Formal Board Meeting 1/13/22

001[Music] [Applause] [Music] good evening the cypress fairbanks independent school district board of trustees are now convened in a regular board meeting on thursday january 13 in the boardroom of the cypress fairbanks independent school district instructional support center located at 10 300 jones road houston texas at 6 p.m i want to welcome the members of our audience and our television viewers to this meeting of the board of trustees and off script i love a full house [Applause] 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 not 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

002place 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 to 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 our repeated disruption of any board meeting by words or actions may result in removal or loss of the privilege to this meeting off script tonight i suspect passion and rhetoric will not be in short supply that's okay i do remind all of our patrons please follow the rules the rules are meant

003to be protective for all concerned at all present prior 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 the texas government code these proceedings are airing live on comcast channel 16 and 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 including mine are turned

004off or in silent mode we want to 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 this opportunity to recognize our community leadership committee members who are in attendance this evening and when i call your names please stand for your recognition tanya yaeggy tara lamb ryan irving francis romero leslie martone nancy frankel and stacy anderson [Applause] as always we will open with an invocation followed by the pledge the invocation for tonight's board meeting will be given by nathan walker a bi-vocational youth pastor at crossbridge christian church adopted owens elementary school we thank you for they do an awesome job of supporting staff and students nathan is a loving husband father and grandfather we appreciate your ongoing

005commitment to our district and nathan we thank you for being here tonight before you give us your invocation sir i would like to introduce our air force jrotc cadets who will be presenting the colors this evening our cadets are from cypress falls high school and they are cadet arlene flores garcia on u.s rifle cadet izel hernandez carrying the american flag cadet natalia velorio on texas rifle and cadet victoria ortega carrying the texas flag our cadets this evening are under the direction of chief master sergeant reginald morrell united states air force retired and senior aerospace science instructor and now sir if you would please give us the invocation and everybody please stand dear heavenly father i come here tonight on behalf of the sci fair isd school board asking you for your guidance tonight for your

006wisdom and for your support during this meeting guide this meeting in engaging in meaningful discussions allowing all to grow closer in unity and nurture bonds of community may this place be filled with your grace and your mercy lord god as decisions are made that might affect students staff faculty alumni and friends of the scifir isd and continue to remind us all that everything done and discussed here tonight and all that is accomplished is in the pursuit of truth for the greater glory of you and for the service of all humanity we ask all these things in your son's precious name amen of the united states and to of america for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all foreign others turn arch forward please be safe boardman member scott

007henry will read the district's vision and mission statement for the benefit of the audience the district shall maximize every student's potential through rigorous and relevant learning experiences preparing students to be 21st century global leaders the district's vision is formed from the ackermann lead to learn empower achieve dream lead thank you sir we have certain dignitaries in the audience that i may not have everybody's name um judge hidalgo are you with us i know you're outside thank you while we're waiting for uh judge hidalgo to come in and we'll recognize her we do have uh former board members who gave years of service with us if you would please stand so you can be recognized george edwards kevin hoffman kevin holds the distinction of having served on two separate boards two full terms on hisd one

008full term here when he was here he was part of the honor board for the state of texas being recognized as the outstanding school board in the state christine hartley [Applause] c2 is part of the honor board and john ogletree [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and john was also part of the honor board fred ziag and i apologize i didn't see you on on the way in good to see you again sir um has judge hidalgo joined us not yet very good we will now proceed with the recognitions portion of the agenda in honor of texas school board recognition month the superintendent will recognize the cyprus fairbanks isd board of trustees for their dedication leadership and continuing service to the children of the district presenter dr mark henry thank you mr president uh audience trustees good to

009see everyone here this evening before i do that mr jackson didn't have this information but i know we have three state representatives with us so do you mind standing up and just identifying yourself so we can honor acknowledge you okay all right they're all outside all right i tried every january the texas association of school boards honors school boards volunteers that serve in their respective school districts and uh scifir always does it up right you can't see all of the things up here but our campuses and our departments make sure that our volunteers here on the dice are surrounded by flowers and sweets and books are dedicated in their name to the library and certificates so certainly appreciate all of these folks over here who helped contribute and make this a special evening for our

010trustees many of you may or may not know so i'm going to tell you trustees are not paid it is a volunteer position they receive zero remuneration so the time that they're giving is volunteer time uh and as you know it's not always easy uh to serve uh on a board of trustees but we certainly appreciate uh our seven trustees here that are willing to serve uh in this uh capacity and uh like many of them that have already be on been honored we thank you also for your service so mr jackson i honor you and i would ask the audience here to honor our board here with a round of applause thank you [Applause] thank you ever so much it is a pleasure and an honor to serve the students the parents the taxpayers

011all of the patrons of our wonderful district and we really do have a good district the superintendent will now make remarks and announcements including the honors and achievements earned by staff and students in recent weeks thank you mr president once again and you may not know this because we don't always publicize it enough but the best wrestling in the country is used usually thought of to be in the midwest west in iowa and oklahoma and though nebraska those states through there but did you know that cypher isd hosts the largest high school wrestling tournament in the country this year we had over 70 programs at our event this past weekend it was the 19th annual cf invitational tournament january 7th and 8th at the berries center it is also the berry center is also the

012place where the uil state meet is is held so once again that facility comes in great use to bringing in outside visitors uh to our community so uh it was a great event uh we had people not just from texas but from other states here and i predict and for some of y'all that are from the midwest you you might poo me on this but i think in 10 to 15 years the best wrestlers in the country are going to come from the state of texas because of programs like cypher isd thank you mr president we will now hear public comments and mr secretary do we think our technology is working this evening excellent excellent and to let you know we do have one trustee who is with us remotely uh that is miss debbie

013blackshear and while we're checking on the sound i would call upon our counsel miss marty sims would you explain if this is legal can debbie vote can she smile uh tel tell us ins and outs i'll i'll be i'll be brief which those of you who know me know that's not my strength but um just very quickly um when this first uh rose that miss blackshirt was going to participate by zoom tom wanted mr jackson wanted to make sure that everyone knew that the texas open meetings act does allow for this as long as the quorum of the board is present physically in the location where it's posted for the meeting to take place and that the it is available to the public then a trustee may participate through uh audio video conferencing and that's

014what miss blackshear is doing and she has two-way communication so she can hear and you can hear us and she can hear us so yes mr jackson the open meetings act does allow for this thank you miss sims the first on the list is state representative penny shaw who is still outside i was i would suspect and when she comes in we will honor her position the next speaker is lazar espinosa will go to the third speaker then do we have only thing i would ask is do we have anyone in the overflow room do we need to be making uh announcements and giving people time to come i don't know do we i know we set up for overflow okay okay i just wanted to make sure mr jackson we didn't have any speakers

015and there wasn't someone you know running down the hall trying to get here we do have overflow but ms francis says she doesn't believe any speakers are enough well very good um as long as i'm not running a foul i will recognize any of our speakers who are not here when their names are called yes so long as we haven't moved on uh public comment does have to come first mr jackson before we do that and it might give some of our speakers a time to get here we've got a couple more things uh that i didn't realize we had on thanking the board so could we do those yes sir by all means okay thank you and i apologize uh first of all we have leslie martone president of the scifir houston chamber of

016commerce who is going to congratulate our board members that's all right thank you um president jackson dr henry um i'm excited um board valued board i'm excited to be doing this for the tenth time celebrating my 10th anniversary this year representing all businesses in the scifir community our board members that have served in this past year i appreciate every hour that you've put into it for our kids for our custodians for our teachers for our administrators for everybody that works for this school district you guys have done an amazing job this this year and i really do appreciate it for our new trustees i am super excited to see you discover the school district that i was born and raised in and that i love so much that i raised my family here and so

017proud to serve as a leadership position in this community there are people in decades that have sat in the positions that you're sitting in the chairs that you're sitting in leaders that have led our community and have led us to be the third largest school district in the state of texas and it is not because of our population i'm going to say it again it is not because of our population people choose to move it is still the number one reason we hear in the chamber office that people choose to move here because of our amazing school district i have a son in special ed i know that that comes up a lot he was served in every capacity he was challenged in every way in every iep meeting we sat there and he has

018graduated and is thriving and is a valued member in the sci-fi community and i'm proud to serve not only as the the president of the chamber but to be a friend of the school district and to appreciate you tonight thank you for everything you do thank you president morton okay and as monty hall used to say and that's not all we have a tribute video now created by the bridgeland high school avp students so you can watch your monitors the past couple of years have been challenging for all levels of education with strong resilience we at cfisd adapted and overcame unforeseen obstacles with confidence thanks to you our amazing cfisd board and your commitment to protect students during these constantly changing times we are able to rise above and soar through the clouds [Music] as

019you help us plan for our future we determine to win the day with the utmost courage wisdom and compassion thank you for your sincere commitment to us all and and continuing on as i did uh do earlier i thank the principals and community programs in our departments for providing all of the goodies here for the board and the and and the books and this year the 2022 board recognition month theme is rising above and again with what we've dealt with the past two years certainly that's a great motto with that mr jackson i think i've done everything i'm supposed to do now so i'll turn it back to you thank you dr henry tylanga hudson and while you're you're setting up please remember we have a two minute time limit the yellow light will come

020on when you have 30 seconds to let you know you need to wrap up when the red light comes on that means you're out of time and so please wrap up with a concluding sentence if you haven't already done so okay thank you i am speaking on the equity audit i stand here not only as a teacher but as a community member i have lived in this district for over 10 years and have seen tremendous growth over the past couple of years teachers have gone through highs and lows in education from the pandemic to the recent controversy in regards to crt do we even know what crt really is do we have courses in it do we is it even mentioned in our secondary schools crt is not even offered in university until some schools

021are in their junior or senior year and possibly postgraduate studies but some of the members have ran on the sphere in short crt has nothing to do with making people feel bad about themselves but to offer insight and perspective on how to better provide services and opportunities but that's not why i'm here it was made very clear on monday how people feel about equity versus equality do we even believe in equity do we do you even think or agree that people should have the same opportunities and avenues as everyone else it was practically said that teachers that look like me are the reason why kids drop out of school do you even know who i am have you set foot in my classroom do you even know my background have you stopped and thought to

022yourself why kids even drop out i guarantee you that it has nothing to do with the color of my skin instead of attacking and questioning teachers ask yourself what can i do to best support them how can i get them into education more so that students have not only someone to look up to but they have themselves that someone can understand them i hope that all of you really dive deep into what was said and the damage that it has caused i'm really not seeking an apology because it will be wasted i'm seeking that if you're going to sit on the board that you have to realize that teachers who are day in and day out of striving not only to provide an education that is equal but an education that is fully full of

023equity one last thought i never had any black teachers growing up one experience caused me to change my course in life to become an educator i became the black teacher that i strongly longed for and despite the false stats that were shared none of my students to this day have dropped out due to the fact that their teacher was black instead they have thrived and are changing and changing the world one day out of time thank you [Applause] our next speaker is julie dahan thank you board for allowing me to speak again this evening and let me begin by stating that i support scott henry and the goal of ensuring that all children are provided with the resources and curriculum they need to be successful the audit does not focus on ensuring that each individual

024child will be given the tools they need to increase their performance in reading writing and arithmetic rather the focus has been on conducting an audit to validate the necessity for implementation of these divisive sel programs which hampers recovery of student learning due to the pandemic why didn't the board and the public receive the entire equity report audit report to effectively prepare for this meeting prior why was the board only given the executive summary for the working session what are we trying to hide this shows a lack of transparency and commitment to assist all students recover from the results of the pandemic we should be focused on improving the performance of 56 percent and 58 percent in reading and math proficiency respectively the recommendations of the millennial learning concepts group were to use fort worth austin

025and hisd as models for supporting these equity initiatives within cypher isd as pointed out on monday hisd's performance is not indicative of stellar performance the opposite is true and their coo is under indictment with respect to fort worth the co-chair of fort worth's racial equity committee recently resigned under pressure pressure after charges of doxing were made she had posted the phone numbers and addresses of four families who had filed a lawsuit against the school district for imposing a mask mandate and obtaining an injunction against it and also left a profanity-laced voicemail from one of the parents whose voice whose phone number she posted her response was some people find my choice words offensive but really offensive is the four white parents who could hold so much power are these the models that we want to

026use for scifir isd i would say not i again reiterate my support for scott henry and the other trustees to ncrt and equity programs at cypher isd [Applause] our next speaker is david barker hello i'm david barker i'm addressing type item 10e the the relationship to the cell and easement along winford at campbell heist middle school to the north harris county regional water authority based on my calculations judy's data and maps from from hcad there's approximately 17 000 square feet of easement and was appraised at and being sold for 169 000. that's ten dollars a square foot congratulations on getting an appraisal that was 20 times the amount of the appraisal for the win for property sold last month and 10 times the actual sales price for that property was the appraiser used on this

027easement the same as the appraiser used on the last cell it also appears the cfisd is selling an easement on the property sold last month how can an easement be sold on a piece of property that is already sold something appears seriously wrong the board needs to investigate the situation thank you our next speaker is gerald daniels good evening dr henry and trustees and fellow cipher parents and citizens my name is gerald daniels i have lived in the sci-fi school district for 45 years i have four children and two grandchildren that have graduated from scifire i also have numerous family members and friends who have worked in the sapphire isd for the last 12 years i have mentored middle school boys in the sci-fi school district and i want to get to what i've had

028to say i have received i have reviewed rather the executive summary of the equity and culture audit and strongly urged the board to implement the recommendations resulting from that audit we begin by reciting the pledge of allegiance and a portion of which states one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all some of the things i said it was a portion okay but it is under god i i'm a christian and i do believe that i did not okay thank you audience members i i need you to refrain from engaging with the speaker go ahead sir you can thank you thank you the uh the audio recommendations are data based and they address issues that are clearly evident in this report they're clearly evident and so if the school district is going to continue to

