001[Music] good evening it's always wonderful to look out and see this place full so just let you know if you're sitting up front we start the donations in the back and move forward the cypress fairbanks independent school district board of trustees is now convening a regular board meeting on thursday june 24th 2021 in the boardroom of cypress fairbanks independent school district instructional support center located at 10 300 jones road houston texas at 6 00 pm i want to welcome the members of our audience and our television viewers to this meeting of the board of trustees as a cypress fairbanks board of trustees we are here to set goals listen to reports from the superintendent approve budgets contracts personal appointments and make policy for the district it is not the role of the board to make
002day-to-day operational decisions the management and day-to-day operations of the district are the responsibility of the superintendent we have policies and procedures in place to resolve concerns and issues this is a public meeting of the board of trustees not a meeting of the public prior to this meeting board members receive information related to items on tonight's agenda agenda items will not necessarily be handled in the order listed on the notice the meeting is open to all who wish to attend and hear the matters discussed 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 551-071-551.084 of the texas government code these proceedings are airing live on comcast channel
00316 and the district website there will also be available as video on demand on the district website following tonight's meeting for the video to adequately reflect the proceedings i respectfully ask that you please refrain from talking while others are speaking and that cell phones are turned off or in silent mode i intelligently left mine in my car so it's pretty silent i would like everybody else to turn yours off please thank you for taking the time to join us this evening and for your interest in the cyprus fairbanks independence school district at this time i would usually take the opportunity to recognize our community leadership committee members who are here stacy anderson would you stand there you are thank you stacy ryan irving where are you right there you are francis romero thank you francis
004for those that don't know the community leadership committee meets once a month and they learn more and more about our district and the different things that affect us and support us and move us forward they're always wonderful to have with us we do not have any boy scouts signed up for tonight the invocation and pledge of allegiance the invocation of tonight's board meeting will be given by dennis herman i'm not going to say that right dennis i'm not thank you hermidin lead pastor of the king's cross church dennis moved to cyprus to plant king's cross church in 2014. he has been married to his wife jane for 33 years and they have three adult children olivia joshua and lita vladimir dennis has been an active ministry for the past 30 years and holds a b
005in organizational communication with the university of memphis and man faith and culture from trinity international university and a master of divine from reformed theological seminary he was a contributing author to the book he lost emmanuel a call for racial reconciliation representation and unity in the church thank you for being here tonight dennis after the invocation please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance please stand let us pray we praise you god our creator for your handiwork and shaking sustaining your wondrous creation we especially thank you for the miracle of life and the wonder of living in this world we pray especially for the particular blessings that you give to us each day for resources that you provide to our community here in cyprus for the gifts of creative vision for the treasure and potential support
006in each human life for the cycle outcomes upon planning for school events and for all our staff members admin principals teachers coaches maintenance and custodial care staff we ask that you would give this board and all those in the school district insight to lead with integrity their decisions may reflect what is right and good keep them from short-sightedness help them to make decisions that are good for all and guard them from blind self-interest be with them in their deliberations and help them be wise in the decisions that they make for the good of all those that place their trust and confidence in them and for those who are dependent upon their leadership lord we ask that you would help each board member to welcome conflict not as a sign of something that should be avoided
007but rather as the beauty of diversity and an opportunity to reach creative solutions help them to recognize this diversity as a sign of your capacity to love each one of us and to help them to cherish it help them to approach each issue with an open and inquiring seeking be free and prejudice with a spirit depending on yours for strength to make hard decisions we pray that you would bless this body and his deliberations deceiving we pray all this is the precious name of christ our lord the united states of america and jesus republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you you may be seated board member tom jackson will read the district's vision and mission statement for the benefit of the audience mr jackson
008our vision at scifire isd is formed from the acronym lead to learn empower achieve and to dream lead our mission is to maximize every student's potential through rigorous and relevant learning experiences preparing students to be 21st century global leaders thank you mr jackson one other recognition is our state representative john rosenthal is with us john would you stand up thank you for coming now we've got some recognitions i'm going to turn it over and i'm a little cautious of doing this to mr don ryan who has an announcement to make don don't worry bob bob has been a great servant to our district locally but what a lot of you may not know is he's he also serves statewide and has done some things nationally so it is my honor to announce that our board
009president mr covey has been re-elected to the tasby board of directors for region 4 position f congratulations bob [Applause] no were you making more okay [Music] and now dr henry will make remarks and announcements including the honors and achievements earned by staff and student in recent weeks dr henry thank you mr president and although we've been out of school a few weeks board meeting in june's a little later than most months but we still get to celebrate some student achievements from this past school year fourth four bridgeland high school tennis players finished his state quarterfinalist at the uil state tennis championships held may 20th and 21st in san antonio congratulations to girls singer singles players lindsay payne and divya tullery as well as girls doubles players emma eads and allison chen for representing cfisd at
010state congratulations to the cypress creek high school boys golf team which finished 12th at the uil boys state golf championship held may 17th and 18th at legacy hills golf club in georgetown the trip mark first visit to the state championship for cypress creek since 1981 so 40 years and i can tell you if you don't know there's about 260 6a high school teams throughout the state of texas and we're certainly proud of side creek for being one of those that made it all the way to state many cfisd students had tremendous achievements in the 2020-2021 school year please enjoy the slideshow as we recognize our award winners virtually [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] let's go [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] congratulations to all of
011our students and certainly all the sponsors and parents who were behind the scenes to help our students have such a great and successful year with what they love to do recently we selected a new principal at keith elementary school and i'll turn it over to roy garcia for introductions roy thank you dr henry president covey and board of trustees last month dawn tryon was selected as a new director of community engagement which created a principal vacancy at keith elementary school and tonight we are excited not only to introduce to you but to the cfisd community our new principal for keith elementary school this is julie [Applause] clements before we provide julie an opportunity to address the board and also introduce her family i will give a brief overview of her professional experience julie received her
012bachelor's degree from baylor university her master's degree from university of texas at dallas and her principal certification from stephen f austin state university she served as a speech-language pathologist and a speech pathologist supervisor in cfisd for six years she was a classroom teacher at yaeger elementary school and an instructional specialist at gleason elementary school julie served as an assistant principal at frazier elementary for three years and has been the assistant principal at alt elementary for the past five years she did participate in the teacher leadership institute the aspiring principal institute and has served as a mentor for new assistant principals in addition she served as a summer school principal julie and her husband byron who is an educator in tomball isd have two daughters katie and brinley katie attend cypress creek high school and brinley
013will join her mom at keith elementary school some of julie's favorite things to do when she is not working includes spending time with family swimming fishing watching movies listening to audio books and trying out local coffee shops please join me in congratulating [Applause] julie board of trustees dr henry thank you so much for the opportunity honor and privilege to serve as principal at keith elementary um i am a product of cypher ise i went to psycho isd schools from kindergarten all the way through high school and then have um returned and served my entire career at sci fair as well so i know very well um the quality of education that can be provided here and i'm so thankful so so very thankful for the opportunity to serve as principal at keith elementary i do
014have some people here to introduce and he's terrible so i am trying not to be so this is my husband byron my daughter grimly and katie this is my mom and dad taylor cherry norris my sister brother-in-law and their daughter um so tyler tyler's not here that's sheridan um jennifer and stacy um my brother justin and on the end down there i've got one of my principal um mentors jeff le coke hanging out down there as well i know i also have some of my previous co-workers as well as my future co-workers at keith elementary here and online supporting me as well so i'm so very thankful to have their support and encouragement i truly look forward to working alongside of the amazing keith family to continue the tradition of excellence and you know truly
015provide opportunity for all so thank you all so much for the opportunity [Applause] okay uh we're going to take and we count them a four minute 59 second break so we can congratulate ms clements who i've known since she was in junior high and i will tell you that if you want to leave we won't charge you for leaving but we'd love to have you come back and join us for the rest of the meeting so four minutes 59 second break right now okay we will now proceed to the public comments portion of the agenda patrons who are duly registered for policy bed local may address the board and make public comments on the agenda item during or before the board's consideration of the item the board may allow public comment on agenda items at
016all meetings the board will continue with the remaining agenda after the registered patrons have had an opportunity to speak i will also let you know that we have a light set up over here on to my right and there is a green light as soon as you start you've got two minutes to make your comments at 30 seconds before the yellow light will come on when the red light comes on we ask you to summarize and complete what you're saying and uh please don't run over because we have a number of comments tonight so starting out with the public comments section um ac in the mayo i don't know whether i said that right so if you want to when you get up here if i've mispronounced your name please correct me that's fine yes
017ma'am hi my name is i shane dimano last board meeting i asked for the board's transparency on a video that teaches children that their unconscious thoughts are known based on the color of their skin i asked who provided the video i was not given transparency something is wrong here and i want answers i have two examples of this and i want to bring them to light ma'am your comment ma'am the public comment portion is actually for the agenda item you signed up to speak on the minutes and so if you have it i'm sorry so if you have a specific um comment about that agenda item otherwise we would put you in the um citizen participation i'm happy to do that i was told since i spoke last time i could speak on what i
