October 6, 2025 – Board Meeting

001Everyone, welcome. I now call this regular meeting of the Goose Creek CISD Board of Trustees to order. The time is now 6 PM. Mrs. Guy, was the meeting properly posted? >> Yes, it was. >> And do we have a quorum? >> We do. >> All right. At this point, I will turn it over to Mrs. Bridget Clark for the opening exercises. >> Thank you. Good evening, President Campees, board members, and Dr. O'Brien, and distinguished guests. Welcome all to the October 6th meeting of the Goose Creek CISD Board of Trustees. We will begin the opening exercises with a prayer led by Mr. Ricky Clim. Everyone, please rise. Please bow your heads. Dear heavenly father, we thank you for this time we have together tonight as a board and as a community. We ask that you lead

002and guide and direct all the decisions we make tonight that they are in the best interest of our students, staff and faculty of the school district. I pray that everyone here tonight has safe travel home. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. >> Amen. >> Thank you. Uh opening you may be se I'm sorry. Opening exercises for the October 6, 2025 board of trustees meeting will be provided by students from Gentry Junior High School. The pledges of allegiance to the United States and Texas flag will be recited by Matias Sanchez Gutierrez and Hudson Ra Rabney. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas,

003one state under God, one indivisible. >> Thank you. >> You may be seated. Okay, I'm delighted to announce that select students will be performing a song called Canar by Jay Alt House. Uh, the student singers are Kelly Vargas, Ava Westbay, Kaylee Torres, Sophia Garcia, Zoe Townsen, Michaela Safil, Amelia Brel, Katherine Deos Santos, Araceli Gusman, Cara Kaiser, Scarlett Sier, Emily Galloway, Ashley Blanco, Jada Goodlo, and Emma Areola. And the students are under the direction of choir director Denise Gobert and principal Mr. Jonathan Kirsy. Take it away. Gentry choir. Hallelujah. Hallelu. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Single Glor Sing hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Sing hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Sing hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah sing hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah >> before you dispose students if you would come back stay where you were back up students come back come

004back I'd like to take a moment real quick to recognize our parents that are here supporting our children if you would please rise and let's uh acknowledge them as well. Thank you so much. And one more thing for the parents, I would like to give you the opportunity to come up and take a group photo of your child with their director. So, come on up, bring your cameras. We saw them all popped up here. Uh this is your chance. Uh great job. Let's hear it one more time for the choir. And I don't know about y'all, but this is the best part of the board meeting. It's it's this. We hit the highlight right here. Thank y'all once again. That was a great performance. >> Yes. Thank you, Gentry Choir. We appreciate you sharing your

005talents with us this evening. And that concludes this evening's opening exercises. And I'll now turn the meeting back over to President Campy. >> Mrs. Clark, thank you very much for conducting opening exercises. At this time, we'll move on to item number three of the agenda, citizens participation. Miss Garcia, do we have anyone signed up today? All right, no one has signed up. Let the record show that. And we'll move on to item number four, approval of minutes. Presented before us is approval of minutes for the September 22nd, 2025 regular board meeting. What is the pleasure of the board? >> Move to approve. >> I have a motion by Mr. Clem and a second by Mr. Renteria to approve the minutes of September 22nd, 2025. Is there any discussion or corrections? Hearing none. All in favor

006by show of hands. I see it as unanimous 70. The motion carries. And we will move on to item number five, discussion item, superintendence report. Dr. O'Brien, I will turn it over to you. >> Thank you, Mr. President. We do have a presentation, a few of them tonight. AVID and GCCSD will be presenting, but I want to take a moment to recognize some statewide people that happen to be in the room. Miss Barbara Copelan and Miss Sally Wagner stand up so we can thank you for being here. And now you're going to hear from our team. I would ask that as each of one each and every one of you present and speak, only speak into the microphone with the green light on. our uh constituents that listen to the video cannot hear you unless

007you speak into the microphone. Miss David, the floor is yours when you're ready. >> All right. Good evening, President Campey, Dr. O'Brien, board members. We are thrilled to be here this evening to give you an AVID update as we do yearly. Um we have a lot of things to celebrate and a lot of things to share with you. But first, um I'd like to start with introductions. My name is Kendall David. I'm the executive director of community engagement, but I have the honor of serving as one of the AVID district directors. We have our team here. I'll let them introduce themselves, but like Dr. O'Brien said, we are also honored to welcome two people that that heavily support us. Sally Wagner, she is our implementation strategist and she's at our campuses often. And then also

008Barbara Copeland is the executive director for the Southwest Texas region. So, thank you for acknowledging. >> I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself. famous people are in the room. I had to >> I'm glad you mentioned uh both of them and and they were able to be acknowledged, but I'll let the team also introduce themselves. >> I'm Norma Martinez and I'm your director of secondary curriculum and instruction and one of the three district directors for AVID. >> Jennifer Fiero, director of college and career readiness and also um one of the AVID district directors. Uh, John Fuller, AVID coordinator at Highland Junior School. >> Erica Gamario, um, AVID coordinator at impact. >> All right. AVID. AVID is advancement via individual determination. AVID's mission is to close the opportunity gap by preparing all students for college and career

009readiness and success in a global society. So, what is AVID? Abbott believes that quality and equitable education is key to breaking barriers, including generational poverty. With the right support and opportunities, AVID students excel in advanced courses and are four times more likely to graduate from college than their national peers. Schoolwide, AVID helps schools shift to a more equitable and stu student centered approach with high engagement strategies. At Highlands Junior School, we work very hard on being consistent in our planning and our PLC time. And we look to embed those strategies into our lesson plans. Uh we look at PLC time on faculty days and teach those strategies to our faculty to make sure we're really implementing them well in our classrooms. >> Okay. So, the AVID effect in Goose Creek, um AVID provides a schoolwide

010college readiness culture. It provides student engagement and research-based instructional strategies. And Miss Camaro is going to talk to you about the wicker strategies. It serves as that vehicle for teacher effectiveness and student learning. And it aligns with the district's instructional framework framework and strategic plan. And we talk about a we talk about instructional rigor a lot in what we do and raising the standard for students. And in a training recently, um, Sally mentioned to our tutors, you know, when we look at rigor, if we raise the expectation, we have to provide the support. And so, we're using AVID to provide that support so that our kids can be successful with the raising of the standards that we're that we're giving them. also with aligning to our instructional framework. Um, our principles presented their campus improvement

011plans to us last week, our secondary principles. And so, um, all of them had AVID as part of their prescription for improving student outcomes. And so, if they were looking at, let's say, um, student discourse, getting students to talk, we were able to strategically align AVID strategies to help with those those goals of their campuses. So AVID and Goose Creek um we're looking at an increase in enrollment. If you look at the trend um we have increasingly raised the amount of students in the AVID elective and you know when you think about taking going from an eight period day to a seven period day there's concerns about losing an elective or an impact on that and you'll see that AVID has stood strong. Um part of that is that that the parents know um the

