001[Music] [Applause] [Music] good evening the cypress fairbanks independent school district board of trustees are now convened in a board work session on monday march 7 2022 at 6 pm in the boardroom of the cypress fairbanks independent school district instructional support center located at 10 300 jones road houston texas for the purpose of reviewing that portion of the thursday march 10 2022 regular board meeting agenda designated as action items and to hear designated reports and recognitions posted in the meeting notice as required by texas law i want to welcome the members of our audience and our television viewers to this meeting of the board of the trustees as the cypress fairbanks board of trustees we are here to set goals listen to reports approve budgets contracts personnel appointments and make policy for the district it is
002not the role of the board to make day-to-day operational decisions the management and day-to-day operations of the district are the responsibility of the superintendent we have policies and procedures in place to resolve concerns and issues this is a public meeting of the board of trustees not a meeting of the public the meeting is open to all who wish to attend and hear the matters discussed audience members may not participate in the meeting outside the designated agenda items for citizen participation or public comment disruption of the meeting by any person including the audience is inappropriate and will be addressed by the board president or the board's counsel as a meeting parliamentarian continued or repeated disruption of any board meeting by words or action may result in removal or loss of the privilege to attend the meeting
003prior to this meeting board members received information related to items on tonight's agenda agenda items will not necessarily be handled in the order listed on the notice during the course of this meeting the board may determine that a closed session is necessary in that event the board will meet in closed session to consider matters duly posted for this meeting as permitted by sections 551.071 through 551.084 of the texas government code these proceedings are airing live on comcast channel 16 in the district website they will also be available as video on demand on the district website following tonight's meeting for the video to adequately reflect the proceedings i respectfully ask that you please refrain from talking while others are speaking and that cell phones are turned off or in silent mode and mine is now turned
004off thank you for taking the time to join us this evening and for your interest in the cypress fairbanks independent school district i would also like to take the opportunity to recognize our community leadership committee members who are in attendance this evening when i call your name please stand so you may be recognized tana lamb nancy frankel tana yee stacy anderson and ryan irving the invocation pledge of allegiance vision and mission statement recognitions board comments and citizen participation portions of the agenda will be will be presented at the regular board meeting on thursday march 10 2022 we will now proceed with public comments the first is stacy de meyer and to remind you when the yellow light comes on you have 30 seconds to wrap up once the beeping starts i will ask you to
005conclude your comments okay thank you good evening everyone i am stacey demeyer and tonight i'm speaking on agenda item 9d2 the funding of our district's libraries and the trust and autonomy we give to our librarians is of great importance as a district we are privileged to have a library at every school as well as highly trained librarians our district librarians have the skills needed to properly choose appropriate books for their school as well as to ensure that a variety of topics are covered and that every student feels represented so when they go to the library they can be sure to find a book that is a good fit for them while extremely important our school libraries aren't simply a place to give our students access to quality books during scheduled library time our school libraries
006are also crucial a crucial supplement to the classroom as a volunteer my children's library at keith elementary which by the way has an amazing librarian mrs budnik i get to see a variety of ways that our school utilizes library i've seen our librarians spend time hand selecting books based on requests from teachers i've seen classes come to the library to browse the non-fiction section for research projects i've seen teachers encouraging their students to expand their reading skills by focusing on certain sections in the library and just last week mrs budnick set up a mini polling location in our library for students to vote on their favorite horn toadtails book which is a group of books selected by librarians in our district an example of an ongoing collaboration that takes place amongst librarians throughout the year
007i'd like to thank all of the librarians in our district contrary to recent attacks on your qualifications and motives the most recent being elected officials attempting to prevent your access to certain vendors you are appreciated and trusted by so many i'd also like to thank the district for prioritizing libraries and their funding please continue with these efforts and please continue to trust our librarians with the responsibilities you have given them thank you our next speaker is alexi swarsky [Music] yes i am addressing the 2.8 million dollars to be voted on to be awarded to purchase library books and reference books i surely hope that all of these materials are in line with the values that parents want for their children schools are to assist parents in educating their children not replace them some of the
008books found in school libraries and curriculum nowadays would have led to arrest of teachers and staff that were promoting these materials or putting them in the schools just several years ago pornograph pornography has no place in schools i surely hope scifir doesn't have indecent books or curriculum are plans to purchase any critical race theory also has no place in schools we have a wonderful country with people working together to solve problems critical race theory teaches division not unity i was present in the texas house hearing when this bill was being debated and formed and had many expert witnesses and as steve toe says it promotes harmony in the classroom by prohibiting the teaching of racial superiority or collective guilt and america success is determined by your work not your skin color that's what needs to
009be taught and i also want to thank the three new board members they're all i just love to hear what's going on and that they're working hard to ensure the best education for the many students in scifire isd and i um shame on anyone who's attempted to slander any of them thank you very much for allowing me to speak tonight that concludes our public comments we will notice at the next meeting that we will have a new process for public comments and citizen participations patrons who have registered to speak may see the order listed on the screens to your right and to your left and before your name is called we will be asking you to move forward and sit in one of the two reserve seats on the front row so we'll have that
010procedure in place when we meet again we will now proceed with agenda item 7b of the reports portion of the agenda the administration will provide a written report on the 2022 summer school plans for elementary middle school and high school i think we have a brief presentation by dr linda macias thank you uh mr jackson and this is a brief presentation that i'm going to provide for you today go into the next slide please so our summer school plans have oh thank you our summer school plans are have not changed from last year probably the highlights that i want to share with you is that once again thank you board we will be providing summer school at no charge to our students and there is something in summer school for everyone so if you look
