testimony supporting of SB 763 Seven Mountains follower and trustee Natalie blasen game said quote we have teen suicide on the rise they need caring adults that are willing to engage around the hierarchy of needs physiological safety belonging and selfesteem needs and chaplain can do this chaplain cannot do this for my children their school counselors can they are highly qualified to do this as
025trusty blasen game stated in her testimony a chaplain is not we do not subscribe to any religion if my children were faced with being counseled by a chaplain they would not participate they would shut down and never receive the help they needed it is up to me to care for my child's religious needs not the schools I encourage you to vote now on chaplains Lorena Garza and if Clifford height would please come forward as well thank you school board members my name is Lorena Garza for the past 14 years I have been one of the sponsors of United for Christ at Dickinson High School I volunteered my time going into the schools and helping the students I am also the director of chaplain affairs with a National School Chaplain association with chaplain with in over
02626,000 schools we are the world's largest School Chaplain provider we offer training recognized by the US Department of Education and certification to Quality qualified individuals who pass extensive International domestic background checks including forensic and social media review the Texas School Chaplain act provides another means for schools to deal with LPC shortages we are not here to repace replace counselors we are here to come alongside the counselors to help them schools are facing mental and Health crisis that has resulted in behavioral issues violence and anxiety depression among students and teachers I myself have counseled many and have help many teenagers that have lost their way and have lost hope I've walked in there I've helped them I've helped teachers I think that sometimes people do not have the right view of what a chaplain is I
027can tell you one thing we're very big after 2018 what happened in Santa Fe and I went as oh I went as a youth pastor so I couldn't go in they sent in chap they sent in chaplain but after after after a while the chaplain left and the need was still there a year later I went back they had security everywhere okay so it's great we're great about preventative measures but what about preventative measures on the inside students are hurting it's not about algebra sometimes it's not about geometry they're hurting about what's going on in their homes just today I talked to the principal where two students are dealing with being um abused at home and they're dealing with issues that's beyond algebra so I think and I want you to consider this realizing we're
028not here to proze as a youth pastor I never made everybody come to my youth group I encourage them go to your church I encourage them to find peace in God we were a nation on Godly principles I believe that we have a stance and you have a stance to be able to do something everywhere where there has been chaplain assigned to these schools there has not been one single suicide and I want to encourage you to do the right thing and to listen thank you Clifford height followed by Viv Perez please come board thank you very much board members my name is Clifford height I believe having chaplain in schools could be helpful to students because of my own personal experience um it it with chaplains in schools it'll help them to have a
029more positive experience at school and out of school of course academically socially helping them to become more positive contributing citizens and to our communities basically and and helping them to have a better opportunity at a successful life and that's why I believe that we should have chaplain I had a coach in high school who was the sponsor of the FCA and thanks to his influence in my life he D redirected my life so that I would go in the right direction he influenced me to be a better person to be a better student which helped me to be more respectful of my teachers more respectful of my peers and to respect others as they deserve to be respected and thanks to his influence I believe that I am a better person and um because of
030his influence in my life I'm also an asset to my community I went to college my background is in sports and I became a teacher a counselor and an administrator for 33 years and uh and a minister also and Coach Gordon's uh influence in my life made me more enthusiastic as a person creating in me a passion to create WI win situation so I have been involved in the community thanks to his influence in my life and I've become a little league baseball coach little league soccer coach I uh refereed soccer leagues and I believe that we need chaplain with that type of influence to redirect the lives of our students to they have a more personal or a more positive experience in life I remember when I was teaching in my first high school
031and uh in the Southwest part of Houston Texas and most of the students came from gang infested areas and they were so involved with gangs but when I started an indoor soccer league for them they redirected their lives and were not involved with all those other things so I believe somebody who's there to give them a positive uh um experience to lead them in the right direction to help them become better persons better teacher better students and better uh for all around better citizens of the United States of America so that we have a better country with better students who are prepared for a successful future thank you B Perez followed by Dave Mahan if I pronounce that correctly please come forward good evening my name is Avana Perez I am the organizer at Texas
032Freedom network tfn works with religious and Community leaders who support religious freedom individual liberties and public education tfn often serves at the state's Watchdog against violations of of the separation of church and state I myself have been monitoring the chaplain policy all across school districts in the state of Texas have been um engaging with Community leaders and Advocates on this issue I am here today to ask the board to vote against adopting a policy that would allow chaplain to work with students accepting a chaplain policy would violate the religious freedom of Texas students and families as chaplains do not have the same qualifications required of school counselors or the obligation to Omit their own religious belief when counseling students while there are certainly chaplain who are also have who also have the same qualifications as
033school counselors the law does not require them to have these credentials before being placed in counseling positions this policy would cause more harm than good by failing to serve all students of different Fates and backgrounds if the school district elects to adopt a policy you would potentially harm students who are of beliefs of Judaism or Buddhism or who are lgbtqia plus chaplain now represent a variety of different Fates however this policy fails to adly um meet the needs of all students in the school district students deserve to receive a quality and effective mental healthc care and academic guidance from certified mental health professionals we ask the board to vote against adopting any policy that hires or allows chaplain to serve as volunteers thank you for your time St behind uh followed by Brian Henry could
034please come forward please my name is Dave man I am a cair ISD resident and the very proud parent of a sciare high freshman right across the street uh this is been a lot and my thunder has kind of been stolen but let me say these few things one we are woefully underfunded in general in public education we have a huge budget shortfall this is not the kind of thing that we need to be worrying about right now uh the ACLU and other organizations are on the sideline chewing on their mouthpiece ready to get in this game I don't think we can handle that uh so for that reason I think it would be wise to say no to chaplain as volunteers or in paid positions if they're going to operate in the capacity as
035a Chaplain as a religious cleric doing religious cleric stuff there's also the fact that my child goes to church she's part of a youth group we go to church we are a Christian family and I I'm responsible for the spiritual formation and religious education of my child not this board not the principal not some chaplain somewhere if you want to talk about parental rights talk about my rights as a parent to direct my kids spiritual life that's massive and and and if we were to end up with chaplins in schools the the the the sheer offense at the very idea is difficult for me to articulate um that's really it just let's I I'm 46 we most of us probably went to school roughly the same time Public Schools no chaplain I'm fine like I
036don't I I didn't need it my kid doesn't need it let let parents and families and Guardians find their own paths outside of the public schools thank you Ryan Henry followed by Julie Ricks please come forward good evening uh I'm a cipher ISD parent and public education Advocate with the nonpartisan Cypress families for public schools while there has been much uncertainty and speculation about SB 763 and the role of chaplain in public schools it seems to me that the Crux of the issue is whether chaplain will be providing counseling services to students and doing so from a spiritual perspective for me the uncertainty about the intentions of SB 763 is rooted in who supported the bill just Google the name Rocky Malloy to understand why some parents are concerned if a chaplain wants to volunteer
037they can do so like anyone else if a chaplain wants to be employed as a counselor they can do so if they have the qualifications neither of these examples allow chaplain to promote their faith or speak to students about religious values any policy that would create opportunities for them to do so like violates The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment such a policy also in my opinion would violate parental rights and religious liberty and possibly expose the district to costly lawsuits I urge the board to adopt a policy pertaining to SB 763 that protects the religious freedom of cciir students and respects the religious diversity of the cciir community thank you Julia Ricks hello the chaplain position is an opportunity in the restoration of Morality In our district and undo the lies of indoctrination and
038reverse the course separation of church and state is a lie and found nowhere in the US Constitution I keep hearing John Adams words that our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people United States of America was founded as a Christian Nation and built on biblical principles and this must be represented in our schools Texas chaplain must pass a background check and they must be endorsed by a religious organization a candidate for the chaplain position chosen from National School Chaplain Association helps dispel fears of Bad actors as their reputation and standards of excellence ensure quality and qualified people meeting well above average requirements and trained in training to be certified this is not a volunteer position this is a paid position the Bible says the worker is worthy of his wages the Texas
039Bill States the safety funds are used counseling and safety are huge large part of the district and much money is spent on on professionals and Bad actors have been exposed amongst them the point being there are fears and risks in the unknown but thank God for the Pioneers that face their fears of believing the devil more than God and stepped out with faith willing to take a risk for the V vision and reward that is possible God's timing is perfect the legal doors have been opened to give us an opportunity to have a chap position combined with the unique position of having a majority conservative board which means wisdom and Common Sense will be used to make rules and regulations for the position the chaplain must be provided as an option to students and I
040didn't Chris I didn't know um pleas St your husband so I'm sorry all right 7b1 CQB technology resources I didn't read these earlier uh board uh 7 B2 DP which Personnel revisions and then 7 B3 uh gkg community relations School volunteer program believe we have some presenters tonight um I guess Karen you want to go first Karen's not here so who's taking that Karen is actually I think she's at tazbo um the CQB was just some uh changes to bring the policy into alignment with some um revisions regarding um the definition of an incident for security data breaches um I think Amanda is probably here if you have a question or I mean Paula is probably here if you have a question beyond my rudimentary presentation here I just making sure there was a presentation
041and that's that's for me the next next two policies I figured you might appreciate uh any questions on that first one first from anyone they wouldn't read that in the board book any questions on that one first no this is on this is on Karen's policy on cyber security any questions on that one very good let's continue on go ahead Mark okay so the next two um policies DP and gkg those are uh recommended revisions from the administration I'm drafted those I did uh get some input from the policy committee I've also talked with um every you know each trustee individually and and answered some questions but this um these revisions are meant to address Senate Bill 763 as we've um been discussing which does require and I can even read it specifically that we
042uh that you as a board um act whether to adopt a policy authorizing a campus of the district or school to employ or accept as a volunteer a Chaplin under chapter um 23 and so in looking at that and in deciding you know what we were going to recommend obviously working with Dr Killian and then I looked at it looked at what the law requires um and then honestly I looked at what you know what investments have we already made um in providing support to students specifically you know mental health support I do know there's been a lot of questions about um the bill you know requiring chaplain to replace counselors there's a little bit of confusion it doesn't say that it just uh says whether you're going to allow a chaplain or employ a
043chaplain or allow them to volunteer um the original enrolled uh version excuse me the original introduced version did say um you know chaplain could be hired in place of guidance counselors but the engro the actual the engrossed version then eventually the enrolled version does not say that so there's not a require I just wanted to be clear so there's not a requirement that um as you consider this that a chaplain would replace a counselor but looking at it from a budgetary standpoint and that's really kind of what we were looking at honestly we are looking at potentially lean times coming up and looking at expenditure of funds the law does allow us to use money that's already um really spent on security Investments we've already made that they did add chaplain to the list of
044permissible expenditures under that allotment but there was no funding specifically allotted for this um but so looking at that um and and thinking about the Investments we've already made I will say this board um has continued to support work of Prior boards for a long time we have been investing in Mental Health Resources for our students back to adding additional counselors at elementary when we had some additional funding creation of the mental health intervention team even prior to that we do have um licensed lpcs who work on this team and so we have been investing in this we also um honestly counseling and that counseling area while it's a critical need it's actually not a critical shortage area for us we do not have an abundance of vacancies and I don't think school districts across
045the state can say that and they can't say that they've had the you know opportunity um you know that we've had to provide the supports we've had so this bill could feel a need I can see maybe somewhere else in the state where counseling was a critical shortage area I think we have and Dr blason game you whipped your head around and looked at me so I'm I think you may be doubting what I'm saying it is my understanding we have two three you know counseling vacancies as we sit here so that's what I mean when I say that so let me be crystal clear I'm not saying that the needs of our kids the mental health needs are not a critical need I'm saying this just happens to be a position for which we
046don't have a critical shortage there are I I've jokingly said I will take anyone who's certified and wants to be you know a classroom teacher special education teacher for instance that might that is an area that is a critical need for us so that's the context that I mean um and so not being a critical shortage area thinking about what we've already invested and thinking about um really how best to spend our budgetary dollars and I'm going to dovetail in the fact that we have always invited and allowed our faith-based leaders um to be mentors and Global volunteers my recommendation to comply with the law because and I understand some people may may read it differently as I read it and how I have guided this board is that if you need to look at
047up our policy and note whether or not we're going to employ or allow chaplain to volunteer and in looking at DP my recommended revisions were to really codify what our current practice is which which is um and I think one of the speakers even kind of summarized it which is if you were otherwise qualified for a position in our district and you happen to be a uh a faith-based leader as well you are eligible for employment in whatever capacity in which you are otherwise qualified we are not going to say we are you know we are afraid to have that Viewpoint in our schools whether it's as a global volunteer or whether it's a campus guidance counselor we um have always done that and so I recommended to comply with the law that we have
048a discussion I am not recommending that we create a position uh called the chaplain and have a chaplain in the schools I am recommending that we um clarify and codify our current practice which is the board through the policy will affirm the district's current practice of considering for employment any qualified individual including a chaplain or other faith-based leader for any position that the chaplain or faith-based leader qualifies and in the same vein in gkg that's the reason there's two policies one is the employment policy and one is the volunteer policy that um mentors engage in onetoone interactions with students they provide supports and services for students through our volunteer program they're trained um the Board of Trustees through the policy if revised would affirm the district's current practice of Permitting all qualified volunteers to serve