012impact that it has. the student outcomes are there and they're present and then the the staff is bought in and they know that it works. Um, all five of our high schools, all of our secondary campuses have AVID implementation. It's at all five of our high schools. Our six junior highs have AVID. Crockett Elementary is our elementary school. That's AVID campuswide. And then since 2019, enrollment in the AVID elective has increased 147%. And with that increase, we have added teachers. So many of the campuses have an AVID coordinator, but then we also have teachers that are trained. And I know that strategically we we train teachers in different areas. We would train a teacher in English so that that teacher has a greater impact on that team. And so that's shown the increase in in

013our AVID growing. Um so you're probably asking yourself, what is an AVID student? What does an AVID student look like? And so we wanted to put these um pieces of information out there, but we want you to understand that really AVID is for all students. Um more influential for these the first generation college student. The reason this is important, it's going to come up in a later slide, but for you to understand who are avid students are, they are historically underserved at four-year universities and they're generally the lowincome or other at risk factor students. They are in the academic middle which means they um don't necessarily have to be GT or intervention students. Um but we do try to influence them and have that college potential with support. Um the only thing that you need

014in order to be successful in AVID is to have a desire and determination to be successful. And when we talk about AVID, we can't talk about AVID without talking about U wicker. So Wicker are these skills that our students obtain in the AVID elective, but they carry into their core classes and beyond. Um these skills have allowed campuses like Impact to be the first ECS in the nation to be a demonstration school. Um, when we talk about writing, our students are learning how to be effective notetakers. Um, and we've had time after time students come back once they're at college and say, "Oh, everybody compliments me on my notes. They're impressed." Or the person next to me, their paper is blank. Like, why don't they know how to take notes? And I always say, "It's

015because they didn't take AVID." You know, um, for inquiry and collaborations, our students do tutorials every week. they um support each other through um higher level thinking to solve their problems um in their schoolwork. And for organization, we're really asking 13, 14 years old students to have a full load of high school classes to take college classes, one, two, up to four classes. They're also actively giving giving back to their communities. They're in extracurriculars at our campus at Lee College or their home campus. And the only way that they can do all of this is by learning time management skills, the use of their planner. And I was sharing with the team that we've had adult learners come back and they they bring me their planners and they say, "I'm a full-time student. I'm an

016intern. I am a manager at XTOR." And look at everything that I have going on. and they're using their resources even after graduation. Um, for reading, our scholars are learning to not just read through words, but really to think critically about the material that they're looking at. Um, they exchange ideas through philosoph philosophical chairs and Socratic seminars. So really, when we're saying um, Wicker is for AVID, we're not just saying that. We're saying is Wicker is for lifelong learners. Okay. So, one of the things that we're very very proud of is our schoolwide PD. So, to start the year off, we um have about four to six uh teachers uh go to summer institute each year. And what's great about summer institute is it's not just a blanket um training on wickor strategies. It's really

017um targeted to sessions that are called communities of practice. So when you go into training, you are in one of two places. You're with your district and your campus teams planning for the upcoming school year or you're with the individuals that teach your same content area. So a lot of collaboration and learning how to implement AVID specifically into the content that you teach. The expectation of individuals that attend Summer Institute is to come back and help train staff. But we um one thing we started about 5 years ago is new teacher orientation. So myself and my team um Dr. Martinez and Miss Fiero, we train AVID 101 for every single new teacher so that they are um have a baseline knowledge of AVID before they start to enter PLC's and faculty training for the school

018year. And then from there, um, we have empowered our AVID coordinators, our principles, um, our AVID district leaders to really take, um, a lot of the sessions at Giant Con and help train all of our AVID um, all of our AVID learners across the district so that AVID could be schoolwide across the district. And then in addition to that, it's an expectation as an AVID coordinator that you're training during faculty meetings, you're training during PLC time. And so we've just put in a lot of work to making sure that our staff is training other peers at their campuses and AVID schoolwide strategies. We are very very proud of this slide. Um we currently after last school year we have earned three AVID national demonstration status at three of our schools. GCM has been a demo

019school since 2018. However, in 2023, they had to go through a revalidation process. And then we are extremely proud that last year, impact um earned national demonstration as one of the first or the first um early college in the nation to achieve that honor. And then EF Green as well. So, what that means as an AVID national demonstration school, not only do you have to show that you are affecting students schoolwide with the AVID system, but you also have to be willing to welcome other schools into your uh campus to show what your students are doing with AVID. impact has also earned a schoolwide site of distinction which means um on the metrics that AVID is is reviewed on for um the campus they are scoring at the highest level. So we're very proud of

020that honor. Crockett Elementary has only had AVID for four years. However, this will be their third year to serve as an as an elementary showcase school. They are doing incredible things at Crockett. I'll tell you, we've taken some teachers from the junior high level to say, "Hey, if Crockett Elementary can take notes on an iPad, your seventh graders can take notes on an iPad." Uh they are doing great work over at Crockett and and pursuing demonstration school for that campus is is definitely in in the talks. Um, another thing we're really proud of is the superintendent collaborative. We hosted in this very room last year where we welcomed about 15 area superintendent to not only hear about what we're doing with AVID and Goose Creek, but also to collaborate on best practice and I think

021Dr. O'Brien would agree that was a a great opportunity for us and for area superintendent to collaborate. Okay, so this is if you hear nothing from this presentation today, hear this. Uh this is what we're most proud of. Um 53% of all AVID students, so 6th through 12th grade, are currently taking at least one dual credit or AP course. So remember, Dr. Martinez mentioned that these are students that are at risk. They are firstgen college students. they are um students with a lot of other factors that historically would prohibit them from taking upper level courses. So that's the first stat that we're proud of. Of the class of 2025, we graduated 172 AVID senior seniors, which means they took AVID all four years of high school. Of those kids, 100% applied to college. And of

022the $27 million in scholarships earned by the whole class of 2025, AVID students make up 10.3% of that graduating class. They earned $10.9 million, which is 40.4% of all scholarship dollars earned. So that is just a huge statistic for us to say we are doing everything we can to support students uh to getting to the next level. So, we know we're doing awesome things, but we know that we need to improve in all things. And so, on the horizon for AVID is a a few of these items on our slide, but we have Avid artificial intelligence tutors. And so, what that means is we are having bots um do one-on-one trainings with our students, but they're not necessarily training for content. They are really focused on problem solving and making sure students know how to