018spoke on last time because it was on the agenda in a minute no that's not correct i'm just trying to make sure we speak at the at the right location because the time there's time differences if we can't keep this civil we don't need to be having it so come on if you're going to be civil that's wonderful we're here to listen and i'm here to hear you speak so okay i i just wanted to make sure we had you in the right spot okay so it's my first example when i called virgin high school find who provided the video the response was the district i said does that mean the board and the response was dr henry and i said does that mean the board and they said dr henry from there i came
019to the board to make sure my information was correct because it was highly concerning that our superintendent would promote the ideas in that video specifically and the president of the board responded in a letter to me it was a diverse student and staff campus committee and not the board who selected video my question was who provided the video not who selected the video i called the school again and asked an assistant principal who from the committee provided the video that they had selected the response was silence i asked if the school committee googled the video to obtain it and their response was silent that's not transparency that's deflection and silence my second example is personal i got a call from my child assistant principal informing me she told him what he should have done in
020a social situation even though he didn't disobey any rules his friend did and the ap told him he should have physically distanced himself from the disobedient friend i thought that's a very odd reason to call me every time a child gets talking to by an assistant principal i think he goes into their permanent record so naturally i was concerned in my house we let our values guide our children in social situations my child had the right to choose where to stand in a social situation without the ap telling him i asked the ap if social emotional learning was being employed when she talked to him the response was it was a teachable moment that's it the response did not answer if it was social emotional learning being used even though that's a question i asked
021i asked again and she said it was a teachable moment please summarize and i said teachable according to what social emotional learning i got silence teaching moments at psycho isd teach children social shame ma'am can you imagine the shame and humiliation the child feels when his friends are forced to leave him from the authority of an assistant principal ma'am okay thank thank you we have this policy set if you cannot finish then we'll ask you to leave because that's how the policy is set up and uh that's transparent it's in our policy manual so next up is jeremy snyde schneed tell me how it's pronounced sean thank you i know you're actually speaking on an agenda item perfect um let's start yes sir uh hello my name is jeremy scheid i am a teacher here
022at sci fair uh isd and i would like to make a remark regarding the teacher pay rate um it's been my uh knowledge that teacher pay raise is going to be a percentage increase but this is a huge disadvantage for lower income earners our support staff our school bus drivers our custodian work workers our cafeteria cafeteria workers a percentage increase does not do them jobs these people have worked beside throughout the school year they are the foundation of every school and i am advocating that you also include a stipend to their pay as well if it wasn't for these individuals not only would we have been able to have a clean school for the coveted year to make sure children have food in their stomachs and also to make sure that students can come to
023school in a safe manner and still only to reward them with such a menial increase in pay to where most of their pay would be erased just because of health care costs is ridiculous and to truly support our support staff i am advocating that we also include a stipend as well again my name is jeremy shy i'm the teacher thank you silva davis behind for 19 years i love tight hair i love the kids but i've seen a few things and what i've seen is that senior personnel in the supporting area this is not being really gratified i've had different ones come up to me and say you know what you didn't drive for this district how long how did you do that i said wasn't like the money was about the kids but why
024do you ask i don't think i can stay at all not what you guys do and the way you're treated i kept thinking about that i said i come in at one level entry-level people coming in and of course we don't discuss salary but it doesn't take rocket science to realize that if they're coming in just a few dollar shot of what you have what you're earning after so many years something's wrong with that if you're gonna raise the entry level pain it should be a possible way yes not all that because we are good our kids show that we're good let's take the people into consideration because we are the engine that drives the force behind the schools all of us thank you thank you ms davids ryan irving good evening superintendent henry president
025kobe board of trustees and to all of the sci fair community my name is ryan irving jr i'm a former cfisd student who has lived in the district for 22 years i'm a current honor student and senior at the university of houston i am a clc member current candidate for the scifire board of trustees and a mentor and an advocate for public education i am here today to discuss recent talks about salary increases for educators staff and as a taxpayer stakeholder and a former and current school board candidate for this community it was always evident to me that based on the district's financial standards that our teachers and staff could receive an increase as high as five percent the sci-fi the cfisd board over the past over the last eight years has approved a three
026percent increase in salaries and in the overall last year one percent increase in salaries unfortunately these increases were and still are not enough to keep up with the rising cost of living which has almost doubled since the year 2000 in this area in addition the skyrocketing cost of healthcare within the trs system has put an even bigger financial burden on all of our teachers and staff this past thursday june 3rd 2021 the trs board has held a special meeting where they raised the cost of the following trs health care plans by 8 percent trs active care hd active care 2 and active care primary trs active care plus will have a 5.5 increase the state of texas alone is the second highest state uh second highest state insurance premiums in the country my reasons for
027advocating for all for teacher staff pay raises are genuine meaning that i recognized as early as two years ago that the district was in good financial standing it could have sustained a 5 increase for our faculty and staff the passing of house bill 3 in 2019 gave the district an even better financial standing the question that i have is why now as an observer some of the statements that was made within this body were statements such as since march 3rd our employees have missed a paycheck have not missed the paycheck that i'm aware of or the number of the number one goal of is education for our students and lastly we will be uh strapped financially for the next couple of years twenty twenty twenty one twenty ryan in 2023 thank you mickey cower i
028look around the room tonight and one thing i know for sure we may not all be united on everything but we are certainly united on how hard the scifire isd employees have worked this year tonight we expect the approval of the 2021-22 budget and pay raise a raise that should honor our hard work and commitment to students this past year our food service heroes and the custodians that never ever stopped are teachers and substitutes that quickly learned how best to support both the roomies and our zoomies the transportation department that delivered chromebooks and hot spots are librarians that had to become i.t experts our counselors that service the students that lost loved ones i would fair to say that most people in this room lost someone they loved over the course of the last year
029our union remains committed to reinvesting in what works in public schools dedicated respected teachers and staff that helped to provide wrap-around services to help students heal from the trauma of the last year to help find stability in what has been the most difficult year for many our union is and we greatly appreciate the engagement our union has had with our elected school board trustees but i want to go on record by stating we appreciate and support the administration and board members and the work they have done here around racial equity policies our union members work every day to make sure their classroom is a safe welcoming environment for all students heavy-handed intrusions by the texas legislature make this work more difficult and send the wrong message to black and brown families we cannot promote racial
030equity in our district while trying to silence discussions about racial discrimination in our country again this has been a hard year for all i am waiting our teachers and staff are waiting and i really hope at the end of tonight our employees see that you saw their representative john rosenthal thank you president kobe board trustees and superintendent henry for always welcoming me to these meetings i'm here to talk about budget agenda item 7b i'm glad to see the budget reflects forward leaning values your budget is your values and i'm glad to see that you're working to provide salary increases for our teachers and our own employees and i urge you to maximize those in an equitable way so our valued employees are taken care of i also notice what's not in the budget anything about
031critical race theory which has been grossly mischaracterized for political purposes [Music] okay once again that's enough if you want to leave we can have you leave that's up to you but we don't need those kind of remarks you've shown respect to everybody else so let's show respect to our representatives thank you i hope i get that time back because this is time most of what's being said about critical race theory is complete horse remember crt examines the role of race informing public policy and societal structures it does not suggest that someone is racist because they happen to be caucasian it is not taught in k through 12 and or in many texas schools it's college material so uh house bill encourages discourages the teaching of the history of racism in this nation guys this is
032a meeting okay everyone listen to me please this is a meeting that we're having in the public but it's not a meeting of the public and i appreciate very much that that you may feel in the moment that you may feel in them and the first speaker didn't follow the rules at all and so but we're in an effort we really want to have our meeting we want people to be able to speak and we're going to allow them to speak in the appropriate category so what we just really ask is that you be respectful of every speaker and then just recognize that this isn't a meeting in the public or of the public we're having the meeting in the public so i'm going to ask that you all just please respect everyone who's speaking
033thank you thank you i do want to know i want to mention riley shadow who uh through his advocacy led me to pass house bill 699 which is riley's rule ensures that students are not penalized for absences associated with chronic or life-threatening illnesses because of his participation like that riley knows more about the process to pass a law in this state than 99.9 of his peers and i would bet more than of people in this room so all i'm saying at the end of the day all i'm saying at the end of the day is that crt is not what many have been led to believe it's not being taught in our schools okay state board of education determines curriculum if you want to change your curriculum thank you mr thank you tara cummings as
034you all are considering the budget i ask and urge you to ensure that there are funds available to take the resolution condemning racism which is necessary and vital and a crucial foundation to take that from a lovely intention into actual action in practical observable measurable ways to acknowledge ongoing systemic racism even within cfisd and to combat that so that we can truly provide opportunity for all of our students in particular are black and brown students in meetings board meetings passed another person has spoken one after another after another board meeting mariah najmudin and she's shared she's a former employee and she's shared her observations of instances of racial inequity and injustice currently happening in the district along with really practical feasible solutions for that and so i'd also like to ask and urge you guys