011up there these are programs that that that we offered last year all of these different camps are camps that are addressing literacy and we also have an enrichment camp that is addressing math and literacy for our students who they they're not failing but they're right there at the cusp of it they just they're they just barely made a passing grade or just barely right below that and so we have a camp for them as well and then we have a couple of language camps that we're excited about we are gonna have our second year with our chinese camp and then we are adding a spanish language camp as well and so we are excited uh about that opportunity as well and then at middle school again we have the programs that we've offered our original
012credit our makeup credit our accelerated instruction which which includes our our algebra camp that you've heard about and then at high school again the same type of programs in both middle and high school we also have enrichment courses again for students who just want that extra support in reading and in math they haven't they're just they're okay but they want to do some extra during the summer to uh to be able to accelerate or or just help avoid that uh that summer slide we have some fine arts camps also that we have going on this summer with with uh just different band camps so again the most important i just wanted to share was that it is free to our to for our students and there is something for everyone there and if there are
013any questions they can call my office we'll be able to uh happy to answer them i'll be happy to answer any questions you may have and i think you met questions from parents right that is correct sir thank you yes uh what about questions from board members i'll look to my right scott questions just a brief question uh i guess recruitment for this is going to be going on with teachers and stuff do you think we'll have be adequate enough teachers to support this effort that's that's always we had a challenge with that last year mr henry as well and we increase our summer school pay for our teachers to uh to help with that but um we have we look for our best teachers and and that's what we have teaching these these uh
014the summer programs awesome thank you natalie gilbert when do parents actually have the date to to submit their uh requests for summer school is it like later on in this uh in the spring they're uh the depending on the programs the the the time to register is different our our program that's that's for the enrichment really goes on all through through uh through the school year are programs like camp summit for example uh that's our that's our primary reading program that when we we uh we wait a little longer because that's based on reading levels so we look for any child who is not on level in reading and they all get invited to to camp summit right okay thank you very much now to my left luke no questions only comment um as a
015former teacher i'm just i'm grateful for all the teachers that volunteer and and do this role because even though they're paid believe me it's a volunteer absolutely mr scam and i'm very great i'm very excited about this program thank you and debbie it's kind of nice to be able to see you in person instead of the video monitor in front of your seat welcome back thank you mr jackson it's good to be back believe me isolation's not much fun but just a comment i have a grandson who has dyslexia and camp summit was offered to him uh as a first grader and when he first found out that he thought he had to go to summer school oh my gosh she'd have thought he was being tortured but i was the one who took him
016and picked him up many days and it just took the first week where our our staff make it like a camp experience and it's a lot of fun they were learning things people from the science center came out and he got to hold a snake and all these you know what just terrified me but uh anyway they just made it such a fun learning experience and i think that's why these programs make it uh even though it's education and at summer school but make it so much fun and our students really benefit so to the teachers out there if you're contemplating i highly encourage you to participate in the summer school programs because the the students really reap the benefits and then a few years ago i visited camp algebra during the summer over at
017cypress park and that was amazing to see as well so thank you to our teachers who do give up their summer for the benefit of our students julie and as always i have a i have a few questions for you i would say i'd be brief but everybody knows that that's not in my nature i don't think i even know how to spell the word first i don't either mr jackson well it is a five letter word i think will esser funds be used for summer school and why is that appropriate if they are we have a variety of funding sources get that will be used for summer school including esser and that is very appropriate because as you know there is a percent of the sr funds that must be used for learning law
018so this is a very appropriate expenditure for ester funds have you done an analysis of where we stand on reading benchmarks leading up to summer school to help identify the loss of learning from covid and did you do this analysis by different categories such as title 1 versus non-title 1 or by demographic sub-pop groups as defined originally in the no child left behind legislation yes sir uh we did we actually looked at the first dpm which has our baseline for reading levels for the year and then we looked at our second dpm and so that those are our uh like our benchmarks and then we compared them compared to two the beginning the beginning and the mid and looked at the reading level so that we could see the number of students who were not
019or that were on level those that were not on level and then we broke it down even further to indicate the students that were not on level those that were making progress those that have made one level progress those who had made two level progress and then also those who had made no progress and yes we broke that down by by the different subgroups we even broken down by gender as well so that so that we could look at all that and then we have sent the report to the campuses and for the students who have made no progress the campuses actually got the name of the student so that they could go uh in there and develop their plan we'll look at the interventions they're providing making sure that they're they're being impactful and
020then develop a plan for those students as well and have you shared a summary report with the board members themselves of this analysis yes sir i did thank you the so here's the the tougher question you've taken a look at where we are reading loss-wise you've analyzed it we know in the past we've had this program why do you why do we think why do you think that the summer school program that you have prepared and designed will be effective in addressing the learning loss that we're facing so after every program summer program that we have mr jackson we do an analysis of the program so for example for camp summit we we have the reading levels that they ended with and then we look at the reading levels that they're beginning the school year
021the school year with and then uh we also uh will look for qualitative information from the campuses like for example you know little tom is just more excited about reading now than he's ever been so we look at both quantitative and qualitative information uh caps algebra camp for example we will look as you know algebra campus for our students in eighth grade who are not successful in the star test and so we look to see once once we once uh the algebra test is given to see how those kids did those that went to algebra camp as compared to those who didn't so we always do an evaluation of our programs well i'm sorry if i can add one more thing as you and i have talked many times about in addition to to the