023how to figure out or how to solve their own problems as opposed to trying to go and Google the answer. Um we are expanding our ambassadors with the AVID model. So the week after our um fall break, we are coming back and we are having some of our AVID our AVID and our CTE ambassadors train district students. And so we'll have student ambassadors at every campus all the way from elementary to the high school and they'll be training them on what it means to represent their campus and represent their district. Um we are collaborating with other district departments at our last PLC. Um our CTE director invited a coordinator, an AVID coordinator and another teacher to come in and teach these wicker strategies. these strategies that u Miss Gamario and um the team have spoken

024on, but how to use those strategies within other classrooms. So, not just the writing piece in the reading classroom and maybe just not the problem solving in the math classroom, but how do we do that in all of our classrooms, including the CTE and electives? And we're doing that five phased uh phases of focus notes. So, last year a big push for us was to teach students how to write notes. And so we're really working into the phases of focus notes and which means that once you've taken the notes, are we going back and making sure that the notes that we took were effective. And so that's what we're fa focusing on this year is having that reflection piece of students going back after the test and saying what I wrote down in class, did

025it actually help me? And if it didn't help me, how can I improve them? And that's part of what Miss Gamar Gamario stated. We're teaching kids to be better students in the classroom because of our reszone. We are also we have the opportunity for that vertical alignment um through the through that reszoning. And so we're having partnerships between the junior schools and the high schools, making sure that we're recruiting students so that if they get a little taste of it in junior school, they're continuing that AVID program throughout their high school career. And so we have things like our junior schools um pen paling with the high schoolers. um the high schoolers telling our students, you know, what did I wish I knew um before I started going into this pathway or before I went

026to high school? What should I have done as an eighth grader or as a seventh grader? Um Miss Fier is also organizing, she's taken on this huge task of organizing college field trips. And for the first time, um we are going to be having district-wide college field trips. Um, so our eighth graders are going to visit Lee College and then our 11th graders are going to visit UFH. We're also organizing other opportunities for other students. Um, but just knowing that this is, as Kendall stated and as we we keep reiterating about the profile of a student, these are opportunities that these kiddos might not have um, if not for us organizing them. And then we are expanding our district of distinction scholarship program. So, we do have current um partnerships with some of our universities

027and this includes free application fees and then auto acceptance for some of the percentages. So, we might say if we partner with um Sam Houston, as long as you're in the top 25% then you get an auto acceptance because they have come into our campuses and seen that what we do is is really and truly preparing them for for college. Um but it also includes scholarships within their first year. So really getting them to get into the campus and experience college life other than what we've told them um in our AVID classrooms. >> Okay. And so the most impactful thing that we take away from summer institute and Miss Camaro has talked about it is hearing the students talk about how AVID has impacted them. And so um this was during during national AVID day

028which was in September. we were able to visit campuses and so I brought back some of the things that our Sterling seniors had put down as how AVID had impacted their lives. And so these are some of the things that they put because of AVID I am prepared for college. Because of AVID I feel prepared for life outside of high school. I'm excited for college. I'm ready for my future and I am on a great path to succeed in the future. >> All right, we'll take any questions. Before we do, I want to note the picture that you see. Um, our student leader that gave the pledge this evening for the board member is here and is an avid student. >> And that was unplanned, by the way. >> Any questions? >> Yeah, I had

029just a couple of thoughts that came to my mind. Great presentation, by the way. You covered a lot of material in a short period of time as requested, but but just to back up a little bit, Miss Kim Rio, Mr. Fuller maybe u talk a little bit about for someone who's never heard of AB before y'all covered it all but what does it look like on a campus for our parents in the audience possibly for our board members even when you walk onto a campus I like what you said uh wicker is yes it's a strategy for writing but you'll see it across the campus I know the evaluators are in the room so I know that we're looking to have 100% of student and teacher participation but I think technically it's a majority and

030um we're looking for that. So, how does it look outside of an English classroom that focuses on writing skills or an AVID classroom that focuses on college preparation? What does it look like walking in any other class across the campus when a campus is state recognized and then once it's nationally recognized? >> So, I'm going to answer like the way it looks at Impact because that's been my home campus forever. But you can go to any of our classes. You can go to biology and if you say, "Hey, show me your notes." Not only are they going to have focused notes like the whole process, it's also going to be organized like all our students are trained. We've even had the technology department come over and the students also learn how to do those notes

031um digital with Notability. So when we say it's campuswide, it's campuswide. You can find that in math classes as well. Um we have um different options for them to use there. Um, but you'll find it in all our classrooms. I don't know if you want to add anything, Mr. >> Well, with junior high, we really focus on how to implement notes. Uh, a lot of our students write down things and they're just writing. So, we try to put purpose behind the processes like we said with the five phases of focus notes and we we teach them what it looks like. So then whenever they do go to all of their core classes and their elective classes, they can get those key points and they can put them into their boxes of the of the note-taking

032process and it will help them remember what they've what they've been taught. >> And um I did want to mention that research shows that in order for someone to be an effective notetaker, it takes like 15 years. So our students do a big jump when they come in from first day of high school even like mid semester and it's skills that they're practicing over and over and again they carry them over to college and later. >> Thank you. Great. Any other questions board members? >> Great. Oh god. Uh yes. The digital notes on Notability are they uh typed or are they handwritten on the iPad? they have uh different options. I don't know if you're familiar with Notability. Some students use their stylus and they take them. Other students prefer to type. >> He's a

033writing instructor at Lake College. >> So, it is so it's um it's really to the students preference. Um and we do teach him the Cornell note method. Um, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but you know, it goes it doesn't have to be just that format or that layout because we're really focusing on, you know, the processing of the note, the summarizing the level one, two, and three thinking. Um, so they, you know, they add, they really, it really, really gets fancy because then they have their diagrams in there, whatever works for them. So, they have, um, student agency when it comes to that. And then at the junior high, we're using Google Slides. So whenever we use Google Slides, students can either type straight into the slide with the format that we've

034given to them or they can take pictures of their notes that they've created uh by writing and they can insert that into their notes and then they do all the annotations that go around it. >> Okay. So pretty high-tech stuff. Okay. Thank you. >> So with our state directors in the room, what type of celebration would this uh presentation call for? Waterfall. Um, >> I got a question. >> Um, I like this aid. I think it's a good deal for for the school district. Is there any evidence that or any results that show that the schools that are utilizing AVID uh have progressed or or made major, you know, uh great scores? Like for instance, how did you mentioned Crockett, how great they were? Are they how did they do academically? >> Yeah, Crockett is