035to review those previous meetings or if anybody took notes or reach out to mariah because and i'm sure there's lots of other people in our cfist community that have wonderful ideas but i think right now we've got a foundation that's necessary and now we need to take the next step and the next step and the next step in action to make good so that we're not just having meaningless words on a paper thank you now we will move to public i'm sorry where are you well i'm sorry we did that excuse me excuse any board member may make a comment during this portion of the agenda without prior postings being required comment items may not pertain to the character of any students staff or board member and may not be discussed or deliberated upon at
036this meeting mr ryan would you like to kick it off i would thank you uh thank you mr kobe i don't always uh during the board comment section uh speak but tonight i feel compelled to and i've actually written down my thoughts because i want them to be a matter of public record uh i want to take a moment to talk about some questions and emails i've gotten lately about the district's curriculum and if we teach critical race theory let me start by saying that we teach the required curriculum from the state and this does not include critical race theory and it never has let me repeat that it includes office ma'am ask her i'm sorry would you ask her pick her up get up and go pick her up go i have the floor
037she leaves you can hear what i have to say and you've had your chance to speak ma'am we'll clear the room ma'am you're either quiet or please leave once again we have shown respect to you it's time for you to show respect to us and just for the viewing audience what i'm sharing tonight are facts that you can look up you can talk to any state representative you can talk to the state board but these are actual facts not fiction not made up these are my thoughts they're only my thoughts individually and so i'm going to share them the state requires teaching social studies in history and that is going to obviously include learning about historic examples of racism and the impact but our teachers know how to teach this and in fact we have
038a board policy that addresses how to cover this and other topics objectively there's been some confusion and misinformation out there about this issue bridgeland's no place for hate committee which is led by students recommended several different activities including a video for other students to watch on implicit bias the campus wanted parents to see the suggested video first and send it out to the parents to watch and provide feedback after hearing concerns from parents the principal did not include the video in the no place for hate activities so the video was never shown to students and i think there's confusion about no place for hate as well this has been a popular program in schools for years especially the past 10 years or so as part of our anti-bullying education at many of our campuses the
039committees are led by students and promote a positive school climate it is not a program about critical race theory critical race theory as far as i know is something taught at some colleges but it has never ever been a part of the school district curriculum in the school district ever since i first started on the board in 2000 we have talked about educational equity as part of the requirements of no child left behind as part of no child left behind and now with whatever the law is called now as a board we are required to look at our test scores and other achievement data that is broken down by race and create plans to close any achievement gaps between groups this is part of what the board has asked the administration to do as part
040of the equity audit to help create plans to address the gaps our anti-bullying programs and the educational equity plans are things we have a responsibility to create and are not critical race theory programs and i just want to take a minute and clear up that confusion if any parent or patron has a question or concern about our curriculum i would encourage you to contact our administration and if you can take one thing away from my comments i hope it would be that we are not teaching critical race theory it is on the record i've made the statement so now you've got me all right thank you bob yes i want to um thank all of the people involved in our recent graduations back the end of may the 1st of june we had another set
041of successful graduations through that i hope i can say the end of the pandemic i think it will be the last graduation where we wore math and had more of them out on the football field when the weather permitted but the work behind the scenes was just absolutely tremendous from beth wade and her crew at the berry staff to our sci-fare police department getting our uh parents and and the graduates loved ones in and out of the parking and uh dr deborah stewart and uh iffy ugumake who were there helping us and helping the students and just seeing that everything ran on schedule and as planned and it was just every graduation i attended i attended 11 of the 12 were just amazing and sometimes people ask board members how in the world do you
042sit through 12 graduations well just let me say it is an honor to sit through and watch each of our classes graduate and see the culmination of their education in scifire isd and know that we have prepared them for the next step in life whether it be college trade school the military wherever they may maybe going next and uh this year was no exception we had a tremendous uh over what dr henry 9 000. 9139 graduates so another congratulations to the class of 2021. thank you bob don i will say your comments are excellent and probably for the first time in 10 years your comments tonight were better written than mine on the topic it has been only a short month since the last board meeting however i've been busy on our collective behalf despite
043the pandemic for the second year in a row we had graduations for each of our campuses we are the largest district in the united states to be able to say that we did this some this year were outside and when inclement weather threatened we pivoted and brought them inside wade at our staff at the berry center including food service personnel and chief menendez and his force for making this seamless and safe well sir uh seriously this is you are here as an observer please do not shout from the audience thank you i will remind those in the audience i am a stage four survivor and i'm very sorry that i had throat cancer and it robbed me of my ability to speak loudly but life often gives you lemons and you and you make the
044best of it so once again i apologize for being a stage four cancer survivor and i still have active cancer today but such is life i'm sure there's other cancer survivors in the audience as i was saying an appreciative nod also goes to austin for renewing the graduation committee concept and the admin personnel who served on the committee on a personal note sincere appreciation goes to dr deborah stewart and nifi agu mckay for the care and support they gave to the board making graduation attendance easier and a special thank you to you ladies what you put in my little goodie bag is very special for those who are who have gone through throat cancer radiation and chemotherapy our saliva production is always threatened and will always be less than necessary but what you gave me
045was one of the md anderson recommended coping mechanisms so thank you much appreciated i attended summer leadership education in san antonio key takeaways include the following the bob and dr linda team presented on the college academy here in scifir which was the first of its kind in texas for students to graduate with an associate's degree in college while earning their high school diploma and enjoying the full high school experience through continued participation in extra and co-curricular activities i will note that on the subject of equity concerns this program was started at one of our title one campuses at the high school level several trustees from around the state requested additional descriptive booklets that i was passing out so that their colleagues and superintendents could all have a copy to consider implementing the concept in their
046district k douglas of tasby in her session on cultural awareness and cultural bias reminded all the attendees that we are all on a continuum described by the concept it is not the province or concern of any one group years ago when i was in dallas for state trustee education cfisd was rolling out the camp summit and algebra camp concepts i sat in on a seminar conducted by a superintendent of a very large district who offered quite frankly disparaging comments regarding the summer camp concept he obviously was talking about us that superintendent retired retired within a few years while his district continued to struggle the camp concept unveiled by this district resulted in enhanced academic attainment and we were pleased to say steadily improving graduation rates with no doubt contributing mightily to the success of the
047college academy concept we now have between 14 and 1700 students enrolled in the college academy concept a trustee for a large district within the greater harris county area shared with me that they instituted the same camp concept at third district and were immediately seeing positive results so i appreciate the leadership linda and bob that you all have shown spreading best practices and finally i attended another seminar and i had to chuckle one of the best practices of this district for the entire 10 years that i've been a trustee but for the decade before that is called the peer meter services it is in fact a business concept where you direct your resources to those areas that need the additional resources simple in the area of business not so simple in the area of education but
048once again it is being lauded finally as best practices throughout the pandemic i was proud that our district followed the state law and directives of both the governor and commissioner of education with fidelity and empathy and as always we will continue to adhere to the laws promulgated by austin thank you mr president thanks ms jackson mrs heinemann i just want to express my gratitude um for the outpouring of love and support from the cypher isd community um following the death of my daughter four weeks ago today um um we are grateful for the cards and the messages and we've read all of them and have saved them and um we especially appreciate your prayers thank you thank you miss heinemann mr saraibian yes thank you bob um i too want to support ryan don ryan
049in his statement there 10 thank you don i want to thank the administration and its staff on a tough tough year and seen through also with that all its educators and employees throughout the district it was extremely tough on everybody and was month by month week by week decisions were being made and this was outstanding leadership from the top and seeing it through after watching the video that we've watched here of all the students and their achievements it's pretty hard not to be proud of our district and everything it accomplishes with all the obstacles that make that it faces um the graduations were fantastic uh you know it rained we went inside we have um it was nice we went outside it was nice to have options to be able to move on and create
050a family atmosphere and that's what it was it was great seeing all the students throughout the year competing at different levels and their specialty we're on the summer school and where we are having over where we at now and over 35 000. 26 000 and i believe that is all non-cost to them right good and um we're moving on we got a lot a big job in front of us and we look forward to the challenges and everything else and thank you everybody for showing up here thank you we very much appreciate your presence thank you thank you mr president last year this board in pursuit of our commitment to our district's motto opportunity for all affirmed by resolution uh condemning racism we in the resolution acknowledge that racism still exists and equity exists and
051justice exists discrimination still exists in our country we felt an obligation as leaders of this district to help shape a better america we stated that our desire in the resolution that all of our schools would become no place for hate school and to celebrate the diversity that's in our district it is something that cannot and will not be revert our district is diverse among our over 116 000 students we have now 100 languages our ethnic breakdown is hispanic 45 anglo 22 african-american 19 asian nine percent multiracial three percent native american point five percent pacific islander point one percent our district in trying to reach every student and to make sure that we have opportunity for all we've instituted 13 new arrival centers for non-english speaking students 35 of our elementary campuses are bilingual bilingual campuses
052and our student population in this great middle class and upper middle class area is 55 economically disadvantaged during the pandemic opportunity fall we served over 3 million curbside meals our board approved the purchase of 115 000 chrome books for our students opportunity for all the district provided wi-fi hotspots for students without internet access we graduated 85 students from cyprus lakes high school who also had a long star college associate degree and now all 12 of our schools are going to have that program opportunity for all [Music] we have two mental health intervention teams consisting of licensed professional counselors psychologists and mental health officers we partner with sciho to provide backpacks full of food on friday to students in need as well as to provide financial assistance for dual credit ap testing and cte certification opportunity