049as mentors including chaplain or other faith-based leaders and it's the exact same language for Global volunteers and so that's the recommendation on the table um and those are the revisions if you have and that's the thought process behind that recommendation but I'm happy to answer questions and and encourage U dialogue and opinions to the contrary so Marty just just to be very clear since the vi audience and the people in can't see this we have two different policies correct can you go them one one by one and just so people can in and read them for so everybody understands what we're talking about absolutely absolutely Mr President I um was kind of paraphrasing but so and in the posting you will see there's DP and gkg so DP is our policy that addresses Personnel positions
050it outlines principal qualifications school counselors then I was recommending um a section entitled chaplain and to say the Board of Trustees through this policy affirms the district's current practice of considering for employment any qualified individual including a chaplain or other faith-based leader for any position that the chaplain or faith-based leader qualifies so that's DP and that's in the D series which means it's in the employment series and then gkg which is the policy lettering for community relations and our school volunteer program very similar language we have um two opportunities to be in our schools and we're always taking applications so if you would like to be a mentor or Don I'm getting the high five from Don back there or a global volunteer this is the policy um under definitions we would propose language that
051says for purposes of this policy a mentor engages in regular onetoone interaction with the student providing supports and services for the student through the volunteer program The Board of Trustees through this policy affirms the district's current practice of Permitting all qualified volunteers to service mentors including chaplain or other faith-based leaders for and then the next paragraph for the purpose 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 so that's a global volunteer I'll birdwalk for a minute if you are a regular volunteer that means you've got a parent or a grandchild at that school if you are a global volunteer it's a special program because you actually go through a background check Etc if you
052are going to volunteer somewhere other than your own child or grandchild's campus so that's what that means and so the Board of Trustees through this policy affirms the district's current practice of Permitting all qualified volunteers to serve as Global volunteers including including chaplain or other faith-based leaders and Mr President I will just say that um it is our current practice and I will tell you that um some of the the youth group leaders um or some of our our you know best volunteers and mentors we just have a a great faith-based Community um that volunteer in a lot of aspects um in in the adults too they you know they bring food to the teachers we you know they adopt our schools and so we have a really good relationship with this um community and
053I will also say I'm going to say it up front that um this is a two policy reading specifically in working with the policy committee we proposed this language this would be a first reading and then um during the next month before we do a second reading in March the specific plan is for Mr Henry our board president to visit with our faith-based lead faith-based leaders at our meeting later this month and to also ask ask for and solicit input from from everyone regarding this um policy as presented or as eventually I should say um more accurately say as adopted by the board on Monday because there will be discussion there will you know likely possibly be word changes that's what tonight is to talk about and then Monday you will actually uh vote and
054take action but then a second reading before the policy goes into a final effect will give that opportunity for Community input and that's very important to this board um to have the community um and parents in particular as stakeholders that was more than just reading it uh I recognized Mr President so I'm going to go ahead and turn my mic off thank you very much Marty uh questions starting to my right any questions on Ascend just make sure so Marty by proceeding with what we're trying to do right now are we in the manner that we're doing it are we following state are we following the law yes in my opinion as I read and and I read the law as it reads I believe this policy is clarifying that we will employ a chaplain
055in any position in which they're qualified we are not pres we are not proposing to create a position um of chaplain and that we will continue to uh and we will continue to employ qualified uh individuals but we will also continue to allow them to volunteer so as I read the the plain language of the statute this is how I read it and I absolutely believe it's in compliance and I will say it's very consistent with what um school districts around the state have been doing some school districts have been doing a resolution affirming a practice or saying one thing or the other I felt like we needed to put it in policy because it says to whether or not you're going to adopt a policy that authorizes um the district to employ or accept
056as a volunteer and so that's the reason I went to policy but I I think that the resolutions are are equally compliant but this is just what I felt was the best belts and suspenders approach and to be clear we have a policy in place now for Viewpoint discrimination correct oh yes we prohibit Viewpoint discrimination we both of a religious and a non-religious and that's sometimes where I think maybe this bill and and districts outside of of ours and I I don't know of any in particular but you know you hear that I think schools are we want to do the right thing districts want to do the right thing and we sometimes are like oh can we you know can we allow because the first amendment it you know it's two prong there's the
057establishment calls but there's also the free exercise and those are naturally a little bit in tension with each other because you can't um the state can't establish um a religion but you also can't you know burden the free exercise and so I think that sometimes there may have been school systems that said gosh we'd love to have our local youth pastor serve as a volunteer but I don't think we can do that because you know he or she has a a religious Viewpoint well that in and of itself is an example of viewpoint discrimination which we've never engaged in so and last question do this new policy change much to her does it change much to our existing policy Beyond stating that if you happen to be a chaplain and you have the credentials you
058can go through the hiring process um it codifies our current practice so I would correct it does not create a a new um job classification it does codify what we are currently doing yes sir thank you Mar Lucas I don't have any questions um I think the comment to the community is that we recognize the diversity the diversity of our community we recognize that there are parents that need to have that primary voice for their kids and we respect that and so our objective here is to ensure that our parents are uh that the school district has a role in the education and the delivery of the curriculum and that the parents rights are respected and so what we're doing here is to make sure that we're answering the law as stated and we're allowing
059for someone who is qualified to serve as an employee to continue to serve as an employee and not discriminate against them if they happen to have that chaplain viewpoint but that's not a role that we're going to be creating within the district either for an employee or as a volunteer no further comments Justin any questions um so the way I'm going to handle these two agenda items is tonight I'm going to ask a handful of questions and then I will reserve my comments um and my uh position on these policies until U next week at the formal board meeting so a couple of questions I have um of course in this work session is so I think it's key and I think several of us are probably going to hit up this topic because it's
060so key to reiterate this and make sure everybody understands that we currently allow chaplain to participate in and in school business I mean they're they're currently allowed to participate in schools correct yes sir right they're allowed to volunteer they're allowed to Mentor right um and the other thing too is that uh one of the key uh terms that I think everybody needs to gravitate towards and fully Embrace understand so I pulled this thing back up under DP local position right um of course there's a lot of concern that there would be a situation in which unqualified pastors uncertified pastors uncredentialed pastors would be assuming the role of a credentialed and um certified counselor right this policy as I read it would not allow that for to happen because in essence what we're saying is that
061um a chaplain or any other face based leader for any position that the chaplain or other face based leader qualifies so in other words saying in that is if you happen to be a chaplain but you also meet the requirements of a counselor all the education all the certification all the credentialing we are not going to discriminate against you simply because you're a chaplain for taking on that position is that another way of phrasing that absolutely perfectly stated okay so you know it's it's worth stating that you know currently we have chaplain who are engaged and have been for many many years even even since I was at Jersey Village High School a few years ago right um chaplain have faith faith leaders and chaplain have been engaged in our Public Schools um so we're
062not we're not changing any course with this language as it stands now um and with the other thing too is and I don't want to speak for my colleagues is um I don't think anybody here would want anybody to assume a very the the rol of counselor which is extremely critical to the development and the well-being and the emotional health of children especially in a lot of the struggles we're having with today I don't think any of us would want to have somebody take on that role who's not credentialed or properly prepared for that and of course this language would not allow for that okay um the the last uh point I would make and another way of looking at this is that if we were to create a policy that explicitly disallow chaplain that
063would actually run counter to our current policy in essence if we were to if we were to create a policy that explicitly discounted chaplain we would in essence be discriminating against chaplain from our current position yes if we said we did not allow them to volunteer or to participate in our program or be employed then that would be contrary to this and and I would advise you that that was illegal correct yes exactly we want to make sure we're legal at all times that that would be a departure from our current positions and our current practices yes sir thank you Marty no further questions sir to my left Julie any questions thank you um so um the uh the way I first started looking at this and there's been some changes with the revisions that
064we received this morning but um it appears that we're not voting on a chaplain policy per se but we're voting on revising our current policies regarding counselors and volunteers or employees and volunteers um when you say a chaplain policy we're not creating a standalone policy that addresses chap but we are addressing chaplain within the appropriate policies that would allow them okay to be employed or to volunteer got you answer that question yes so I you know just thinking about listening to as Lucas said listening to our parents and our community um and uh it appears the way it's written that it could be considered yes that that those that say yes we want Chaplin in our schools as counselors yes if they meet the requirements to being a counselor or it could say no that
065we're not allowing chaplain to be employed as counselors unless they meet the requirements it just seems like we're threading the needle and I'm not saying that's a bad thing I'm just saying that that's I think that's what your intention of writing it this way um I do have some questions though the um well let me before I get to that part let me go to uh the feedback that we did receive from parents and the community the board received many emails uh and we appreciate the input from our community the by my count we received 20 or I personally received 25 that said no that they do not want chaplain to be employed um as counselors um and nine said yes and then the speaker so was almost a three to one uh and the
066speakers were about two to one tonight um and Julie can I just ask a point of clarity for you when you say they don't want chaplain to be employed as counselors um I would say I'm not going to be able to honor that because if I have a faith-based leader who who qualifies um and meets the credentials um then I'm going to consider them for the role of counselor I I think maybe the sentiment just we all use Shand is that I I don't want a chaplain in place of a guidance counselor right well and let me let me back up then because um a lot of my thought process my notes were prior to the revision that we received this morning the way the position we received the revision we received this morning actually
067adds chaplain as a position it's it's under DP local and DP legal where they that is for principls school n nurses School psychologists um and other Mental Health Professions it now adds a section for chaplains to me it looks like we are preparing to add a position for School Chaplain and Cipher ISD when I look at some of the Fe the responses to um emails that to parents um the only thing it the heading is chaplain but it it but it is a heading just like school counselors just like principal just like School nurses it appears to me since it is a heading of a title of an employment position that we are considering adding chaplain as a paid position in Cipher ASD let me finish my thought please um in some of the responses
068from Mr Henry to parents who wrote in to express concern he says specifically um talks about the potential inclusion of chaplain in cfd schools that we're going to engage in discussions over the next few months over the next few months we will discuss we will discuss these points I feel like there is possibly some thought process of going uh going on of adding chaplain as a paid position in C cfd so I guess my question would be has there been discussion by board members of adding chaplain as a paid position well the law required us to discuss it as a not no the law requires under chapter 23 I'm talking about separate from 23 chapter 23 I'm talking about as a separate paid position I'll ask the Administration has there been discussion within the administration
069of adding an employment position for School Chaplain yeah I mean yes we've we've fully considered it because that yeah because the law well we consider that on our own because the law said we need to consider this so we considered it so we could make a recommendation to the board because you all rely on our recommendation and I I certainly in in putting chaplain out to the side don't um the rules of the candid of construction for legal um while headings are um informative the actual body of the policy is what's enforcable and so it says chaplain out to the side you can see it says chaplain and then it reads the board through this policy affirms the district's current practice of considering for employment any qualified individual including a chaplain or other faith-based leader
070for any position that the chaplain or other faith-based leader qualifies so I was and that's I can take that word out I was just trying to draw attention to it because the law requires us to address it through policy so I apologize if I really do if that was confusing Julie because I didn't mean to M Mudd it is it is alarming I will say um it doesn't confuse me I understand how the document is set up um so it's it's not confusing I think it is alarming um I think it is uh it could be misunderstood as uh creating a position of chaplain in sesd I also specifically asked at the diic meeting that this document be presented be made public facing so that people could see what that we were going to be
071discussing no it we should not be having to read this out loud multiple times so that the public can have a half a clue of what we're talking about the public needs to be able to read this in advance of the meetings and I appreciate that feedback that's typically not been my advice to the board regarding um things that we've generally not um posted because often times we're making changes um I you know sometimes I'm putting things at your place um so that you can consider it um I fully knew that I was going to have to we presented to some groups we shared I fully knew I was going to have to read this this is unfortunately this is something that because of the unique situation in our district that we're that we're addressing
072now some you know we could have addressed it in the fall but Dr Henry said I'm retiring we're going to have a new leader uh we have elections we knew we would have at least three new board members and so it's going to be a different group of people here in January and he just felt like it was really a decision that the new superintendent and the new board wanted to make so we always knew yeah I mean you knew that you were board officer and we told you guys that and so I do regret that we're here you know feeling a little probably you're feeling a a little rushed um and I and I hate that I never want my board to feel rushed or pressed about anything just like I want to hear
073what language that you think would would better convey what we're trying to convey but um it's it's been a it's to answer your question yeah it's it's been an ongoing discussion you know Dr Killian welcome to the door here you know uh you know I hit him with two or three things that we' been saving up but yeah I mean we talked about it I mean I he's okay I'm sorry he's experienced knows I mean he's he was he's an experienced superintendent he understands this issue very well and we do too I don't know that that is necessarily contributing to this conversation um I know that my colleagues have a lot they want to also share so I want to pass on uh along but um I know Nellie uh shared some uh extensive information