035our top three. One of the top one of the top elementaryaries. Absolutely. And you know it's difficult to make the correlation directly. >> That's what I was getting at the correlation with. >> Yeah. To make the direct correlation, but what I would say to that is that AVID um fills a a teacher's toolbox. >> And so when you're talking about strategies used um when you're talking about high yield strate instructional strategies, of course, that's also going to be incorporated with all of the work that CNI also does. Um the that's why we present the the college data as well because you can make the correlation between an AVID student that is receiving an exorbitant amount of college scholarships. You know those scholarships take a lot of work, a lot of writing, a lot of resume

036building and so you know you have leaders who you know are at risk students who are receiving those scholarships and that is a direct um data point that we use specifically just to point to AVID. One of the ways that a collegegoing culture is created by the campus, both the leadership and the teachers, is having college flags in the hallway. So, you won't find a campus that has more flags than GCM uh as far as collegegoing flags up and down the hallway, but Crockett Elementary would probably be number two >> with the number of uh college banners that they have. >> And I don't think it just applies to college. I think a lot of these people that go into the military >> are AVID themselves. They they're determined to do what they want to

037do and they >> and we we do track military um acceptance as well through AVID and support that process because as you know um you know that can be a difficult um you know recruitment and and getting into the military can be difficult to navigate as well which we provide support for. >> I got one question. Are all of the essays and everything you talking about done with AI or on a computer? The writing and everything, is that a manual old school writing or is it on the computer? >> Well, the state of Texas has gone digital is what I'll say, but go ahead and give him the answer for what we're doing in the classrooms. So we have a pretty strict AI pol instructional policy in Goose Creek which of course AV AVID students

038follow as well. But when it comes to actually taking notes um we have formats in place and processes in place so that students are taking authentic notes in the classroom. And that's the majority of of what we've discussed today when we talk about, you know, note takingaking and and really applying what you're learning to uh the the focus notes that we utilize specifically in AVID and schoolwide. >> When students are are I think you're you're speaking about when students are writing their essays, are they using AI? Um so we encourage the use of AI for research. However, when they're submitting their short construction responses or the extended constructed responses, the AI is is not it's not turned on on those um those systems, those platforms. And so, just as they would in the state test,

039they wouldn't have the opportunity to use AI when submitting their essay for a grade. >> So, they >> even if they did, the teacher has the ability to scan it and track it for a percentage of AI generation. >> Correct. And so yeah, >> if I may, I did want to uh mention that for example, our Abbot 4 students who are are seniors, they take time crafting their personal statements and our AVID 4 teacher gives them very direct feedback. There's no way they are using AI for a personal statement. Um there specific things that the colleges are looking for. Um and our AVID for teachers really support our students in that for them to be authentic, for them to use their student voice. Um, so personally I don't have concern especially with personal statements. >>

040So go ahead. Go ahead. So an average student can sit down without any mechanical information and sit there and write me an essay based upon a subject without using a computer. >> The goal would be for all of our students to be able to write. I'm just saying an avid student. >> Yes, sir. So, so the training begins um in junior school and then we do have some students like Miss Gamario mentioned that start in high school and but we do teach students how to take notes and then construct the essay using their notes. And so part of that focus note the phases is pulling out information but then also reflecting on that information as to whether or not it's answering the question or when we have to revisit it again. How are we going

041to study and pull that prior knowledge into an essay? >> Okay. Okay. >> The only answer, but >> any more questions? >> No, I I just want, you know, um I had students in the past when I was an educator, they would come back and say, "Hey, Mr. Entry, I'm making more money than you. Double the amount of money." Okay. Well, I truly believe some of these kids were avid back then, even though it wasn't uh a thing back in the day, but they knew exactly I'm not I don't need this. I'm going to go work in the plants. I'm going to be a welder or I'm going to be an operator, you know, and they do make good money out there. And so, you know, this this in the workforce has a place for

042these avid children that are determined to, you know, do what they want to do. You know, >> I agree. And and I think too that's where that like closing that opportunity gap really comes in because AVID's going to support our students in whatever they want to do and help support those, you know, opportunity give those them those opportunities. So I completely agree. >> I had scaffold builders out there and I don't know if y'all aware of this, but scaffold builders make good money, too. Like a lot of money. Y'all would die if y'all heard how much money. And these aren't the brightest or sharpest tools in the shed we're talking about here. You know, these are people that just work hard, you know, and get out there and live at the plant. They make good

043money. >> Great discussion. Thank you so much, uh, Miss David and your team, Erica and John. I don't want to mess up your last name. It was so great to hear from you and the >> say with my Scottish accent. Sorry, Erica. >> Oh, that's a California annunciation. >> But anyway, thank you for for coming and bringing us more depth to the presentation. Uh, and then of course, Mrs. Copeland and Miss Wagner, thank you so much for staying around and joining us for uh this part of the program tonight. We are I I think I can speak on behalf of the board. We are proud of AVID and to see 140 plus% growth during postcoid is just amazing. So congratulations to y'all. Keep doing what you're doing and let's let another star shine here in

044Goose Creek. Thank y'all. >> Miss David, let me know what your score is. >> Let me know what your score is. We have a few more people joining us for the 2526 CNI supplemental funding and supports presentation. Let them introduce themselves to you. They look familiar. make sure I follow the rules and get my green light on. So, good evening, President Campey, uh Dr. O'Brien and board. Uh we're excited tonight to give you some good news. So, we know that we are living in budget deficits right now and so we uh have been creative with the CNI team and Ginger McCay's guidance and have uh sought out some outside supplemental funding to help us get through these trying times. Um, overall we're going to go through, but we've received over $6.5 million in outside funding.

045Now, you will hear as we go through it that nothing comes for free. So, there's um we we thought about bringing some yarn and throwing it every time to y'all so we could show you kind of how we have to juggle some of these constraints. Um, but I will pass it to uh Sarah and she's going to go through and talk a little bit about some of those. Good evening. So, uh we're going to begin by looking at some of our more studentf facing grants. Um these first four listed here really prioritize putting like hands-on learning, engaging opportunities in the hands of our students. The first two in particular, the artist boat. Um these are really great chances for students to um learn in the classroom, learn through workshops, uh participate in kayaking experiences, and

046um ultimately work with a a culminating project about conservation. And so these first two um the students just absolutely love the the opportunity to particip participate in this grant. And um again, it's about conservation, it's about stewardship, but it's also about putting that hands-on learning that's so essential for science in particular um in the hands of the kiddos. Then the Exxon Mobile math counts. Many of you are familiar with math counts, but this is a STEM and enrichment opportunity for math. The students have a chance to compete in teams um and then they can advance through um successes with math counts. And then Exxon Mobile Science wetlands. That one is very similar to the first one in that the um the end goal is that the students understand conservation stewardship, but they do that through