053for all we work with three different apartment complexes to provide after-school tutoring this year we had over 9 000 students to graduate and not a one had been taught critical race theory i give you all that to tell you that this board this team of eight with our superintendent we're in the business of providing the finest education we can for all students opportunity for all and our board members we live in the community but we don't get our scripts or strategies from any political party or any politician who is presently are not presently in office we're not partisan or political because we're about the students again are about the students please be quiet reaffirmed the resolution of racism because it was the right thing to do that's superior because we care about all students we
054want every student to have an opportunity to learn and excel and then this supposed uh concern tonight over critical race theory is a non-issue with us it's a non-issue with us [Music] okay the next time i'm it was it was started by a law professor back in 1980 and as a legal plans to examine the role of law in creating and perpetuating racism it was a legal theory it is taught exclusively in law schools and none of our teachers as don said teach critical racism i i know what's being done in the partisan area that anytime we mention equality equity is now lumped into critical race theory but that is false is wrong and in our resolution we use the words equity and equality and it is not as what i've seen put out in
055this community critical race theory renamed that's hilarious uh as i say we don't get our stuff from some partisan politics look we're presently in an equity audit in the furtherance of this resolution let me tell you what equity is it is simply meeting the educational needs of all children regardless of race gender sexual orientation disability language religions ethnicity family background or family income and if you'll study this and follow us equity for us is a quantifiable data-driven educational process not a social or a political issue now when it comes to equity and when it comes to equality let me tell you some things that is stated that came long before critical race theory because i saw some of some things that were passed around when it comes to equality and justice you can go back
056if you want to look at facts the declaration of independence july 4 17 76 we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness the preamble to our constitution 1788 we the people of the united states in order to perform a more perfect union and establish justice ensure domestic tranquility provide for the common for defense promote the general welfare and secure the blessings the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our prosperity do ordain and establish the constitution what we've been doing is simply trying to follow what our country is to be about and in this country's history there are some dark points there was slavery there was after slavery
057you you're free to leave [Applause] you are free to leave after this after that then we had a many of things that happen over 100 years that's fact that is fact and if you want fact-based education you're going to get all of history and it has nothing to do with critical race theory it's fact so i want you to know that um you came here for politics we're here for education you came here to divide our community we're here to unify [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and let me say this let me say this let me say this let me say this we're all you can leave we're all people of faith we're all people of faith up here you're all people of faith and i call you to faith over politics and i think we should
058all go by the scripture in mark 12 and 31. it's a good rule for us to respect each other respect each other listen to each other care for each other and pursue equity and equality jesus the christ said love your neighbor as yourself love your neighbor as your self and you should and i will follow that bless you [Applause] well it's kind of hard to follow up with basically what has been said but what i will say as i moved into this community in 1975 i was elected to this board in 2005. and in all of that time i'm sorry in all of that time i have never been as disappointed as i have been tonight because we're here okay i was trying to talk to people individually but i guess i'll speak to everyone
059is that we this is not a meeting of the public we have a long agenda to get through i would encourage you if you have questions or concerns write them down and as the administration we will work to answer your questions and i i we will work to try to answer your questions but we can't stop every five minutes and try to calm the audience down so please i'm asking for you to be respectful of the speakers and the speakers are being respectful um they're doing their job we have an agenda this is important business and i would invite all of you to come every month i i love the interest in our school we will we appreciate the the feedback we want to answer your questions and we want to do what's best for
060all kids i need the audience to be respectful and to understand that you're here to listen and learn and come back every month and we will you will learn a lot about this great district but this is the last time that i'm i'm going to ask that and i'm going to have to ask individuals to step out with me if you if you can't maintain decorum so thank you mr covey thank you marny it's just sad that grown-ups cannot listen to each other without reacting hatefully and that part i don't care for and that's exactly what i'm talking about so what we teach our kids is what we live and that's what we do up here and this is something that i'm finding very sad in that we have had this situation tonight although i
061think you come here with good intentions i keep thinking i can't believe i'm hearing grown-ups act like i'm hearing them act so that part i don't agree with i agree with what dr ogletree said we do not support the critical race theory we do not support that we do support we do support opportunity for all and that means we need to address some of the equity problems that we have in our district and i don't care if you're sitting there shaking your head no if you go into any of our schools or any of our businesses you will find that there is an inequitable situation that is existing in this district and across the state and across the u.s sometimes in other places it's certainly worse than what i've ever seen before but i want
062to tell you number one just like marny said it tickles me to know that we have this kind of interest and that you showed up i would really really encourage you to come back or at least watch it on tv you know do some popcorn if you want to you can pop a beer just watch it and make sure you know what's going on up here without hearing what people are telling you is going on which is not fact so with that we'll move on to citizen participation patrons who have duly registered for policy bed local may address the board regarding matters of concern interest to the district other than the character of any student staff or board member the board may not act upon a matter that is not listed under the action item
063portion of the agenda once again we have the lights up here when you start the green light will come on at 30 seconds before the two minute time the yellow light will come on and we ask you at the red light to please summarize and complete first up is richard fiden is that right or is it freedom biden thank you sir i may make one comment before we got started i know it's been a very difficult and challenging thing and i appreciate you all listening and to what we have to say i know there's concerns on both sides and hopefully i'll get that explaining what i talk about today so first of all i would like to say i'm not pc i'm too old to be pc so if i say something offends somebody sorry
064about that but that's going to be your problem at this point this may seem a little strange this thing to say but thank god for the covet challenge romans 28 28 says and we know that in all things god works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purposes the covet block downs force parents to see what goes on in their children's classrooms some great some not so great well i suspect most here want to talk about something not so great i'm confident that many parents have gained a greater appreciation for teachers and school administrators since trying to teach their kids at home during the lockdowns most of the educators i know my wife having been one always wanted parental involvement that's not always the case one issue
065has risen above the rest critical race theory though we're often told that crt is not being taught in the schools maybe maybe not but we want to be sure that it is not added to the curriculum inside fair school district obama said you can put lip put put lipstick on a pig but it still is a pig crt has been around for a while and it is covered in lipstick but why the objections we want to we want students to come out of the educational system as educated thinkers and doers yes along with the three r's the need to be aware of racism alternative lifestyles marxism democrat republics atheism and god and other social issues that they may encounter we do not believe that they should be taught that they must embrace all these ideas
066at the expense of their own police as long as their beliefs do not harm others unfortunately we do see a ptc crowd that's bent on destroying those who disagree with their agenda when i was growing up as kids played with other kids all colors and makes except for the bullies nobody liked to play with them i dare say if you go by school playground athletic field band practice you will not see issues that need to be radically dealt with this is one thing to teach about racism it is a whole other thing to teach racism the concern about crt is the concept of pitting one group of victims one group of the victims against the other group the oppressors remember we are talking about children it is not just it's just not right this is
067not what america is about not christ not mlk not decent people hopefully one day i will not run into children who hate me from the color of my skin because my daughters and grandchildren mixed race thank you please summarize and thank you thank you why would anyone appreciate you being here but no we've gone way over thank you very much okay next up ryan lamb okay thank you sci-fi board and dr henry for allowing me to speak today my name is ryan lamb and i'm a student at bridgeton high school i'm here today to ask the student more to allow for teachers to discuss controversial history and topics i assume many of you are here today out of concern that unmonitored teachers are injecting their opinions into our hyper-political lessons in order to inject us
068with their own biased opinions will shed your fears because not only do these teachers never tell us their opinions anyways in politics these lessons never happen not that teachers can share their opinions anyways unless they want to be beaten to death by parent emails honestly teachers have to shut us up half the time so we talk about politics so much all the controversial conversations at school are initiated and participated in by students and students alone and no slavery can hardly be considered controversial when the insurrection at the capitol occurred i didn't hear a wink from the teachers the students however would not shut up about it during the election i heard enough debates between students over policy to last a lifetime we also talk about social issues a lot after one lesson about bullying one
069student talked about how she had heard another student use a racist slur they said they were unaware that this word was slur and apologized for it since then this student has not used this slur when the queer straight alliance club was first created at our school it caused a huge ruckus posters were torn down homophobic and transphobic slurs became much more commonplace and members of this club were often bullied by their peers however the club persisted this year i've seen more tolerance and support for the lgbtq plus community than i've ever seen before when students caught wind of the implicit bias discussion that was going to take place or made a hot topic and conversation for weeks the student base was hugely split on if the lesson should even occur when the lesson was basically