029progress and be the school district that it has been it is going to have to make some changes and so this audit is the first step and to reject them out of hand and summarily summarily say that uh all the things that i heard need to meet up sir thank you at the meeting on monday night uh it's not going to get us there so we need to work together and get this done [Applause] when members of the audience choose to interrupt one of our speakers we are adding that additional time to that speaker's time so i appreciate the forbearance of the audience please be as courteous as we can we may not agree with what the speaker is saying but let's be courteous thank you our next speaker is alexi swersky yes i am

030addressing the racial equity audit and this also um my comments also pertain to the racial resolution that was passed and i have yet to see because i can't find it on the website this report seems more like a report that has preconceived notions and ideas and not supported by research i took three courses in statistics in college this is not a consistent reliable report and in fact contradicts itself on table two in the executive summary student discipline trends are these percentages of students who were suspended um number of times each student was suspended it's it's unclear and also trends tend to measure are supposed to measure things over time there's no time periods referred to much less one time period to another another inconsistency in the report is asians had the lowest discipline rate and

031also the lowest percentage of teachers and other staff were asian which contradicts the point made after table three that students have lower disciplinary rates when they have teachers who look like them and share a cultural background it just shows the study is inconsistent and should not be used in making decisions the says one of the goals is to develop 21st century global leaders i cannot find that defined in the study i would need to before i would take that seriously know what exactly that means and how it pertains to good education the racial equity report seems like i said more like a report with pre planned conclusions than a true accurate research effort in the executive summary report asians are not listed as a separate ethnic group in the student achievement table whereas in the

032student discipline table they are just another area of inconsistency it's my understanding that there were trainings for teachers last summer that talked about white privilege and which made teachers embarrassed and shamed for their race this is illegal to quote from house bill participation in any internship practicum similar activity involving social or public policy advocacy a teacher administrator or employee of a state agency school district or open enrollment charter school may not be required to engage in any training orientation or therapy that president thank you ma'am of race or sex stereotyping thank you man races [Applause] our next speaker is ron guidry thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak to this issue using race as a criteria for hiring has always led to discrimination against good qualified applicants race has never been a good

033indicator of quality of or character or ability of the individual if a group is promoting a hiring policy based primarily on race and someone opposes such a policy my question is are there any races in this situation and if so who i believe we all oppose racism now i know this may be a simple observation from someone that's been around a while so please bear with me racism to me is in its simplest term is either elevating some or suppressing others based purely on their race it appears to me that a policy based on race by definition makes it a racist policy and those that oppose such a policy are opposing a racist policy i believe it helps if we make a distinction between racist people and a racist policy i believe the color of

034one's skin should have no standing in a school district's hiring policy that is if we want the best qualified teachers for our children if we want our children to become more colorblind in their outlooks toward others then we as parents and especially you can audience members i need you to not engage with the speaker it slows down the meeting it's disruptive if we want our children to become more colorblind in their outlooks toward others then we as parents and especially as board members need to set the example let's try and set aside personal emotions triggered by key words and focus on the tenets of the policy at hand and what is best in the interests of our children if you want to adopt a racist policy just be honest in who you are calling a

035racist thank you [Applause] no so for our audience please be courteous we have we have a full house tonight and and side comments really are not not helpful our next speaker is william ellie thank you i'm both dis dishearted and disgusted by certain members of our community in their virtual signaling bully tactics and gaslighting mr henry millennium's recommendations are not all substantiated by the data in this report not at all the reference not his hisd as a shining example of having better students teachers ratios that look like each other is a racist comment itself what school district on earth would look at hisd as a role model where are these community members where are these communities the aft lena hildago and the houston chronicle last summer when racially divisive media posts from previous board members

036were exposed i don't recall their tortures and pitch forks then of course not it didn't fit their narrative mr henry i think i want to thank you for seeing the audit report for what it truly is political propaganda dr blasingame i believe you identified the biggest weakness in the report that being a lack of any input from the district's primary stakeholder the parents how can how can that be surely if the district is systemically racist and full of inequities parents would have something to say about it mr scanlon okay guys you cannot interrupt the speaker mr scanlan i want to pass on my sympathies to you your family and of course your daughter regarding your comments on disciplinary process and incidents i too didn't see a single ounce of evidence or data identifying any correlation

037or causation of disruptive behavior ethnicity research has empirically demonstrated the single most important factor impacting a child's academic success as a is a teacher therefore it stands to reason that money time and energy taken away from a teacher with their students is an opportunity for improvement a good teacher can do great things with underperforming students regardless of the teacher or the student's skin color let's redirect further time money and energy from the social justice propaganda to the teachers i asked the trustees please wrap up sir i get more time for the interruptions i have one sentence left what i asked the teacher i asked the trustees respectively audiences hold on mr ealy i'll let you finish audience you need to be quiet he has one sentence left please be respectful and i will make sure

038that people are respectful when you are speaking please i ask the trustees respectfully disregard the unsupported recommendations in the audit and get onto the business of teaching our children thank you [Applause] for the audience the secretary did add additional time to the speaker okay folks folks in the in the audience if you want to make those comments please go outside to the parking lot we need to continue we need to be respectful our next speaker and i do not have a clue as to how to pronounce your name i will spell it o-d-u-s otis e-v-b-a-g-h-a-r-u i graduated from here come on jackson uh thank you so much board thank you all so much for for allowing us here to speak um i'm here to speak on uh item 7a uh equity and inclusion and and

039you know for me for going to elementary school middle school high school here graduating lange creek club uh it's this is not site fair this is not the sci-fi community i know to sit down here and listen to what i just heard this is not the community i grew up in i have classmates that have texted me republican democrat doesn't matter i can't believe i'm hearing this from school board members that once taught me that i once was in their home that once welcomed me now we're feeding into political rhetoric that is just gone beyond a pail school board members when these comments were made not one of you spoke out desmond tutu said if you are neutral in situations of injustice you have chosen the side of the oppressor [Applause] i'm telling you right

040now history is not going to remember us of choosing the side of the oppressor we need these equity studies people forget about slavery they forget that the civil rights is just as old as many parents that are sitting in this crowd you forget science fair high school has plethoras of water fountains why because it was a segregated high school don't forget the history of this school district don't let one comment let you forget that don't let these people tell you that they're scared of the very same people they want to live in the same world in don't let these people who will celebrate mlk on monday but sit down here and tell me that i'm not equal school board members administrations please don't hurt your comments the side of the oppressor today don't choose the

041side of the oppressor tomorrow do not choose the side of the oppressor for the rest of your days stand up for us stand up for these students please please please thank you so much for your time hey they didn't stay on topic so i'm not going to stay on topic this is personal for me this is personal for me [Applause] our next speaker is brian henry i got to follow otis when commenting on the equity audit monday night one of the board members called for an investigation and firing over a professional development session on white privilege that same board member implied while comparing dropout rates in hisd and cfisd that hiring more diverse teachers was either unnecessary or undesirable as an educator myself having earned my certification from texas a m i know the importance

042of equipping all teachers to serve their students to the best of their ability research has shown that it is beneficial for a diverse student population to have diverse teachers and cfisd should seek to hire more teachers who reflect the diversity of the community if white teachers are teaching diverse students it is imperative for them to have professional development that helps them serve those students in my certification program i was required to read a book titled white teachers diverse classrooms that helped me recognize unconscious bias harmful stereotypes and equip me to adopt culturally relevant teaching this is not woke indoctrination in need of a witch hunt this is what professional teaching in a diverse society looks like and any individual who does not understand that has no business serving on a school board [Applause] i'm going

043to go back to our second speaker who was not here cesar espinosa [Applause] uh good afternoon my name is cesar espinosa i'm executive director of field i'm also a proud parent of a cypher isd student as well as my niece and nephew's attend cypher isd translate that if you need to help translating that but basically to summarize it for you i said if y'all cannot understand 35 of your students which are latino students and their parents then there's something wrong with this board uh a certain board member uh which we'll call uh tom and jerry said that uh that if you hire more black teachers then that would be a problem and it would lead to dropout rate what in the epoch times are you reading that told you that that was a clear statement

044to make uh find your news elsewhere or find another job which i suggest you do both but uh for the people that are here you cost this to happen tonight you cost this to happen tonight and to further say that insult to andre and say that you are going to try to rescind the racism uh proclamation that you all made which was the bold step for cypher isd which was a good step for scifirst which made my niece and my nephew and my little sister say hey maybe for once i can go to cypher isd and not and not get scorned for speaking spanish and not get and be understood for for being for something that i can't get rid of which is the pigmentation of my skin man you guys you guys really do

045put it out there right and for those of you who are endorsed by bismarck are you really here for for the uh students or are you here for business for those people in the crowd i suggest you look into bismarck and find out what they do uh because some of these board members including tom and jerry was uh endorsed by them uh and you know you don't want to see coming back you need to resign immediately and that is not and that is not and that is that is not a request that is the community thank you that you need to retire your time has expired sir thank you we'll see you in the next election and for all of you who love scott thank you thank you please move on sir thank you [Applause]

046folks let's let's take a little pause let's breathe a little i know we have passion we have rhetoric i love both of those we need to be respectful we need to stick to the rules we don't want to be using names let's stick to the time limit the next speaker is stacy demayer good evening tonight i'm speaking about agenda item 11a the resolution condemning racism and affirming the district's commitment of opportunity for all i want to begin by thanking the board for assigning the resolution and by doing so taking a stand against racism and inequality and committing our school district to truly having opportunity for all before monday night's work session i was open to the idea of the board rewording parts of the resolution the board president showed his due diligence in determining how

047they could go about doing this and it was decided that the board would work together in creating a new resolution however comments were made at the work session that have completely made me alter my opinion on this approach board members notably the ones who were not a part of the drafting of the original resolution made extremely concerning comments during the equity audit discussion one coined the term repeat offenders when referring to students during the discipline portion of the presentation and another called the equity audit a pile of rubbish he then implied that black teachers are the cause of a higher dropout rate in another district something that is completely unfounded by the way and suggested that hiring more black teachers for cfisd is not something he's particularly interested in this is considered to be employment

048discrimination and a violation of the civil rights act of 1964. this trustee must resign immediately there is not enough time in these two minutes to go through every concerning comment these two board members made their comments clearly show that they have no business being a part of the drafting of a new resolution i have zero faith they can contribute anything good and truthful to a resolution condemning racism they cannot be a part of this process and therefore the old resolution should remain as is recent events have shown that we need this resolution in this district now more than ever thank you for this opportunity [Applause] our next speaker is dr tara cummings hi i'm dr tara cummings parent and member of sci fair civic alliance i want to express my deep gratitude and respect for

049the district and the trustees who commissioned the equity audit cfisd is a shining example of exceptional public education we are not however a perfect example the only way to make progress is to continually identify and remediate our areas for growth the equity audit unequivocally identified a number of areas including the disproportionate discipline of our black students the need to hire more diverse staff the need to develop and consistently implement clear equity practices district-wide and the need to create an equity office within the district and i hope we do those things i expected that the results of the equity audit would confirm the ongoing need for the resolution condemning racism and i was right two of our trustees one of whom is deservedly at the center of the current outrage in our community stated on monday

050that they prefer to do away with the resolution entirely and not develop a replacement that's beyond horrifying though not at all surprising given their campaign rhetoric also horrifying was one of our new trustee statements attributing poor educational outcomes to black students and saying quote opportunity for all i don't like that in his statements and his social media in which he has hearkened back to the segregation of the 60s he has threaded a needle and stitched a straight line to his deeply seated racist world view which has no place in public educate education or cfisd the community has responded with absolute ire and rightfully so his statement regarding black teachers is simply not true anyone who understands the basics of research who is indeed and i quote a big data guy comprehends that the plethora of

051data over many years is clear black teachers and diverse staff are a boon to public education period his statements have caused immeasurable damage most egregiously to our staff and student of color they it has also served to distract us from doing the important work of becoming not only an exceptional district but an equitable district to the board member who made those comments the writing is on the wall you need to resign and do so immediately to our staff and students of color i am so sorry that you have been subjected to the reprehensible racist blathering of our newest trustees and their supporters please know that they don't speak for our district or our community as a whole we trust you we appreciate you we value you we belong to you and we will continue to

052fight with and for you i will ask one of our state representatives had signed up to speak do we have any of our elected other elected officials in the room saying none will continue our next speaker is francis romero sorry i'll be speaking on agenda item 7a mr president trustees dr henry and members of the administration i'm frances romero proud mom of a cfisd graduate and also of a current junior in high school i've also been a cfisd elementary school teacher a pto president a vips board member tutor mentor and currently clc member and drill team mom all of these experiences have given me pretty good insight into the needs of our students first and foremost we want our students to learn in a safe environment the next most important element is quality teaching we

053want teachers who are qualified and passionate about their area of education thirdly it is important that in a school district with a 78 percent non-white population that the faculty reflect the demographics of all of our kids teachers administrators and all staff are role models and can impact student success a component of this is students seeing a reflection of those who look like them but also those who are different it is my hope that this board and administration continue to strive toward hiring a diverse workforce and that the board and adding this to the board monitoring system as a goal the emphasis should always be student safety and academic excellence first but it is important to put forth a concerted effort to expand that excellence to include a range of demographic backgrounds that are consistent with

054the richness of our student body there is no reason that academic distinction and outreach to a diverse workforce have to be mutually exclusive the two objectives do not have to be placed into silos i am confident that this board leader and district leadership can maintain its high standards while seeking out employees with whom the student body can identify thank you so much [Applause] our next speaker is mrs nikki cowart a warrior for students and those that serve them isn't that beautiful i'll repeat it a warrior for students and those that serve them i would hope every person here in this room tonight would strive to be described that way because that should be our focus right working together to fight for our kids all of our kids together our aft union members have always centered