047hands-on learning. And that grant really does a lot to fund also professional learning for teachers um and then transportation costs and things like that associated with all of that hands-on learning. So those first four grants are really um studentf facing. The lasso grants, I know you all have heard a lot about lasso. Let me tell you down there that it's the learning acceleration support opportunities grant. Um there is a note there with that asterisk because this is TEA funded. We must partner with our ESC region 4 to meet the asurances or mandates of these grants. And so 50% of our awards, which you see 100% of the awards are there, but 50% of that goes to region 4 and they have what are known as product advisors, implementation advisors um and just grant advisors who

048help us navigate through um satisfying the assurances of these grants. So the first one is the planning grant uh for RLA. math went through that last year and RLA is getting the really fun opportunity to go through that this year. Um and then we have the implementation grant uh for both K5 RLA and then K through algebra 1. Um that is you can see the critical mass of our grant work honestly is coming out of that implementation grant. That is what is helping us take blue bonnet learning off of the page and lift it into our practices in the classroom. Um it is funding everything from summer PD to during the um PLC day PDS. Um the principles all have a product advisor they can call. They get flexible support days. Um everything from classroom

049walks to um data analysis is coming out of that implementation grant. And then we have what are the IL and the PLC grants. Those are for our four uh targeted campuses specifically. Um and that is really helping to prepare the principles to go through um the TIL process and just be informed um and that's working with the area executive directors in particular for the ILE um to to help them um sort of address the needs on those targeted campuses. And then the last one here is the Texas Reads Texas leads which y'all may hear us talk about it as the TXRL grant. That's through the Moody Foundation and that grant is a K through RLA grant that works in conjunction with Lasso. The goal of that grant is to move us from a balanced literacy

050district to a structured literacy district. And uh we work with consultants there. There are only eight districts in the entire state of Texas that were awarded that grant and we're one of the eight and so we get to network with these other eight districts and it's um it's really important work actually in that move to structured literacy. Lucy, would you real quickly just briefly >> give the difference between balanced and structured? >> Yes, of course. So, there are lots of differences, but at its core, balanced literacy is built around this notion of level text, in particular, level text learning. And so, um, for instance, let's say that a student is designated as a level H reader. Um, the critical mass of the supports that the teacher would be giving that student would be at a

051level H. But let's say that the student is in a grade where they should be at an M. So you would not be necessarily allowing the student to engage with those grade level text. And we have a lot of research now. I mean y'all have funded and supported Goose Creek participating in everything from the STR walks to the science of teaching reading readingmies that we all um enjoyed completing. And um you know we know better now. We know that we can't withhold access to grade level learning. Um, even if it means the students are hearing the teacher read a grade level text, they need to hear grade level syntax, grade level vocabulary, um, grade level topics. And so, um, this move to structured literacy, we know it's right, we know it's best, but it we

052talked about in the February board me meeting, um, it's also going up against culture and past practice and training. And so, it's sweaty. And so we're ve very much needing to support teachers using these grants. I don't know if that's the right answer, but um one more thing before we go to the next slide. I do want to give you a bite because Miss Jackson was talking about um the strings attached and the yarn ball game, right? I want to give you one illustration of that from one of these grants. And I'm going to do it with the easiest grant we have and that's the Lasso Planning Grant. Okay. The lasso planning grant is a one-year grant. The goal of it is to create an instructional framework document for ELA. That document will be our

053north star for literacy instruction in Goose Creek. It will help us determine our resources we use, our professional developments we design, the assessments, and the way that we look at our data. All things will be driven by this instructional framework document. It is an a pivotal part of our work and that GL grant will help us make a good one. Okay. So, what has to happen? We have to survey all of our principles because we want campus representation, wide variety of of experience included. We have to create two committees, a draft committee and a a feedback committee. Then, we have to train everybody in what's known as the Arby's, which is not a fast food chain. It's RBIS, and it's researchbased instructional strategies. All of us have to get trained in the Arby's for ELA.

054All of those things have already happened. Now that that's done, we have to draft the instructional framework document with the drafting committee. It's going to take probably at least five meetings in particular to get that done. Then we kick it to the feedback committee and they do exactly what it sounds like. They give us feedback on all kinds of things from accuracy to readability. Then they kick it back to the drafting committee. We make revisions. We make a fi final polished product. it gets kicked to TEA and they literally give us a grade up to a 100. We get a score on our work that we submit. Once we get that back with approval from TEA, then we have to get to sorry uh we get to train 100% of our RLA staff including our

055campus leaders. So that's approximately 750 staff members will go through a training on our literacy instructional framework. And that is one of the easier grants that we have to be honest. And so you you will hear us sometimes being really selective about the grants that we choose to go into because they will take a lot of output. They'll take a lot of manpower, but we also want whatever those grants are to align to our strategic plan and to loun align to our district vision. We don't want to just take a grant for a grant. We want to take a grant that's going to improve student outcomes. So anyways, I just wanted to make sure you kind of knew some of the sweat equity that is a grant process. So the document you submit to TEA

056will it be graded by AI? >> Um there is a committee >> say anything funny >> I understand. Yes. As someone who is working through the hybrid scoring is the phrasing for star hybrid scoring. Um there is a committee that scores it and will return it to us. Yes. That is my understand that is what I've been told. A committee of humans will score us on a zero to 100. and math went through it and the work is phenomenal work. It is very important. I'm very excited about it u being part of what we move forward with. Yes. Yeah. Thank you for asking. >> Good evening. I'm Leah Miller, the CTE director and uh a few CTE outside funding uh grants and sponsorships that we're proud of. Um first up, we have a Exxon Mobile

057STEM resources. So the focus of this funding is uh expanding access to STEM across the district. And so we'll provide funding for all six uh junior schools for their robotics programs to buy equipment, robots, and even travel to competitions. We've limited some of our travel. So this will expand those opportunities. And then we're also adding virtual reality headsets for career exploration for all secondary campuses. So again, this will allow students to experience that real world um hands-on directly with uh those careers on their campus, removing that need for off-site visits. And then also we're supporting other contents like Sarah mentioned, the artist boat partnerships. We also will have some funding put in for those for travel, field trips, things like that within this uh STEM grant. And then next up, we have our Port Houston

058maritime outreach funding and that's $7,500. And so the focus of that is to strengthen our recruitment and engagement in our maritime program at Lee High School. And so this will provide funding for again equipment supplies and then also transportation to maritime events at San Jack College or at Port Houston. And then the last two in big red, it says pending. Um we haven't received official notification yet but um I have applied for a centerpoint energy grant and that is also STEM focused and that's $10,000. And then with Noah um the nationalmy's um that is our environmental literacy for community resilience grant for $690,000. We are waiting official notification of press releases to be coming soon. So I can't share too much about that yet but we will hopefully fingers crossed everybody. So Sarah mentioned that