070gutted due to outside circumstances most of the students took the implicit association test from harvard university out of interest even students who disagree with the original discussion took the test we the students talk about racism sexism and homophobia not because our teachers told us but because we experience it every day from students and adults alike and that's a problem these issues need to be discussed because they take the lives of innocent students and avoiding it out of fear of hurting someone's feelings is incredibly stupid barring teaches some discussion controversial history and current day issues due to nothing but she's students like helpless children who can't thrive and wrap it up rather than trying to stop teachers from doing their job allow them to give students a resource to grow and mature and save another danielle
071browning end of october last year i was sitting in my freshman english classroom about to receive the selection of books we got to choose from for our end of semester reading project i was expecting the classic such as to kill a mockingbird or the great gatsby however to my surprise the only books we had to choose from focused on black lives matter and police brutality stories of course having been fully educated on the current events preceding the election i immediately knew what this was all about i was overcome with rage as i flipped through one of the novels about a black girl whose best friend was killed by a white cop a story that seems to be copied and pasted on the news every week what i noticed was that the author emphasized that the
072fact the cop was white but failed to highlight the part of the story where the boy resisted arrest it soon became crystal clear to me what the intentions behind this reading assignment were is i saw every student in my class marvel at the girls bravery for yelling f the police at a protest critical race theory in schools is a mission designed to brainwash vulnerable children into adopting the marxist marxist or crt ideology that all whites are racist and all other races are oppressed among those being implemented into the school's curriculum institutions have begun celebrating different history months in an effort to unify people and promote equality more division is being created by acknowledging the challenges and oppression that these minorities continue to face because of the so-called white privilege their the goal of this marxist
073ideology is to cause complete chaos among the people of this great nation and pin the blame on anyone who disagrees is being put into act it is being put into action by infiltrating the developing minds of our precious youth i've i've experienced this myself and refused to succumb to these diabolical ideas i am 15 years old and i am ridiculed at school every day for my political beliefs and skin color this is the 1960s all over again but flipped inside out history repeats itself and it's our job to save this great country we call our home it starts here with the next generation so ms browning if i read correctly you're actually a tomball student is that correct okay that's what i was just going to say it says here that you attend tomball isd
074but you you just spoke about your experiences that it didn't happen in our district but i guess that's why i'm speaking claire you said you're speaking about what happened to you in tomball isd but you just spoke firsthand of your experience in tomball isd correct okay well no i it's just curious to me her form says i'm speaking on behalf of tomball isd okay okay thank you all very much thank you that's enough marla lopez you're up next okay and are you looking at this thingy over here okay thank you um hi good evening uh trustees thank you all for having me my name is marla i am a college graduate from ut and i'm a resident of jersey village and i live within the cfisd um area and i'm also part of mifamilia vota
075we are a non-profit education organization um and i just wanted to share that when i first heard about critical race theory i was in college and i was a junior in my history major i had never heard about critical race theory ever i am a product of texas schools and i just want to respectfully say that critical race theory does not exist inside of our schools it's never existed and if you actually respectfully if you actually read it the theory talks about how race isn't real but racist structures are our laws are founded have been founded you go back to the declaration you go back to all of that and i'm not going to give anybody a history lesson because i know there are plenty of adults here who can do that themselves i will
076not do it but i as a product of texas schools i remember i never heard about people like me i saw my classmates never hear about people like themselves families with a history of being and i'm pardoned i'm very sorry but family's being lynched in the border across the state we don't hear about that we don't hear about any of the issues that are actually happening and a lady earlier talked about we need solutions in the budget of cfisd to combat racist structures that cause inequity and harm all of our students no matter what their political beliefs are at the end of the day it is about the children and the students and having what did you call it opportunity for all um and i'm out of time but thank you all so much trustees
077for your time thank you for repeating the mantra of this uh isd i appreciate it thank you tom nobis thank you sir um okay so um i'm here to talk uh there is critical race theory even though people say there's not um otherwise we wouldn't have be having all these people here to talk about it uh reverend martin luther king said that our children shouldn't be judged by the color of the skin but by the content of the character and i believe that indoctrination in racial divide is divisive and not unifying crt logic is just as bad as gender modification logic that says if i play dress-up i must be a girl if i'm white i must be racist an oppressor you don't know me in the 60s there was a group up with people
078to broaden mindset and accept people as they are not based on ethnic racial or any other designations each person was created in the image of god all life is special our country is built on religious freedom the elimination of tyranny people are continuing to come here for that very reason yeah i've made mistakes i bet most people here have two there are items in history that we'd like to have been different but it is history we learn from it we move on we don't eliminate history or we at least we repeat it each person has an opportunity to work and provide a better life do i feel blessed yes i had the opportunity to work hard get an education provide for my family and retire it was based on merits it was not handed to
079me education is to provide knowledge useful for future endeavors i went to rice university they taught theory you had to apply the theory in practical terms they did not inoculate my parents taught me how to live they gave me opportunity to succeed or fail and learn along the way this is not a function of the school if education is for children then you should support school choice and the opportunity for those economically disadvantaged to better the education for their children you should have supported senate bill 1968 by our state senator ben cord christ gave us two laws and i agree love god love your neighbor as yourself it's time to put more of this in focus and practice even at schools and at this board thank you [Applause] marianne jackson my name is marianne jackson
080and for the past 23 years my husband and i have been taxpayers in this school district recently when looking over cfisd website i was surprised and disappointed when i could not find any resolutions condemning critical race theory social justice blm or intersectionality movements instead i found another resolution postage which concerned me a lot in crt all aspects of american life are seen in terms of racial power dynamics as a retired public school teacher u.s citizen and most importantly a bible believing christian i expected the district to be promoting pro-america views crt violates the basic principles of american equality and justice dots became connected for me concerning the leftist crt and intersectionality movement in january of 2020 after i viewed a free documentary called by what standards god's world god's rules by founders ministry this video
081helped me see the process in which marxism would gain acceptance and dominance in america i recommend each of the school trustees to watch this documentary as well as a few others like paint the wall black the story of nene's deli which you can find free on youtube to understand why true christ followers are horrified to learn how the crt ideology which is associated with blm has infiltrated many of our schools in a variety of ways it is crucial our school leaders start to critically think about crt why do many parents and taxpayers have concerns about crt are those residents who have a biblical worldview going to be ignored i do not approve any public funds being spent to support any leftist ideology like crt or any others the children who attend this district deserves so
082much better things won't change for the better in this district or state until we are more concerned concerned with god's approval than the approval of the cult of crt and intersectionality thank you dan comstock [Music] i just want to say i appreciate everybody here i appreciate everybody here i appreciate some of the remarks more than others i will confess okay i want to say whoops sorry there is a belief a belief that scifir isd may be embracing critical race theory in its presentations to its students if not in name if so if so that is very alarming because very sophisticated similar techniques have long been employed by marx's text communists to frame everything in terms of class oppression what is done in the name of does not always bear good fruit especially noteworthy is the
083tolerance audit that is planned in china no right here in other words instead of celebrating how far we have come and yes celebrating the great insights our founding fathers had which put us on that path our schools may be or already have been setting ourselves up for a long period of self in recrimination the effect of this the effect is to weaken our belief in ourselves our institutions our country and our god when students are not respectful of each other they should be reprimanded if they're not respectful to the teachers they should be reprimanded when when they are respectful they should be praised they should be rewarded for good behavior let us get on with life in america life in america thank you mr comstock oh am i am i done i'm sure yes but
084you did great thank you thank you [Applause] judy dahon is that correct dehaan thank you good evening yes my name is judy dehaan and i am a concerned grandparent and taxpayer in scifire i read the resolution you approved this last year that indicates support for many americans shared values one being all men are created equal it also states you want to eliminate systemic oppression and racism what are your examples in cypher isd one of your staff indicated in monday's meeting that social and emotional learning was to be embedded through a new program please note this is known as crt and social justice learning whether you want to believe that or not it is this the result of the equity audit test treating white children differently today to make up for past discrimination is still discrimination
085and racist that is the framework for crt looking at everything through the prism of race and identity regardless of someone's character or abilities ladies and gentlemen i don't know your story and you don't know mine what i can tell you is these constructive calls hurt and despair in my own family when seeing my loved ones pain over these racial issues i have sat across from parents who are intimidated to speak for themselves tonight telling me about this brainpop blm protest video that was shown to a sci-fi isd third grade class that guilt white children for structural racism and others tell me of their concerns about these activities associated yes with the anti-defamation league no place for hate program and you were putting this back off on the children for making those decisions when you're giving
086them the activities to choose from this has also been put into the military over the last six months and there's been many negative re um repercussions for doing so all we're asking in summary is a public policy be implemented to prohibit crt and the tenants thereof in cypher rsd as i stand here as an advocate for all children to accomplish this it will be necessary though for you and you only to do your own due diligence including audits and reviews around teacher training including dr tyrone howard's presentations for sci-fisd educators curriculum and extracurricular activities thank you very much bruce demeyer good evening everybody as you heard my name's bruce demeyer i have two kids going to school in scifire right now one to be starting soon and i think you might know what i'm going
087to talk about today the one thing i've heard is a lot of concern about critical race theory but i haven't heard a lot of facts i went and looked it up as noted by dr ogletree and others on the board it's a wildly diverse school school district it's why i came here i moved here to houston i heard about this district i said i want my sons to learn here they don't need to be in a bubble but then i looked at the income of people who are white in our in our district this isn't us this is in texas in our district african-american and hispanic latinos earned 67 cents on the dollar relative to their white counterparts everyone says everyone's equal i agree so why is this happening we need to ask ourselves this