055our students and unapologetically named that equity equity in race gender identity ability and common language is foundational to changing student outcomes so despite the recent politicized rhetoric we know an anti-racist education system is necessary to lift all students up we cannot be divided and must move forward with our allies for their sake there was discussion here on monday night around the equity audit and it included false statements very hurtful comments we ask that the board members here that believe racism is wrong period make a stand against it [Applause] on this eve of mlk day like martin luther king jr i'm reminded of another very strong black leader the late great maya angelou who said when someone shows you who they are believe them when someone shows you who they are believe them the first time

056no more excuses and our path forward so that we can all be true warriors for our students and those that serve them [Applause] we do have one of our elected officials who stepped into the room who has signed up to speak so i'm going to move ahead but we'll come back and pick up everybody state representative john rosenthal and before you start representative uh i would remind the audience the last time the representative was here he was interrupted numerous times was not permitted to finish our policy now is to keep adding time until the speaker has finished their comments so let's see if we can't go ahead and give him his two minutes without interruption mr representative thank you president jackson board trustees and superintendent and i i really appreciate the opportunity to speak here

057my name is john rosenthal i'm the texas state representative for house district 135 i'm very proud to represent scifi independent school district and government in our state government some of you might know that my father recently passed away now my daddy was a lifetime educator who taught me to revere our teachers and education workers so speaking on the equity audit because when i saw one of our own school board members making a blatantly racist statement i was shocked uh here's the direct quote from the discussion quote houston isd which i'll use to shine an example you know what their average percentage of black teachers is 36 percent i looked that up you know what their dropout rate is four percent i don't want to be four percent i don't want to be hisd i want

058to be a shining example i want to be the district standard i want to be the premium place where people go to b when the backlash over this statement hit that same member said that uh he had been mischaracterized that uh when he's when other people said those comments indicated black teachers having more black teachers leads to poorer student outcomes and anyone who says that should be ashamed of themselves i think the one who should be ashamed of themselves is the one who said the words you know what their average percentage of black teachers is 36 percent i looked that up you know what their dropout rate is four percent i don't want to be four percent i don't want to be hisd the statement is racist on its face there's no room for that

059in our school district or our state the statement is disqualifying for a board member for this community and i'm gonna agree with with what with what nikki coward said when my maya angelou said when someone shows you who they are believe them the first time [Applause] is state representative shaw in the audience we'll go back to our schedule susan nichols is our next speaker thank you for allowing me to speak tonight i'm susan nichols i'm a 29 year resident sci fair i'm the parent of three scifire children and graduates two have already graduated i have a senior this year i've mentored in this district for over seven years i've spent my whole professional career serving the scifire community i'm a candidate for a doctoral degree and leadership transformation with a focus in cultural transformation i'm

060studying the demographics and in fact my thesis is on increasing intercultural sensitivity in a racially diverse community with the focus on scifire i think i need to explain a little bit um i i have a teacher bit of heart at me and uh the difference between quality and equity equality is when each [Applause] [Music] equality is when each individual or group is giving the same resources or opportunity equity recognizes each person has different circumstances and allocates resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome we through working uh in non-profit in this community starting developing non-profits helping churches develop non-profits i have come to see that not all students have the same experience or circumstances in this district there are various barriers sometimes language sometimes socioeconomic sometimes access to re resources and sometimes knowledge on

061how to navigate those resources if we are going to have a mission as a district to maximize every student's potential then we have to recognize that not every student is the same not every child has the same access to opportunity our role is educators and adults is to be able to help position those students to have the maximum amount of opportunities to reach their potential [Applause] our next speaker is ryan lamb hi y'all what's crack-a-lackin oh my god it's fun to be here tonight so we're all here for the drama fest obviously because we all love drama who doesn't but let's cut to the chase so i'm here speaking on 11a the resolution against racism so as my experience as a bridgeton high school junior i've noticed that it's weird we don't really see color

062we don't really see people's sexuality it's not brought up to us it's not something we focus on and i think that can be attributed to the fact that we're so used to it we're so used to being just like we know equality we know what it feels like now having some of our school board members trying actually having some of our parents honestly trying so hard to pull that away from us why why is it that the students are the ones at the front line constantly having to fight for our own rights for equality and we are being able to be safe in the school district i mean come on so i know that a lot of people think that the parents seem to be you know so important in the schools but they really

063aren't it's the students and people have such a large focus that we need to be teaching arithmetic english science that's what's the most important thing about school but you know it's the most important thing about school making sure students feel safe making sure they feel that they are equal now do we really want to be cutting things that make students feel safe at school for the sake of arithmetic do we need another child to be forced to commit suicide because they don't feel that they are protected by the school district so i guess what i want to say is please focus on the students because we are the number one priority of the school district thank you [Applause] state representative jarvis johnson i apologize for not recognizing you earlier sir that's quite all right thank

064you so much let me be very brief um let me thank the board and we thank all the parents and the teachers that are assembled here today as we talk about some of the things that are happening here i'm not going to echo a lot of what has already been said but i do want to take into account the student that just came as we're talking about what's the most important thing that we must do here today is to keep our children at the forefront of the the conversation comments made by the board member that would then try to be walked back by the same board member by saying that this is being used as a political ploy by outside out of state factions is disingenuous in itself as a young student in elementary school

065one of the very first things i learned from my black teacher was to be honest and take responsibility for my own actions what we have seen happen across this city this state and this country has been to allow people to walk back their statements without taking accountability for them only then to watch students use that same individual as an example and that's where you see the division that is happening from the board room to the classroom and so i asked that this board member take responsibility for the actions and the words that you have said you made a horrible comment you made a comment that it was very hurtful to many people black white hispanic and others take responsibility demonstrate to not only the children of the school district but to your own children that

066sometimes you make mistakes and that you will take ownership for that mistake and correct it to make sure that the district stays intact and stays whole with that being said thank you to all of you who are being here who are standing tall and standing strong we must not allow these type of divisive comments to come in a way of what we're trying to do to educate our children thank you [Applause] our next speaker is christina woods i'm here to speak on the equity audit i wanted to bring attention to a couple of things one was the term added value that was used by one of our board members and he was relating it to whether students with discipli discipline problems added value in the classroom we know what our other board member did disparaging

067black teachers an incident insinuating the black students don't add value because he didn't think that we should be spending money hiring black teachers to teach black students so i wanted to ask the board a question who does add value in cfisd if black students and black teachers don't add value do brown students and brown teachers add value do economically disadvantaged students add value do kids with disabilities or mental illness add value do kids with behavioral or discipline discipline problems add value do the dumb kids who are at the bottom of the food chain here in cfisd do they add value i've heard my kid called that because she's on the bottom tier of learners that's where she was she dropped out she's gone she quit couldn't do it anymore when she went to her iep

068meetings they would tell her you're not on track for college you can't do that you're not allowed we're not going to support that for you but we'll suspend you in an entire school year you get harassed by a white kid and then you go into her school to her lunch period and tell her to stop and immediately you're suspended so guess what my kid knew she didn't add any value my black daughter knew she didn't add any value i stand in solidarity with all teachers of color administrators of color students of color i expect you to work with that equity audit and make it matter in this district and to my daughter our next speaker is vincent daniel uh greetings everyone my name is vincent daniel i've been living in school district for 24 years

069my oldest daughter is a jvh jersey village high school graduate a hampton university graduate and is currently at boston university graduate school my youngest daughter is a senior jersey jersey village high school one of my daughters was arrested at sci fair for something she didn't do and charged with a felony a felony so i kind of understand how people can look at someone's skin and get charged with a felony with no evidence charges would drop the course but i came to speak about the audit daughter is there to help to look at the gap and look at strengths and weaknesses and see if you can improve the students the the conditions for the students and the conditions for the teachers and at my place of employment which is for the past 25 years a global

070fortune 500 company we do the same thing every couple of years we try to understand what do we do well and how can we improve so i don't understand why people are so upset trying to make things better at fair isd i was in army national guard and army reserve with an honorary discharge and there was a point where i was prepared to give my life for the sake of this country and the freedoms that it offers and this was during the gulf war when i was in college and jesus christ that i know and follow does not support injustice and there's no place for racism ignorance in our society and especially coming from leadership and i'd like for you to own your comments and show me you have some self-respect and resign [Applause] our

071next speaker is brian gator thank you just bona fides really quickly my name is brian gaither i went to high school in el paso texas which is down the road a bit my mother is a retired texas teacher i have an undergraduate degree from cornell university in history and two business degrees masters related the most recent which it was at johns hopkins university in baltimore where i learned firsthand how we as americans decide to educate black children so i'm just going to say it up front i did read the um full report and i want to thank mr henry for his comments that motivated me to do so and i'm here tonight to actually encourage you to implement all the recommendations in them so i actually went and looked up to some of the statistics

072i'm a tax payer i don't have kids in your schools but i'm funding the education of everybody else and the reason i do that is because one i support public education and two is because i'm promised an educated electorate in workforce and if you're really preparing one for the 21st century they understand that they're moving into a world that looks very different than the one that we're coming out of the report that i read in statistics i could find available publicly confirmed that students who are not white in your district are two and a half to three times as likely to drop out as the white students despite the fact that they're 65 of your student population um i found that in texas tribune i found it in this report i looked at the bibliography

073i think it's really shameful that people would look at a report like this and i feel like i have the competency professionally to to read and review this i think it's really shameful that anybody would dismiss this just out of hand my corporation like one of the previous ones mentioned is one that focuses on equity we do actually take into account people's race when hiring we do try to make preferences and find the best qualified candidates who support the diversity of our company and i don't think this is something that's shocking in the modern world i i'm i'm a little pressed that i should be here to have to sort of share this i'm a busy person like most of you and i'm clearly not comfortable with public speaking but but i think that you

074should actually implement all the recommendations here and if you have to spend a million and a half for that do it you've got two and a half 2.3 million i think that you want to spend on police cars tonight so you know priorities [Applause] our next speaker is bruce demeyer [Music] good evening everyone i said my name is bruce de meyer i'm a resident of sci fair i have three children who are or will be attending sci-fi isd schools i'm here to talk about the equity audit and one thing i'm going to throw out there follow the last few folks i'm a partner at one of the largest consulting firms in the world and we do an equity audit on ourselves every year and i take it personally and i make changes to myself to

075make sure that we are empowering every single employee at our firm reading through the latest equity report posted online there were some bright spots including the board resolution being discussed however there's definitely some things we can improve on a few examples one black hispanic students reading math s.a.t scores ap participation graduation rate all lagging behind white students by a significant amount black students also receive disproportionately more suspensions interesting this statistic came up and one board member the data guy attempted to twist these statistics by noting that only four percent of black students have received in-school suspension in case you're wondering this implies that white students have a much smaller percentage third our teachers principals and executive leadership don't represent the demographics of our students we all know that one board member who implied that if

076we had more black teachers our dropout rates would increase just have to be the same person who twisted the data as well in summary the equity report provided suggestions including more clarity and a system-wide focus on these issues system-wide focus starts at the top how can we achieve that when there are board members who have misrepresented the data implied black teachers provide a worse education and referred to the group who conducted this report as an out-of-state political organization i at least agree on one thing politics shouldn't be in here unfortunately all of our new board members happily received and endor and advertiser endorsements from the harris county republican party as well as a doctor in the community who went so far as to call their opponents in written mailers radical pro-communist anti-american leftists who are

077indoctrinated in critical race theory please wrap up my mother once told me you are the company you keep [Applause] our next speaker is doctor and pastor evelyn ogletree [Applause] good evening everybody and to our superintendent and our president and this board i am dr evelyn ogletree i am an african-american teacher and i have taught for many years in three different districts i know teachers of all races and you cannot determine whether they're good or bad by their by their race but i want to just come and talk from the heart today as you know i am the proud wife of dr john nobletry a former board member and the author and the reason why we're here with this equity audit and i know him personally and i know his heart but what i want to

078talk about is my heart today as an african-american teacher i am appalled at what was said i am hurt i am just really just cannot believe that this is happening in our district i've been in scifire for a long time i have raised four african-american men that are all college graduates and they are all pastors so they are godly men my daughter is a college graduate all of my children are college graduates but as an african-american teacher in this district i have to reflect back on the time that when you were in my classroom it was a safe place it was a safe place for all children most of them were white you asked any white parent in here or any of my former students i treated them all like my babies and i dare

079another teacher to mess with my chicks my classroom was safe and i trained my children to teach everybody respectful in this classroom that's what an african-american teacher did as an african-american teacher i remember that an african-american parent came to me crying she was at the low of the low little alcohol on the breath and nobody else wanted to talk to her she said can i tell you my story can you help my child my child is failing and i said i will personally be responsible for making sure your child excels african-american male long story short this young man has graduated from prairie view a m with his master's degree in mechanical engineering because i took him under my wing as an african-american teacher and i see so many of us we don't have money we

080yes i will but we spend our time and our energy and i say we cannot have this software you are better than this parents speak up teachers speak up and people go together and let's be in a district don't know software is please stop [Applause] mr secretary are you ready allie fitzpatrick is our next speaker hi my name is ali fitzpatrick and i'm a parent of second grade twins in scifire and i'd like to start by thanking our board for conducting the equity audit it's obviously something was needed because boy somebody said the quiet part out loud didn't he and now we all know we know what we have and it's up to this board to get rid of him [Applause] he has shown us what a racist power grab looks like manipulating data and

081misusing facts to further a racist agenda that damages our entire community especially our children of color in that board work session old buddy boy mentioned that he wanted scifire to be a shining example for other districts that will never happen if he remains on our board the very fact the equity audit was conducted shows that the will is there inside fair to assess the systemic problems rooted in our system and progress forward in a meaningful and actionable way our trustees must embody the same mindset and when we see by a trustee's own actions language and tweets that they do not that trustee has broken the promise to students teachers and the community and he either needs to resign or be fired white allies in the community if you consider yourself a white ally it is