059we presented some of our studentf facing grants. We also have um really honed in on our teacherf facing grants. So we value growing our own and making sure that our not only staff but maybe our leaders are also learning and professionally de developed through their own learning. And so the first one we have is effective schools framework grant. And that is a grant um where we are taking resources to improve student outcomes. So we're training principles. Our AEDs are part of that. We're training principles on how to be better leaders within their campus. We've actually extended the ESF learning, the effective schools framework learning into now we're training all of our principles. Now we're training all of our assistant principles because we saw such great value in it. Um we have newly funded the Houston

060guided pathways for United with United for College and Career Success and Houston Endowment. Um this is through UFCCS which is the United for College and Career Success, but also through the University of Houston. And this is really about building confidence in our teachers and our students into believing that even if they don't know something that they can learn and make better for themselves. Um we have also new a region 4 junior high network. This is where we have a um I believe he Paul Paulo Castro is coming in and he is training our junior school principles. And so he's training them to not only be instructional leaders but he's also focusing on how to tackle the climate challenges or the culture challenges on each campus while still focusing on instruction. We have the region 4

061professional learning reimbursement grant. So they've given us $25,000 and throughout the year um Miss McCay refunds some of our campuses and departments for having trained with region 4. They allow us to receive that reimbursement and she puts that money right back into the campuses so that they can use it in a different way. We have the Texas strategic staffing which is our future teacher partnership. This is for our teacher residencies. It doesn't pay for all of their um salary, but it does help with the compensation for their first year. And then we have the UHCL teacher residency grant with US Prep. This also helps with the salary, but it also provides some um mentor opportunities and stipens. Okay. I'm going to go over the additional funding that we get that's sort of outside of the

062CNI, but it does involve our students there. We are so fortunate that um we are given reimbursements from different areas and one of those is special education and you're going to see these next three. That's what this is about. We spend a lot of money uh in our district on special ed. So, when the state wants to take formulas and look and see how they might be able to reimburse some of the costs that we have, that's what these are about. And the first one is a discretionary residential end of the year reimbursement award. Um depending on the formula this number can go up or down but this year we would have expected to receive about 50,000. And the empowering ECSE educators to improve student outcomes cycle one um we will receive about 26,000 and

063our high cost fund um award is about 228,000. Now each year we receive a little bit different amounts depending on which of our students are participating or identified within those areas. And so um in the business office when they receive these we look to see which students they are so we know which funds to reimburse. So it helps to reimburse some of our special education funds. The next area is our gracious foundation for Goose Creek. And um the first thing that they do is they add supplemental pieces. This is never something that we are required to do. This is something that helps particular teachers with particular students. That's a supplemental part. And one of those things is a reading uh by design for the dyslexia students. It's an app that some may need. And so

064they've graciously given us an award to be able to facilitate that in classrooms where we need it. They've also been able to facilitate the braining camp app for our elementarymentaries that does stuff with digital math manipulatives. And then we also have received a gracious amount of 27,000 for our science for the robotics center and we greatly appreciate that. And uh we do have a pending on the bottom because um it's it's always ongoing with notifications and that uh we may receive some additional funds and so we're going to we're graciously awaiting the next phase of the cycle two for the uh empowering ECSC grant. So all of those reimbursements are absolutely appreciated. Okay. So, what you've heard a lot of the benefits that we're receiving and a little bit of the uh the red tape

065that we go through to get it, but we think this is valuable. And so, just some highlights is um the this different pots of this money has allotted for seven different temporary grant positions to help oversee it. That in itself provides a lot of support to to the CNI team. It's uh unique in some of the grants that we're using actually gives scholarships back to the students from $50 all the way to $1,000 per student. And so um it's very good about paying teachers that are attending extra PD their stipens and different amounts of money and so that seems to be very appreciated. Um you will see the picture that you see up there is a PD and that is a Saturday PD. So, I want you to take a look at that that picture

066because we had so many people over how many Saturdays? I think it was five. We offered trainings over five Saturdays totaling nine sessions and I know for RLA we had 60% of our elementary RLA teachers attend a Saturday session and this was in May funded through lasso cycle 2. So it does provide supports for us to be able to not only have the materials and and conduct the training but also to pay the teachers to give up their time off on a Saturday to come up. So that was really great. Um it builds teacher capacity through very strategic uh PD systems. And then it involves um a lots of leadership walks to build our leadership capacity with region 4 and um our TXRL uh friends as you would say and then um give different supports

067based on the campus need. So you'll notice some of the grants were for like three campuses or some was for so it's very strategic into where the supports are is where is very individualized to the campus need and that wraps us up to um once again 6,500 in funding. >> I think you said it in a very nice way but that last comment was kind of relevant. Mr. Renteria asked this question earlier. What are we doing that will positively impact lowperforming academic campuses? And you said some of these funds are assigned to those campuses to provide the additional support both in staff and in materials. And to be very um very to add on to that strategically the three campuses elementary campuses that were targeted they received the ESF uh framework and walks and all

068three of those campuses saw double digit increases and some of them saw 20 20% increases. So we've shown that these uh these supports are really working. >> Any questions you have for myself or the team? >> Yeah. Help me put this money in the bank. Is this last year's money, this year's money? >> It's coming in. It's coming in over last year and coming in now. A lot of them we haven't even gotten the awards yet. Do you want to add to that, Ginger? >> When we uh submit our expenditure reports, they reimburse us. So, we are we're never uh out money at all. It's it's absolutely there. So, in a little while, we're going to see a a summary of our general fund budget when we do budget amendments. Where does this money show

069in that little summary? >> Well, it's money in, money out, I think, is >> correct. It would really show >> in the general fund. >> No. No. So, I'll give you an example. Like, when I get the lasso, I have >> probably eight different accounts that are all a 429. So they're all strategically done so that they all can separate. But when I get the NOGA, which is the uh acceptance that I can go ahead and uh appropriate the money, that money never touches the general at all. It is exactly only in a 429. And so this is >> all supplemental to what we bit of it is supplemental heads. >> And and I want to make sure because because Susan didn't say this out loud is I wanted to make sure y'all knew is

070this is above any of our federal entitlements means this is a whole another set of money. And so it they're all strategically in different of budget accounts so that they can be separated and looked at, but they never interfere with any of the local 199 funds. >> Good. >> But it is supplemental, but it is one way to look at it is money we're not having to spend out of the >> It's not coming out of our checking account either. Uh the lasso grants and probably others where the money goes two ways. Does it come through us then go to region four? says, "Do we get our half? They get their half." Or how's that manipulated? >> All money comes to me. They have to have a contract with us. They have to be signed.