088question and the only the only reason is this systemic racism that needs to be addressed and so what i'd like to know from the board is when the teachers have to respond to children who observe this it's not hard to go into into a neighborhood and see oh these houses are bigger oh there's a lot of white people outside how when they go to their teachers okay are they i want everyone no one is set up now you need to respect who's speaking how are we going to defend our teachers when they have to respond to these questions given that the law says that they could be in trouble that this district could be in trouble if they have to respond to those honest questions from their students i'll actually stay under time thank you
089for the time and dr ogletree i really appreciate your comments thank you thank you last speaker is michael godsey hello my name is michael gotze and i'm here for crt and i have four boys that attend the schools out here inside fair and uh you know i've personally seen the things that they are being taught in the schools and it's always disguised as you know well this diversity or it's this or that and then you know it's something else is always snuck in with it you know um and my wife is black my boys are interracial they're they're half black um and we attend they attend a majority white school i mean it's probably 90 percent white all her friends are white family members of white and you know i just i don't see where
090this racism is they we we're always being taught we're always being told that that there's racism everywhere and i always ask my kids i'm like do you see this racism do you are you do you experience it at school are you called the n-word are you discriminated are you not invited to birthday parties are you no the answer is always no and i've come to a conclusion that all of this stuff is being taught to us through the media we're not we're not racist towards one another we're being taught to hate each other propaganda that we see on tv and if everyone would just stop for a minute and and and look at one another and and appreciate each other for who we are instead of what other people tell us that we are we
091could we could do a lot better than just thank you mr godsey appreciate it let's take a break we're going to take about a five minute break if you want to stay in here the rest of the meeting you're welcome to if you want to go home you're welcome to do that thank you all for being here okay before we get into the business uh we do have a uh boy scout girl scout member eleanor escobar seventh grade at spelaine are you still here there she is she's earning her citizenship in the community badge this should have been an interesting evening for you thank you very much for being here action uh items consent the board will consider approving the minutes of the may 10 2021 regular board meeting the following non-consent action items were
092moved to consent during the work board work session on monday june 21st 10 d the board will consider approving the budget amendments for the period of april 1st 2021 through june 30th 2021. anybody have any questions on that tonight okay moving on the board will consider approving a resolution for commitment to the district's fund balance anybody have any questions on 10 e moving along that's part of consent the board will consider this 10h i'm sorry the board will consider a resolution of proving the district's investment policy and investment strategy the investment officers of the district the independent sources of instruction relating to investment responsibilities for the investment officers of the district and the investment training hours anybody have anything for karen smith well on that that should be a standalone item because i have to
093abstain okay as i do this we're taking 10h off holly thank you tom i the board to consider approving the 2021-2022 harris county protective services interlocal agreement with the harris county protective services for children and adults hcpsa to provide community use services for students and families in their cypress fairbanks independent school district anybody have any questions for roy garcia or franklin sampson moving along tmz president i'm sorry and i apologize uh i was in the room getting some more out of the room getting more liquid i did have a question on 10a1 2020 elementary school number 58. that's not on there okay so that's non-concern yeah that's nonsense thank you sir okay where was i okay 10 hi and then we'll move on 10 j the board will consider approving the memorandum of understanding between
094harris county juvenile board cyprus fairbanks isd to participate in the jj aep for the 2 2021-2022 school year anybody have anything for iffy or moving along the board will consider approving facilities for off-campus physical education for 2021-2022 school year anybody have anything for dr heather bergman some consent we're moving on 10 l the board consider approving the list of advanced courses for 2021 2022 anybody have any questions for dr bergman that's on consent in case you're wondering we met monday night and went over all of these we had a very long meeting with lots of information so if it seems like we're just running through it well that's kind of what we're doing but we did hear it monday night 10n the board will consider approving the center point energy houston electric llc blanket utility
095easement to provide overhead and underground electrical service at the existing cfisd exhibit center and authorize a superintendent or designee to negotiate the final terms and execute all related documents anything from mr morgan moving along 10-0 the board will consider approving the center point energy houston electric llc blanket utility easement to provide underground electrical service for the new elementary school 57 and authorize a superintendent are designated to negotiate the final terms and execute all related documents anything from mr morgan on this hearing nothing if i i would appreciate if someone would make a motion mr president i move that all the consensus items be approved as recommended or amended thank you doctor old tree do i have a second thank you miss blackshear any have many have any questions on any of these okay all in
096favor raise your right hand and that's unanimous the following non-consent action items remained on non-consent 10a the board will consider approving construction proposals contracts paid from bond funds to the recommended contractor and authorized a superintendent or designee to execute all necessary documents related to such contracts as follows 10 a1 2020 elementary school number 58. are there any questions mr president i moved that uh i know tom's gonna have a question i was gonna make the motion and then we could go with the questions okay mr president i move that the board award this construction contract to the recommended contractor and authorize a superintendent or designee to execute all necessary documents related to such contract okay do i have a second thank you gilbert tom do you have something about this yes sir mr president uh
097matt where are you there he is he's somebody's in the back of the room tom i noticed that you know he likes that long slow walk i need to i so my standard comment uh and standard question um you know it always says that that you wind up fighting the war of of the last war but i think we have to be mindful so please identify whether or not this happens to be in a flood plain if so did we have any mitigation that we had to design into the plan itself and then also for the benefit of the attending audience as well as the viewing audience indicate was this a competitive bid or a non-competitive bid certainly this location does not lie in a flood plain and this area did not flood during harvey
098so there was no mitigation required as far as the procurement this was done through a competitive process competitive seal proposal we received multiple bids from contractors and we ranked those contractors and accepted the most the best value for the district and all of that information is on our board book for us all of that information is in the board book and available to the public yes sir very good thank you sir yes sir any other questions concerns okay all in favor raise your right hand that's unanimous thank you 10 b the board will consider approving board members to serve as delegate and alternate delegate to the 2021 texas association of school boards hasby's annual delegate assembly i believe dr ogletree is going to be our delegate and i believe debbie blackshire is going to be
099the alternate am i correct may i have a motion on that please did you not know that yeah okay okay mr president i move that the board select dr john ogletree is delegate and miss debbie blackshear is alternate delegate to the texas association of school board's annual delegate assembly thank you mr jackson now i have a second second thank you mr ryan any questions nope all in favor raise your right hand and that's unanimous thank you for you all serving thank you tennessee that will consider the endorsement of candidacy for tasby board of directors representing region 4. as we had talked the other night georgian ritmeyer from klein is running again for position 4a and tony hopkins from friendswood i think his friends would isn't it friendswood for position 4c i don't believe anyone's opposing
100them right now so may i have a motion mr president i move that the board endorse candidate george i george ann rittenmaier and candidate tony hopkins for the tasby board of directors representing region 4. thank you tom may have a second thank you gilbert any questions all in favor raise your right hand that's unanimous thank you 10 f the board considered the adoption of the 2021 2021-2022 budget are there any questions for karen smith i think karen might have a brief reason karen you got a brief presentation yes mr covey you don't have to be that brief thank you oh it is brief thank you president covey and dr henry and board members um as you know on monday i presented the 2021-2022 proposed budget and we also discussed the sr2 and esther s3 spending
101plans and based on the board's request oh i just realized i'm sorry i apologize i had not uh switched over um based on the board's requests at the committee of the whole mini meeting i will be providing an update to the 2020 2021 2022 budget with a five percent raise on the greater of the midpoint or base and a teacher starting salary of 58 500. as a reminder on uh monday we mentioned a starting teacher's salary of fifty eight thousand so this is five hundred dollars more than the what was proposed on monday that uh so a salary increase of five thousand or i mean sorry five percent on the greater of the midpoint or base will uh be 41.2 million dollars the remainder of the items are unchanged associated with the expenditures i presented
102the other day i thought it would be helpful to show you since uh several board members referenced this you all referenced the teacher salary comparison that was presented at the may board workshop and this is uh for 2020 2021 and you'll see here the five the zero year five-year 10-year 15 and 20-year salaries so i thought it'd be useful for you to see that one more time uh cfisd was in this pres this particular presentation here is ranked third um in the beginning teacher salary second in the 5 10 and 15 and then first in the 20-year salary with the five percent raise this is the what the teacher's salary would be you see here the 2021 the and then also the 21-22 salary so you can see for all these different intervals the 0
103the 5 the 10 15 and 20 the effect that a 5 raise would have for anybody on the teacher pay scale any questions for karen is she done i think she's still good only very quickly no it's just very quickly only i'm not going to go over much more information on this except for the fact that the board is required to approve um a budget for the general fund the debt service fund and the food service fund so this uh the revenue information remains unchanged but just briefly on the expenditure side the uh the five percent salary increase would inc increase the budget deficit by 16.6 million dollars um and as i if you recall i shared with you that we cannot uh do any type of recoding to federal funds at this point in
104time because we have not received approval of our grant application i will tell you that we have submitted both the sr1 and i mean sr2 and sr3 grant applications this week with hope that we'll hear about that very soon but um just uh just to point on that too i had contacted the commissioner about three weeks ago he he assured me that he would move us up to the front since we're a july 1 budget year so hopefully i know he's been tied up with the state board of education meeting this week but hopefully they'll do that and we're hoping a majority with with that being said with the grant funds a majority of this deficit can be taken care of by recoding expenditures associated with these grant funds i'm just required to to have