022learning laws it also uh is a great assistance with a summer slide so to distill down what what you told me is we're going to continue to use those techniques that have been very successful in the past and we expect them to be successful again this summer is that a good summary that is correct you've already indicated that you have measured individual students through this summer will we be measuring progress by students on both an individual and group basis yes absolutely and you indicated that when you did the analysis this winter time that you pass the information on individuals to the individual campuses i presume that you will share the individual results with the individual campuses as well is that a correct assumption yes sir absolutely excellent thank you i would like to take out
023of order and move up 9e we have some people here to answer questions if needs be and they can leave as opposed to waiting to longer until we get to it 9e the board will consider approving construction proposals and contracts paid from bond funds to the recommended contractors and authorize the superintendent or designate to execute all necessary documents related to such contracts as follows 2021 bang evan hamilton elementary school renovations 92 2021 kirk and reed elementary school renovations 2021 baseball and softball field renovations bridgelands park in size springs 94 2022 scifire high school multi-site master plan package 1 95 2022 hancock elementary school paving edition 9e6 2022 baseball and softball scoreboard replacements infrastructure 97 2022 baseball and softball scoreboard replacements 9e8 2022 bridgeland high school field turf replacement presenter will be matt morgan on a
024question basis and i'll start to my left luke do you have any questions debbie um there he is hey matt uh regarding 988 the bridgeland high school football field turf replacement that's a fairly new high school so i'm just curious why does the turf already have to be replaced that turf is about five years old and usually the life on a turf is about ten but there were some manufacturing issues with this turf so helis is replacing this at their own cost okay the reason there's a board agenda item is we're going to go ahead and take the opportunity to upgrade the turf and add a logo put cool infield in and add some shock resistant for student safety okay perfect thank you that answers my question julie matt um how are the the projects
025coming along are they all on schedule are we again the supply uh question you know getting them in and and on time there have been some supply chain issues and manpower issues but we feel confident that we'll meet the substantial completion dates on the majority of our projects right we were very successful this summer and we had a shorter window in the same obstacles okay good i was just wondering how uh usually that's my question with uh tom with the ac question and me with the uh schedule let's just qualify this is how i feel now we'll see further down the road how i feel we're looking for a dry spring at driving we're looking for a dry spring and we're looking for supply chain issues to resolve themselves and manpower issues to resolve themselves
026but everything we have some really good gc's on these projects well we we look forward to seeing all of them thank you matt yes sir you know just just to add to that uh i'd i'd also you know our construction folks just did a a great job because we got all of our major major projects started before you saw the real spike in inflation so we had all those bids in and i've talked to several of our architects and they said anything that we hadn't done already would be 20 to 25 percent higher so we are very thankful that we got in under the wire on that great job these guys getting getting it on the street well we've got a great facilities department great a e teams and we work with great contractors so
027we feel very fortunate matt yes sir you know you're going to get off that easy first if you would introduce any of our guests from outside the school district okay mark french with ibi architects can you stand up mark there you go if i've got to introduce you you've got to stand up rudy starks with vlk architects brandon ross i think he's with pbk that's right and carolina with natex welcome so back to you matt i was hoping that was it sir uh no sir so for 91 and 92 these are big numbers briefly explain what the renovations are for uh and of course my standard question were we're always fighting the the battle that that was before us but but we have to keep in mind flooding concerns yes sir so these two contracts
028are for the safety and security components of the 19 bond uh security for open concept classroom segmentation is another word that we use for it impact resistant glass additional card readers all the work that you saw completed this summer we're going to be completing at these campuses this following summer you mentioned that none of these facilities have flooded and they are not in a flood plain thank you you mentioned that these renovations included security upgrades including segmentation well all elementary schools be eventually addressed in this fashion yes sir why is it that we just don't address all of them in one contract at one time for well for two main reasons number one we can only sell so many bonds without impacting the tax rate which is very important to us but also we have
029limitations on design resources construction resources and the small window of time that we do this work in which is mostly the summer it kind of limits the number of projects that we can tackle at a time so it's on a phased-in basis it's on a phased-in basis and this bond has seven phases all of the elementary schools were moved to the first four phases because we that was a priority so we will eventually upgrade security at all the elementary schools is that correct all schools we have security upgrades for elementary middle and high school you mentioned in the literature that there's a kitchen edition that read question is have we done this at other schools i.e is this part of a standard upgrade concept that we're employing this is a standard upgrade we're bringing all
030the kitchens well as many kitchens as we can up to about 3 600 square feet we completed seven last summer we have several this summer in each phase there are kitchen renovations there's also something different about the kitchen renovations that's that in my mind is also part of security the old kitchens for our newer board members you had a solid wall and for these kitchen upgrades and i presume it's correct but i have to ask will they have more glass now so that you can see into the cafeteria serving lines yes sir the old roll down metal grates we're not doing those anymore these are all storefront very good you have answered my question why hellas was the uh only bitter on the on the turf we had two bidders on the turf we had
031hellis and field turf right but for the replacement oh for oh yes sir for bridgeland on the scifire high school multi-site master plan we have only jocelyn yes sir are we concerned that we have only one better we always want as much participation in our proposals as we can get this package was strictly a civil package because we're starting this sci-fi multi-campus project has three different phases to it so this is just civil so we were expecting a limited number of proposals all from civil contractors unfortunately some of the civil contractors had to bow out the morning of the bid due to manpower concerns but we've done a lot of work with jocelyn through our gcs as a subcontractor and the price that they gave us was under our projected cost so we feel like
032we got good value everybody on the board knows what this proposal is but this is a big number if you would explain to the viewing audience and the audience in attendance what 94 is all about what it's supposed to do which one is 94 94 is the 2022 scifire high school multi-site master plan package number one so with the sci-fi multi-site plan we are going to reorientate the reorient the sports fields to north-south or east-west actually and we're going to put baseball softball fields in like we have done the other schools we're also going to repave the band parking lot we're also doing mitigation which is what this project is it's detention and we'll be developing a road that will run all the way through the scifire site arnold lamkin and connect with old matsky