074with the board uh today I guess we received it today or yesterday today she sent to you and then you sent to us um uh background information in support of um uh Senate Bill 763 um uh I did notice it did there was a point in there about uh getting cfd data um uh is which I thought was interesting because I'm not sure where this document came from but somebody who said let's get some cfd data and that really um explains why um our counseling department was requested about a week ago to provide significant uh uh request for information for significant data um it actually included one hundreds of pages of information one document alone contain 19,000 lines of data so I questioned the use of our our district resources um uh in order to
075uh gather what was the target uh Target data getting cfd data in support of um a School Chaplain policy I also have a concern that in this document um under sboe guidance which has been shared twice tonight um uh number seven School Chaplain may also function as a school Guardian I have a concern about armed chaplain in our camp on our campuses I will say uh one the we're not making that recommendation we don't have a guardian program um I am concerned I I do uh want to acknowledge that one of the speakers is from an organization that is a promoter of um School Chaplain in uh Texas schools um one of the speakers actually mention the name of the person who's behind that a self-described former drug smuggling pirate uh who promotes School Chaplin
076as a tool for evangelism um and prosti sizing students under Mission generation uh I won't read all his background but he was sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy to overthrow the national government and international drug trafficking um but now he has formed an organization to Target the largest Network in our country the school system when you had all the parents and teachers you're talking about 50% of the country so our program the National School Chaplain program has the potential to impact half the population of the entire nation it would have taken me many lifetimes to build enough churches and Bible schools to do the same thing the sboe member whose uh information we've been shared uh has been shared with us as a board uh she and her husband are actually on the board
077uh of the School Chaplain Association so I had some question about her intentions as well uh the Texas impact which is an organization of hundreds of faith-based leaders in Texas are opposed to um SB 763 specifically the differences in training which has been pointed out tonight uh required uh to be a uh a chaplain such as on a in a hospital on a ship in a prison and the almost non-existent standards set forth in this bill quote school children in Texas aren't going to be provided the same protections as we give to Texas prisoners one other piece of information I want to share uh looking at other school districts when looking at this um topic the school districts that said no in any capacity Houston Dallas McKenna and they they used it through DP local
078Frisco Plano uh ones that said no as counselor or no as employees but yes as volunteers very similar to what we what we are considering Mansville Great Vine cville Keller Fort Worth for Round Rock Georgetown Fluker Lamar Consolidated Brownsboro cantillo edinberg Gainesville Godley cville San Elizario and San Marcus I do think that we can adopt a policy we can actually take a vote that we will not adopt a policy authorizing a campus of the district or school or a school to employ or accept as a volunteer a chaplain under chapter 23 the Education Code the last thing I want to say is about um gkg volunteers that's very different than paid employees so I have volunteered as a mentor alongside so many faith-based leaders over many years um youth ministers uh lead pastors of some
079of our local churches um we've always focused on being the role of a mentor we uh they never bring their day job in to our campuses I've never observed anything inappropriate uh in anyone pushing any religious beliefs we have always gone in purely for the reason to love on kids uh and be a positive influence in their lives I am grateful for all the faith-based organizations across our district that have adopted schools and that serve in our in our schools I propose to address concerns by the community that um we revise the policy to specify that Global volunteers and mentors do not provide quote restorative discipline and restorative justice practices Mental Health Services Behavioral Health Services or programs designed to related to Suicide Prevention intervention or postvention and those are words specifically quoted from s
080SP 763 if SB 763 provides that a school board May employ or accept as a volunteer a chaplain to provide support services and programs for students as assigned by the Board of Trustees it seems that we can also state in policy what chaplain cannot do that is those are the words that I would like to see added to kg K C sorry g k g and I can send those to you in email Marne Christine so Marne just for clarification we are not looking to replace our school counselors we love our school counselors we love that they're certified they're an integral part of our entire District we law them we honor them we support them we are not looking to implement a chaplain to take the place of a school counselor you're 100% correct and
081I think it's school counselor month or week or getting close to it yeah so you're exactly yeah the beginning of the month so you're exactly right you've you've stated clearly how we feel about our counselors sorry nalie uh thank you Mr President um um I um Miss Sims Could you um give us a summary of the language in Senate Bill 763 one time I heard a lot about budget I don't think this is a budget item on the table I think it's a policy item so could you tell me just the facts about actually read the language of the Senate Bill 763 so I can make sure I'm clear on exactly what we're called to do by vote yes or no on by the law sure the when I mentioned the budget I was sharing
082that in terms of what we considered when right so you're saying you making a decision about policy based on budget but this isn't a budget decision it's a policy decision that's why I wanted to make sure I was super clear right it's not a budget decision because we've not recommended creating a position that would then go into the budget so could you seven like make it super clear a summary of the language of Senate Bill 763 for us please yes so a school district um May employ or accept as a volunteer a chaplain to provide support services and programs for students as assigned by the Board of Trustees of the district uh a chaplain employed or volunteering is not required to be certified by the State Board of educator certification a school district trying to
083skip over or open world Charter um that employs or accepts a volunteer sorry I don't have my glass as a volunteer a chaplain oh I always try to act like I don't need these but oh fabulous so as a volunteer a chaplain under this chapter shall ensure that the chaplain complies with the applicable requirements under sub chapter C chapter22 which is the uh provision that says if you're going to volunteer you have to uh pass certain uh background checks um before the chaplain begins employment or volunteering at the school district um a school district may not employ or accept as a volunteer a chaplain who has been convicted of or placed UND deferred adjudication or Community Supervision for um any act that requires registration as a a sex offender or certain um under that provision
084in the penal code perfect I think the rest is all about the finance code 23 that created a very different category than counselor right in the in the uh funding code that the object 23 was brand new separate from counseling is that chapter 23 is entitled School Chaplain and it's under that that says that a school district May employ or accept as a volunteer a chaplain is that what you're asking me yes thank you okay so the language that is before us and and the Senate Bill 763 says a school district May employ or accept as a volunteer chaplain right so then we have the obligation to vote yay or nay to hire or employ as a volunteer or chaplain is that accurate um I don't I read it as you have to make a
085decision uh whether you're going to allow a chaplain to be employed or volunteer um I know um you shared with me that um the original author was saying that you know the intent was for there to be a decision about are you going to create a position as the plain language of the statute yeah so a school district May employ or accept as a volunteer chaplain yes or no so then you would be voting yes that you're employing them or no you're not or you'd be voting yes you're accepting as a volunteer or no you're not is that accurate do you think is that a a fair interpretation it says yes whether you will accept a chaplain um for employment or as a volunteer and a chaplain of course is a faith-based leader in an
086institution um of other than a a religious institution so they're basically a faith-based leader and so as we talked about it I said I you know we we currently employ some pastors and faith-based leaders so so let me ask the next question can you um draw me to the policies that were proposed actually no can you go can you please read me gkg legal and can you read me G uh the other one F can you read me the legal we just have local I'd like to DP legal so the Pol the legal policies are a um restatement of the law and so we don't we don't affect those I will pull up is that from tasby have they already written it they create that yes because we consume their service to do that right
087yes so we that to me um the policy that is uh written either um under one of these categories or may actually be under a different category that's what I'm intrigued to see so let's see and I don't know if we've gone all the way through the latest update that incorporated all of the um legislative changes so I don't know where it is okay well I'll be here waiting to see if we can get that please because I think that was passed in um January is that right no I'm saying I am not sure where it's if it's in GK uh gkg or DP I I haven't looked through all of the legal policies from the last update to figure out where word search by chaplain because I definitely would like to the legal policy
088on this from tasby please let's see don't know pull up so let me look at gkg which would be a restatement of what I just read so I'm I'm not sure this is actually the place in policy I like what you did I thought it was very clever actually to see if this could be a place to do this right I'm just afraid that the law is asking us to do something different than what we've actually accomplished in these two policies it may be a way to do it but I'd like to know what the legal policy that was put out by tasby in our board service that we purchased what it says I don't see it in gkg uh let's see it's can I pull up board policy on here word search by chaplain
089would that work not coming up I may let's see see chapter 23 23 0 sometimes if I search by so I don't see it may not be uh it may not be updated because we haven't put in our local policy because we haven't done that yet but is it available from tasby could could uh Council go research that maybe our ass I can look and see if it is available we have a provision in our B series that says following a legislative year that because we know it sometimes takes us some time for policy to catch up that if we um anything in our current polic local policy that's inconsistent with the law as passed that the that the law supersedes so we know it's law and we know it was passed six months ago
090and we knew we had to vote by this month in by law so I'm wondering why we wouldn't have legal policy yet on something that we're asked to vote on um under the law because it would be part of the update yeah I'm just mean so maybe our tasby service isn't getting it done for us in time I'm just trying to understand why we would not have polic legal policy yet uh we haven't uh gone through the update yet okay so I'm then going to just take the law and assume since you said the law basically translate into legal policy right so at this point uh we have established that the law says a district yes or no employee yes or no volunteer the position of a chaplain right doesn't say a position of a
091chaplain that's where you and I you were reading that to me that the said and the language does not say that it says a school district okay let me ask you this did the did a chaplain position exist in our um employee uh in our job descriptions or our employee before this yes or no do we have any position called chaplain that had a job description and a title that could be hired in our district prior to this day no so we have no chaplain we don't have a position of chaplain that could be hired in a position is that accurate we don't have the position of chaplain we may have faith-based leaders who are employed so when I vote on this policy here I'm not actually voting on what the law says because this
092is saying and oh wait let me ask you this so did the why was this law written did the position of School Chaplain exist why would they write a law if something existed so did the position of School Chaplain School Chaplain position exist in some districts when I in the N when I was a baby lawyer in my prior life um I represented bman ISD and they had chaplain it was held unconstitutional so it it is um well I mean I'm not being flip I really am being serious so I mean we haven't had that but I that concept um was not nonexistent Tod have we do we have in our books a position called School Chaplain we do not know and did the law provide for school CH law provide why did they write
093senal 763 in your legal opinion I I don't know I mean I suspect that um as I said earlier here here truly I mean I there this bill may very well feel a need in somewhere in our state you got to remember there's well over a thousand school districts we are a vast large State and we happen to be lucky that we're in an area where we have you know resources and staff you know I don't know well out in West Texas they I'm counseling is probably a critical short be fair I probably shouldn't ask you for an opinion because I didn't want the opinion on the other I wanted the facts on the law so let me ask this question I'll come back to what I think the law is saying and what our
094policy isn't addressing and maybe offer a revision so my question is this and I don't know who actually would answer it I do know that Franklin has the answer Dr Samson but um can you tell me right now I know we don't have vacan sces in the counselor position can you share with me how many students per counselor we have in our district ratio of counselors to students in each school oh gosh no I couldn't but um I think that yeah I have it here too but I think it would be better to hear from the expert okay sure which one maybe both the numbers and the ratios I know you have both thank you so much awesome oh you think it's in DP illegal good evening everyone oh and I'm so sorry Franklin before
095you start my my trusty assistant here I think it's in DP legal it is but I'm trying so we're trying to pull it up and we've not adopted it yet so so that's why it's not on here so thank you board president our superintendent Dr Killian uh the question was what is our current ratio as it relates to counselors uh and for students uh right now we're at roughly one to uh 414 so one counselor per students thank you so I think and you had it very particularly at our elementary schools we have 54720 kids 18 counselors and it's 1 to 464 students in our Middle School um it's 1 to 437 students in our high schools it's 1 to 348 students is that accurate it is accurate and let me mention that we are
096below the national average the national average is 1 to 480 so cfd U is well below that national average at well thank goodness because that's a lot of um I'm proud of the decisions made here like you said we've put adequate resources this isn't a resource decision but maybe it is because to me that's uh you know from my high schooler 348 students to one counselor does seem like a steep number um let me um thank you I don't want to make you stand but I'd also like to just um uh consider the job description of a counselor so we already know the ratio of um just tell me if this is accurate if you think I think it's up to date and and thank you to Dr Stewart's office for providing that but so
097in 348 students as a high school counselor this is what I have to do I need to hopefully I have it in this packet I may not I have to grab mine one second and I will just say right now I want to call out the names of three amazing counselors I've worked with in my school ruela Maya Beverly Martin and Karen Sims those are some of the most amazing professionals I've ever worked with I'm going to make sure and send the link because they made a difference for every kid every day and they made sure that those kids had their needs met and counselors are amazing and this is the very months to celebrate them and they need help is my opinion they need help because a counseling job is hard this is what
098a counselor at the high school has to do in their job description I don't I don't want to make you stand there awkwardly so if you um you can just odd so this is the job description of a counselor in our high schools look how handsome and well-dressed he is he's never like him there and he's smiling at me but um I don't I don't want to make you feel strange there so thank you okay so the the essential functions of this high school counselor versus guidance curriculum plan organize Implement and deliver structured group lessons group lessons um small group lessons um improve students interpersonal interpersonal Effectiveness personal health and safety post-secondary planning and Readiness and other developmental needs they need to provide responsive Services respond to problematic or critical incidents to support students and