105you adopt these separate budgets i will not go over all the instructional related items but just simple i mean i'm sorry the the functional items but i will just simply share with you the fact that they have changed because of the five percent raise dr argentina and you you know you give me that dramatic pause and i think we're through excuse me uh the debt service fund budget remains unchanged and it's a balanced budget what has changed a little bit is the food service budget we did have to adjust that for the 5 salary increase and also we were pleasantly informed that the reimbursement rate for federal meals has increased we received that information on tuesday and we believe the federal government is really working to try help to help the food service operations recover
106some of the expenditures that they have incurred due to the reduced a la carte meals as well as lower participation and then just quickly a reminder um that uh the proposed rate it's an estimated rate at this point in time but it will be lower than the rate we currently have of 1.3555 and it we believe it'll be close to a two cent reduction in the tax rate now i'm open for any questions that you may have okay we're gonna we're gonna move on to the motion first so uh may i have a motion to approve the non-consent item that's recommended or amended mr president i move that the board adopt the 2021-2022 budget as presented by the administration okay now do we have any questions yes mr president i i want to amend that
107uh motion and add a stipend on for our hourly employees i think that we should definitely consider our hourly employees who are on the bottom tier and give them something that is tangible something that they can use at this present uh present moment okay i will accept that his amended motion if you need that barney yes the maker of the motion it can be a friendly amendment if the maker is in agreement and let me ask karen how many uh employees fit into that category if if you're if you're just talk are you talking hourly and paraprofessional yes it's about 6 200 employees 6 200 [Music] i i want to move that we give them a stipend of a thousand dollars and i'll accept the friendly amendment point of order there is no such thing
108as a friendly amendment there is emotion on the floor motion can be made to amend the motion it does require a second uh you then have discussion on the amended motion okay but there is no such thing in robert's rules of order as a friendly we follow unamended robert's rules of order just so you know but either way either way you can do it but because we do an um abbreviated rro then that's why we typically do friendly amendments but either way if you want a second and final i'll and then we can add that on to the friendly and whatever you want to however you want to phrase it thank you tom i i'm confused so where are we right now welcome to my world where are we marty do we do we take
109a vote now or do we um and that's fine if tom wants to second the um so if if you want to to do the formal process then you can make a motion to amend the motion and then someone would second and then you actually vote on the amendment okay but first we have discussion on the amendment right yeah correct and you have discussed now we have discussion tom so what does this add to the deficit i turned it off at a thousand then it would be about 6.2 million dollars and so what does that do to our operating reserve in terms of months well i um let's let um i would have to see where that would actually be very very small it would be small because um our monthly expenditures are about um
11090 million 88 to 90 million does this move us below four months over three years it i don't know if you recall i shared that it depends on the flow of the esser funds but we believe with the flow of the esser funds over a three year period um you know our worst case scenario would get us close to four months in fund balance and hopefully we've got other options with esser funding also so you're suggesting that this would move us below four months oh i'm saying that where we were our worst case scenario was four months i'm not saying that this would move us below four months i would also note there was no board consensus on a five percent raise i know don is well respected he proposed he suggested we had no
111motion right we did not take action at the committee of a whole it was a discussion so there is no way that we can say that that your presentation is based upon what the board requested you to do because we did not take a motion we did not take that step and this board did not meet outside of a public meeting and i appreciate i think tom is trying to be crystal clear that there wasn't any um inappropriate action i think what karen meant what dr henry meant was that based on the conversation we do that sometimes you all give us feedback and so we take that feedback and the consensus of anything that took place was only in the public meeting you are correct and mr jackson we actually have both of those budgets
112available tonight depending on the direction that the board wished to go but due to the committee of the whole conversation we wanted to be prepared for whatever y'all decided to do okay so this is where i'm a little i we did have a motion from don and we had a second from debbie but we didn't take a vote correct okay and then we had a friendly amendment which may possibly not work no we we have an amendment on the floor that has been made and seconded and so now we have discussion on the amendment okay and so and so those are my comments which is part of the discussion on the amendment itself okay and so so the first part of it was what is the cost of this the second part is will it
113move us below four months because as i indicated at the committee the whole three months is our minimum four months gives us the flexibility i am concerned if this were to move us below the four-month threshold and so that's where we are in the in the discussion uh so i'm trying to gain a better understanding uh as to how much below the four-month threshold will this move us i know you think there are additional funds coming in but i hear your concern or maybe you aren't concerned but i hear your your observation that this would move us below the four-month threshold which is important to me for my vote that that was in the worst case scenario that i shared you um on monday um the question came up if we did a five percent
114raise um what was kind of our worst case scenario and our best case scenario and uh my assumptions were based on looking at being very conservative and how much us are funding we would be be getting and the unknowns associated with the sr2 so i was being very conservative on that and the best case scenario i looked at was about 4.25 and um and i those are being very conservative so i believe that um we are very safe at keeping at four months or above so your best case is 4.25 in terms of reserves and what would your worst case be it was the four so it's so your worst case is a four-month threshold the amendment if approved will push us slightly below the four months no no that's not what she said no
115what i'm saying is if everything happened in the worst case scenario which i do not anticipate occurring then it would be at that four four-month portion well yes so so and pardon me for interrupting but i just repeated what you said and there was uh there were comments that that wasn't what you said but what you said was for your your worst case scenario it put us at four months and if we go beyond the five percent raise that will push us slightly below the four months so so error meth arithmetically it has to be correct what i'm saying it's assuming that with the um sr2 funds that we don't get any of the sr2 funds because for us that's the worst case scenario we have to supplant the whole thing i do not believe
116that will occur i believe we'll get more than you know the complete amount being offset but just just as a note tom and i i'd like for karen to answer this but just as a note we've we've got 14 million of us for three unallocated so that 14 million would more than cover if the board chose to do some type of stipend yes and that's what i was suggesting with the additional funds and and those funds are not otherwise as designated by law no yes or three we we it's up to us uh based on our application that we submitted uh that one we got the entire amount all of the sr3 funding as a question i asked and it's not appropriate for the amendment so marnie can always cut me off but i had
117requested the cost well i bring it up because she's out of the room i brought up the question of the cost of a of having the full-time subs and you mentioned that the cost was what 4.6 million is that correct that was and we got we recently received updated numbers on that uh and it's about 5.4 million because that was just through may so after looking at all the um um there we called them ais subs um and they were uh 5.4 million so that's a gross cost but that's not a net cost because if they were there you didn't have to bring in other subs it would it yes i guess yes yes yeah so so that's gross not net to the budget because there would have been some savings in the budget they
118were not there would be some some there were times that these subs were maybe not utilized as a sub that they were more to help teachers maybe when they needed additional assistance so that's a gross number the actual net number would be somewhat less than that and so at the committee of the whole meeting i did ask management and once again council can can cut me off because i this is on the budget and is somewhat related to the amendment because it talks it speaks to the feasibility of the cost of the amendment so i think i'm i'm still on track what is the reason why management would prefer not to pursue this approach as i said at the committee of the whole my input not only from this district but from other districts was
119highly favorable on this technique and after scifira unveiled it many districts adopted it but it's not part of the budget uh and so at at the prior meeting i i said i would bring it back up and i see this as being a management decision not a board decision but i'd kind of like to know what's the rationale why we did not put it into the budget well i think we plan on having a more normal school year whatever that term means so we don't feel like it will be necessary okay i have i remained i remain having concerns i don't think we'll have difficulties really from the pandemic but i'm not confident that we will have a normal school year in terms of absenteeism i think the last 18 20 months have taken a
120toll and i think that's reflected in increased absenteeism not a reduction in absenteeism but as i said that's a management decision and i'll respect the management decision but i am disappointed because i thought it was a very useful tool and technique and i do not see it as being wasteful i do appreciate the reporting of the gross cost i would suspect the net cost would probably be about half of that mr jackson just just to share with you additional staff that we are adding this coming year we with the esser funds we budgeted a uh a position for every one of our high schools and so they are all getting an additional position that's in the form of a specialist or an interventionist that can step in yeah that can step in to support if
121we find ourselves with with uh with with a huge shortage so we are adding additional staff with as part of the esser funds thank you linda while we're still on the topic of the amendment for the for the budget and talking to the the feasibility of the the cost portion what amount did we have in the budget for substitutes our budget's usually about 13 million for substitutes and so are we using that number again yes very good thank you anyone else karen yes i just want to clarify a few things uh so and thank you for the report on the on the five percent uh with the release of the of these esser funds uh we were looking at doing a stipend on monday a thousand dollar stipend was about 16.6 million but that was
122for everybody yes that was for all employees and so what was the number for if we pull out the salary employees there you said it earlier and i was six points it depends on the amount you you request but if it's a thousand it'd be about 6.2 million okay and would it be uh would would there be any benefit especially if we're waiting on funds if if the board voted on that to do 500 in the fall semester and 500 in the spring it'd still be a thousand but would if we're waiting on funds would that be look but no no no no no would that be a little safer on our part financially um well for us um as far as within a year it's just within the fiscal year um is that what
123you're referring to yeah but i know that but i'm just saying we're waiting on funds and i'm looking at this block over here that says amount received zero yes oh i'm following you a little bit when when we're waiting for someone to give us money uh and you know i could look at our rainy day fund in austin that it's it's been raining for a while uh and so i i was just thinking if it would be kind of like in my house if we want to budget for something we we budget and kind of plan out what we expect yeah and so i'm not opposed to the thousand dollar stipend per se i'm just wondering if it would be better to do it over a two-semester period yes and and the thing is we