033road from telge road so it's quite a it's going to take several different packages to get this work done this is the first package which is if you look at the upper north corner for by old matsky and cypress north houston we're going to be clearing that area putting it attention upon there and preparing some site utilities for the next packages very good thank you sir yes sir yes sir so so clear in the area that right now had the little league feels on it right yes sir okay the little league feels my little baby boy played t-ball on and stuff right right [Laughter] yes sir okay as long as the attention pond looks nice we will i'll if i find some relics i'll bring him to you sir oh i bet you can thank
034you matt yes sir are there any other questions on 9e there are none our guests thank you for being here thank you matt [Applause] back to the agenda agenda item 7a under under reports will be presented at the regular board meeting on thursday march 10 2022 the board will now review the following consensus action item eight a the board will consider approving the minutes of the february 14 2022 regular board meeting are there any changes to the minutes looking to my left to my right that will stay on the consent agenda the board will now review the following non-consensus action items 9a the board will consider approving the administration's recommendation for the 2022-2023 open closed campus designation for student transfers do we have a presentation from teresa holland and christy geron this evening or is
035it questions only please okay as you know this is an annual agenda item for the board to approve the designation of campuses open for voluntary student transfers so uh just for our new members just want to give you a little bit of background of how that's structured and how we make that determination of the campuses that we recommend as you know campuses our students rather are assigned to campuses based on their attendance boundary where their primary residence is located so once we go through the enrollment projection process every spring which we're in the process of completing right now we look at those projected enrollments and then the capacity of each campus without having to move portable buildings around and is there space for some additional students for voluntary student transfers so that's that's kind of
036how we go through the process in addition to that there are some campuses that are more desirable many years ago we had made a modification to our policy to allow employees to transfer students to different campuses maybe it was a campus where the the employee worked or it was a campus in close proximity to where they worked and so there was just a variety of reasons so what we have created in fdb both our local policy and in the regulation we've identified uh three different tiers so tier one that's going to be the campuses that are less than 95 of their project of their capacity so they have room for voluntary student transfers and we monitor the number of of students that are allowed to transfer based on that capacity right so we don't want
037to exceed that and reach a point where we're having to move portable buildings to accommodate student growth and we also have to be mindful of new students enroll in the different campuses so tier one is going to be a campus that's open for specified numbers for whether it's an employee or just a parent that is requesting that tier two this is a campus that has exceeded that 95 capacity but we know that employees especially those that may work at campuses in in close proximity or in the area may wish to transfer their child to that campus so tier two is going to be closed for just any voluntary transfer and open for employees only tier three this is reaching uh campuses that really are far exceeding their capacity they really do not have room for
038additional students however we do recognize when you you know teachers that work in an assigned campus may want to bring their children or perfect example is the cypress ranch complex where we have cypress ranch we have smith middle school and we have warner elementary teachers that teach at those campuses it's likely that they're going to want to be able to bring their children with them to one of those campuses so we would open it up for employees who have children or for employees who work in those assigned attendance boundaries it's not just the campus it could be a transportation facility for instance could be the police department uh next to arnold middle school or sci fair high school so if we don't limit it to just class campuses so just a little bit about our
039timeline uh we're asking that you approve the designations for open and closed campuses uh on thursday evening march 10th and then immediately following your approval we'll begin all of our communication and sharing of the campuses that are open so parents can begin thinking about options for their children and employees as well the april 1st is when we open up the transfer application process it is a first come first serve basis that we we go through but it the student services department facilitates that process and it really is a very seamless and easy process i don't know if they would always say that but we don't get many issues or concerns they handle them and then our transfer window closes on june 1st we have to close it on june 1st for a number of reasons
040especially for our campus principals in determining staffing and knowing exactly what they need to plan for and prepare for for the next school year but we do feel that that is sufficient time for parents to make those decisions about a campus that they may want their child to attend the different communication methods you can see there there are a lot of ways that we push out this information the district website obviously social media is an excellent plan for platform for that campus newsletters our employee connection our community connection newsletters uh building a campus bulletin boards our school messenger so there are a variety of ways that we communicate this opportunity and most employees and parents that are interested in this are very aware of the window and the timeline and are looking for that information
041the applications they're available in the registrar's office if a parent does not have access to technology they can get it off of the website and then the window again is april 1 through g1 so for the 22-23 just keep in mind what i said about tier 1 campuses tier 1 campuses are those that we're opening for all parents and employees and there are 50 campuses that will be open so there are a lot of options for parents that are interested in possibly their child attending a different school we know there are a variety of reasons why a parent may be looking for some different options or choices in students as well so we have six high schools 11 middle schools and 33 elementary schools here you can see a list of those campuses that will
042be designated as open again a lot of options there different areas of the district and quite a few options at each level so i'll just give you a minute to kind of look at that i don't want to read through all of that so that's tier one okay so as we move to tier two tier two campuses these are the campuses that will be open for employees only right they've exceeded that 95 percent so we really need to control that number of student transfers at those campuses there are 10 high schools 18 middle schools and 53 elementary schools that will fit in the tier two instead of listing all of those i think the easiest way for you to think about this it's going to be all of the campuses except our tier three campuses