099offer services in time of need preventative activities and to remove barriers that interfere with students educational career personal and social development and Remediation and coping with problem situations are un wise choices identify precipitating and antecedent factors effective and ineffective approaches to dealing with the circumstances and provide feedback to guide decisions support students in crisis situations requiring an immediate response maintain a healthy and safe School environment by collaborating with District staff parents or Guardians and local officials provide continued support to students in need through individual counseling small group counseling consultation or referral to Services outside the school or District serve as an impartial non-reporting resource for interpersonal conflicts and discourse involving two or more students including accusations of bullying so that was just the second function so now I've covered their need to do guidance curriculum
100and responsive Services there's three more um individual planning create School counseling services that are Developmental and age appropriate and provide information or literature that highlights related topics to students teachers and administrators assist individual students and their parents or Guardians and monitoring their academic career personal and social development as they progress in school act as a a student Advocate leader collaborator and systems change agent advocate for a school environment that acknowledges and respects diversity and ensures Equitable access and placement in courses and programs for minority disenfranchised homeless or other special populations interpret standardized test results offer Career Development activities provide strategies for grade level Transitions and guide students into individual goal setting and planning including creating and reviewing personal graduation plans and providing information about post-secondary opportunities the next category of support in their job description
101think we get the idea so my point is that this is an incredibly overworked group of people 400 kids to do all that for I feel for our counselors I love our counselors I would never in my personal opinion want to make anyone to replace a counseling role but I do think they have a lot on their plate and I think anywhere that a position could be offered that would give them support in getting things done it's different than being in the counseling office when I have to make graduation plans and I know schools intimately couldn't do it without a counselor but there's also this uh ability for others to be flexible and free to move about out to meet the needs of students every day because students are in crisis and it's nice that
102someone does someone not responsible for all these jobs could partner with the counselor and so that is a a critical um uh area so when we look at the budget and we say we're staff there yes in fact we're underst staff there because I don't think it's a very doable job to do all that for 400 students so now I'll just I'll go back to policy Mr President thank you for so um so if we we understood did you get the legal policy up yet okay could you read legal please yes so um a school a district May employ or accept as a volunteer a chaplain to provide support services and programs for students as assigned by the board a chaplain employed or volunteering is not required to be certified by aspect a district that
103employs or accepts as a volunteer a chaplain shall ensure that the chaplain complies with the applicable background checks as I mentioned I will read the whole statute a district may not employ except as a volunteer a chaplain who's been convicted placed on deferred adjudication Community supervis Etc just the law basically right yes it's what I just read you okay so the law so then if I read our gkb uh actually I'll do the DP the employment one right it says the Board of Trustees through this policy affirms the district's current practice of considering for employment did we just did you tell me that we have never had a chaplain position so our current practice does have a chaplain uh uh position right in doing a chaplain's role our current practice of considering for employment any
104qualified individual including a chaplain so what you're telling other faith-based Curr employ faith-based leaders right but we don't employ them in the chaplain role we're employing them in sometimes the director of guidance and counseling no I'm what I'm saying to you is he's the director of guidance and counseling you just told me that we do not have a position in our books in the human resources that says chaplain correct correct so this policy actually doesn't answer the law in my opinion because it says I I I hear what you're saying I respect uh how you are reading it I understand you're reading it to say employ them in the position of chaplain the language is Not That explicit so as I read it I do believe that this uh facially addresses the law and is
105consistent with our practice and um but you all are the board and so if you I definitely might like outside Council to advise us on this and see if they have that same read because to me I'm not sure if capitals or not and other guidance well I'm the general counsel and I'm the counsel to the board and this is my advice so that's why I'm wondering if maybe there's another opinion on that okay so I'm not going to seek outside Council opinion unless the board as a whole would like me to do so but otherwise I am the general counsel yeah I'm just wondering about how we um clarify then if we feel like it's a difference of of that how we I will prop a difference of opinion between sort it out right
106I would like to propose um some language um um that um can yeah I would love to hear it so taken straight from the law um I've U I've written some revised language for DP local and I would um ask us to consider I know Julie had some revisions she wanted to consider so this will be the ones I'm submitting um the language for DP local would say in line with the legal policy you just read the school district May employ a chaplain to provide support services and programs for students as assigned by the Board of Trustees of the district a chaplain under under this policy is not required to be certified by the state board for educator certification but must meet qualifications established by the Board of Trustees and then some language I would
107like to propose for gkg local would be um adding just a paragraph below the ones that you did there um I think we have an amazing volunteers amazing Global volunteers incredible people people of Faith people not of Faith just beautiful human beings who volunteer every day and Mentor um but I would think that the to address the law that we would add this text at the bottom for the purposes of this policy the school district May accept as a volunteer a School Chaplain to provide support services and programs for students as assigned by the Board of Trustees of the district just to call the position out because I think it more closely aligns with the law and legal policy are saying so I will submit those in as um request to have revisions so probably
108on Monday thank you so probably on Monday I'll have some alternate versions for you all to consider because we've had some um language revision requests which is great that's what this pra that's what this is supposed to be that's why it's the workshop and that's why we talk about things um in committee and I know we've gotten from the community various um you know just kind of questions about this new process I think the policy uh excuse me the Committees board committees so far have been great and um it's helpful and U but this is exactly what it's meant to do the individual board committee will hear and and with the uh partnering with the administration will'll make recommendations but the full discussion is with the board and only action is taken by the full
109board so absolutely so I'll get some um alternate versions and um get back to you I could I ask a question of Human Resources um so giving her awarding she's like okay um Deborah can you um we have uh large number of the positions in our district have like uh teachers our state board of educator certified principles how many positions or what there are are there several positions in our school district that are not a certified position through the State Board of Education will you repeat that the last yes the question is are there do we have several or many positions in our school district that are not ones that come through State Board of educator certification yes yes and then do we have standards for them do we have ways that we hold them
110in our employment mment procedures maybe in the um training requirements for the job um any uh sort of credentials or education maybe like for example nutrition services they have to have certain certificates or training or credentials there are job requirements and they vary there could be a particular job and you just need a high school diploma there are others that you would need certification so they vary thank you you're welcome um and then U listing very I took notes I really appreciate everyone having comments and giving feedback I wanted to make one statement the idea about parent uh parent voice parent autonomy over their decisions for their child I 100% concur that nothing should be done without the permission of the parents and so that would be no different for me in the services of
111any um individual in the school in a chaplain position so I think the that feedback from the community I think we all agree that parents are the ultimate voice for their children and then I just wanted to um address the issue of lawsuit because this is a law in Texas it has already cleared this idea of being illegal and so I thought that was um I would like a little bit more information about I think you did a great job of explaining this establishment versus free exercise and so I do think that the law passed because it it's was you know there were arguments there about constitutional law and stuff and so um I just didn't know if there was any more you had information about that the the the challenge and I think think
112I shared this maybe when you and I talked one off and definitely in um committee I think would be more in the implementation um which is where in in my uh prior life we um had the challenges I you know in a district this size um all the campuses um having you know consistent implementation on such on an issue that requir such um I mean it it it's a it's a needle to thread to borrow uh a phrase from Miss hinaman um that's where I think we would have the the issue and people have you know we've talked about like people say Well they're you know Hospital chaplain and and army chaplain and prison chaplain and I think someone even referenced that and the the concept of the chaplain though as I understand and I
113have family a family member who's a chaplain it arose in the context of when individuals are really unable to exercise their their free exercise you're incarcerated you're um Hospital bound um you're deployed um that's the reason that at least they initially began and those that serve you in a long tenard and so obviously a student in the community can you know would go home and go to church with their parents as you as you just said and so so when we compare a a chapy program in the in the Army where there are adults in in a different setting it's it's hard it's not Apples to Apples I guess is what I'm saying it's so the implementation in the school setting um would require um there would be non proling it would um it it
114would have to be implemented in a way that much like we do now if you were to employ a a a faith-based leader you shouldn't be able to tell them apart from the wonderful coach that was a mentor to one of the speakers who by their their presence and the way they live their life and the way they talk that they are it's clear you know that they're a Godly person and that and that and the people are are drawn to that and then they can have referrals by counselors to outside Services they can have mentors so just to summarize that what you're telling us is that because this policy is not to draw out we are saying yes or no to employing we're saying yes or no to accepting as Volunteers chaplain's in the
115title and role like your family member you mentioned of chaplain and then from there we have to draw draw out what can we pull it off right is this something we can do how does it look in a school sitting because what we're actually realizing is it's brand new there's a new law because it didn't exist there's no positions in our system right and so then there would be can that look can we pull it off what would it look like right and I would say to the concerns noted by people who spoke about prz I agree but there's also just common core values in fact my very first assistant principal's office I asked kids to do some art um competition and we all agree on stewardship Justice solidarity and compassion balance and peace every
116the Interfaith shared values are something that is that ties us together as a person and so this is something that um I feel like someone who's able to um help the counselors that comes from shared values should be a value ad for our campus so thank you Marty for your hard work on it thank you for the team um sorry for uh taking a minute um but I want to just end with saying our school counselors are heroes and they have an impossible job and I would love to be able to offer them some support of another person who's just present to be able to notice and note and keep the school um safe keep the school more uh just and I have a vision I'm just going to share with the last story I
117supervised Booker T Washington High School in Houston ISD and I also supervised Wheatley and Yates all at the same time Mr Kent was a volunteer he walked the school every day he happened to be a pastor in the community and he was a volunteer he he was there every single day Walking The Halls noticing noting um the first day on the job as a new high school supervisor in HIC I was called out of the principal's meeting because a kid was trying to jump off the roof of Booker T Washington and so kids are in chist kids have been in crisis but watching that man operate he was just a calm presence the kids knew they could count on checked in noticed things talked to them um and uh one day we had a young
118man who was in a residential treatment facility it was the day they took away Good Friday as a holiday because of the weather back in those days before minutes yes and um the principal there leanda is like oh man I'd order my crawfish and so a couple days later I'm back checking on the campus she says I I got it for everyone I said oh The Faculty she said no everyone so that day the Sun shining the purple table plastic tablecloth the dad's over there cooking the Crawfish and there's Mr Kent sitting next to a young man um who was um there at the residential treatment facility so new so um didn't have friends yet he was teaching them how to undo crawfish and I thought to myself that's love that wasn't about religion that
119wasn't about anything else that was just about caring and being present for a young man and so I would love I hope Mr Ken can join us guess what I tried to call him today and he was there at Booker T Washington with I heard the radio that man's still walking in the Halls as a volunteer and he's making a difference and the difference was tangible in the data and the outcomes of the school um it outperformed so I um so I would love to see that be able to be something for our students in our district so I appreciate the time thank you Julie you have a COR question yes just one more quick question um and for Dr Killian because I'm not sure uh does the board have the authority to create an
120EMP employee position well generally not without a recommendation from what I understand so Council um I I do think the board could create um a position um the superintendent what your I think Dr killing what what you're thinking of is in chapter 21 when it's um regarding a position that's been created the superintendent has a sole Authority except for specifically enumerated Provisions or excuse me positions which would be um you me the board can fire me so I may be you know this may maybe my last meeting but um and so so other than these specific the sole Authority um under both chapter 11 and uh our local policy DC um you have the sole authority to recommend for you know and to hire um and to recommend for termination so the board like individually
121supon cannot um terminate or hire but if a to create a position then you would fill it if that makes Mak sense right or not or not okay thank you everyone uh thank you for your comments and questions uh I have just just one or two sorry about that the law states that we have to do two things which is either up or down a job or either up up or down a volunteer is that correct as I understand it very plainly as I read the law it says that you as a board um vote whether or not by policy to allow a chaplain to be employed or to volunteer and so I I definitely understand what Dr blaston okay got yes yeah okay we're not pained by the word tonight Marty um but I
122do appreciate uh and I want to be sensitive to time um that was the issue I was a little concerned about putting it in in DP because it looked like a position to me as well and I was trying to be very careful about that um the consensus I hear is we don't want a position for chaplain just to be honest and that may hurt some feelings but um that's just a consensus I hear however we don't want to discriminate as a Viewpoint that chaplain can't be volunteers how do we put that in the policy to say that we don't discriminate against chaplain can we take out can we basically amend this to say DP is gone and then change um GK gkg I mean lots of words here yeah and in that would meet
123the requirement I was kind of taking um the belts and suspenders approach um so if the feedback is to prevent confusion we remove DP and so we don't have the non-discrimination statement um in there but we are clear through gkg that we do encourage and accept um all qualified volunteers and mentors including those of Faith um and uh we would put you know the language as written in gkg G so yes that would certainly be another thing that the board could do all right so what what I'm going to say just kind of wrap this whole thing up is um to make this easy and palatable for everyone involved I would say if you want to change things um to make a modific a motion in your motion to make those changes board so that
124to make it fair for everyone involved to make those motions um I think the consensus is that DP would would be gone on based on I'm hearing um however someone to put that back they can make that motion and then U maybe if y'all have suggestions for gkg to make it different make it tighter or make whatever y'all want to do as a board give those individually to Marney please do not copy the entire group and please do not respond to the entire group so we don't have a Walkin cor please um and then um she'll then put those out to the board in hopefully enough time that we can review those please yes sir please don't wait till Monday at 4 yes sir um to be be consider of everyone involved if that's okay