082time for you to stand up it is time for you to speak up and it is time for you to show up this is not what we want inside fair please wrap up [Applause] um i'm gonna need uh no ma'am please guys no only have 10 more speakers i think our next speaker is ron watson [Music] my name is ron watson i'm a 20-plus year resident of the district and father to one enrolled and three recently graduated students i'm here to express my support for implementing the recommendations in the equity and cultural audit along with my support for the resolution condemning racism and a commitment to opportunity for all what triggered me to address the board was comments made by one of the new board members along with the comments made by the other new

083board members during the election cycle their comments and tone are very concerning to me as i fear the new district leaders intend to lead the district away from the mission of truly serving all the students of the district looking at the demographics in the is shown in audit only 22 percent of the district students are white but the teachers the principles and exec executive leadership of this district is anywhere from 63 to 72 percent white representation matters and for a board member to say or even give the impression that 10 of black teachers is too much in a district where our black student population is 20 percent is just wrong we in fact need more diversity not just in teachers roles but in all roles including the board the gap is even more acute with

084hispanics with 15 of of teachers relative to 45 of the students i hope and pray that everyone that serves this district in any role would truly love and put the interests of all students above anything else the audit flagged huge gaps in achievement for black hispanic and economically disadvantaged students that needs to be addressed and having teachers that look like them who will truly represent and advocate for them is just the start there's also a problem in how much and how severe we uh discipline our black students relative to other students seeing the data in these problems the question to the board is do you really care and will you work to improve these numbers in regards to the resolution condemning racism it's sad that anyone would even have to defend or advocate to acknowledge

085that racism exists and is wrong and that we should condemn it but here i am having to urge the board not only to acknowledge the truth but to address these issues such that not only just 22 percent of districts feel comfortable but all of the district staff and community feel comfortable [Applause] our next speaker is latoya crossbit and please correct my pronunciation of your last name crosby thank you ma'am okay we know we all know the comments made by the member they were very hurtful they made me furious and made black educators furious and i'm hurt i'm so hurt i want to cry to tears the district has not condemned your statements and i want to know do they condone the statements because you didn't condemn it so you must condone it black teachers do

086not increase dropout rates we work 8 10 12 hours a day to help students to decrease learning gaps we want the best for our students we worked very hard i would not have succeeded in life or i became an educator if it wasn't for my black mother who's a counselor and a teacher and my black coaches who helped me if it weren't for them i wouldn't have graduated or became anything since the district did not condemn your state his statements do they agree with that do you want to condemn it why haven't you made any statements any other place had had this gone on the organization the business the corporate corporation would have condemned the statements of the racist person and again in conclusion black teachers do not increase dropout rates we decrease dropout rates

087[Applause] [Music] our next speaker is paulette downs wellington yes yes ma'am last name wellington i have a lot to say but i know it can't be said in two minutes so i'll just demonstrate my name is paulette downs wellington and that downs comes from this slave my grandfather albert dance and my grandmother missouri isabella downs i believe in form of education and so to all of the teachers in this world believe in really teaching all of our students my my grandparents were slaves they were the parents of 12 children this is my father who became a college graduate first generation from slavery so did my mother i am a product of the jim crow separate but equal it is not and was not equal we need to understand that we need to know that i'll

088look at her when she's talking to you please stop your comments in the audience call to responsibility this up let's look at good history mathematics sciences taught back good dedicated teachers all of them back in black and white asian whatever let's do that because this is a an excellent excellent yesterday i am my two children graduated from scifire dr eric wellington and erica wellington my my daughter is on the autistic spectrum she is 52 years old and she is truly my gift from god because psyche helped my daughter graduate and become that graduate please wrap up man okay then this is a good district everybody let's reach my friendship trained [Applause] our next speaker is clark denson good evening my name is clark denson and i happen to agree with that lady race shouldn't be

089an issue and i think we're trying to teach our students and i think we bring race into it way too much we just need to practice getting the best people to do the job that care about the kids and that's where i i stand on that subject i also just happen to support mr scott henry and that might seem a little surprising to you based on the statements that i just made but i know the gentleman's a good man so i'm just going to read this one component of the software proposed equity program is to hire more black teacher teachers in an attempt to equate the population and ethnicity of educators within the district to the student population in a commitment on this objective scott henry questioned the effectiveness of the recommendation by reiterating the

090statewide average of black teachers is 10 percent whereas sci fare is currently exceeding this average at 13 mr henry then pointed to the current statistics of hisd which is cited in the report as exemplary with a black teacher employment rate of 36 percent and a four percent dropout rate and a student achievement rate much lower than cfisd it was and is clear that the statistical correlation borne out of the data contained within the report and not the personal opinion of scott henry the deceptive and disingenuous editing of this clip has launched an overt attack on mr henry and it's a clear deformation and denigration of mr henry stellar character the truth in its entirety is that mr henry in a statement clearly available for all to see that this character assassination is an attempt to

091effectively omit mr henry's expressed desire that no child no matter their race or socionic economically wrapped up receiving the same level of education from the district in which it expressed a few moments from that edited clip i'll just finish by stating guys guys this this whole affair is disingenuous and it's a politicization and we're turning races and we're politicizing it and we just need to stop the politicization please wrap up sir and get race out of our teachers and our school system thank you sir [Applause] our next speaker is david two uh good evening a board uh audience uh last november like many other people in the sci-fi community i went to the polls and i voted and like many of you i was shocked in the past few days upon hearing the accusations leveled

092against one of the board members and i had to i had to hear his comments in full to make sure for myself what was being leveled against him and when i did i realized something the claims that have been leveled against him are patently false no there was not nothing that that board member said was ra when you consider the entire statement made starting at the 49 minute mark and going to the hour none nothing could be con could be construed as racist and it would appear that not a lot of the people here have viewed the whole thing with an open mind or any shred of common sense and yet a contrived and perfidious lie has propagated across the community no one on the board has done anything wrong no one has said anything

093wrong if this district is to remain a district of integrity the board member in question will not resign no member of the board will issue will um validate the slander brought against him guys guys come on he's got to be able to finish go ahead sir and this mob that has brought has come here to slander this this man will go home and reconsider their actions and our elected officials at the county and the municipal level our county director our mayor ought to be ashamed of themselves please wrap it up disgusting hoax thank you sir thank you [Applause] to the audience we're on the homeward stretch now daniel gamble is our next speaker danielle gamble thank you danielle gamble um a lot has been said already and there's a lot of emotion in the room

094and i want to first just come to you and ask um for a call to action we we talk about what was said in reference to the equity and culture audit and just to tell you a little bit about myself i was a former educator for 13 years i graduated actually middle school at watkins high school at langham creek went on to teach at cypress springs cypress falls and lie by as a student at langham creek under the principal of george hopper mr hopper he was one of the best principals there i was the first graduating class first four-year class there i endured the school shootout with mr webster was shot i went on to teach under mr webster i'm no longer in education but i'm still educating every day [Music] and i want to

095say to you we have to vehemently just completely refuse to put up with the behavior that we're seeing when statements like that are made there's a show on tv on abc that says what would you do and i love that show because it really shows how so many people don't get involved and many people do and when you stand idly by and you don't get involved it's just as if you are agreeing with behavior that should not be agreed with and i want to talk a little bit about diversity so going to school in cyprus fairbanks i experienced racism i started out first in waller junior high and i was an excellent student honor student i went on to middle school inside there and i could not go into i will honors classes until my

096report card came to show that i was honored to stop ma'am i just want to say and i will stop my last sentence because this is far from what i have on my paper diversity is needed in our schools and diverse staff will bring about a better education for our students [Applause] our next speaker is todd lecomp i'm doing today my name's todd lecompte i've got two boys that go to uh i actually attend the school district one's in ninth grade one's in sixth grade um i'm here to discuss the equity audit like most kids my kids have been and probably your kids too they've experienced being picked on at times i did when i was a kid but i don't teach my children to be a victim i teach them to go back go

097to battle and stand up to bullies you know what i do teach them i teach them to stand for something or their fault for anything i teach them that there are two things that will determine their success that's their attitude and their effort and to never get outworked by your competition where and when do these types of things get discussed in this school district to be honest i'm more concerned about my kids grades than the race of the person teaching him seems like lots of things lots of these things being discussed in the school district is more focused on race these days rather than performance politics has infiltrated this school district as adults i look around and i'm just thinking to myself we are failing our children the way adults are even behaving at this

098meeting are we setting an example i'm for equality i'm for equity as well but how do we do that do we fire teachers because because of the color of their skin if so i can't support that is that what some people call progress now it's funny martin luther king day is coming up on monday he was assassinated he was fight he was he was assassinated but he fought for equality all right i want people to think about that this weekend thank you for your time our next speaker is julie rex julie rex our next speaker is glenn r ethening board members mr president ladies and gentlemen good evening i'm a 34-year resident of the sci fair independent school district my wife and i raised two children in the school district they received an excellent education

099inside fair isd that provided them with a strong foundation to attend college and in the case of one of our children to go on to medical school they are both adults who are now contributing in a positive way to society along their journey from elementary to middle school to high school they had a number of black teachers the black teachers who taught our children were competent knowledgeable inspiring and caring not just for the black children in their classes but for all their students whether they were caucasian latino or asian these teachers added to the success of sci fair isd they did not drag the district down or contribute to the dropout rate they're an assay for the school and they were an asset for the school district not a detriment to it i along with

100many of my neighbors are appalled and highly disappointed in the comments that were made his words were clearly stated and were meant to convey exactly what he said in his world black teachers are the cause of high dropout rates his rationale for the dropout rate of the hisd is woefully misguided and incomplete there are numerous factors that contribute to high dropout rates in a school district such as underfunded schools and economically poor neighborhoods why blame black teachers in the racially charged atmosphere that exists today that are fueled by comments like those they're an easy please wrap up sir sci fair is a forward thinking uh diverse school district that is growing sir we're moving forward we cannot afford to go backwards please stop we cannot afford to go back to jim crow please stop sir

101our next speaker is linda nutol we have difficulty understanding one another because we define words differently i'd like to start with the word equity in crt speak that's critical race theory speak it means equal outcomes not equality what they're looking for are things that are unbalanced between one race and another and then they attribute the cause to being systemic racism it could be many other causes but that's what the a priori decision is and then they make recommendations that will install contracts with their prescribed vendors to stir up more evidence and that's racist at our meeting on monday we learned that the board had a definition for equity at the time educational equity is about ensuring all students are successful it's about removing barriers to student success it's about working to close the achievement gaps

102so it's about two things resources do all the students have the resources they need to be successful and are we removing barriers that are preventing them from being successful that sounds pretty good that's not what equity means when you bring in an equity audit i'm not against ensuring that all students have the resources they need to succeed i think we need to be more precise about removing the barriers preventing their success one of the biggest barriers is a dysfunctional family situation if we could teach children the formula for success which is graduate from high school get a job get married and then have children then we would we would get [Applause] out of poverty by doing that regardless of race and that's one of the things that we know in social please what i heard

103from our school district on monday was wrap up yes i am doing my last sentence was that we should not use race in hiring because the evidence shows that it doesn't bring about the results that we want that's what i heard about them and i don't understand why other people heard something different thank you thank you ma'am our last speaker is bishop james dixon [Music] thank you to the board president and to all of you serve and give your time for the betterment of our children all of the parents and all of us who've gathered tonight this is a very difficult conversation to have the reality is america is at a crossroads and so is cyprus fair isd will you choose to turn right and take the path of racial equity and justice and equality

104making sure that every parent every child every faculty member understands that they are valued not based on the color of their skin but on the content of the character the reality is the statements that were made were hurtful insulting offensive demoralizing ill-informed even if not ill-intended but ignorance is not an excuse when you hold positions of high influence because every decision made in this district affects black teachers brown teachers black students white students and all the same without a view of equity and equality one is not qualified to represent a district this diverse and so the naacp joins all other organizations asking this board members should step down that is not a mean-spirited statement it just has to do with competence and qualification here's the reality do the history how many people here were educated

105by a black teacher raise your hand so when you say that black teachers lead to low performance and drop out raise your hands again if you've been blessed by a black educator anywhere in your life this is what black teachers produce i close with this booker d washington please wrap up what's the teacher w.e.b du bois was a teacher sir please right was a teacher i close with this yes sir when we value greatness and brilliance even when it's black all of us are better and we're all better together thank you god bless you thank you thank you and that concludes our public comment speakers for this evening so we're going to tear another outburst in and i'm going to have to ask you to leave please stop shouting from the audience the audience portion

106this portion is over now the business portion is going to continue we will now proceed with the board comments portion of the agenda any board member may make a comment during this portion of the agenda without prior posting being required comment items may not pertain to the character of any student staff or board member and may not be discussed or deliberated upon at this meeting i will start to my right mr henry [Music] thank you mr jackson the teachers of sci fair isd are the district's most important assets i've always believed so and i've said as much on monday evening i'm proud that our district has had the higher average of state pardon me i'm proud that our district has had higher than average statewide average of black teachers i serve the teachers students taxpayers

107of this district i was elected to among other things to do my part in being a good steward of taxpayer funds part of my responsibility includes analyzing proposals from vendors contractors and consultants but because i dare to disagree that equates to a higher student retention rates there have been threats upon my life my wife and my children have all been targeted i will take that responsibility for not saying the words so eloquently but i feel very passionately about our kiddos inside fair and providing an equitable education to all let me be very clear any suggestion that i said more black teachers leads to worse student outcomes is a lie and those spreading it should be ashamed themselves audience please be quiet if you disagree what i said express it i'm glad my comments motivate interest

108in the school board because two nights ago not even a core of the seats were filled up in here seeing all of here seeing all of your support for our teachers and our children is a blessing they're an engagement for our students and teachers is a need from our community but we have become so dysfunctional as a community that the line of questioning from a trustee to a contractor proposing a multi-year multi-million dollar contract means that that trustee deserves to be attacked in every way possible on every platform of course not i reject that and so should you our district will not get ahead of its political factions when i use it to get even with each other if you don't agree with me let's talk about it ask me questions sometimes courage means stepping