043which i'm going to in just a minute so our tier three campuses we have two high schools as you can imagine bridge line and ranch they're far exceeding their capacity their projected enrollment is pretty high smith middle school again needs relief with middle school 20 scheduled to open in the 23-24 school year four elementary schools hancock uh and hancock is kind of interesting i think hancock is more about that footprint of that campus that has a smaller footprint i think their capacity is like 856 because it's an older building and then renew obviously town lake is growing and we're seeing and that kind of ties into the ranch numbers as well and then m robinson and sheridan are far exceeding their capacity and we know that they will get relief with elementary 58 that's also
044scheduled to open in the 23-24 school year so again tier two is all of the campuses except those right and those campuses will be made open for employees that work at a site facility or campus within the attendance zone for those various campuses so that is the end of my and i hope it was brief so just tom before you go to questions just to add one thing and i didn't hear theresa say this so if she did i apologize but one of one of the issues that we're dealing with also this is a great recruiting tool for us for employees when children or teachers or employees know that their kids can more than likely go with them to their school or their school zone great point and that's become very important let me start
045to the right scott questions natalie thank you for the presentation and i appreciate uh the using very current information so that there's the most options possible for families because i i think every time we can provide choice uh for families that's excellent and uh dr henry's comment our teachers are so critical they are the front line um and all our staff and the fact that we're able to provide that even down to that tier i think is excellent and responsive i think our greatest challenge in these times ahead is we're keeping maintaining keeping recruiting high quality teachers for our students so i think this is great and helpful i do have a question about the process and maybe go this direction um in this transfer process is this an approval by principal is this just
046uh any kid who puts in an application what are that what are the criteria upon which the child is either accepted or not accepted for a district transfer they submit their application within the the uh the window the transfer window if they meet the the timeline and then also i think student services looks if the student has had a transfer revoked from that campus either the the probably i think the greatest reason or the biggest reason why student services or the campus may revoke a transfer is attendance and their transportation and ability to to be there if it's impacting obviously the students ability to attend school we may need to get them back to their campus that's closest to their residents so they can have transportation provided so that would be revoking between let's say
047they're already on a transfer prior or what or during the middle of the school year or what that look like it could be a student that is applying for a transfer for the first time if they meet that window and we have not exceeded the number of students that we're allowed to are able to accept then they're they're they're approved so there's not great like behavior or grades or anything like that great thank you appreciate it that's my last question gilbert yes teresa on the hancock with the low numbers that it's um how did you put it it was the their capacity capacity amount um with all the construction they just had did that not get raised up i'll have to have mr morgan uh the capacity i have listed is 856 i believe um
048so i'm not sure if we've added any classroom space to hancock for the most part when we go in and do a renovation we may do a classroom expansion but we're only adding square feet so we leave the programming the same as it was before in some cases we do add a classroom and increase capacity but for the most cases it stays about the same oh okay that was just we added four classrooms i believe it the capacity will be the same capacity capacity theresa was like 856.56 which is very small for one of our elementary campuses uh hancock is 856 that's their capacity without portables and their projected enrollment is 10 14. so they're far exceeding so we already have portables out there to accommodate the students that in years past they they had
049a chance i believe they had an option to go to matsuki i think jager is full also as well so yeah as you know um annually there are different campuses that are open uh as an option so okay i was just wondering there was a lot of construction going on there for a while so all right thank you luke debbie julie yes so so we have a number of campuses are that are open but do we have both title one as well as non-title one campuses open so that if parents wanted to choose to send their child to a title one or to a non-title one that they have that option yes at every level you'll see a variety of of campuses we talked about capacity of campuses when i sat in the audience years
050ago and this was during the 20 budget cutback that hit this district but also hit the entire state this district at the time redefined the campus capacity uh permitting more children to be in each classroom um have have we when we talk about capacity now is it the original capacity as designed and calculated are we still using the budget cutback capacity consideration um it's my understanding we're using the original capacity limits not the cutback capacities when we increased class sizes to accommodate the reduction we were making in staff so that's my understanding as well and for the new board members i ask that question each and every year uh it was fairly brutal when we had the 20 percent cutback to walk into a classroom to see how crowded uh these classrooms actually were one
051way this district was able to achieve efficiencies on a construction basis is we literally just had fewer square feet in our schools than some of the neighboring districts which works fine until you experience rapid growth so thank you for for affirming that we're using the original design capacity uh and we've already talked about uh that this does in fact reflect school choice but you also indicated how uh how this choice and why it could be pulled back i do have a question though are athletes free to move from campus to campus they absolutely i mean any student can transfer but there are uil implications so a parent or student may choose to transfer to another campus and it's mostly a varsity athletics issue but there are uil implications that the student is ineligible for varsity
052athletics participation for one calendar year very good thank you good presentation next we will take a look at good reminder thank you sir may we move this to consent agenda or do we want to keep it on non-consent consent consent done 9b the board will consider approving the centerpoint energy houston electric llc blanket utility easement to provide electrical service for the new transportation center number six and authorize the superintendent are designated to negotiate the final terms and execute all related documents questions luke debbie julie scott natalie gilbert and i have no no questions may we move this to non-consent it's moved to non-consent consent okay i'm going to take a break and get a recipient some candy no thank you 9c the board will consider approving on first reading additions revisions or deletions to district
053policies 9c1 ch local purchasing and acquisition revise 9c2 che local purchasing and acquisition vendor disclosures and contracts delete 9c3 eft local instructional resources field trips delete 9c4 ehb local curriculum design special programs ad 9c5 ehbaa local special education identification evaluation and eligibility add 9c6 fmf local student activities contest and competition delete now for questions let me go to the right scott natalie gilbert and to the left luke i do have a question i'd like to just understand better 9c.6 so student activities contests and competitions i'd like to understand better what it means to state that it's being incorporated into fm regulation marnie is this are you up for this one did i catch you napping over there yes no it's actually uh mr garcia's but i would be happy to support him in any way