071They send invoices. I will have those paid, but they do not get any of the money until I pay them from their invoices. >> Okay. Very good. >> That's why she's the director of federal programs. >> I still say she's the compliance officer. >> Whatever works. >> Any other questions? Great report, Dr. O'Brien. Two for two. >> All right, >> let's keep it going. >> Only got three more to go. >> All right, the next group of rock stars can come on up. Our custodial and grounds update. >> Welcome, Miss Putman. This is your first report to the board, I believe. >> Yes, sir, it is. Welcome. >> Thank you. >> Good evening, President Cape, board members, Superintendent O'Brien. As uh Mr. Cap already said, this is a custodian and grounds update. It'll be presented

072by Miss Angela Putin, who is our director of uh custodian grounds, supported by myself, Dr. Price. Would you go ahead and take it away? >> Yes, sir. Thank you. Um good evening board. Um Mr. President and uh members. Um first a few facts so to speak about our custodial department and our grounds department. Um on the custodial side you can see that we are responsible for taking care of 42 campuses and facilities. Um and over four point 4.8 million square feet of area that must be cleaned. Um we have 178 custodians um in the custodial department. Of course we clean, sanitize, disinfect. Those are our um big areas. We fill um work orders. Custodians don't get a whole lot of specific work orders because they're on campus and they take care of things as needed.

073But the um highest number of work orders comes from like carpet cleaning, uh mildew, mold cleanup, that sort of thing. Um, one of the things that they do, um, that we train them to do is to help assist make sure that they, um, keep exterior doors, classroom doors locked and, um, closed to help with safe and secure schools. Um, they also help with when inclement weather is expected, they help prepare the campus. They help um clean up after campuses, find um leaks, things of that sort. Um and of course during the summer they do their summer deep cleaning floors, um preventative maintenance on any of the equipment that um that we use under the grounds department. Again, the 42 campuses and facilities. Um they take care of over a thousand acres in the district. There's

07437 staff members, groundsmen. Of course, they also fulfill uh work orders and they do get a lot of work orders. The highest request and work orders being vehicle repairs, maintenance, as well as moving and pest control. The mowing and the landscaping is done on a rotational basis. um the grounds equipment and the white fleet, the white vehicles with our district emblem on them. Um including the police and security vehicles are all taken care of by our grounds department. Like I said earlier, they do gra uh m manage the pest control as well as irrigation services for um the grounds facilities, the uh sports facilities. They prepare for severe weather and they also help with a lot of the cleanup afterward. Um, as they are out on campuses, they identify any potential um, problems and try

075to save the district a little money by taking care of that before it gets worse. And they provide coverage for UIL events and district rentals. If you notice up there that our uh custodial um or we're down from 234 to 178 as well as the ground department is down from 53 down to 37 while we have increased the square footage and the acreage that we uh take care of. >> It's a great point, very well noted. Thank you, Dr. Price. So, kind of to um piggyback off what Dr. Price said, some of the concerns that we have on the custodial side as the um Association of Physical Plant Administrators, they recommend that for an elementary custodian in an eighth hour, a custodian does cleans around 20,000 square feet um in an eight hour day. And

076then you can see for a junior high would be 25,000 and then for a high school custodian 30,000. And that is not at a 100% first level cleaning. That's between a two and a three. That amount of space for >> Miss P. Dr. Pnum, could you give us an example of what our uh elementary, junior high, and uh high school custodians clean? >> Um yes, sir. Um, our elementary campuses are right around the 20,000 square feet, but several of those campuses clean upwards of that. The larger campuses, um, for instance, um, Austin cleans a little over the 20,000. Crockett cleans around 25,000 >> in a junior high. >> Junior high, um, an average is around 30,000. They, um, all the junior highs are over the 25,000 square feet. And then in the high school, um

077they most of them clean about 20 I'm sorry 35,000 square feet um to stay between the um levels. Now on the ground side, some of the concerns that we've had are um the frequent rainfall this um end of summer. I guess we could say the grass is growing. Our equipment is aging and that affects um the efficiency and reliability. Our mowing, our moving crews um consist of two people and um they're taking care of the district when it comes to moving. The mechanics face that large workload. We have 218 white fleet vehicles plus the equipment plus our PD vehicles. And again, there's two mechanics. They're also responsible for all of the maintenance, preventative maintenance, registration, all of that. Okay. Looking at the custo ground work orders, um from August to September, there was 856 work

078orders that came in to the the two departments. If you look at the highest on the chart, those three total up to 686. But remember the highest is moving and there are two movers within our district and the next is maintenance and there are two mechanics and then the next one is pest control and there are two pest control technicians. So that 686 could be pointed at by six uh employees but we believe in supporting each other. So we do move people around to assist uh to make sure that everything is uh taken care of. So, our giants uh are well taken care of and the facilities are clean and neat and ready and the vehicles are prepared. >> Which brings us to the next slide. So, our custodians and our groundsmen, they do care

079for all of our giants. The departments are committed to providing clean, safe, and a welcoming environment that supports giant student success. >> Yeah. Our expectations are high and our standards are are are great, but we do want you to look at some of the pictures because we have the glass-like floors that we are so proud of that our community is so proud of. We also are able to move our teachers and staff and sometimes into our schools to other locations where they needed to better educate our giants. And then if you notice that um picture that has the caption real world learning that really touched my heart. One of our custodians at GCM, she was called on to help our um French honor society class uh speak French and um the students absolutely adored that

080lesson. She got to speak to them in her native native language and now they go up to her all the time during the day and speak to her nicely and they have a new respect for the custodial staff. So that's a great thing. >> Absolutely. >> GCC uh strategic initiatives for operation services is to deliver operational excellence. We do this with two goals. >> The first goal is to maintain and improve facilities, safety and security systems. And um we are doing that by continuing to implement preventative maintenance and um to reduce so that we reduce the cost on the district. We review the preventative maintenance schedules and programs to make sure that we are following up on that goal. >> Our second goal is to provide safe and secure environment for all staff and students.