109into the arena to have difficult conversations that's what we're here to do and i know you are here to do it too but don't forget about each other's humanity we are neighbors we're parents we're a community having these difficult conversations should not mean lives are in danger i see you thank you for being here thank you for your thoughtful discussions tonight as well [Applause] doctor blessing game thank you scott uh to every teacher to every student to ms crosby i love every student i love every teacher and we are here to serve each of you and all of you to make sure that we accomplish every goal that was stated for our community i'm a passenger on this public down wellington's friendship train i think that would be a great place for us us all

110to come together to achieve our purposes i loved pastor nathan's prayer for wisdom today it will take that i love the example of our female cadets in the rotc showing great symbols of both equity equality and excellence i congratulate the bridgeland students who showed excellence creating a video showing a way that students have not just in academics but in all aspects are able to be excellent in our system we do have a lot of work to do to do together and i appreciate that all of you came out as engaged citizens you came to this room today or those who are watching online so that we can get the work done because that's what's going to take because guess what very little talk today was about the real core thing we have to take care

111of we had an achievement gap before coven and covert exacerbated that looking at our last data report and what we'll hear today in the taper report and the same statistic of meets expectations that was used in the equity audit report do we know that currently only 56 of our students are at meets expectations and reading and 46 percent very drastically impacted by covet are meets expectations in mathematics that is terrible i'll point you all to an nih study done here in texas the study is a not a new study and it's one you can find and i have copies if you need it but approximately 80 percent of prison inmates in texas in a study that was done by the nih a robust study were functionally illiterate and of those another 47.8 were found to

112be deficient in word attack skills basically dyslexic that is a school-to-prison pipeline if we do not address the literacy needs of our students all students we have to come together to work to make sure that we're laser focused about our solutions being focused on our students and their learning there are many things i care about there were not many things i didn't disagree with in this room today but what i do know is that our job as a district a school district is to educate our children so that we can give them a hope in the future so they can be prepared for their future i loved your story here sir who um he has these graduates who went on other their um masters and doctorates and they've gotten degrees that was based upon a

113good education our founding principles to do that first i would like us to take all our energy and focus it on getting every kid reading and doing mathematics that gives them every door of opportunity and we can do that together if we all engage the time for experimentation is not now nor is it time for politics the time is for us to roll up our sleeves and get to work for our kids on the things that matter most and that's not for all children in sci fair i know what not for all children no for each child in sci fair we don't talk about 80 of the kids will achieve this score in literacy no each child needs to achieve that in literacy eighty percent means twenty percent of them left behind and guess who's

114probably left behind in that twenty percent we know the achievement gap it was pointed out tonight we have to roll up our sleeves and do the work that actually matters labeling issues is not going to take care of it if we achieve every metric in that equity audit and we will all lot ourselves on the back for being excellent being a great administration and a great board that gets word of the year because we achieve those metrics and not one more child will be able to read because of those metrics those metrics do not achieve literacy we have to get real about the real work i intend to hold us the board accountable a monthly report when we're creating our board monitoring system and we ready thank you linda lynn and i have had super

115productive discussions already they've already reached out to other districts that are doing some work let's track let us discuss actual reading data in this room every month and let's take care of all of our in each of our children in scifire isd and when we have done that we will be the shining star the shining example and i would love one of those shirts over there i don't know if you made that yourself about our black teachers shine i would love you to will you make me one thank you because yes every child will shine in our district and every teacher is a shining example in a district and when you know what the metric is we're getting it done for the kids and so i speak very passionately guess what because i have played

116at this game of education for 29 years and the next fad and the next fad and the next fad came and they didn't make a difference for the children i have seen us talk about all the things we have to do the things that make a difference and i know we can this group with the incredible passion and the intelligence that was spoken of here and everyone's time and energy put to it we can do it so i look forward to the super bright future shining here in scifire isd i'm proud to work with every colleague up here to get that done in this amazing administration this district has outpaced this district has done incredible work but guess what poverty matters and we are getting increasingly um lower ses and that means we can make

117metrics like this and pretend we did something or we could actually do the hardest hard work there is and change that trajectory for kids in poverty and all kids and each child in cfisd i am so pleased and proud of this group that's here i hope i can count on you to be part of the solution with all of us let's get it done is [Music] [Applause] [Music] mr stripia welcome everybody i was a little bit different this past um month from the uh my usual months of going out and visiting uh the different areas of our district i came down with the variant right over christmas holidays as my wife and others and my family would just kept me at home and within a confined area quarantine so i did not get to get

118out as i usually do and visit with the district as i usually do i'm going to read a statement here that uh let me let many sleepless nights uh in recent recent days we appear i up here hear the anger and the disappointment from our community and surrounding areas and our surrounding districts we as a district are 78 percent minority i see the left i see the right i see the moderates ugly words are being spilled and feelings are being hurt beyond despair i have heard from many in our community on what are you going to do gilbert i have been on record before on this i have faced some sort of racism and prejudices before i have gone over that before been told to go back to mexico by strangers looked down on before

119just because of the color of my skin my grandfather served in world war one my father in world war ii in a pacific campaign and countless other relatives and every war imaginable have served our country proudly what would my father-in-law pete medina think now who fought in world war ii normandy under patent battle of the bulge liberated concentration camps when he entered he thought it looked like snow but it was the furnaces that were burning 24 7 until they were liberated and upon his return here to texas he couldn't even eat at a restaurant on his way to san antonio with his family prejudices exist in all races all races not just in whites it's a misconception am i woke i didn't know what the word woke was i didn't know i was woke until

120monday because i felt it right away in hisd i have friends there i have family my son teaches high school math at hisd he's been offered here in this district and has chose his own path and challenges he has excelled with one without one bit of help from me and i couldn't be any prouder of jared sarabia what would i done at monday night the word brown educator came out and not black i took a 24 hour cooling period that i offered to my players parents after a particular game when their kids don't get in the game they want to shout at me give me 24 hours cooldown period and that's what i did i stated monday that i appreciated the audit report yes we authorized it the previous board did it's an audit which

121is usually uncomfortable lastly i want to apologize to our community our students our employees our administration and most of our our educators throughout our district and neighboring districts i had that talk again since monday night with my children dad what happened what's going on i'm sure some of you had that talk again with your children many of sleepless nights last night up till three o'clock up at 7 30. i saw spiritual counsel within the last 24 to 36 hours to help me with this message lastly to my family my sons my daughter-in-law and wife ginger believe in the better good of mankind give people a chance stay informed don't stray abruptly serve your community trust in god and family thank you tom [Applause] to my left mr sandlin thank you all for coming in my

122background i am been both an educator and i've been a musical clinician i taught as a clinician in clear lake isd in klein isd in pasadena isd and an alief isd the time that i spent in both clear lake and incline was exactly just one year apiece the time that i spent in alief isd was about three and a half years the time i spent in sam rayburn isd was about three years during that time i ran into kids of every single socio-economic level and i chose to spend my time where kids needed me most and it was an honor and a privilege to be able to connect with those kids i know them today i'm on facebook with them today i know and i've seen pictures of their kids today i want the community

123to realize that we're here and we took a job freely committed to our kids in this community my daughter is one of the kids in this community we've been here in this community i'm committed to serve this community and every single child as i've served kids of every single socio-economic level i'm well aware that some kids as i mentioned monday night it's simply their objective to survive they need to get home and they need to come back and for them that is good for where they were and when i work with those kids and i challenge them and i give them something that they can attain to they find success i continue to encourage them and guess what they feel proud they find measures of success and they grow and they attain levels that they

124didn't think they could when they started working with me and i did that both at sam rayburn and the dayleaf so for the kids in our community here in scifire i'm committed to understanding where we can provide great access to opportunity so that our kids can succeed i'm committed to supporting our children so that when they have access they're held accountable to access that opportunity and make with it what they will it's their responsibility and my job is to make sure that i do everything i can in working with the rest of my board members and this wonderful administration team i've only been here for a little bit but i guarantee the commitment here is unparalleled that those children have the opportunity to succeed in all of them every single one of them and so

125regarding the equity audit i'm committed to understanding the information within it all of it and then with our board we're going to work together and find opportunities to improve and we will make meaningfully meaningful change i will find a way to support our team and understand and work with our community so i look forward to these conversations some of them are hard conversations and that's okay i'm fine with challenging conversations but i will find an opportunity for our kids to be healthy vibrant and to be successful one of the reasons that i'm committed in the way that you hear just a strong classroom culture is from my own failures and i'm going to be a little bit transparent to that but when i began my college education actually my high school education leaving that i

126did not have a good gpa i was someone that was a lackadaisical student i looked for opportunities to figure out how to skate the system i was good at it and then i got to university of houston and through my practices i earned myself a 2.1 gpa you can imagine how pleased my dad was however in the midst of my failure i realized that i was wrong and that i had to take responsibility for my actions and i did so in a way that i never did before i told all of my friends i'll see you later i hired a tutor i taught myself physics with that tutor because i didn't know when i started and i went from a 2.1 gpa there to two master's degrees at rice and then i went on to

127harvard [Applause] and so the thing that i'm committed to bringing to the each and every kid in our classrooms is the courage to commit to yourself to find a path that works for you to learn how you learn best and to have and provide for them the tools to be able to do that that's for every single one of our kids and if someone challenges that that's not true talk to me because i promise you that is my level of commitment because i don't want them to go through the same mistakes that i did and i want for them to be able to have the same commitment to themselves that they can learn that they can grow and that they can change and so i look forward to this community engaging i am truly sorry

128for the hurt for the hurt that's going on in this room and i will do my part going forward to earn trust thank you [Applause] miss blackshear yes sir thank you can you hear me okay tom absolutely good okay first of all um i want to thank the school district for uh helping me uh set up the technology so that i could fulfill my responsibilities uh and duties as a trustee to attend these meetings uh for those of you who may not know i am a covid survivor from the uh delta variant this past summer and had quite a journey back and was doing very well when i developed pneumonia and spent six days in the hospital over christmas on the advice of my doctors i am isolating at home i'm only to leave for

129doctor appointments and that is because the omicron variant is so very highly uh contractible and it would not be good for me to get coveted again as a matter of fact it could be uh um take my life so i so appreciate the opportunity uh to be able to participate in our meetings and especially uh this month when we have a lot of important issues that have come before us and i too am very thankful and grateful for all of our community members parents teachers who have turned out tonight to express their concerns i wish we could see this at every uh board meeting uh so that you know maybe it would lead to um some misinformation out there and so you could hear directly from your trustees um on the issue of our equity

130audit i am i am going to to reiterate what i said on monday night uh we don't have to embrace everything that was in that audit but i believe there is some value and merits for further discussion you know in uh i i've been on this board now starting my uh seventh year and i can assure you uh hiring uh uh more diverse to our teachers so that are our uh ratio of uh teachers more clearly matches the diversity of our students has been one of our ongoing goals the reason it has not yet been achieved is because our district is committed to hiring not just to meet ratios but to hire qualified teachers to teach our students in our district and i believe we have done a good job would we like the numbers

131to be different of course but we all know that these past two years during this pandemic we have experienced we have lost we have lost teachers and it is hard to recruit and find teachers this dealing is this district is willing to recruit and hire we're just having trouble finding teachers who want to be in the classroom at this time period and i know i can tell you as a trustee that i want uh i do want our ratio to reflect the diversity of our students but i don't believe that is quite possible at this time but i uh can promise you that as a trustee i i will work with the district to help uh help us look towards and continue that goal but again i'm not satisfied nor do i believe any trustee

132nor our district is satisfied just to hire a body to teach because of their ethnicity and uh you know um there there are many components that make up a successful student and i agree that academics is very important for our students but it's just not only academics that creates the whole student it's a variety of things and we are a diverse district and we have kids who have special needs we have students who are economically disadvantaged we have students that uh live in homes where where maybe they don't have parental support we have students that are homeless i mean you'd be surprised by the number of homeless students in our in our district so i see the value in this um equity audit as us discussing and looking to make sure that we are providing

133for the whole student not just academics and that certainly is important and i believe that we are doing a good job on that and we know we are according to other districts in our state we're not satisfied to just be leading we do want to be the best but we need to ensure that our students receive a robust education and that is academics that is uh your extracurricular there's just a number of factors that feed in into that and i look forward to um working with all of our trustees i think we are going uh to get there but you know when you have three new members on the board there is a learning curve and i think in time as we work together discuss the issues that we will find common ground and uh

134i can assure you that i have a deep appreciation for every uh teacher staff member administrator being on the board for seven years i have seen how hard everyone works together for the good of our students and i uh commit to you that that is always my goal is what is best for our students and i want to make sure that that graduation rate is one day a hundred percent do i think it's attainable probably not but i think it's something that our district really uh is working to achieve and i want to see that my my greatest thrill of being a trustee is graduation ceremonies and watching our students who have completed their education and scifire isd walk across that stage and receive their diploma and i am going to continue to strive to

135see that every student reaches that pinnacle and receives their graduation diploma thank you [Applause] miss heinemann thank you it's obvious from tonight's turnout that many community members have strong feelings on the issues being discussed that's understandable i usually start thinking about and working on my board comments over the two or three weeks leading up to one of our formal board meetings but of course reflecting on the events of the past few days has added weight and additional scrutiny to the words spoken here tonight i am grateful for the many messages of support and positive feedback i received over the last few days from teachers parents campus leaders other district employees parents again and retirees one parent and community member expressed fear for his personal safety by attending tonight's meeting i personally do not share this

136fear but i understand that some do including some employees who could not help but take comments made on monday very personally i respect that others experiences may be different from mine and the roles that we have may be different but they are all valid my fear is for the damage done to the morale of our teachers and staff my fear is to the impact to our administration especially after two intense stressful years dealing with a pandemic and its effect on students and staff i supported the resolution against racism and the request to have an equity audit conducted by an outside firm for our district i was one of the trustees who voted unanimously for it truth is very important there is no multi-million dollar contract there was it is not a political organization please please