054i feel much better now for sure definitely yeah yes i can definitely share with you uh this is currently in policy and the verbiage will remain the same but we were moving it into a regulation and it is in concert with non-c3 likewise that efd local policy that is also being moved to the same regulation fm regulation as we looked at this and in that one instructional resources field trips involving the curriculum instruction accountability and the school leadership team and working in concert with our general counsel behind me we felt it was more appropriate to be in regulation and that's what's taking place there does that help i've just in looking at our policies uh mr scanlan just kind of a broader picture on both of these is that policies really are the direction the
055board sets the policies the direction that i want you to go and regulation should be more like the turn by turn directions and so you guys tell us to go you know you go north on i-45 to get to dallas but when our policies have you know take the beltway if you've got a toll tag and you know in our policy then i then i encourage the administration this needs to be moved to reg so it can be um you know it can be more uh usable and if you need to change it etc and so that's some that's what we're trying to do we've been trying to do that for a little while go through the policies and if there's too much detail then we need to move that to regulation so those were
056a couple that us and that makes me think of the the what versus the how and with her example that she mentioned how do you do this and how the administration campus principles others will will abide by that policy all right thank you for the clarification so natalie i'll be back let me finish on this side debbie julian back to the right natalie that raises the question are you just going straight through them or as issues arise and you see that it's full of detail or what made these ones being that there are c and e and f um come to the forefront now sometimes it's looking at the policy and making sure that our current practice is in concert with that policy things change over over years for example you're talking about field trips
057i'll go back to that time that tom had mentioned before when there was a budget cut we made some changes with field trips so just making sure that we are aligned if you will with the policy and the regulations and i will say as sometimes changes because you know we try to make all the changes at once so if we're reviewing a policy for another reason and then we may look at a cluster of um policies but it's not really been a systemic you know or maybe systematic is the better word you know uh process um but we're going to focus on regulations in the next year and so then that will probably end up being a little more um a lock step in how we go through it in the next year we have
058a section in here that deals with dyslexia my son is a dyslexic would you comment briefly about what caused the change and and what this provides are you talking about um ehb well i don't have my notes in front of me you have required training for teachers for dyslexia yeah so mr jackson both nine c b and 9 c are actually two policies that uh we are having to put in as a result of the uh evaluation we're going through for special ed and you might recall or you may recall that i shared that the audit we're going through a special ed is a cyclical audit so all districts have to go through it it's just our turn and as part of that these two policies we were asked to put in excellent thank you
059for the clarification so may we move 9c as a cluster to consent agenda we have agreement so 9c is on the consent agenda 9d the board will consider awarding bids and contracts and or authorizing purchase orders as recommended in the posted agenda item 91 layer 2 and 3 switches e-rate 92 library books reference books e-books publications and media supplies 93 school buses 94 wireless access access points and switches e-rate to the right any questions scott natalie gilbert to the left luke nope debbie julie well golly that leaves it to me paula where are you so we have 91 and 94 91 deals with layer 2 and 3 switches e rate recommended vendor of netsync 94 wireless access points and switches e-rate these are big numbers so a couple of questions one is this new equipment
060or replacement two was netsync network solutions the low bidder and if not why did we select them briefly explain how this equipment is used what in the world is e-rate why do we like it and do we immediately receive it if it's good or is follow-up action required okay let me start with the first question and if i've missed one or two please remind me but but um the the equipment is for both new and replacement we are be we're opening elementary school 57 the new vpac and the new admin center so we need new switching hardware for that and wireless access points plus this summer we'll be working with facilities on renovations and we'll be putting in new equipment there as well the new equipment was part of bond allocation we'd planned for this
061as far as netsync netsync was the the chosen respondent for the layer 2 or layer 3 switching and netsync was not the lowest bidder just to give you a brief history with bond 2014 we chose a best of breed approach whenever we replace network switches and with that best of breed sounds sounds really good but with that comes a couple of problems we have some interoperability problems and we have to our staff needs a wide variety of skill set to support the variety of manufacturers so for example we have almost 3 000 switches that are deployed in the network and a little over 12 000 access points and these these switches run from the we have core level switches all the way to a campus if i use one campus as an example cypress parks
062high school has 12 has 26 network closets one mdf which is the primary closet for connectivity to the campus and then 25 other idf closets so each one of these closets need network switching for connectivity as far as to explain how the connectivity works at a very high level each side in our district is connected to the isc data center and this was our original data center again with bond 2014 we were able to expand to a second data center cyrus one for us to have a connectivity to the new data center cyrus one it's very expensive to run a connected connection from every site so with bond 2014 we implement implemented a hub approach so every site in the district is connected to the primary data center isc and then they have a secondary
063connection to a hub which ultimately takes them to the cyrus one data center connection so the way this works is each site whether it be a wired or wireless connection it connects to their network closet the traffic will flow to through the fiber ultimately to the isc data center or the hub data center and then desirous one to get connectivity to applications or internet connectivity e-rate what is e-rate so e-rate is not something that um that we have to do but e-rate is a federally funded program and the way it works cyprus fairbanks we're very fortunate that we have bond funding to be able to perform the network upgrades so we pay for our upgrades up for up front and then we on the back end apply for e-rate reimbursement and e-rate reimbursement falls into