125with the board that's what I'm hearing it consens of that let's continue on then um based on that and again um we will have this will be two months of uh of fund to go through this so we can also change these as we continue on but I'm just hearing a consensus of that okay any other questions about this uh we will move on from that let's continue on to my notes and we will go on to 7c the board consider approving the calendar committee's recommendations for the 2024 2025 instructional calendar we do have a presentation tonight by Dr L msas and Dr Clayborn is that correct that is correct thank you um good evening president Henry and board members Dr Killian uh it's that time of eaver again to review a potential calendar that
126is proposed to you by the 2425 instructural calendar committee this school year or this year we actually assembled a committee via an application process and the application process opened December 11th and closed December 22nd and we had uh a huge response to uh participate in the committee we had 501 applications actually and then once we kind of duplicated that we ended up with 486 uh applications to serve on the instructional committee so for your information you uh you can see that we randomly select it um applicants or or or members for this committee to represent these areas of teachers parents community members non-campus staff and also some campus principles and then just to be clear this is what the membership actually looked like 76 members and this is a representation that that uh that you
127saw we really work to make sure that every feeder pattern high school was well represented and uh that's the first thing we did actually we made sure that we placed all of the applicants by these categories at each feater pattern and then we randomly selected um the membership from there and even in our committee meetings everyone was seated by their feeder pattern to make sure that we had uh accurate and appropriate representation and comment from all areas of our of our district I'd like to take a moment I'm not sure how many are still here but invited some of our Comm our committee members that could come to join us and just for them to be recognized if you served on the 2020 2425 calendar committee please stand do we have anybody still here all
128right so we still have a couple people I saw some of them uh leave just a little bit ago I want to thank all the committee members because they worked very hard on this on this committee and even our last one which was on Monday was supposed to end at at 6:30 and we went through uh through seven pretty much s to um uh work hard and there was a lot of negotiation and compromise but they did uh come up with a with a uh they voted there was a um a vote on a um calendar to propose to you so this is this this was a priority this was the focus this was what they were charged to do to recommend to the school board an instructional calendar based on what is instructionally best
129for students and I just want to repeat the last part again a calendar that is instruct best for students and that's what they worked on that's what they compromised on and uh and we had a majority vote that supported the calendar that I'm going to share with you in just just a bit you may recall from LA from last month that the board voted for the district to be a district of innovation that has been filed with the state and accepted by the state and one of the areas was the uh an exemption from the actual law that uh required that we we start school uh no earlier than the last Monday in in uh in August so this this this DOI provision provided the the calendar committee with flexibility regarding a start date so
130very different what what we've ever done in cyer ISD and you're going to see the calendar it the proposed calendar is very different from whatever from you've seen in Cypher ISD there are calendar Provisions or parameters that we shared with the committee some of them are just plain law and the the law is very clear that we must have at least 75,000 600 minutes in uh in our calendar that first word minimum a minimum of 75,6 minutes it also says that our teachers continue to be on days 170 87 day contract it says that we must have inclement weather days posted on the calendar and and I share that with you because they are posted on the calendar but because we're required to have them posted but typically we've always had several days uh extra
131in the calendar so that if we had some in come in weather days we wouldn't have to make them up just like this year we've already had one this year we didn't have to make that day of because we had plenty of of time within the calendar and then it says that a district may not end School basically before uh prior to May 15th so those are that's law that's law this of course with the um with the district inovation we don't have to abide by that there's some flexibility regarding when school starts additionally we shared with the calendar committee parameters that that uh that have been constant in this district and also that we need to pay attention to again the instructionally best for students that's the P primary reason for this we shared
132with them I shared with them that I hope to see a minimum of 173 instructional days in the calendar right now there are 168 days in in in the in the instructional calendar that basically the fewest days in our surrounding School District we have a a uh population that is I believe 63 64% Fe reduced lunch uh we have a new state assessment we have new standards our kids need to be in in school I think Dr blasting game you've talked about time on task right the additional time on task for our kids uh we talked about looking looking for opportunities to balance the the the semesters as much as possible um and we typically have a challenge with that that this the fall semester is much shorter and we're really rushing through it than
133the than the spring semester now we have that opportunity because of of the flexibility with the with the calendar uh we talked about the timing of professional development days and uh and the opportunity to have more days or the days throughout the year where we we could have just in time professional development for teachers and then we also looked at the the State Testing days we want to make sure we don't have a a teacher holiday or student holiday that's on the day of one of the state the state test we talked about student attendance I've talked about the the uh inclement weather days that we' like to include in there and we also talked about about some of the summer programs whether they're District or with Lone Star College we also talked about uh
134parameters of of things that were that been important to our community um spring break aligning that spring break to lonar college and even un linning it to our surrounding School District districts because we have teachers who live in Klein for example who teach in scere we have teachers who live in cyfair who teach in Katie so being able to align those that spring break uh with the surrounding school districts and also lonar College because we don't want our our community does not want our te our kids having to have work that they're that they have to do because we're not in line with lonar college um election uh the two weeks at at the one week at Thanksgiving has been a constant in this district and continues to be important to the community two weeks
135for for the winter break holiday has also been a constant important election day you all you all know that for for some years now we have made a professional day and that has been a a safety issue especially at the elementary school they've been concerned with the um just a lot of strangers on campus during election day and then these are the holidays that have been constant in the calendar have been important to our to our um to our district to our community just for your information there are different resources that the community I mean that the instructional calendar looked at one of them was a superintendent leadership student leadership committee and put so these are the high school students that serve on on on Dr Killian's uh student committee they gave input on on
136on start dates and it's very consistent with what we're going to share with you in a little bit with the calendar we also had a community input survey that Dr clayon will walk us through in just a second also a region 4 the uh really uh brings all the districts together and we all share what our start dates are going to be just what the calendar might look like uh including spring break we looked at surrounding District calendars again I just I just shared we want to make sure that that we are as closely in line so we're not competing with uh with the school districts and then they also look the Lone Star College um calendar specifically for spring break so Dr clayon can you um walk us through the calendar oh through the
137survey I will begin tonight by giving you a brief overview of the cair instru instructional calendar survey process the survey went live on January the 18th and was publicized to cyer staff parents and community members via text Cipher website and email beginning on January the 19th the survey ran until noon on February the 2nd since everyone who participated in the survey used the same web address we had instances of multiple responses coming from the same internet protocol address also known as IP address this is an identifying number that is associated with a specific computer or computer network therefore we will provide you with two data sets for each question one set will have all responses captured and the second set will only have one response from any given IP address as Dr msas mentioned the
138data taken from the survey were used by the committee as one one piece of information while considering various calendar options an initial data set was presented to the committee on January the 25th and the final data set was presented on February the 5th tonight we will share the results from all participants and then two additional disaggregated groups one for parents and one for District employees let's start with the results from all participants I I will Begin by orienting you to how the data are presented on the slides the survey question is in the top leftand corner for this Slide the question is which best describes you directly below the question you will find the number of respondents for this first Slide the number or the N for this question was 26,2 this is the data
139set with all submitted responses directly below the number of respondents you will find the results for that question then you will see a second number of responses that are unique for each IP address in this case the number or the N is 18,29 directly below the number of unique responses you will find the results from that group as we move through the remainder of the slides I will read each question while you review the results if you are a district employee which best describes your current assignment and again the data for all responses are on the top and the unique IP address data are on the bottom if you have children in the district which best describes their educational level what is the earliest dat you would like to see school starts for students in
140August of 2024 please note this was a new question for us this year now that the board has approved us to be a district of innovation we're no longer bound to begin school on the last Monday in August therefore we wanted to get feedback on possible school start dates the top five responses are shown on this slide if we took a break in October how many days should it include for students this is another new question for US based on our district of innovation status if we took a break in October how many days should it include for teachers and then we surveyed on which individuals would prefer one week for Thanksgiving ending the first semester before the winter break or ending the school year or and ending the school year as close to Memorial
141Day as possible these choices are typical for a cair instructional calendar survey now let's look at the data from those respondents who identified themselves as parents of Cipher students which best describes you if you have children in the district which best describes their educational level what is the earliest date you would like to see school start for students in August of 2024 if we took a break in October how many days should it include for students if we took a break in October how many days should it include for teachers and then the would you prefer statements our final data set is based on District employees again which best describes you if you're a district employee which best describes your current assignment if you have children in the district which best describes their educational level
142what is the earliest date you would like to see school start for students in August of 2024 if we took a break in October how many days should it include for students if we took a break in October how many days should it include for teachers and then finally the three would you prefer statements so I wanted to add that in addition to um the calendar committee proposing this calendar I'm going to share with you by a majority vote yester yesterday was it yesterday yesterday we also met with the di because that's our our committee that we like to get information from and I will share that the deic overwhelmingly also supported the calendar I'm about to share there were five members who could not who would not did not feel they could support it
143so some of the some of the information we shared with with the with the um calendar committee was actually this so I mentioned that we looked at surrounding District data and start dates and I wanted to share this with you just have an idea so up here you have some of our surrounding school districts and you have the start date so you can kind of get an idea about when when they're starting so about August 14th 13th around there is pretty consistent with the surrounding school districts and then we also put uh provided for them and providing for you their um and when the the last day of instruction so you can kind of see also a lot of consistency in there somewhere around the last week in May as the ending for the school
144year for students I mentioned that uh we had the committee divided by feeder patterns and just wanted to share with you each of the feeder patterns they actually all had a a huge uh calendar they worked on and we had we had them posted all around uh the room and and so I just want to give you more information for each of the feeder patterns and what their recommendation was for a proposed um start date and so you can see that those that proposed start date for each one is very consistent with what the surrounding school districts have as their start date a question that has come up um several times now is the teacher work days and I will share a little about the teacher work days but I wanted just to um share
145with you what each com each um Compu pattern recommended as the number of teacher work days and if you recall when I shared the membership it was more teachers than than any other area and the DIC is 2third majority teachers so you can see the recommendation is mostly two teach uh proposed teacher work days a couple of them uh recommended three so let's walk through the actual uh proposed calendar that that is before you so we're going to just go through the entire calendar so we're going to start with when teachers will return to work so teachers in this calendar will return to work on August 5th that is one week earlier than teachers return to work this uh this school year um students would come back on August 14th and let me share just
146real quick that some of the the areas or requests we've been hearing from teachers is that they would like to have kids come back midweek instead of the on a Monday and allow kids to kind of ease into being back in school let me share these others two teachers have also been sharing that they would like a break in October they would like a break in February and they would like to End School somewhere near Memorial Day and I think you're going to see all of this with this calendar so moving to September we have our traditional Labor Day holiday for students and for teachers and then look at October this is very different so October 14th 15th and 16th 16th would be a student teacher holiday there are some uh you we know there's
147some districts that that have the whole week in October and some of our committee members said well we have five days if you think Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday yes we we we we we can buy that that uh that's a week but that's very different if you go to November that's where we have the the uh election day so November 4th would be a professional day I believe that's right member 4th would be a professional uh day and a student holiday and November 5th would be a teacher day and a student holiday now note uh no we don't have the increment weather day day there so if you go to to the 25th week of the 25th that's our traditional week for Thanksgiving and then if you go to December that is our two
148weeks for um the winter holiday that's another question that's come up regarding when the winter day starts that is that is right in line with the surrounding school districts regarding when the winter break is starting the other thing to consider is by having the winter break start there it allows to extend the fall semester even even more if we look uh moving on to January so the winter break continues through January 3rd and then January 6 would be a professional day and a student holiday and then January 20th would be a student day staff holiday that's Martin Luther King day and then you move to February February 14th would be a student and staff holiday and February 17th and 18th would be professional days now I want to be just upfront and share that originally
149when when the committee worked on the calendar they had February 28th as the second Professional Day in February that is a problem and so I send them all an email because that would create three short weeks in February and that is implications for U it creates implications for UIL because there's there's a UIL every three week check and so that's why that dat got moved to the 18th and I send all the committee and email explaining that um then if you move to March that is the spring break so March 10th through March uh 14th Mar I hope that's okay with with your scheme I'm just kidding I'm just kidding and then if you move if you move to uh look at April April 18th is uh is a holiday a student day and then