137do your own research and get the facts and i encourage it's very important that in order for things to work here we're going to have to be honest and be truthful for those who have attended or watched meetings over the past couple of years you know i always try to end my comments by sharing a positive story about a teacher or a student this week while i was mentoring at one of our high schools i observed a student i mean a teacher working tireless tirelessly one-on-one with a student who had missed several days of school and is falling behind in his classes she listened to his excuses and his reasons and his worries she was focused on holding him accountable while also expressing empathy and care she told him that she wants him to be

138successful she believes in him she's here to help and she's not giving up on him this is what our teachers do every day one of the girls i mentor and i were playing a game of uno and this may seem like play and maybe even a waste of time but this is a student i've been meeting with since the start of the year and she has barely spoken a word it can be disheartening and sometimes frustrating when you're trying to reach a student you just can't break through but i'm not giving up on her the highlight of my day on wednesday is when she laughed out loud when she beat me at uno it was a little spark of joy i also got to celebrate with um one of our older folks in our community

139she is the grandmother of a student that has received an appointment to the air force academy and she raised this amazing young man by the way each of these three stories is from one of the schools that was called out by one of my colleagues at the last meeting we can talk about data points and kpis all day long but we are all actually talking about kids kids who may not look like us or speak the same language or live in the same neighborhood as us kids who all deserve the very best that we can give them i encourage my colleagues to spend time on campuses that they've never been to before that their own kids don't go to spend time listening and learning our school visits are not meant to be inspections or chances

140for a gotcha we do not govern by gotcha and we do not govern by gossip i know that governance is a hard concept not just to understand but to put into practice i also know that i am not always right i make mistakes i read some time something recently that said if you think you're always right then you are not learning i am still learning and i certainly again don't believe that i am right all the time there are people in this room who are experts in education and i respect their expertise there are people in this room who are experts in hr and i.t macro and student services and discipline and health services and facilities management and transportation i respect their expertise it is good to ask relevant questions from the diocese as a

141board member it's okay to question it is not okay to call for someone to be fired without due process or without consideration during a board meeting as a board of trustees we have a commitment to work together to close achievement gaps and remove barriers to student success while we may have our differences what unites us what should unite us is a commitment to ensuring all students are treated with dignity and respect and provided the opportunity to succeed in school and in life one of the parent speakers tonight asked a question of two questions of the board he said do you care and my answer is yes i do and he said will you do the work to make the district better and my answer is yes i will [Applause] those of y'all who have watched

142me give my board comments know that i always have a standard outline i talk about the many stops that i've made in the district those things that i have seen but for tonight's meeting somehow that did not seem to be quite appropriate we have all been new trustees before as new trustees we all stub our toe it happens not just in this district it happens across the state i went through leadership tasby i have mentored brand new trustees from other districts the mistakes we make all tend to be somewhat identical one of the most difficult transitions to make for to go from citizen to new trustee is knowing the fence line that separates management from governance being a trustee is unlike any other elected position it is not our job to act on behalf of

143citizens and step in to solve their issue it is our job to refer their issue to the appropriate management line so that it can be addressed in that fashion no other elected official really has to do that but we do as board president i have a curious obligation it is my job to reach out and touch colleagues when i think perhaps they're getting too close to the line of management or perhaps when they step across it i will say that i myself have been counseled by my colleagues for crossing that line an example is with or without due process we can never call for the termination of an employee of the district and the reason is simple we aren't management not our job a trustee that i was asked to mentor from a school district

144along the coastline close to corpus christi thought it was their job to get rid of the ag teacher i had many long conversations with them that that wasn't their job but this is something that crosses the mind of almost every new trustee that i have ever spoken about so i asked for a little forbearance it takes a while to learn the job of trustee i know you'll be upset with us when we stub our toe and that's okay but we'll pick ourselves up and and we'll keep moving on it is also not our job to take over the role of an associate or assistant superintendent or even a director we want to some of us are qualified and competent to do that but once again we can't do that no matter how much talent we

145bring to the table it's not our job to do that what's also funny is each trustee has an obligation to each other and so that means for my colleagues here if you see that i'm crossing that line trying to do this man's job it's your job to yank me by the collar and pull me back we only succeed when we work together as a team all of us but that we don't do management's job and management in turn will not do our job our motto in this district is opportunity for all and i was saddened when one of my colleagues said that they didn't like that i don't know what my colleague meant and i apologize because i did not ask but i like the motto i think it says exactly who we are we

146offer opportunities for all of our students and all of our staff it has been that way ever since i was on the board and i will do my best to make certain it stays that way on monday evening we had a 4 hour and 37 minute board meeting i was tired i know some of you all in the audience who stayed for all four hours and 37 minutes retired there were comments made about a neighboring district let me tell you i support this district i think it's the best district in the state of texas but we can't cross that line to disparage other districts in that line i posted a phone call to the president of that district also sent an email offering my apology as board members what's funny is people actually listen to

147what we say and we should always strive for clarity and clarity is always difficult to achieve a cornerstone of this district is the concept of visibility that's visibility with a capital b it doesn't mean that you sacrifice excellence that concept was first explained to me over lunch by my friend jody lee giles jr some of you may actually remember who he is he was a bush appointee we were both new hires fresh out of college we knew enough to figure out where the coffee pot was and not much more but that was something he knew more than i did subsequently all anecdotal observations and conversations with people whose judgment i value as well as research studies indicate that visibility is a key to academic attainment and that is in fact our job i appreciate the

148fact that i and i'm sure as my colleagues members of the community have reached out to me we have heard you we will strive to work together as a board for the betterment of our students and for our community as i said i did not suspect there would be any shortage of passion or rhetoric tonight and i was not disappointed i love passion and rhetoric particularly when we all are moving in the same direction going forth we have some conversations to have they will be messy please put up with us as we are messy i ask for your forbearance in that regard and in closing let me make the standard comment that every other year we always make at this time i want to say thank you to the schools and the principals and the

149students you came to to say thank you to us it took time and effort on your part and in turn i would say for myself but for my colleagues up here we thank you for the privilege of serving you and with that my comments are concluded and we will have a five minute recess [Applause] the meeting is now reconvened citizen participation patrons who have duly registered for policy bed local may address the board regarding matters of concern and interest to the district other than the character of any student staff or board member the board may not act upon any matter that is not listed under the action item portion of the agenda we don't have as many speakers in this portion of the agenda i know everybody will be somewhat disappointed our first speaker is

150sequina bradford uh good evening to dr henry to mr tom jackson i am sekina branford uh speaking on behalf of self i um in the past have been a familiar face at these board meetings and i've always prepared a statement but tonight i really wanted to speak from the heart and say that as a black educator in this district for over 15 years i think it's 16 years now i have always felt welcomed and supported in this district by our administration this board and and our parents and our students black teachers are excellent in this district we are well prepared we are qualified we're certified first and foremost or you would never be hired in this district i'm highly qualified and i am very hurt by those comments that were made monday night meeting my

151colleagues are hurt many of our administrators are hurt our community is hurting and as a teacher standing here tonight i want to take the opportunity to say thank you to the board for your work over the past couple of years it's been very difficult in the classroom our students are facing many challenges our parents are facing many challenges we have a tough road ahead of us to close those achievement gaps our students need us all of us they need our curriculum they need our hearts they need our passion our energy and we want our parents to continue to support all of us in this district we need equity we need diversity and i want to encourage you to continue with that work do the good work that the community has voted you in to do

152and i also just want to say dig deep if you really want to know why our students are dropping out of school talk to them try to contact their parents interview them and i am sure they would never say it's our teachers thank you [Applause] our next speaker is ryan irving jr i'm going to say it again it was once said when someone shows you who they are believe them the first time sister maya angelou good evening superintendent henry president jackson board of trustees and to all the sci-fi community my name is ryan irving a product of cfisd and the current president of scifir civic alliance the remarks that were made at monday's board meeting were not only hurtful but absolutely disgusting to see someone that is supposed to be representing all children stakeholders in

153a district that is 78 percent minority that is openly that made openly racist remarks is absolutely saddening part of this individual's response states and i quote i'm not a politician and i don't care about politics then he goes on to say and i quote i just care about our kids and their public education unfortunately my words are getting twisted by political actors for political purposes no it is unfortunate that we have you sitting in a position of power representing children with your racist remarks i have one question if you sir do not care about politics then why did you run for this office using a partisan right-wing platform that divided our district i also want to note this individual does not represent conservatives in our community cfca as well as i do not tolerate racism

154sexism or hatred of any kind we not only condemn this individual for his remarks but call for the immediate dismissal and or resignation of this individual to the other board members i appreciate your apology i also want to talk about courage the courage to apologize when you've done something wrong no matter the intent to me is what patriot is what patriot is what is patriotic you've called yourself a patriot in the past my great grandfather who fought in world war ii was a part of the first all-black battalion that entered germany during the world war that is a patriot my cousins who have served in desert storm and my great other great grandfather served in vietnam that is what a patriot is lastly please wrap up i am we look forward to the dismissal of

155this individual and to get back on what matters which is our children and lastly never forget our district's motto opportunity for all thank you [Applause] our next speaker is latoya crosby he must have lived [Applause] our next speaker is jennifer lorenz our next speaker is george edwards jr former trustee cypress fairbanks isd good evening the board of trustees superintendent and district staff my name is george edwards jr after reviewing a recording of monday's board work session i've come to offer a few comments i implore all of you to stop talking about race and inclusion and focus on teaching our students to read write do math and reason it is important that you as a board set a standard for academic excellence throughout the district in order to do that you must have high expectations for

156all students in addition be consistent with the standard at a minimum you should focus on having students reading for comprehension by the end of the third grade at the district's november community leadership committee meeting the administrative administration reported that black boys were failing academically this is not acceptable and it must be reversed as the first minority elected to the sapphira isd school board and a long time education advocate you are making a simple problem more complicated than what it should be sci fare sd has a long history a long legacy of academic excellence and preparations of its students my three black boys are successful men today because of the academic preparation they receive in south fair isd quality teachers have no color they don't come in special color teachers make the difference in the classroom

157if they have high expectation for their student success and behavior sci fare isd has done a good job of diversifying its teacher and administrative staff in the schools a good part of south fair isd prior academic success was the district's reliance on parents and community on parents in the church community to play a role in the students development the district cannot do it by itself the boy should be careful about allowing itself to be distracted by things that don't matter as it relates to student learning in the classroom finally i want to thank all of you for your service to the students and the parents in the community in general i wish sci fair isd the very best and thank you for allowing me to speak [Applause] we did stretch the rules a little bit

158for you uh george our next speaker is monica dean many of you may have heard the outrage from parents regarding highly inappropriate books many of which are sexually explicit or cover topics that are adult in nature being discovered in schools across the nation shockingly this illicit material has found its way not only in the physical libraries at cypher campuses but also in the online libraries in the sora and destiny discover app which are on our students chromebooks while some books may have been pulled how many are more yet to be discovered in a book titled out of darkness by ashley perez the online summary reads a story of two teens one mexican one black and their dealings with race segregation love and the forces that destroy people this book not only has explicit language but

159it also contains graphic rape incest scenes between the main character and her stepfather as well as references to anal sex and masturbation a passage reads take her out back we boys figured then hands on the titties put it in our coin box put it in our corn hole grab a hold of that braid rub that calico this is available to ninth grade and up through the soraa app and various high school libraries this is pornography in section 43.24 the texas penal code it states in texas it is illegal to provide pornography to anyone under the age of 18. likewise why are their books on black lives matter gender identity and even a gender transitioning workbook this transgender ideology is a tenet of critical race theory that cypher claims doesn't exist in the district this agenda

160of normalizing immorality seeking to harm the physical and mental and spiritual health of children and families has no place in this district nor in public education period how are we to pick the just right books as when board members suggested at the last meeting of this summary is what is provided how about the child that doesn't have parental involvement who orders and approves these books who writes and approves the summaries the board member also suggested to reach out to the librarian while that is a reactive response we need a proactive solution and what is please wrap up okay and what happened to the mobile library link on the cypher website only a calendar of events pops up what is lifefair going to do to follow the law and protect the children of this district and

161scott we support you please may god protect you and your family truth always prevails and god's light shines over evil our next speaker is jerry ford no one here our next speaker is cedric d thompson our next speaker is jen williams okay my name is jen williams and i am speaking on behalf of the cypher civic alliance uh let me speak about something a little bit different tonight the majority of cfisd teachers have one 50-minute conference period per day to get all of their work done during contract hours daily tasks include but are certainly not limited to lesson planning materials prep grading parent contact paperwork emails troubleshooting technology and attending required meetings many of them are attending required meetings uh that 50 minutes might also be a teacher's only opportunity other than their 30-minute lunch

162to use the restroom have a snack go outdoors breathe fresh air ask a colleague a question or possibly run a quick errand as a result many teachers work well beyond their contract time without pay to make sure their students have at least their minimum learning needs met this was already unsustainable before kovid since the fall of 2020 our teachers have given up countless conference periods to cover absent colleagues classes on many days there simply are not enough subs to go around parents if you'd be willing to join our subpool it's we need you community district leaders and trustees it's time to pay teachers for their time when they step in and cover for their colleagues other districts such as klein isd already do this let's show our hard-working teachers that we appreciate they're going the

163extra mile and sacrificing their conference periods let's show them we respect their time teach the teachers deserve supplemental pay for covering one another's classes to all educators and support staff digging deep right now to show up for your students we see you we appreciate you we are advocating for you thank you so much [Applause] our last speaker for this portion of the agenda is jill milkesh good evening and my apologies for um maybe perhaps a topic that is a little less trivial than the topics that have been discussed tonight but while i have your attention ladies and gentlemen the texas education agency has created two off-campus pe programs category one provides a student in an olympic caliber sport 15 hours a week missing one class per period per day pardon me category 2 offers this