064two categories the first category is internet access and the second category is a cabling switches wireless access points so what we what we'll do is um we will apply for federal reimbursement and the reimbursement is based upon our current free and reduced rate which is 80 percent so we will receive up to 80 reimbursement for our bond expenditures for switches and wireless access points have i missed was there more no but i have a follow-up question so that means we have to make an application yes sir and is there a is the application time sensitive yes sir it is for example we have you'll notice we have switches on both of these rfps we are currently running a pilot with hpe switches and cisco switches at two campuses the reason that we went ahead to
065bring this to the board before our pilot is complete is because the er we must follow the e-rate calendar and these rfps needed to be presented to the board and seek board approval by the end of march so that we can take advantage of this year's e-rate funding calendar so talk to us about how the pilot is proceeding it it's going well what we are doing is um we are uh introducing additional number one like i i mentioned we're trying to reduce the interoperab interoperability issues that we're having with different vendors but with this we're also seeking additional security measures we're hoping to we're in the process of implementing a knack or a network access control or center for both wired and wireless devices so that's in process right now now i'll borrow gilbert's question
066do we anticipate being able to receive all of this equipment yes sir we are also dealing with supply chain issues but we we do believe that we can we are going to receive equipment and does that impact our e-rate application if the equipment does not arrive as scheduled with e-rate we have 18 months to deploy a project and for example if we seek if we obtain board approval for switches this this evening or thursday evening we will begin to order but with e-rate we cannot receive again to follow their e-rate calendar we cannot receive hardware and begin deploying until april 1st so that starts the e-rate calendar and then we have 18 months to complete that and if we should exceed 18 months um we can we can apply for an extension excellent and then
067then one question which just kind of kind of puts the bow on top of it and this one may not be for you but i'll ask you anyway these are big numbers how does this benefit our students because that's what we're all all here about and all i hear you talking about are are switches and layers and hubs and closets i keep rooms in my closets and so so how does this benefit our students yes sir with our newly deployed one-to-one program this provides connectivity for all of our students constantly for 24x7 learning and clearly that's one but it also provides other communication across the district as as well and benefits our teachers yes sir excellent summary uh and thank you for for preparing very very good and concise uh answers to my questions i
068wish my questions could be as concise uh mr jackson we do have some experts on on the board i thought you might have some follow-up questions luke thank you uh have you had the opportunity to do any analysis to find out what the bandwidth or the for all the connectivity there's probably a portion of web activity of students that would be going to non-learning versus learning do you guys have any feel for what is being served up and what you're hosting we have bandwidth and we have bandwidth monitoring tools to see what sites they're going to with the internet filtering we're also monitoring which sites to specifically answer your questions a question whether it's educational or non-educational i do not have that data but i could get that for you so i would assume that
069overall part of the plan is to ensure that we've got sufficient bandwidth to manage the things that we believe are appropriate to manage that is correct yes sir and to the right my other expert thank you i'll send you questions be easier okay thank you i do have some follow-up questions though thank you very much thank you paula sir now uh other questions uh we covered 9d1 and 9d4 gilbert did you have a question on 9d2 or 9d3 yes i have a couple of questions on 9d3 the buses to our award-winning transportation team mr mr kyle mr smith whoever wants to get them so i'm always amazed on how y'all do your job there with all the uh logistical problems going on and stuff are the new buses we're getting gasoline propane mixture of both
070these that we're purchasing at this time are propane propane yes sir and is that price going up or is that staying relatively calm as funny as you should ask that dr smith has the today's prices excellent question so needless to say we've been reviewing these prices almost on a daily basis right and as of today the rack rate for propane which is basically what the daily uh base rate for propane is is a dollar fifty gallon uh as opposed to propane unleaded is at 328 a gallon and diesel is at 372 a gallon so we're seeing a significant price reduction or price savings with the propane fuel right now is is that also in in mileage compare or is that compared comparable to the gasoline the propane buses get about half a mile less per
071gallon than the gasoline but it's not enough to over offset the savings that we're having on the current cost and and by your words when you started it sounded like this is a daily flux going on here it is um just to give you some data in july we were paying a dollar 24 for diesel 1.19 for unloaded at 97 cents for propane so we've seen a significant increase just in the past okay eight months right um logistical problems getting the buses in are we okay with them uh as of right now um we should be good i believe the build date on these buses is 180 days which is normal i feel like the supply chain situation has been improving as of late we ordered the big purchase through the 2019 bond back in
072i think it was november and we have received all those buses um so i think it's improving right and and what percentage are we at right now on replacing the ones that you had targeted on replacing i remember right we're right at like 98 we're very close oh excellent idea and one last question what do we do with our old buses we auction them and in fact we have some other school districts who are calling asking to buy them so they can utilize them okay thank you for all the answers our award-winning transportation department thank you i do have some follow-up questions although gilbert i thank you you very nicely handled uh those and some of these are for our viewing audience we all know about a two-mile rule and a one-mile rule about picking
073up students what is our rule within the district so cypher isd we're very unique we afford transportation to every student in the district other than those that are voluntary transfers so no matter where you live if you're not a voluntary transfer we'll pick you up and give your ride to school what percentage of our students are bus riders and do we think this helps our students arrive on time and and helps to get them into the classroom right now we're at about 70 percent ridership which is well above the state average which is i believe around 35 to 40 percent and when you look at some of our loading zones and the car rider lines i feel like those school buses do definitely help get students to school on time i believe the averages each
074bus takes off about 35 cars off the road so each one of those buses does significantly help get students to school on time both the bus riders and the car riders i know during covet our bus ridership was down dramatically has our bus ridership gone back to pre-covet levels we're not quite at pre-covered levels yet but we're getting very close years ago a question that i asked in and the viewing audience who has seen me several times you know i no longer have any original questions uh but this one was back when harold rowe was here and the question was what are the pros and cons of the propane decision and why is propane potentially a superior choice well for us a little background on that although we approved the purchase we were not we