150April 21st is a teacher work day so two teacher work days on this on this calendar and then if we go to May May 26 is uh Memorial Day so the student teacher holiday May 29th would be the last day for students and then May 30th would be the teacher uh workday a um something that that that this calendar also creates an unintentional I guess uh good thing is that because of the way the calendar Falls and starting one week earlier it actually puts the ending of the first semester in December for both Elementary and for secondary and that is a positive thing especially when our teachers we have teachers who are retiring uh that are Elementary in uh at mid year they can leave in December versus waiting till January like this year so
151that is our instructional uh calendar that's being proposed and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have uh proposed by the calendar committee yes go ahead d one of the things that stands out to me is October 17th and 18th I I don't I don't know how productive that uh a two-day school week would be uh in addition to that I think our attendance rate would be affected obviously that would affect their money right um in addition to that I'm also hearing from teachers that they need or they want more teacher work days uh two two is just I'm what I'm hearing is just not enough so that's some of the feedback that I'm getting um in addition to that I just want to make a comment about the Committees I do appreciate
152everybody U that participate in the Committees but I would like to see more parental representation on these committees that are not employed by cfd and the reason I say that is because and you know I I I got some feedback you know once before saying hey we kind of know you know if there's a teacher that's also a parent and I can appreciate that but we also have a teacher bucket for those folks right so if they don't get picked on this committee maybe they get picked on the next committee but one of the one of the comments was made was um we know a little bit more than what the the average parent knows and that's great but one of the things that I that that I I want to have happen is I
153want to incorporate more uh parental feedback um and so for them to participate in these committees they can actually uh for them to participate in these committees they can actually uh learn from from the teachers from the staff and so they they they feel more a part of what we're trying to do at cfd you know I want I want to incorporate more parents on these committees so that they they can learn as well and and I think their uh their attitude towards certain things would also be affected as well because let's face it if you're if you don't know someone you know you don't really have an opinion of them you know you know good or bad when you put a face to a name and actually start conversating with people guess what I
154you I I think your your attitude and and uh you know it's I just think it can be nothing but positive uh positive to include par more more parents on these committees so that that's the feedback that I have as of right now um so those so are you are for future committees are you wanting us to have because we have more teachers on the committee than parents that that is that is true significantly more right now well we had we we made sure we had for every feeder pattern we had an elementary a middle school and a high school school teacher for each of the feeder patterns and I think that's great maybe maybe we I mean is it are we capped at 76 I mean can we can we have more we can
155certainly have more it's very difficult to come to a consensus as those of you that were there you were there uh uh can see but are you are you uh I just want to make sure Mr L are you asking that in future committees we have more parent representation than teacher representation is that what you're asking that what I'm saying is I I want more parental involvement in these committees I want more pral involvement for multip a multitude of reasons you know uh understanding the process that would that would I think help the community you've got word of mouth that they that these parents can spread I'm a parent myself and you know I had people asking me questions you know so um you know the more the more inclusive that we can be on
156these committees I think it's it's just better for our school district I just thinking clar for here to make sure that we that we um add that for the next commit yes ma'am um in regards to the teacher workday I want to just share a little information about the teacher work days let me see if I can get to this slide so I just want to give you a little history about the teacher the teacher work days so in in 2020 21 is when we first added the teacher work days we're right smacking the middle of covid our teachers the reason they were added is because our teachers were uh teaching and creating lesson plans and instruction materials for kids who were online and face to they had them both they had them both in
157their classroom and so we heard from the teachers and it was it was being difficult to get everything need to get done to meet the needs of those two groups at one time so we actually came back to the board adjusted the instructional calendar and added seven teacher work days to to that calendar and um and the expectation that that that we provided for our teachers was that teachers would have full autonomy with what any anything that they did within that date it wasn't principal directed we they weren't being uh mandated to attend um professional development or any meetings at at the campus and these days were School were were uh student days so te students were learning during those days we were allowed to have asynchronous instruction the teachers prepared uh lessons and activities
158and materials that went home to kids and kids were learning during those days so then moving on to the 20 2122 school year the committee that year uh decided to place five teacher work days on the instructional committee so we're reducing the teacher uh work days and uh and the reason for that was because some kids were still working online we had temporary virtual learning is what we what we called it and so some kids were still learning online and we were looking for our kids our teachers were were helping us we're looking for our kids all the way through the end of the year and of course working through through those learning gaps as we were finding uh the kids again the the those days were were placed there with full autonomy for teachers
159to determine what needed to be done to meet the needs of kids but these were no longer instructional days because the law did not allow us to to do any more synchronous instructions so they were no we were we we were we had the five teacher work days uh for covid but the expense of instructional days for kids so then moving on to the 22 23 school year we can the committee that year again uh wanted to continue with a five teacher work days all kids were now back in school uh again uh they finally had them back and they were working on on their instructional uh gaps the the days continue as full autonomy for for uh teachers or a learning Gap but again non-instructional days and I share with you the expectation of
160the full autonomy because districts have teacher work days that other districts that's that's not UNC commmon but it's not at full autonomy for the teachers it is directed by the campus principal um I think Dr blasing can attest to that the campus PR principal makes the decision about those work days whether it is to do maybe an hour of of of training for teachers and and and have some IEPs uh looking at data maybe having three hours of of of uh work in the in their classrooms it really is at the autonomy of the principal not of the teacher in this case we made them the autonomy of our teachers so then in 2223 the committee determined that we could reduce those days even more because the the days were never intended the teacher work
161days in this format full autonomy were never intended to be forever they were intended to be there while we worked through covid and we were missing instructional days as I said we're down to 168 instructional days and so so this this school year there are four teacher work days on the instructional calendar and um of course all kids are face to face uh We've continued to make them at uh that's an Administration decision to continue to be at full autonomy for for the teachers and again no instructional days so we're missing instructional days so here we are in 2425 the committee uh considered all that again more teachers and any other group group including with the deic and they supported two in two days of teacher work days in the format that we're doing right
162now with full autonomy but also be able to have those that break in October and that break in February so I just want to give you a little history on those teacher work days yeah um looking at the the beginning of the the year where where teachers actually return is it necessary to have seven days to to prepare for um the start of the the school year so I'm g go back to that right here teachers have teacher the teacher contract is 187 days so if you remove so those days are district professional uh Development Day so we are working on the new curriculum the adjustments to the curriculum uh strategies for kids as I've said we have a new assessment we have new new standards so I would say that it's it's important to
163have professional development at the beginning of the year and then some of those days are back at their campus so they're working on setting their classrooms Up structures and systems that's what those days are if if yeah training uh uh data data to make make sure they know their kids so but if you remove some of those days you need to put them somewhere else because 187 days are is a requirement for teachers you just can't remove a day you got to find another place to put them and some of those are campus days right yes half would be campus days yeah so I said half our campus days half our our uh District a the current calendar has 10 UPF front this one would have seven up front and then some sprinkled along the
164way okay and again I just want to stress that that 2day two-day school week I think I'm I'm just going to let you know I think our attendant our our absentee rate would would increase significantly and and Mr L I'm not going to disagree with you we we we've always strived to have as few short weeks as possible and we will collect the data on those two days and make sure that we bring that to you next year when we're looking at calendars again but is it possible to move move instead of the three days Monday Tuesday Wednesday taking off Friday maybe the committee actually looked at that Mr LM there's there's an we have a issues with Fridays off in the fall and uh we've had we've had teacher workday in the past when
165we first started teacher work days on Fridays but it created a problem when kids were especially at the high school when they were um not in school all day on Fridays and then came back to campus for football games and so sometimes they hadn't made the best decisions during the day and so then there were issues so that's that's why the decision was made not to not to use any Fridays during the fall as um holidays and teacher work days but trying to say get back to that yeah there was um so I we could put it on Friday if that's what the board chose but I'm just sharing why why that wasn't I'm I'm saying I don't feel comfortable with a two-day a two-day work week or two-day school week that's what I'm we
166can make that adjustment that's if that's what the board would like we can put that on on on one of those days on Friday all right thank you Dr m m you put that any other questions what about giving the 20th off two day week here we go so on the slide regarding the proposed start dates can you walk me through the difference in proposed start dates by feeder pattern I it's just new to me where one feeder pattern might start on a different date no they're not starting on a different date that's just what they were recommending they all created they all created their own calendar okay each Feer pattern we put them on on uh on the wall and then everybody walked through the wall or walked it voted on which calendar we
167ended up with two calendars and then they all back went back again and voted so no they're all starting at the same time start at the same time this is just their okay I understand now thank you you're welcome other questions yes oh go ahead yeah we'll stay we'll stay in order uh don't disrupt a good thing um okay couple of questions here uh well quick statement real quick um and you know I I Echo a lot of the questions that my colleague uh trusty L comp said but um you know this calendar it's it's its goal is to be a calendar that's best for students but I also consider a calendar that's best for teachers to be a key component of a calendar that's best for students as well they have to work in
168tandem as well um I see that a lot of our well I see that this proposed calendar is in line with basically all the surrounding District uh was that a consideration in the committee to make sure that we're basically starting at a similar time with other districts and ending at the same time as well was there some value identified in that yes they definitely looked at that some of the discussions were uh uh losing teachers to different districts based on start dates and and um and their calendar so that was something that was a consideration for them and I'm so glad you said that because one of the talking points this board is going to have for the foreseeable future is the whole concept of teacher reten um and a a calendar is going to
169be one of those issues or one of those items that makes the school district attractive or maybe unattractive so you know consideration of this calendar does play a role in the teacher attention um and teacher attraction as a matter of fact um one of the things I found interesting and I know there was some interest on and some attention paid to the uh October vacations okay one of the things I found interesting was that uh approxim 75% of the resp respondents believe that there should be some uh vacation in October as well right so because um I have heard some feedback in which there's concerns that um and I think uh Todd kind of addressed it a little bit as well that these students if they're off for several days they come back they're uh
170they're basically just are kind of out of it for a couple days and it makes uh instruction that much more difficult but there are tangible benefits to having uh that break in October as well can you walk me through some of the benefits that committee identified for having those breaks and specifically those breaks on those particular days in October other than the fact that there will be a strong sfair contingent at Disney World during that week other than that what are some of the benefits Mr Ray I don't think that that that they were um I mean these were the days that they put in October but I don't think that they were married to that it had to be the 14th 15th and 16th you know I think they would have been fine if
171it was the next week as well uh that that is what they Rec recommended but the thoughts behind that from from the committee especially our teachers was they everyone needed a break during that time to recharge and um and I will agree with you this needs to be accounted and structurally best for students but if our but we also need our teachers to recharge so that they can be the best that they can be in those classrooms and that was the main reason that they felt that they needed this October break there's no you can see that there are no holidays no uh there's nothing else in O in October uh this would be it so the the recharging of the batteries going to the Caribbean and all the other things that these teachers need
172to do during that time the recharging of the batteries outweighs I don't think they're all going to the Caribbean but okay they should they really should take advantage of it um so so the the recharging right um that outweighs the possible negative side effect of of kids kind of coming back two days kind of being out of it a little bit but you know I I would imagine the the committee kind of weighed the two things and they agreed that recharging of the batteries for teachers during that October time is going to be ultimately beneficial for everybody correct that is correct okay good to hear um we you know we did hear uh um some concerns uh about the number of teacher work days and you addressed that as well uh one of the things
173that um I received some Comm communication on was was a misconception that we were eliminating teacher work days and that's clearly not the case we are retaining teacher work dayss um teachers find Value in teacher work dayss I'm assuming the itself identified value and teacher work days as well considering you know there were quite a bit few teachers on the committee um you showed us some data that one of the reasons why we increased the number of teacher work days was basically because of covid um can you give us some historical perspective of where we were on teacher work days before covid I mean we're going to two teacher work days in this proposed calendar is that in line with where we were preco no we we never had teacher work days in the format
174that we have them right now preco okay so we're looking at it in which there were some positive aspects that came about from creating these teacher work days and we want to we want to retain some of that going forward uh now that we're we've moved past Co in other words so there's value to that okay um I don't have any more questions thank you other questions Dr msas so the comments that I've been hearing as well is some of what's already been echoed um some teachers are saying they would love a workday after each grading period I don't know how realistic that is um and then also it seems like there's going to be a bit of a burden on parents with all these breaks throughout the year how do working parents deal with