164same opportunity with this student participating five hours a week without missing a class period currently scifir isd does not offer off-campus pe category 2 although all of our neighboring districts offer both cat 1 and cat 2 programs over the past year i have been in contact with off campus pe office and the district to better understand why scifiresd does not offer off-campus pe cat 2. i recently received an update from the district and was surprised to learn that sci-fi sd will not offer off-campus pe cat 2 to its students since it is not closely aligned with the training time requirements for nz's and uil sports close quote the ta chose to create an off-campus pe program and it is not to be compared to uil these are separate programs developed for specific purposes to serve

165all students within this state and make opportunities available to all how can all of our neighboring districts offer both office campus pe cat 1 and cat 2 to their students they can do so because the tea has developed these programs with flexibility in mind each district has the ability to tailor off-campus pe to fit the needs of their students i urge you to consider this option and like our neighboring districts make this opportunity available to all thank you ladies and gentlemen [Applause] the board will hold a public hearing to discuss the 2020-2021 texas academic performance report presenters are dr linda macias and dr ashley claiborne good evening president jackson board members and dr henry this evening we will be sharing as required by law the 2020-2021 texas academic performance report known as the taper the

166bulk of the data we will be sharing with you this evening you have already seen we presented the star data to you in the fall you may recall that the learning laws and gaps we shared with you in the fall are represented in this report you have heard me share that the 2020 2021 data is incomplete data all of our students did not test and we heard from many schools that many of the students really did not take the test as serious as they did before the covet the covet pandemic nonetheless it is the data that we have and we will move forward from here dr claiborne will continue with the remainder of the presentation annual report that includes the district accreditation status texas academic performance report campus performance objectives information received from the texas

167higher education coordinating board and a report of violent or criminal incidents we'll begin tonight with the district accreditation status scifire was an accredited district in the 1920 school year in a to the administrator address letter dated march 4th 2021 the texas education agency notified districts that they were suspending the assignment of accreditation statuses until the 2021-22 school year due to the following the governor waving star in 2020 school closures due to covid19 and the fact that all districts and campuses were labeled not rated declared state of disaster next we will move into a discussion of data items from the texas academic performance report also known as taper the taper is available to the board and the public from the district website by following the path before you let's begin by reviewing two pieces of information

168on the front cover of the taper as stated earlier the current district rating is not rated declared state of disaster due to covet 19. secondly the district's 2021 special education determinate determination status is meets requirements this label represents an integrated determination level status based on evaluation of each local education agency's results-driven accountability indicators in the special education program area and four federally required elements there are four possible levels meets requirements needs assistance needs intervention and needs substantial intervention scifire is one of three surrounding districts including katie and tomball that earned the meets requirement status every six years the texas education agency completes a comprehensive desk review sometimes referred to as an audit of each district in the state it's currently our turn and we look forward to their feedback to enhance our services to special

169education students now we will look inside the document where we find a wealth of information including data on star performance star growth from the 2019 accountability system star data desegregated by bilingual education and english as a second language star participation rates attendance graduation and dropout rates college career and military readiness followed by student and staff data throughout the academic portion of the report data are disaggregated based on state performance region 4 performance district performance otherwise known as the all student group ethnicity and race special populations such as special education and emergent bilingual enrollment status and economic status we review and study these data by demographic and student groups because we're held accountable for student performance by student group in the student progress and closing the gaps domain of the state and federal accountability systems tonight

170we will highlight specific data points in the taper that are directly related to goal 1 objectives of the 2020-21 board monitoring system let's begin with objective 2. increase overall approaches meets and masters performance levels on star 3 through 8 and end of course exams it will not come as a surprise to you that we have gaps in performance between 2021 and 2019. we shared star and end of course performance data with you during the opportunity gap board presentation in november twenty twenty one when comparing scifire to neighboring districts you will see we all experience losses you will also remember that approaches performance the minimum passing standard will always be higher than meets or master's performance since those standards are set at a higher passing level as we displayed in november on september 3rd 2021 the

171texas education agency noted the following regarding comparing 2021 and 2019 data while direct comparisons with star data from previous years may not be appropriate because of varying participation rates and shifts in instructional settings due to covet 19 the data provide an important temperature check that allows texas districts to track and address student recovery in the short and long term this is exactly how we have used these data to provide intervention and accelerated instruction for our students as outlined in the november board presentation an additional data point to note which relates to objectives 2 and 3 is the number and passing percent of our 8th grade students taking and passing the algebra 1 exam last year 43 of our 8th grade students took the algebra 1 exam with the passing percentage of 98 percent while these

172data are down slightly from 2019 we continue to have higher participation rates than the state which when last reviewed were hovering in the mid-20s objective three states close the achievement gap by increasing performance on star 3-8 and end-of-course exams in the economically disadvantaged student group once again scifire and our surrounding school districts experience drops in the performance of this student group while the board monitoring system does not have a specific objective focusing on star and eoc participation rates we know that it's important to note these differences considering changes in performance the drop in participation rates can be attributed to the way students attending school virtually were asked to test the texas education agency did not offer the star virtually for these students they had to come to their home campus to take the assessment many

173students chose to stay home and continue with virtual learning on star or end of course testing days objective 5 denotes the following increased graduation rate in all student groups when we look at the five largest student groups in scifire they all remain in the graduation rate range even though a few of them had drops below one percent objective 6 challenges the district to increase the number of industry certifications earned while sitefare dropped a little over one and a half percent we are still the area leader in percent of students earning an industry-based certification before graduation the final board objective we will address tonight is focused on enrollment in advance courses objective 7 states that we will increase the number of students enrolled in earning credit and advanced courses in the economically disadvantaged student group this

174includes advanced placement and dual credit courses as you can see scifir has percentages well above the comparison districts and we increased our percentage by 2.1 percent from the prior year we attribute this growth to our strong partnership with lone star college the final table taper item we would like to share tonight is not specifically addressed in the board monitoring system but is a big part of our state and federal accountability systems for the class of 2019 college career and military readiness also known as ccmr was determined based on students earning one of 11 possible indicators for the class of 2020 students had to earn one of nine possible indicators military readiness and the cte coherent sequence indicators were removed by the state when you review the data points for this indicator you are more than

175likely surprised to see such a difference between the two years you may have even thought this was an apples to apples comparison it wasn't the true apples to apples comparison can be made once the military and cte coherent sequence data are removed from the 2019 data set as displayed above while we still have a drop due to coven 19 related issues we see that it's not as wide once we internally equated the calculations from one year to the next additionally house bill 773 from the 87th texas legislature requires the state to place an indicator back into the college and career and military readiness calculations to include students who successfully complete a program of study in career and technical education this should be included in the 2023 accountability system the next topic the state requires us

176to cover in this public hearing is campus performance objectives in scifire the campus performance objectives are included in the campus improvement plans and may be found by following the path on the screen upon reviewing the campus improvement plans you will notice that each goal has several performance objectives the strategies used to meet the performance objectives are evaluated three times a year additionally goal 1 performance objective 1 has a set of star or eoc specific targets for multiple student groups at the approaches meets and masters performance levels our next data set come from the higher education coordinating board and are also contained in the taper displayed before you now are college enrollment data for the class of 2017 2018 and 2019. these were collected by the higher education coordinating board based on scifire graduates that they

177were able to track and their subsequent enrollment in four-year two-year or independent colleges and universities in texas only our final set of data are taken from the district's annual report on violence and violence prevention the cypher independent school district's rate of infractions for 2020-21 was .0035 with a student population of 114 560. this statistic includes only data that are correlated to specific texas education agency discipline action reason codes therefore it does not include every infraction detailed in the cyprus fairbanks local code of conduct this concludes our presentation for this evening and we'll be happy to answer any questions i'm going to start on the left mr scanlon any questions miss blackshear any questions not at this time mr jackson miss heinemann any questions no questions thank you very much dr claiborne for the the report

178and there's so much good information in this report i appreciate the documentation thank you mr henry any questions no but thank you very much for the report appreciate it dr blassie game likewise no questions um the challenges are clear but i think this is exactly the team to get it done thank you mr sarabia any questions no questions but excellent report as always thank you thank you sadly you don't get off that easy so a couple of observations one and i've already been through the numbers in detail as you know there was a special question i asked and you gave us the answer but it was never made public and so even though we didn't have all the same students taking the test participation rates which makes comparisons difficult we can still make a comparison

179between us and the state of texas and we can take a look at the delta correct between the time period that it was last held and the time period now and so the law of large numbers says if we have enough students we can still make those comparisons so please tell us what the delta report looks like believe this or not in this big old binder right here i didn't bring what we provided to the board but i have a feeling you may have it well as a matter of fact i do [Music] the short answer because i'm not certain that the viewing audience wants to hear all the detail that i love love to uh i just you know it's a great nighttime reading but it keeps me awake the the delta between us

180and the state where we outperformed the state actually went up during this covet period so our improvement enhanced even though we aren't happy with where our numbers are the question has to be where are we relative to everybody else the commissioner for the state of texas tells us we have to have exterior comparisons and i look at that delta to see where we are our bottom line goal is we always have to do better than the state average that's our minimum level of expectation but by looking at the delta it tells us what good job we're doing and i want to say thank you to our teachers our campus leadership this has been a very hard two years we have really beaten our staff up but our students have performed they have outperformed their peers

181across the state a second comment and i brought this up and and natalie only you can appreciate this i probably spent three hours looking at the at the team's report that for my rookie year and i discovered what we were doing in algebra which defies everything we know about teaching you looked up the numbers but our participation rate for algebra is more than double the state average but more than that the passing rate we all know natalie will tell you this as you have a greater participation your numbers drop happens across the board s-a-t-a-c-t i don't care what type of standardized test but in our case our numbers actually were better than the state number that those are kudos obviously to what mary j did her staff but it's the foundation that we have at

182elementary school that leads to the students being able to move ahead in algebra and dr blasingame reminds us about reading at grade level three going to prison but we are reminded that there are two classes that our students must take that lead to success in life and one of those happens to be algebra one it teaches the brain to think differently so i just want to say thank you to the teachers campus administrators senior leadership many a time you've had to virtually empty the isc building to send people out to the schools to cover classrooms which says that for you to do your job you come back in the evenings you put in the weekend work and even though this is school appreciation month this is really the month we get to say most of

183all thank you to y'all thank you we appreciate that by all means thank you jackson and now we move to the consensus action items on the agenda for the audience here and for the audience still viewing this at home we took a hard look at the non-consensus items on monday that's the work session the board then decided some of these we want to move to the consent agenda some we don't so the process is we'll go through everything on the consent agenda we will then ask any board member do you want to pull any of these off for those remaining on the consent agenda will entertain a motion and then a motion to second we open the floor for further discussion and then we vote and i'm going to turn to my vice president to

184start on item nine using the script that you have in front of you and take us through what's on the consent agenda thank you mr president we will now proceed with the consensus action items portion of the agenda nine action items consensus the board will consider approving the minutes of the december 9th 2021 board work session 9b the board will consider approving the minutes of the december 13th 2021 regular board meeting the following non-consensus action items were moved to consensus during the board work session on monday january 10 2022 item 10b the board will consider approving the calendar committee's recommendation for the 2022-2023 instructional calendar 10c the board will consider approving a memorandum of understanding for two of the district's university partners grand canyon university and houston baptist university 10d the board will consider approving

185the granting of water line and temporary construction easements parcel 31e-9 to the north harris county regional water authority located at millsap elementary school and authorized the superintendent or designee to negotiate the final terms and execute all related documents 10e the board will consider approving the granting of waterline and temporary construction easements parcel 31a-13 to the north harris county regional water authority located at campbell middle school old wind fern high school and authorized the superintendent or destiny to negotiate the final terms and execute all related documents 10f the board will consider approving the granting of water line temporary construction and access easements parcel 31a-12 to the north harris county regional water authority located at the natatorium and pridgeon stadium and authorized the superintendent or designee to negotiate the final terms and execute all related documents 10g

186the board will consider approving the granting of waterline and temporary construction easements parcel 31a-11 to the north harris county regional water authority located at alc winform administration annex and falcon annex and authorize the superintendent or destiny to negotiate the final terms and execute all related documents 10h the board will consider approving the walk the granting of waterline and temporary construction easements parcel 31a-4 to the north harris county regional water authority located at the maintenance center and authorized the superintendent or designee to negotiate the final terms and execute all related documents 10i the board will consider awarding bids and contracts and or authorizing purchase orders as recommended in the posted agenda item 10 i1 drill team competition drapes and hardware 10i 2 departmental vehicles police 10j the board will consider approving construction proposals and contracts paid

187from bond funds to the recommended contractors and authorize the superintendent or designee to execute all related documents related to such contracts as follows if any board member wishes to remove one or more of these items for further discussion please do so at this time if not i will entertain a motion to approve the consensus items as recommended or amended and i'll take the microphone back at that point sir thank you vice president so first question does anybody want to take any of these items off and put it aside looking to the left looking to the right it all stays on the consent agenda i will now entertain a motion to approve and your motion sir so your motion is to approve everything on the consent agenda emotion has been made is there a second emotion

188has been made and seconded all in favor please signify by raising your right hand the motion carries item 10a this has been tabled until next month any trustee interested in tasby position should contact me i've had two trustees contact me regarding interest if anybody else has an interest please contact me to let me know i then turn the information over to counsel but part of the reason to contact me is i'm willing to sit down or just talk to you on the phone to sketch out kind of the big picture of tasby but also to let you know what my time on tasby was like as long as we're on this topic grassroots tasby is now open uh has anybody on the board decided to go to the grassroots meeting you have to register it's

189no big deal mr president i have registered for okay so we have one and plan to do so excellent grassroots is fun it really is i don't know how it's going to happen during coven but you do get to meet with other trustees in the gulf coast area and many concerns are similar but then every district has its own story and every district is a little bit different but but it's good to visit with with other trustees i don't remember what the deadline is but i think we have some some time to sign up for that 10k the board will consider approving the 2021 2020 school health advisory council scat shack membership this was moved to non-consent because we had certain board members who wanted to have the the opportunity to go ahead and nominate