075did not win the contract so we actually delayed our purchase of propane buses but we had studied it well and to give you a little bit of background in 2018 we bought the first 13 so in 2018 we bought the first 13. and we saw a significant reduction uh in operating costs cost per mile up to 60 cents less than what it costs to operate a diesel school bus of course we're seeing the reduced fuel cost and on top of that we get a 35 cent per gallon rebate from the federal government so that dollar fifty we're paying right now will actually get 35 cents back per gallon that we utilize on our propane buses so we're seeing a significant savings not to mention honestly the drivers have loved them i don't personally drive one
076but all the drivers around me drive one i got one of the older ones but they love them they've been very successful for us which is why we've made the investment and we're at 336 propane buses now on the fleet which i believe is the second largest propane school bus fleet in the nation from a ridership standpoint are propane buses quieter or louder much much quieter and honestly much cleaner much cleaner for the environment they only met .02 knox emissions as opposed to a diesel bus which can be up to 0.08 and some of our older ones were in the single digits 2.0 knocks per mission i know talking to bus drivers and my old tennis partner used to be a bus driver he made the observation that when the buses were quieter the children
077our students were quieter and would arrive in a better frame of mind but of course that was pre-covered do we still see the same anecdotal observations now you know we haven't done an analysis of our ridership in our propane buses just yet this is really the first year we've rolled out a large number of propane buses but there are studies out there that have been done university studies that show propane school buses and even electric school buses do decrease any kind of student misconduct on a school bus because it is quieter the driver can hear the students better there's not as much yelling over that roar of a diesel engine and now to a gilbert question that he did not ask or if you did i didn't hear him there is undoubtedly a looming gasoline
078shortage that is going to hit us we just don't know when i would presume there's going to be a propane shortage as well do you have any comments about that concern we haven't heard that concern just yet we work very closely with our vendor for all three fuel sources we talk to them probably honestly daily but we have not heard any of those concerns addressed just yet very good thank you gentlemen all right thank you if you don't mind just real quick uh also part of this purchase we were awarded a six million dollar grant from uh tceq texas commission of environmental quality so that actually significantly offsets this purchase price i believe the quote came in at right roughly over 10 million dollars but that six million dollars will offset that significantly so we
079are going to see a significant cost reduction in this purchase as well thank you for adding that in i appreciate it maybe this is for linda or maybe for bill powell i don't know who wants this one this would be a hot potato we're talking about buying library books reference book ebooks publications and media supplies do we have a screening process in place for the books being selected briefly comment and our libraries already have books why do we need to keep buying more books so mr mr jackson first of all i just want to just share that we're very fortunate thankful that you the board has allowed us to have a media specialist a librarian at all of our campuses and so they are our book experts and we really value and we seek out
080their expertise when we are looking or evaluating books we do have policies in place that guide us in uh on the process of selecting books so we have ef local and legal that actually lay out for us what we need to do in in in selecting books in addition our librarians read many of the books before they're purchased but they can't read all of them there's tons of books and so they also use a variety or various widely accepted uh professional educational tools tools such as uh book journals that provide reviews and provide information about the book so there's a wide array of ways that they actually screen books and select books and and actually this process of reviewing books is ongoing this is like an everyday thing for our librarians they call this process
081weeding and and it's it's a it's a process they follow where they're looking to see are there any inappropriate books that have made it into light to the library or they are there any that are not age-appropriate that have made it into the library and then they will remove them or in some cases they send it on to to uh to the next level uh they also will look for books that have been worn or they're they're obsolete maybe facts have changed and so this is a process that is ongoing for our uh our librarians and as and as you know as well mr jackson that there is a process for our parents to uh to challenge a book or ask for for reconsideration of a book process and then there's a committee on campus
082that again looks at those books screens those books and make a decision about whether those books need to be kept or not additionally we have established at the district level a committee and that committee includes librarians it includes a counselor principals a parent it includes our our directors some directors of instruction and our english language arts uh coordinators are part of this committee and they are they are they are reviewing they continue to review any books that come to our attention that we need to possibly take a look at and then as a committee making decisions about about those books so it's an ongoing process so is it safe to presume that we have pulled books this year just like we always do yes it's it's yes sir every year yes every year we have
083pulled books uh or the librarians have have uh pulled books following the process that's in place very good just as long as you don't pull cat in the hat it'll be there for you to read next year sir mr jackson i'll share um my time when i was a volunteer in the elementary school library where my daughters went to school that librarian also focused on reading books for books that were not checked out like they were they just they were taking up space but the student population had lost interest in those books and they were no longer of interest so that was a great opportunity to weed out those more obsolete books and then bring in new titles that the students were excited about with from new authors thank you and thank you dr macias
084we have already reviewed 9e but let's go back to 9d may we move 90 to consent agenda looking to my right and to my left so 9d is on the consent agenda 9e we had questions we did uh move it to consent but i uh i first asked did we want to leave it on non-consent so just to clarify we are moving 9e to the consent agenda okay nine f the board will consider a level four appeal of a level three decision this item will be discussed in closed session pursuant to section 551.074 at the end of tonight's work session the superintendent's briefing portion of the agenda will be presented at the regular board meeting on thursday march agenda item 11a superintendent's evaluation under the discussion portion of the agenda will be discussed in closed
085session at the regular board meeting on thursday march 10 before we move to the closed session uh is there anything that i have left out just just one clarification that the level four or uh appeal is section five five one point zero eight two one just clearly thank you sir now before we move to the closed session i would like to thank everyone for being here tonight may i have a motion to move into closed session on agenda item 9f as amended and it's actually under um 551.074 so i was wrong okay so as originally presented so i hear a motion mr president i move that the board move into closed session on agenda item 9f motion has been made is there a second second motion made in second all in favor please raise your
086right hand done thank you we will now adjourn to close session [Music] you