175this um that's just something that's been coming back to me with different people that has been a concern all along the way with all of these different calendars um the bottom line is that like I said we we try to or the committee really tried to honor the requests of the teachers and then make them comparable to the surrounding school districts because we know that teachers have choices now the choice is not just uh the compensation the choice is a calendar that that they best like a calendar that mirrors their their you know what what uh the surounding districts are doing as well so we wanted we typically uh like to have a calendar out in January so parents can make um any adjustments that they need to we weren't able to this year because
176because of DOI but I I'm I'm it is going to be an adjustment for parents and um and teachers for everyone concerned so I just think that if there's a way that if this is a retention tool to help with increasing the work days I know that will have to adjust the calendar possibly but I just would like to put that out there that it seems important to a number of teachers that I talked to that they would have those work days sounds like it wasn't something before but it sounds like it's something that teachers really appreciate uh so if there's a way that we can um incorporate that that would be my advice um at looking at the calendar well your your comment about the the grading periods um one of the reasons why
177I do support continuing some of the teacher work days and and the two specifically is because the way I rationalize it um Christine is that they are correct there are many districts that uh after at the end of each reporting period they have a half day so it's an early released half day after each reporting period that's difficult for us to do because of our tier transportation system and then as you just said it's difficult for our parents with child care we have four reporting periods 4 half days equals 2 days and that's why I I feel that that is an appropriate number to have and I do believe our teachers do need some time to be able to to uh plan not just plan they plan all the time but to actually have be
178able to catch up and uh do some additional deep planning thank you Dr maiss I do agree it would be hard to have a half a day with the tier transportation that we have in the district so um I do appreciate that we do have work days in the in the calendar that I know they the teachers appreciated too um just trying to come up with Creative Solutions to help out our teachers um in the in the school year thank you um same sentiment excellent questions out of other colleagues and this idea of really figuring out how do we differentiate ourselves um to recruit and retain the very best teachers since we know that's the most critical role as far as being front line and teaching our kiddos um so I actually I can't believe
179I'm going to ask this question because as a principal I covered every single day I could do professional development and get the team on track and you know really work get your team working together and even in a district role really understanding to set the curriculum on path so I'm not sure I would agree to want something but through the um is there there in Texas Education Code about the duties and benefits once we fall below 180 days of instruction is there some um actual difference in there about the 183 days of instruction like a proportional uh formula where teachers out actually have to work the 183 days 87 I mean 187 so I think sub chapter one and duties Anders benefits there's like the little section one where it does say a school district
180anticipates providing less if a school district less than 180 days of instruction for students during a school year as indicated by The District's academic calendar the district May may and like I say I'm not sure I agree with that but may reduce the number of days of service required um by this section proportionately reduction by the district does not reduce a teacher's salary yes that that that is correct that is a an option that uh districts may take that school boards may take isn't that a DOI selection um I don't think that one is a DOI that would that was a change in the law our contracts haven't changed so contractually we have remained at 187 I think you would have to specifically like you would have to take action to reduce it yeah but
181I thought one of the one of the District of innovation options is to reduce teacher work days or teacher contract days sure I mean sure you could do it through DOI but the law allows you to sort of like some of several of the things we've proposed you know it's just a different way to do it so think yeah because there's a proportional math that maybe you can do to not have to do it through DOI but now that we have that we didn't approve that so we told the citizens last week that we would not do anything different than what they told us and we'd go through the committee process and it would be five years it would expire and so I definitely wouldn't want to be discussing adding it through DOI um but
182I do think I just wonder I'm not suggesting for sure but that does I think the proportional math might be 179.2 teacher contract days given our new number of instructional days so something I just like to know a little bit more of information about maybe on Monday we can we can go back and research that but I do not believe you need to do a do DOI for that it is a a board uh board decision and then the then I guess we would have to determine um where those days come off is it PD do we value professional development and and teacher training or or uh do we want to reduce days and not have the professional is is that what you're asking if we would reduce the number of of teacher contract days
183I'm going to say that I don't believe that's in the best interest of the instruction of our children in the system I expressed concern here last time about our scores we have a bunch of kids 13,000 kids who couldn't read at the approaches level we had um our looking at our you know our data there's a there are challenges um so no actually I don't however what I would like to say is that we be accurate about the law we had this happen last year around Health we thought we believed something and things changed so and then we had policy today that you know I to see if we had updated our policy so I'm just saying let's be up to date with our information and then not say that when it's inaccurate because teachers
184out there are they're very Savvy and smart and they know that they don't you know that's not necessarily legal not that they're saying they don't want to work those days right but so I'm just saying that we did say here at the um that it was had to be 183 it doesn't have to be do I support it being 100 I'm sorry 180 thank you 187 teacher contract days um so I'm not suggesting that I wouldn't support them having professional development on those days but legally I think we do have an option yes but our current contract is 187 that's what I that's what I meant Dr blassingham that is our current contract perfect thank you and actually we had a teacher who who asked that in in the calendar committee too yeah great thank
185you um uh first I want to say thank you to the calendar committee I appreciate the time and energy and effort that's put into this obviously it's very complex to balance all these um requirements and to address all the requests from different stakeholders so first I I absolutely want to say thank you for all your time and energy um I um in my time on the board um have always accepted a recommendation from a committee uh because I do value that and I respect that very much um I've never um I've asked questions but I've never said uh that I wouldn't accept a committee's recommendation um I will share that based upon feedback that I've also heard from teachers and from parents um that I echoed the same concerns that Todd has expressed regarding that
186week in October um being a two-day week um I share the same concerns with attendance and with learning loss um so I question uh why the I don't question the committee I know they they worked so hard and they did the very best they could um uh I want to just maybe have us think a little bit about maybe not having three days um if you think about it uh our athletes that are participating in U Sports and our bands are not going out they're not going on vacation that week they're they're still they're going to be practicing so um it's not really a vacation for everybody I know that's at the high school level um and when we look at teachers asking for maybe even just one more teacher work day could the 14th
187be a teacher work day that's so the students do get a long weekend to recover from band contest that weekend maybe but have a teacher work day on the 14th but then still have a 4-day school week that week it's just a thought and it would give us two extra days of instruction um and maybe if you take out February 14th you now end up we in school before Memorial Day Miss Miss H I'm going to I'm going to take ownership for for that Friday I I did share with the committee the concerns with Friday so I don't think that they would have had a problem with Friday uh Friday the the what is that the 11th um I'm not asking that we add that we have a vacation on a Friday I'm suggesting that
188we this is just a thought we add a teacher work day on the 14th so students are off on the 14th and they go to school on the 15th and the 16th so you're you're what you're asking is that we don't have a teacher break the 14th to the 16th is that what you're asking and the the other that I heard was to move one of those three days to that Friday if I understood correctly so that we wouldn't have a two-day week no I don't suggest moving to a Friday because we know we have football games we may have homecoming that weekend I mean it and that was something that was brought up too I think even Mr lmpt would agree that maybe not having a school holiday on a Friday in October um
189but are you am I understanding correctly that you're suggesting that we remove the the 14 through the 16th as a student teacher holiday and make the 14th a teacher PD day First Development Day no no teacher work day sorry a teacher work day and the 15th and 16th student and teacher days days just a thought just to so that you would give teachers are asking for more teacher work days so it would give teachers an extra work day and it would prevent having only a two-day school week where we know attendance is going to be an issue we can I don't know I just I mean what does the board think yeah and you're suggesting Monday the following Monday is that correct 14th to be a teacher work day the 14th and then everybody in
190school 15 and 16th again I my thing is not working oh sorry hello had to turn off we got too many greens um again I I'm so reluctant to say anything because I've never questioned a committee uh recommendation so I feel really yucky about that Julie the committee was exhausted it was at the end end of night it was a long day well I don't know but well I it's a big project um I ju I just I just hearing feedback from even from members of the committee that wanted a more teacher work days and more instructional time that's just a place to find it and then maybe to me find I don't know it's just a thought and I'm just throwing it out there but if the board says no we're going to stick
191with the committee proposal I am like 100% on board with that too so I do not particularly like having that that those two days there either because I do I do have a concern as you did Mr LM um I while I would love to make those instructional days I I've got to go back and think about the what the committee the purpose of our committee and the committee the teachers have been asking for a break in October and we could move one of those days to another day so it doesn't create a a uh a two-day um you know Stu student days we could move that to like I said the 11th but you're right I mean I mean uh that that concern came up too from the committee about high school specifically um
192about homecomings and all that we could but they the teachers have been asking for that October Break um you know it's it's kind of like I shared with them we could add more teacher work days and not have the break or you could have some teacher work days and have the break too but it's kind of hard to put everything in there yeah sure understood well maybe maybe even just making it two days instead of three days so making it a three-day week instead of a two-day school week maybe as a compromise just a thought but I'm I just I've thrown it out there it's up to you and I agree I agree with you totally I just two day a two-day week is not going to be productive the kids going to come back
193they're not they're going to be zoned out so am I hearing that the 14th would be a PD and then the 15th would be a holiday or now just make a suggestion yeah I just I would like those are just my thoughts but I again I'm so I think we're all concerned with that I'm so reluctant to not take a committee's recommendation that just goes against my grain so I want youall to talk me out of it or you take you it's your idea I don't know because the emails we're getting are we want more teacher work days there's there's quite a bit of those if we added the 14th as a teacher work day and the 15 is a holiday would that be still within line what you're looking for to solve in this
194calendar I guess and would the board be acceptable reverse those sorry reverse those yeah those make the make the Monday a holiday for everybody and Tuesday a teacher work day I'm actually if it's so Mr President I'd like to I'd like to address U my colleagues opinions I'm actually in support of the way it is written for a couple of reasons okay one let's let's talk talk about some of the communications we received about teacher work days and I kind of referenced it in my previous comments there was a perception and I saw several emails there was a perception there were no teacher workday okay and so the fact we do have two teacher workdays so some of the communication I was getting was not that we're not getting enough teacher work days it's like
195oh I've heard that the board is going to eliminate teacher work days that's not the case so we are addressing some of those concerns that we've all received about teacher work days and I feel like this calendar actually addresses that and kind of pierces through that misconception right the other comment that I would want to make and it goes back to my previous comments as well is what is the purpose of this October break and it really and and there's the purpose is to you know teachers to in essence recharge the batteries and I want to direct my colleagues back to the um survey that took place in the committee 70% wanted some sort of break in October they 70% wanted a break and uh honestly 50% approxim I'm just doing some numbers here approximately
19650% wanted anywhere from 3 to 5 days so there was a lot of value identified by having anywhere from three to five we're not doing five we're doing three right but anywhere from three to five days there's a lot of value identified by the members of this committee which were heavily teachers right that that this is actually something beneficial now there we have been it has been brought to our attention that there were some negative consequences you know for instance you as I mentioned some these kids may come back maybe a little zoned out and may make those instructional days on that Thursday and Friday a little bit more difficult but the benefit of helping those teachers out in the middle of October I think outweighs that possible detriment I really do I think there's
197more value in having several consecutive days of a break in which teachers can use this to to recharge um and I think that I wouldn't want to do one day which is like a basically a long weekend I think that a real break of three days in which you could could turn into really a 5day mini vacation I think is going to be very helpful and again let me go back to some of my broader comments one of the things that we're going to need to do as a board is we're going to have to structure a calendar that is very attractive to teachers okay that when I'm looking at calendar right now I want to make sure that this is something that teachers are going to want to come and work at cyfair because
198oh they really value time off for their teachers they're giving time off at unique times that's going to help me U take some time off off recharge my batteries take a vacation that that I ordinarily wouldn't do that so I think a vacation like this which is kind of unique I think has a lot of benefits and I think that the benefits outweigh any concerns and any detriments we may have I will say Mr survey um 40% of people also didn't want to start until the 28th so there there Mr President we have two of our teachers who are on the committee here would you like if you'd like to hear their thoughts about uh that October time guys would y'all mind coming up and and saying your thought only if they want to thanks
199a lot Dr msas I'm sorry if anyone like to volunteer as a teacher while we're waiting for them to come up can I just ask for a point of clarification in November on the 4th and the 5th those are two teacher work days no November fourth and 5th November 4th is a professional Day November 5th is a teacher work day okay the stars are teacher work days okay got it can you share just a little bit you're no obligation to listen to Linda by the way I love a microphone he does um my name is David hun I'm at scite Creek High School I actually served on both the DI and the calendar committee so I was in both of those capacities uh in addressing those days in October um I serve as the department
200chair at site Creek for our math department and one of our biggest issues is our teacher retention I lost two teachers to Katie last year I lost one teacher to Klein um and that has been consistent year after year uh other District's calendars have this compelling draw that some of our teachers choose to leave cciir and go to these other districts so in creating this calendar one of the things that we were trying to do is make it compelling in hiring and retaining teachers Klein has an entire week there in October and I can tell you those two instructional days that is going to be a concern but it does as was mentioned by truste Ray there there is a a give and take there um the board had to balance a lot of criteria