190individuals to serve on this committee and to the board members who expressed that interest were you able to take care of that okay so good i will now entertain a motion for this item and let me stop for our new board members do you know where to find the motion so mr president i do have a question about this uh agenda item so so before we open it up for discussion uh we have to have a motion then we second and then once emotion is on the floor with the second we can open it for discussion excellent so mr mr jackson uh yes miss blackshear i i would like to move the board approve the 2021 2021-2022 school health advisory council membership as presented and asked the administration to fill vacancies as they occur thank

191you miss blackshear motion has been made is there a second motion's been made and seconded the floor is open for discussion is there any discussion yes mr president i do have a question about the membership list please continue um can i ask is the director of health services here thank you thanks miss gordon miss gordon i just want to confirm the process of nominating or selecting volunteers to participate in the student health advisory council you sent out a letter to us that we received on december 10th your letter was dated december 9th we received it december 10th and you requested that board members provide nominees to the student health advisory council by january 7th is that correct yes ma'am okay and looking at the list of council members it has changed drastically from that that

192deadline to what i see is now put in place and i have some questions about that um i did respond to that request um in my um list of nominees that i submitted i focused on geographical representation specifically the areas of vacancies that's where you were asking for help filling vacancies so not looking for duplications or more members than is is recommended by the texas department of state health services which you shared with us on monday the maximum is or the suggested number is 20 if i remember correctly right and i saw that on the website for the texas department of state health services in looking at the new list after our work session on monday i see that there are some areas where there are now instead of one parent represented there's two so

193there's a duplication there which does not fulfill the need for additional geographical representation i see that board one board member has nominated the wife of another board member and then another board member nominated another wife of a board member i questioned that because in the recommendations from the texas department of state health services when it talks about shaq should represent your community's geographic area economic social religious and ethnic makeup philosophies constituencies and overall cultural fear field and make sure that appropriate segments of the community are represented i'm question that we're doubling up in on some areas perhaps needlessly criteria for who are members of shacks says knowledge of community profile especially different community segments professional ability representative of the population and credible membership i question nominating each other's wives several of those areas of criteria

194three methods for selecting shack members are recruitment appointment and volunteer i understand that the board has to appoint members but i also feel that we have a responsibility to ensure that we're following the criteria as suggested by the texas department of state health services and to best serve the students in our district for the members that i nominated i did not include any family members of myself or other board members i included a parent that was in an area of vacancy specifically for horn elementary i included for the community members a financial planner a member of the cypher fire department and a human resource executive i ensured that no one geographical area was overrepresented to the detriment of others and i made sure that we maintained the limit or the suggested number of 20 members

195for this reason i uh feel that i am not comfortable with approving the current membership as it is listed any questions or comments i'm very proud of the people that are nominated to the shack committee all come with qualifications and experience and background in the health field um council i'd like to ask a question is there anything other than b i can pull it up here i can't see the b is there any other policy other than bdf legal in other words is there any regulation or or um other policy that governs this area i could only find one in my search on the on policy the the legal policy reflects what's in statute but there is no local regulation or any other policy layer that guides us yes so i think we're fully within

196the um yes we're fully within the policy the policy basically says the board will appoint and um so uh we unfortunately being new to the board we did not have email access even though the team did an amazing job the password issue for me i could not access my email i did not contact people over the break because i believe educators need their winter break and so we worked to get access and when i got access was after the date that was stated however policy does not in any which way dictate the process or the dates by which it would happen so i think we're clearly within policy to make nominations and i think that the um that is fair as new members of the board to have the opportunity to nominate so i just

197want to clarify there's nothing about the policy here that is broken by us nominating is that accurate counsel i was just i was confirming there wasn't anything in um is it e-h-v-a-f i think it's redundant i just wanted to make sure i was being exactly clear uh but there's nothing um in the process that we've described that to my knowledge is contrary to uh our our policies and i was just going to make sure i was accurately saying there might be a little something about the shack in ehb af and that's what i was going to cover yeah that can't get pull up policy on here i can't find where it is so i was trying to pull it up um okay so um the um so we know we're okay with policy and you're

198double checking in case there's something wrong i was not also the only the first time i saw any names i was operating off of a vacancy list that's when i could first access it and then suddenly at the meeting the last time just on monday night we saw that there were names populated there and so i was operating already before that talking to people i know that i've seen as shining examples in our community of volunteerism that have an active interest in health and that represent the community's values and so um that process had already been begun before one board member filled the rest of the vacancy so i feel like those redundancies are legal therefore they should be fair i would never want people you've asked or volunteer to serve um any of us

199have asked to serve and have accepted that assignment to be asked to leave and i've done that with some others as well and to the point i have did nominate one um spouse that's because that person is a health care professional certified in health coaching certified in health training and also when we had an issue that arose this year um concerning health policy we had a situation where the stated policy around um sex ed for middle schooler i mean for fourth graders in a neighborhood school there was some confusion about what was allowed and what wasn't and thank you administration we all clarified that that the person that everyone went to in that community was the spouse of a sitting board member bethany scanlon she has a health background and she was also a voice

200in the community um that was uh the that people turn to and so i think that's a very valid argument the other is someone i've known as a volunteer in a vip at aragon middle school and at langham creek has four three students in that feeder pattern she is someone who has a very keen and important interest in students with food sensitivities and food allergies which is part of the the scope of the shack and then a community member who works actively who has a health background in this community retired from the sci-fi hospital hca and also is a child trafficking someone who's very a community activist that looks at sex trafficking which is something that is clearly an issue that has to be addressed in the houston area it's something that falls in the

201health uh area and so i think these are very valid nominations to the shaft committee and i stand by my nominations thank you if i may please i just want to also confirm that uh this document the bulletin that was sent out on december 10th was also sent to our personal emails not our cfisd in emails they were sent by holly and the response you didn't have to respond over the break the the request was received december 10th that was before we went on break what i did not also disclose to share but uh you have shared the qualifications of your nominees um two of them were very active campaign member or members of the your campaign as well thank you i think it's important that people who who reflect our community values and are

202passionate enough to fight for our community values are people who have a voice there are many many voices here and i think that's a fair um it's a fair uh appointment permission to comment certainly so further in our last it is in our last board meeting i want to confirm my understanding was that as we spoke with ms bevin and president that we agreed that it would be permissible for the board members to submit nominations is that correct that's my understanding that's my understanding as well and so that is the reason that we provided the recommendations uh regarding the nominations that i made they were active community members they represent a voice in the community and they've demonstrated over time passion regarding areas of sex trafficking and preventing of issues among our children and they're

203volunteers in our community so i think that the nominations that i've put forth are valid questions comments i was just going to confirm dr blasey was e-h-a-a that i was thinking about and that's just the curriculum piece so i'm going to stand by what uh affirming what you said that bdf legal is where we have the shack um composition that's correct thank you ma'am mr jackson yes miss blackshear i would just like to comment that uh since mr scanlon and mr henry's wife's names are on that list i would suggest that they abstain from vote vote me i'd like to clarify believe that the shaq committee just makes recommendations to the board is that accurate and the board votes on it yes ma'am thank you other questions or comments so we have a motion on

204the floor that's been seconded there is no further discussion a question regarding conflict of interest has been raised so i will ask the the two board members who have relatives serving on the committee do you plan to vote or do you plan to abstain i'll look to my right first mr henry i would ask counsel uh for a legal opinion on this please i don't typically give legal advice an open session but i will um no i'm whatever it is i was i no you're good you're good i i didn't mean i didn't mean that question i know you wanted to say me funny so there's um i know everybody's settling down because when marny takes a deep breath and says you know so there's a couple of times in um in either the local

205government code and i think the government code when you're required to abstain one of those is um if you have an interest and i and i may like for interest financial interest uh for instance sometimes um mr jackson has had to abstain when we um one of the financial companies that we use simply because of a stock that he holds other times is if you are if you have a familial relationship but that i have to be honest with you i i need to just look to confirm um many times many times board members will abstain because of they don't want the appearance of um and so it's sort of a you know do i have to or or am i going to um for transparency purposes as far as do you have to because

206the shack is not um it's not a vendor um i don't know that there is a requirement i think what miss blackshear may have been suggesting was just from a you know like a best practices that was her recommendation if you all would give me just a second i will make a recommendation instead as an alternative may i remove my wife's name and then i'll be able to vote and move on from there would that be acceptable to the board for the person who made the nomination if that's your wish scott i so remove her name [Music] you know so we we have a emotion on the floor and a second um morning mr jackson well well just second miss blackshear marty i i know how to handle this using robert's rules of order i

207mean i know what we have to do do we have to go through with with all of that we follow as you know as a small what's it called a small quorum a small organization we use the modified version of robert's rules of order so you can do friendly um amendments and if the you know the maker of you know the motion is in agreement or it's generally the i think the the chair looks and there's consensus then you can do a friendly amendment without having to vote on the amendment et cetera so what we're talking about is we have to amend the list right and if we're in agreement that we can amend the list that the list has been amended okay may i speak mr jackson uh so almost we're almost there so

208with the exception of debbie blackshear who who i could not see not her her head there is agreement among a majority of the board that we can amend the list to remove one name so that amendment to the motion has now been made and recognized yes i did not make that amendment no i i understand however between mr henry and mr scanlon they amended the list so a name was removed from the list so now we have a new list that is the amended list and so the motion is still on the floor as to whether or not we go ahead and approve but mr henry no longer has a conflict of interest either in fact or an appearance uh but we're still open for further discussion i'd like to speak before we vote yes

209ma'am the floor is yours okay what i've been trying to tell you my intent was not to remove their wise names from the list my intent was as morning stated for for transparency purposes and for best practices i felt that that it would be a good idea for them to stay from voting but my intent was never to remove their names from the list i just want to make that clear very good thank you miss blackshear i was trying to also just also be amenable to the entire board as well just so you know on my motion trying to be helpful for everyone be a team player very good and and try and move it along i got it i got it mr president my comment is that i'm happy to abstain from voting very

210good okay is there further discussion hearing none i will call for an approval of the 2021-2022 school health advisory council shack membership as amended all in favor please raise your right hand we have three in favor all opposed oh debbie is your hand up yes okay uh motion carries i will ask for all those opposed by the same sign raise your right hand one opposed to opposed motion carries and now we will proceed finally superintendent's briefing portion of the agenda thank you and the way i think i have it added up that's eight hours and 24 minutes later if you count monday and tonight i get to finish this up we will honor our school counselors the week february 7th to 11th for national school counseling week national school counseling week highlights the tremendous impact

211school counselors can have in helping students achieve school success and plan for a career the 28th annual scifir isd livestock show and sale will be held february 1st through 5th at the cfisd exhibit center at 11206 telge road in addition to in-person spectators we will be live streaming the judging and the sales so you can support cfisd-ffa students from home the on-site freezer sale and silent auction will be at 9 00 a.m on saturday february 5th followed by the buyer's luncheon at arnold middle school at 11 a.m and the auction uh the live auction excuse me at 1 pm back at the exhibit center you can always go to the district website to view more information january is designated as national mentoring month mentoring can make such a difference in the lives of students struggling

212with academics personal issues and staying in school we would like to thank all of our cfisd mentors for make for making such a difference in the lives of our students if you are interested in becoming a mentor please contact the cfisd community engagement office the cfisd dance show-offs are scheduled for thursday january 27th from 6 to 8 p.m at the berry center see some of the top dance talent throughout the district uh including the all-district dance team tickets are ten dollars per person at the door and i can tell you that's a great show a reminder that tomorrow january 14th will be a teacher work day and student holiday all schools and facilities will be closed on monday january 17th in observance of dr martin luther king jr holiday and mr president uh i know

213we've been here a long time but i just want three minutes to make some uh personal comments uh as many of you know probably all of you know i came to this district nearly 11 years ago a superintendent and when i came to this district 11 years ago i had three adult children 21 year old a 25 year old and a 26 year old in that 11 years i now have a a little less than 11 years i have a 31 year old i have a 35 year old a 36 year old and not only do i have those children i've got three in-laws now and i've got seven grandchildren in that ten and a half years but my family is is really unique and some of you know this story and i do have

214a point i have two grandchildren that are half hispanic and half asian i have two grandchildren that are half asian and half caucasian i have one grandchild that is half caucasian and half african-american i have um one grandson my prince who is actually three years old and he's the product of my daughter who is a member of the lgbt community so i have a true modern family and i may be missing one i don't know and you know i'll be in trouble but i can tell you i can tell you and the point i'm trying to make is ten and a half years ago i never dreamed my family would look like my family looks that was not what you know i grew up in a small town in east texas that's not what i

215thought my family would look like but you know my family turned out just like it was supposed to i have a little bit of everything in my family and i love them all and i got a my my half caucasian half african-american granddaughter when she was uh in school she saw someone that looked like her and that made a difference in her life and so it does make a difference when kids see others that look like they do and my little prince my three-year-old this part you know a child of my my daughter um he needs to see people that look like his moms it's it's important and and i say all that to say we're all talking but we're not listening we're really saying the same things we want the best teachers we can

216get in this community but we want them to be diverse and the way you make a div you come up with a diverse workforce is you go look different places than you've ever looked before you go to prairie view a m you go to texas southern you go to the valley you go to places where um there are people that are the best and they can come back here and give us that diversity we want and they can be the best like other people want so that can happen and then i'm going to finish my thoughts with this mr jackson makes it very clear that the board is the policy arm of the school district and the superintendent is in charge of running the day-to-day operations of the district when any of the people that

217i'm responsible for hurt i heard and to our african-american employees i'm so sorry that you've hurt the last few days and i apologize that you've heard and i'll do my best to make sure that that does not occur again thank you i'm not against anybody we are now adjourned thank you who turned that off [Music] you