124can utilize as dr henry said some of the esser funding towards that and we you know which we can draw down towards that don i would say that i am more comforted because the four month of operating reserves is is pretty much a red line number for me i sat in the audience when a prior board had to deal with not even having three months and so it's taken a lot and we are willing to give to our staff a significant portion of our operating reserve and i spoke on that at the cow and indicated i was willing to give our reserves to the classroom and i still am i do like the idea for several reasons if the stipend uh and i support the concept don't get me wrong if half of it is
125in the fall and half of it is in the spring uh i like that concept for all kinds of reasons one is financial but two uh it's also a reminder to our employees uh that receive the stipend that we value them all year you know so so it sends a point uh the current amendment does not indicate when it's to be paid and i don't know if we need an amendment that indicates when it's to be paid if the sense of the board is that it be split but certainly uh a third of an amendment to the amendment can be offered do we have to do that morning are we we're voting on the budget and then dr henry will implement what we would we want to do is my understanding that's exactly what i
126was about to say is that just the consensus just like you know tom was pointing out earlier that we act on the consensus you know and so we've heard you and so dr henry uh i'm gonna do your wishes he would do your bidding well and i and thank you tom because i i'm just i think that gives us uh a little bit of cushion uh and i think that i will say in in the whole time i've been on the board our board uh has been fiscally prudent with the funds that we have uh and that's thanks to you and stuart and you know people before us so uh i'm i'm comfortable with uh maybe splitting that up i like tom's idea we appreciate you all year long uh but that would be what
127i would prefer personally mr president uh would you ask for a consensus of the board on that point i'm splitting it yeah all right so yes i'm asking for what is the consent so julie how do you feel about it i support the five percent raise for all employees plus a one thousand dollar stipend for hourly employees and paraprofessionals to be split between the two semesters thank you dr ogletree well if you'd asked me when i made the motion when i believe they needed i would have said yesterday but i will you know acquiesce and go along with the board if there are some concerns about our fund balance and i will i just want to make sure we we do that and if that's what the board is leading i'll i'll do that mr
128ryan yeah i said that just want it on record oh okay it's on record i'm not sure what's on the record with what i said hey it's the same thing that's on record with what i said uh okay board comments i am in in agreement with exactly as julie stated it and i feel it is fiscally prudent to do it that way mr jackson yes my preference is to support the amendment and to split the stipend uh one in the fall half of it in the fall and half in the spring thank you mr arabia yes i agree with it i believe it's a wonderful idea and julie explained it perfectly thank you julie thank you so that's unanimous now we can go to the emotion could i say one thing you know it's muddying
129it up i'm sorry this is going to clear it up and make y'all feel better okay it's stewart snow's job at one time and now it's karen's job to always take on the worst case scenario but i would remind the board that we are going to receive 126 million in s or 3 money we know that and then from that there's another 68 million that's somewhere along the line in the next what's the deadline somewhere in 22 or her funds can be through 2024. we're just waiting on that remaining third but they'll set the rules up so we've got another 68 million i think coming from sr3 and then we also don't even know what our s or 2 amount will be yet but there'll be additional a few tens of millions of dollars coming
130from there so i i'll just i'm going to be the optimist and say that when it's all said and done our fund balance is going to be just fine it may go down a little bit but it's not going to go down to four months okay so we have we have amended motion we do all right do we have a second for that we do who was that was that was me but i don't know if i could you made the motion and the second no give it to tom no john made the motion no that was for the first i made this we have to vote on the amendment that's right that's what i'm saying so john john made the amendment he made the amendment for the stipend okay don seconded it that's that's
131the motion on the floor okay so we have that thank you tom uh any oh god there's no questions uh all in favor raise your right hand and that one passes okay now we're going to the uh do you want to take a break no i'm actually i'm i'm on a roll here so we're going to go on with the next one so we have a motion by don the original motion and a second by debbie are there any questions all in favor raise your right hand for the budget and that's unanimous thank you god okay 10g the board will consider approving the list of qualified financial institutions brokers dealers investment pools and investment advisors that are authorized to engage in investment transaction with the district uh may i have or are there's any questions
132just real quick i think this may be the one mr jackson yeah tom i think this is yours um a question of the letters earlier but i think mr jackson that this may be the one that you need to abstain from okay mr jackson did you want to make that statement now okay mr president i moved to the board of trustees approval list of qualified financial institutions brokers dealers investment pools and investment advisors that are authorized to engage in investment transactions with the district thank you don may have a second thank you debbie now do there any questions mr president as a matter of law i need to abstain from voting on this matter okay thank you any questions hearing none all in favor raise your right hand thank you very much the board will
133consider awarding bids and contracts and are authorizing purchase orders as recommended in the posted agenda item 10 m1 art miscellaneous school supplies 10 m2 aruba clear pass upgrade 10 m3 assorted food for nutrition services 2021 10 m4 athletic all activity student accident insurance renewal 10 m5 automotive hardware and fasteners 10 m6 automotive oem proprietary parts and labor 10 m7 bananas for nutrition services 10 m8 cfisd cisco core switching quote 10 m9 distributors catalog bid for nutrition services 10 m10 electrical supplies 10 m11 excess workers compensation coverage renewal 10 m12 farm to school products for nutrition services 10 m13 leave management software 10 and 14 milk for high schools for nutrition services 10 m15 processed produce for nutrition services 10 m16 programming inspection and repair of fire alarm and sprinkler systems 10 m 17 school liability
134privacy and information security and automobile insurance renewal tmm-18 software license and maintenance renewal expansion 10 m 19 whole produce for nutritious nutrition system may i have a motion president i move that all those items we just read on 10 m be approved you don't want to repeat each one no okay do i have a second thank you gilbert now we have any questions i just want to comment that i will be abstaining from the vote because uh one of my sons works for jake's finer foods which is receiving one of the contracts in 10 m3 thank you very much any other questions all in favor raise your right hand thank you 10p the board consider authorizing administration to declare certain undeveloped district property as surplus and advertise the property for sale in accordance with the
135state law and board policy uh we have any are we we're not going into closed session on this aren't that that was monday okay mr president i moved that the board authorized the administration to declare certain undeveloped district property as surplus and advertise the property for sale in accordance with state law and board policy thank you mr jackson may have a second second thank you mr ryan any questions if not may uh please let's vote raise your right hand that's unanimous lord 10-q the board will view and consider taking action to revise the contract of employment for the superintendent may i have a motion to approve the non-consent item as recommended or amended no we don't we didn't we didn't that that'll be closed session right would y'all okay did we not go into closed
136session monday yes i'm sorry bob that was my fault i meant to um say that ahead of time okay what a night the district will consider a level four appeal c smith r keeling r sensel for the level 3 decision this item was discussed in closed session on monday june 21st 2021 mr president i move that the board uphold the level 3 decision made by the administration thank you mr ryan may have a second anyone bueller mr president i'm gonna i will not be voting because i was not present for the hearing on monday thank you okay we have a motion by dawn and a second by gilbert all in favor raise your right hand thank you uh yeah we're going to the superintendent's briefing dr henry it's yours oh i'm sorry we've got to
137go back to 10h right here it is okay 10-h the board will consider a resolution approving the district's investment policy and investment strategy the investment officers of the district the independent sources of instruction relating to investment responsibilities for the investment officers of the district and investment training hours uh may i have a motion yeah just a minute y'all go to sleep trying to find it oh i'm looking up your meds i move that the board approved a resolution for the district's investment policy and investment strategy the investment officers of the district and independent sources of instruction relating to the investment responsibilities for the investment officers of the district and investment training hours thank you mr arabia you may have a second second thank you mr ryan any questions all in favor raise your right hand
138unanimous thank you now i will turn it over to dr henry thank you mr president a total of nine thousand one hundred and thirty nine graduating seniors from the class of walk the stage at scifire fcu stadium in the berry city center during our 12 graduation ceremonies held may 27th through june 4th in addition to more than 40 000 guests who attended the commencement exercises nearly 70 000 watched the graduations via live stream i'd like to thank our board of trustees and the many district employees who helped organize and assist at our 12 high school graduation ceremonies i'm very proud of the graduates and wish them every success in their future endeavors while pursuing further education as a career and i will add to that i don't know of any other large district like scifir
139isd where all of the trustees show up for all of the graduations that really speaks volume in fact i was talking to someone in a in a district near our size and the superintendent said he only went to one graduation and the board members might be one there so you all are be to be commended for your volunteer service a friendly reminder that monday july 5th will be a student and staff holiday and that july 6th through 9th will be a regular eight-hour work week at work day work week and the facilities will be open from 7 30 a.m to 4 30 p.m uh just just a reminder don't don't pop your fireworks on district property it's uh it's dangerous and if you see someone shooting fireworks on district property let cfpd know so we
140can kindly ask them to shoot their fireworks somewhere else we certainly don't want to burn a building down cfisd has many opportunities available during the summer months in addition to community programs summer camps we also have music camps athletic camps and even a junior police academy you can find out about all of those summer offerings on www.cfisd.net summer so hope everyone is having and continues to have a safe and happy summer thank you mr president okay uh now i'd like to have a motion to move into closed session mr president i move that we adjourned a closed session thank you mr ryan may have a second second thank you dr olga tree all in favor please raise your right hand we're going into closed session you're certainly welcome to sit out there if you want
141to drop your feet up take a nap whatever you want to do we'll be back in a little bit uh are we back in session may have a motion i move that the board approved the revised contract of employment for the superintendent as discussed in closed session with the general counsel second thank you any questions all in favor raise your right hand hi that's unanimous thank you [Music]