201here the 173 days the teacher contract 187 days and the thing that everyone on the board needs to understand is you you had a calendar committee that created the calendar that included parents it included teachers it was not created by Dr msas it was not created by sciare admin it was created by your teachers and your community and uh I think that was the biggest takeaway from that committee was it was our calendar so I'll leave it at that thank you hello um my name is Amy BS I teach at um ryell I'm a kindergarten special ed teacher and um I was really excited to be a part of this calendar committee I have never done a district level committee before so this was exciting um a couple of things that I just wanted to
202clarify um the I think a question was why we chose the October 14th date and one of those was because it aligned with the grading period so the ending of the first grading period is October 11th um which makes it kind of a nice clean break um um in between getting grades done and report cards and all of those type of things um beginning of the year assessments all of that kind of is taken care of and then we have a nice break um the two days yes might be a concern but teachers are going to do what it's going to take to have their kids come back to the classroom and be engaged you know and I I do love the teacher work days however the amount of time that I spent outside of
203a teacher work day to prep material do reading Academy excuse me all of those things if I am given the choice of a teacher workday where I'm at campus on campus or the time off with my family to recharge that to me is going to going to take precedence any time um I had some notes here sorry okay one thing that I would like to be considered by the board is the instructional minutes that we go to school because with the increase in the instructional days we actually have a big surplus of minutes um which that if you could give those time that time back to the teachers over the Long Haul of a school year that's going to make a huge world of difference um we are end of our contract time I'm at
204school every day at least 30 minutes after that waiting on buses so if you could just consider that you know the Staggering of the ending times of the day with the transportation issues and all of that that's a huge that's a huge thing as well um also the last thing I want to say is kind of sensitive but I don't appreciate the comment that the committee was exhausted at the end of the night I don't think that's a very sensitive comment to make um we worked really hard on this and we went back and forth because it was important it's important I have three children in scair it's important to me as a community member it's important to me as a teacher it's important to me as a parent so yeah I'm tired all the
205time I have like I said three children so I could be exhausted doing something that is super important this is very important to a lot of people yeah and so um I don't I don't like that comment that you said that we were exhausted and so just change it up because they didn't know what they were doing anyways okay maybe it was a poor choice of words and I apologize for that but we also had many people that were stepping out of the committee as as we went through and I just I just wanted to basically recognize that so maybe I'm poor short choice words as far as saying exhausted but that that committee you have to admit did empty out pretty pretty a pretty good portion it did I mean there there's sacrifices that
206we all had to make and stuff like that and I was I was tired at the end I mean I'm not going to lie I went right to bed but um you know that's thank you for apologizing I appreciate that because we certainly were not just exhausted throwing our hands up and saying this is what we're going to get I don't thank you very much thank you I do want to thank the committee as well for effort I will say the um we do see the same people on these committees so I would encourage and I know it's it's a lot of work to go on the Committees and we really really appreciate that and your volunteerism uh it's very important I would say to the board it's it sounds like we we need to
207think about this maybe as opposed to right now maybe we have I know we're going to we can uh maybe think about this between next now and next week um give some thought to it I know super is going to make some comments as well but just give some thought to this some intentional thought and then maybe talk to Linda oneoff or the superintendent and um we can make a good decision for next week go ahead okay um I just wanted to make a few comments um so I've been doing calendars for a long time uh 20 years as a superintendent another two and a half as an assistant superintendent running the deic and having to go through the whole process with the deic and a calendar subcommittee made up of the deic so just
208some perspective so um one of the reasons why I like to have the deic involved in the calendar is because it is two-thirds teachers so they're the ones that are doing the work and it's actually an instructional calendar it's not really a vacation calendar I know that some people in the community think of it as a a vacation calendar but it's really an instructional calendar um the other thing is um the 187 days I remember a time when um it was 180 days of instruction so so yes it has the minutes um of course have complicated the issue that was a more recent change but it used to be that um teachers had to teach for 180 days and then we could get waivers for a few and that with the change with all the
209weather issues we had several sessions ago minutes were put in as a a potential way of addressing that so we we wouldn't have to make up time and all that stuff so with that in mind um i' just like to say a few other things so first of all the committee did some awesome work so the calendar committee and the deic um I heard some of the comments that were made with the uh deic after they looked at it and I thought they were pretty deep I mean there was a lot of consensus about this calendar um but then there were a lot of comments made that I thought were um very very jine about those concerns with that said um I've got to say big kudos to staff for going from 168 instructional days
210to 173 time on task is really important for kids and bringing in the extra instructional days that's fantastic to answer one of the questions about concerns for uh community and feeding and all that and child care you're getting five more days out of us um because this calendar is taking kids in five more days so right there we're doing a service to our community and our taxpayers for that um in addition to that those 5 days um the fact that we're shifting it to the front and we're starting a little bit later the spring semester is full of testing and that takes away from instructional days so when you look about at the balance you got to remember that there's a lot of testing days in the spring that we have to be aware of
211so if we're close that means that we're frontloading our calendar with instruction in the fall which is good because we're not on an equal playing field for districts that start a lot earlier than we are because they get through their curriculum faster the other thing is there's a lot of stress for teachers to get through a curriculum there are too many teaks that are taught um at every grade level because of the state curriculum there have been a lot of studies that say there's too many um in a year and there's been talk about reducing them but they haven't actually done it so this provides teachers with a little bit more time maybe a little bit more flexibility to get through their curriculum maybe slower paced or maybe they need to go back and and
212do some other things so I do appreciate that as well so and considering all that I I just love the fact that yeah I get it October and February that could be the most stressful time for our teachers it seems like it's that long runup to a vacation right or a time off to recharge those batteries and and this is this is pretty brilliant and I think the speaker speaker spoke a little bit to the fact that it is a Competitive Edge as well so so while I say it's an instructional Cal calendar it's also a recruiting and retention piece so the fact that we're in line with other districts around around us is fantastic so um and then the last thing I would just say is that um obviously uh there's a lot of
213Community Support to get out um as close to Memorial Day as possible and not going into June they accomplish that too the problem with uh the problem with doing a 187 day teacher contract and trying to figure out calendar calar is everybody wants something and if the calendar doesn't quite speak to everybody's needs you probably threaded the needle pretty dang good that somebody's not happy on one side or the other uh completely that's pretty good so and the opportunity to go on a vacation in October um when maybe a flight um is a little bit cheaper or maybe in February for a small refresh that's pretty cool so that's cool for parents and also for our staff members that want to get away the other piece too is yeah we took the work days away
214but we also gave them more days off during the year and I don't know as a teacher um when I was in in in the heat of all that you work all the time I mean you're a professional salaried employee so you have to grade papers it's not always on those work days and the idea that I don't have to come in a campus but I can still stay home and maybe spend a little time with a family maybe grade a few papers and and have some work life balance that that's a pretty good settlement there so with all that said um one thing that is within my power is to give you a recommendation um and I'm not going to override the calendar committee recommendation and then the deic support of that recommendation so
215what you're going to get on Monday is the calendar you have in front of you I appreciate everybody's comments as a as a board but I don't think it would be good practice for us to sit there and question what that committee went through and all the stakeholders that put all that time and effort into it but you are absolutely welcome to do that on on Monday I highly advise that you don't do that so because these people put a lot of work into it and I think it's a pretty dang good calendar so quite frankly with that I'll shut up awesome with that being said I didn't realize my wife was in the audience so sorry she wouldn't be clapping we'll go on to 7D the board will consider making determination that good cause
216not exist for law by the following people that's listed in your agenda to resign the prospective employment contracts this item will be discussed in close session pursuant to section 551.074 7e uh the board will consider a level three discipline appeal of a level two Cypress Woods High School decision made by this plary Review Committee uh this item um will be discussed in close session pursuing to 5510 71 and 55182 we'll now proceed with the informational items of the agenda uh this time we're going to have which is new to us uh which is going to be board committee Updates this will be a time when our board committee um people can can give their updates um if you are not prepared tonight and don't want to talk you can also do it in your board
217comments as well uh but this is a way to be um let people know what we all discuss in your committee since for an onor committee we don't know what y'all discussed so uh at this time I'll open up for any anyone who wants to talk Christine go ahead so the academic and safety vision and planning committee met uh last week um we did go over uh Dr msas did give us a presentation on the Texas Academic performance report um she also provided uh data on the cohort reading data um there also was information provided on um the testing that we've done and then the variables within that we also talked about a dual language pilot program and then education educational equality feeder plan Baseline data also we did get an update from um Matt
218Morgan on safety and discipline with uh regards to Safety and Security of our uh facilities um we also did have a discussion talking about reviewing the board monitoring system and then we also talked about the calendar survey that Dr msas had presented to us as well uh Christina Cole had also shared um the that there uh were some proposed Shack bylaws um for changes in that committee and that was our meeting thank you Christine to my right Lucas you go ahead so and the statements that I'm about to read um for the finance and operations committee that all three board members had a chance to review these comments we have all weighed in with the in addition to that the committee members in uh Karen as well as Matt Morgan and you know through Karen
219Paula they've had a chance to review as well as Dr Killian and Teresa so it's not my voice it's our committee's voice so the finance and operations committee met on February 2nd we started our first meeting by discussing and reaching consensus on the purpose of the subcommittee all members were recognized for what they bring to the subcommittee and all members will have equal opportunity to contribute we then review the draft presentations on the budget operations and it presentations that the board and public will review on Monday evening we were asked to understand the content and provide recommendations on where the board would have likely have questions and giving direct feedback upon the content to better support understanding for all parties largely speaking the changes that we recommended were minor related to the budget we discussed
220the need to be very clear with the public on where we would focus should we be implementing budget cuts how we would prioritize the need for very clear Communications and how we needed a message with our legislators from the board as well as admin to advocate for our teachers we also recognize that we will have to examine every opportunity for additional revenue and determine what is the best fit for our district over the next year related to the operations presentation we focused on how to ensure our community understands the use of both funds going forward the timeline of fund use to date and how the decision admin made to continue forward between the two different Bond issues allow the district to save significant costs in partnership with our local community who approved our bond programs
221we've made strategic decisions to build facilities which Foster student pride and opportunities they would not have otherwise as well as giving educational programs the opportunity to meet their learning objectives you will hear that messaging on Monday evening related to it we discussed our current state in terms of progress against key metrics and goals included in a board monitoring system we discuss security how it initiatives fell within the 2019 Bond utilization and you will hear that messaging on Monday night as well on the whole we know that we have difficult conversations coming given we did not get the additional funding from the state since the legislature sometimes provides this funding for areas such as compens compensatory education safety Etc versus through the basic allotment we will continue to advocate for every dollar we can get from
222the state further we need partnership with a broader Community to reach our legislators to support our messaging to this point as we did we will publicize messaging so that the community may participate in closing we want to communicate a very core message that cyer ISD does more with less we will be diligent transparent and focused on one team between our board and admin to support our community and enable our vision statement for our district with strong learning outcomes thank you very nice thank you anyone else um I'm happy to report we have an ad hoc teacher retention committee and that's because teachers are the the uh thank you the um such a strength um such a critical role and uh even what we just primed this conversation by hearing the calendar conversation understanding that we
223need to be able to attract um features such as uh calendar so we um there was an incredible uh collaborative effort and that is actually one of the strengths that I'll share between all the departments in our district they truly work in collaboration with each other we had our uh academics our schools our she does all the things chief of staff and Human Resources all there to um pull their pieces together so that we could really analyze we reviewed data um around our turnover rate we would view data over um teachers campuses resignations at levels just to really understand the um the uh the data around it and we are we have less a lower turnover rate than the state still but we do see a trend up and so we know that we must
224address it um the the um there are several creative ways um that are being employed um through um the different departments and working together so we did a SWAT analysis to look at the internal strengths and weaknesses and then the external opportunities and threats and we will able to um really Identify some incredible strengths to continue to grow on and our opportunities are very positive um so I won't share all those opportunities right now I can do a little bit more in the report on uh Monday um but we definitely had one of those being the calendar and daily schedule so I really appreciate the comments from our teachers today but we do want to make sure that we really um highlight how we can value this profession have teachers be ambassadors of our profession
225looking at agency surveys like just really studying why and what can we do to make sure that we we are able to recruit and retain uh the very best teachers here in our district and make it um the same way as Lucas ended his very beautiful and professional report um we only we met today so um but really we we strive to be the place for teachers to work where we can have um the best outcomes for our kids because we have Happy Teachers so thank you anyone else uh just a quick update on the governance committee we will be meeting um later this month and we'll be addressing the board operating procedure and we will have an update before the board and the public uh at our March meeting thank you very much uh
226move on to 8B recap of board member request for information uh this is a time when um either the administration or any board member would like to recap any information received and that way we can notify the public for transparency is there anything anyone like to talk about all right seeing none I would like to thank everyone for being here tonight like to also thank our Administration for staying so late um and also those who are watching from home at this time may I get a motion to move into session please so moved second and second all in flavor please raise your right hand uh the time is 9:05 we're now entering in close session thank you very much