081Uh our strategies on that are to implement strategies that promote safety and security to reduce uh safety incidents such as positive behavior supporting the social emotional learning friends uh crimes stoppers. Uh some of our key measures are internal and external uh safety audits that's done by district and Harris County Department of Education as well as the state will be starting uh work order completion data and campus custodial inspections. >> So at that point does anyone have any questions for us? >> I have a question. Um, I know y'all said that a lot of your requests, especially kind of at the end of the summer, are moves. And obviously this summer was a huge summer for for moving. Have we ever thought about using like hiring maybe some students to do some summer work as far

082as like helping move stuff into move classrooms and that kind of thing? >> I'll go ahead and ask this since she just got here with us. Uh, yes. Yes, ma'am. We do. Matter of fact, we just started a intern program with Lee College uh where we'll be using some of their uh students to do uh AC and HVAC work. Uh but we do use uh some of our students, GCCISD students in some of our warehouse facilities and some of those facilities throughout the summer and throughout the year. We use some of our uh special program students to work with us in the warehouse during the school year during their day. >> And what about like for moving and that type of thing? if you're moving a teacher from one building to another or >> we

083haven't yet, but we can look into that. This year, we had so many big moves going on that we uh the construction department hired an outside contractor to do a lot of the moving um external to the ones we saw here on our work orders, but they moved the whole campuses from place to place. So, we had a uh company do those. >> Okay. Anything else? A >> quick question. You talked about the elementary is 20,000 square feet, junior high 25 plus, and high school 30,000 plus. What does that look like when we're looking at custodians? Let's look at elementary. How many custodians are taking care of 20,000 square feet >> typically about five per campus. >> It's amazing. >> It is very >> It's truly amazing. You you have just a handful of people

084preparing all of our buildings to welcome almost 28,000 people every day. >> Yes, sir. >> And I tip my hat to that. >> Yes, sir. Myself included. I I tip my hat as well. >> They are proud and it's a pride thing right now. So, we are going to ride that horse because every their whole thing is to make our community proud and pleased to come into the building, students, uh faculty, staff, and parents. >> And as a board member, that makes me proud. Everyone knows mostly that I work for Lee College and we have a mantra at Lee College where we are educators and that applies to everyone whether you're in the classroom teaching the president of the college custodian maintenance worker or even in my department everybody contributes to the education of our

085students. Uh and I wanted to not go unnoticed that you and your staff play an integral part of that. So thank you. Any other questions for this panel? >> Amen. And here here >> thank you. Good job, Miss Put Button. Our next presentation will be by our CFO, Miss Bridget Clark. She's presenting proposed tax rate and bond refunding. And she has some guests we'll let you introduce. >> Yes, sir. Me get set up here. >> Welcome to Goose Creek, by the way. Is this the collector, the tax collector you have here? The muscle. >> Yes, I brought reinforcements tonight. So, >> I see you in the back, Jennifer. >> I will let them introduce them themselves. Um I uh have worked with both of these firms. Uh we've done transactions with these firms both as

086underwriters and now um as proposed financial adviserss. And so without further ado, I will let them go and introduce themselves. >> Good evening. My name is Diana Martinez. I work at Huntton Andrews Kurt and we serve as bond counsel for the district. >> Good evening. My name is Josh Mclofflin. I am a managing director and the head of public finance for BK Financial Securities and you know I'll be able to talk to you tonight about the bond refunding and you also consider our contract. >> Thank you. Um Tom Sage uh sent uh Miss Martinez. He wasn't able to be here tonight due to a prior commitment, but I think she is a very good substitute for for Tom and you can tell him we said that. Um, >> go ahead and grab that other >>

087Yeah, you can use that. So, um, after following all those, um, exciting reports, now we have to talk about taxes and bonds. So, I apologize for that, but we're going to jump right in and, um, talk about tax rates. We're going to be proposing a tax rate this evening for approval. Um, we're also talking about a bond refunding to save the district money and bond refunding is a fancy refunding is a fancy word for refinancing. So, um, defeasence is payoff bonds which we approved last time. Uh, refunding is refinancing. So, just a little jargon there. Um, so this is a repetitive slide from last time. And by the way, thank you all for being here tonight. It's a very important night for for um voting as you know for the tax rate. Um this is

088a repetitive slide from last week just to uh assist and and refresh anyone's memory or those who may not have been here to see this. We are proposing an M tax rate of 745 an INS tax rate of 325 and a total tax rate of A17 which is 0.0025 0025 lower than last year which is attributable to the lower Mino tax rate of 7450. What has our tax rate history been in Goose Creek? You can see since 2018 we had well in 2018 we had a tax rate of just over $143. We're now at a$1.7. Um that's a 8year 27% tax rate decrease. Um, and it's all it's just over 36 cents of decrease since 2018. All right. So, the proposed M tax rate is slightly lower than last year's tax rate. As I just

089mentioned, last year's tax rate was 7475. The proposed M tax rate, which is the voter approved tax rate, um, Vader for an acronym is 7450. Now that vader does exceed the no new revenue tax rate of 7229. So therefore um there must be a super majority vote. Five out of seven board members must vote in the affirmative for the motion to pass. And I'll get into a little bit more detail on this next slide. It's um section 26.05B 05B of the property tax code requires the five out of seven board members uh that this means there must be five yays regardless of members present voting members or abstensions. So we must have five affirmatives for the motion to pass. I put here also if the motion does not receive five yays. For example, if only

090four trustees were present tonight, which we don't have that issue thankfully, um a special meeting would have to be called um even though we had a quorum, we wouldn't have the supermajority, we would have to call a special meeting to attempt to approve the tax rate again. Should the board not adopt a tax rate by the November 3rd deadline, that's 60 days past the date of receiving the certified tax role, uh the tax rate will be the lower of the no new revenue tax rate, which is the 7229 or the preceding year's adopted tax rate of 7475, which would mean the 7229 would be adopted, and that would be the no new revenue tax rate, and it would increase the budget deficit by $3.5 million if we did did that um and there would have

091to be a subsequent budget amendment um after this meeting and the next meeting to cover that. So now I'm going to um give the condensed version of the bond refunding or the bond refinancing if you will. Um these are in relation to series 2015 and 2016A. We are refi refinancing at a lower interest rate. The interest rate is going from 4.62% 62% to 2.79% saving the district debt carrying costs of $1.287 million. And then the second one is on 2016b. Also, the interest rate is being lowered from 5% to 3.17% for a total debt service carrying cost savings of 300 just over $370,000. Um, I don't know, Josh, if you have anything to add to that or I mean, it's pretty pretty cut and dry there as far as um what the savings are and

092what the um decreased interest rate is. We could get into all kinds of um interesting discussions about bonds, but um in the interest of time, uh that is that's the important part is how much we're saving taxpayers. All right, so um next steps for this evening, we have some action items. Pretty much every item on the agenda is mine. All the action items are mine this evening. So, um, plus I was the MC, so you've had to see me a lot tonight. But in the action items, we were going to have the consideration of approval of the tax rate of, uh, 1.07, um, lowering the tax rate 36 cents since 2018. And then we're going to have the consideration of the approval of financial advisory services agreement with BOK Financial Securities, Inc., Mr. Josh Mclofflin.

093We are changing financial advisors because we did have a retirement uh of our former financial adviserss. Um and then we had a a firm one of them left the firm and one is retiring in February. So it was a good time and and Josh and and the group jumped in without missing a beat and prepared all these documents with the attorneys and and the underwriters help and uh we just couldn't be more uh grateful for them doing that and jumping in at at this time. So also there's going to be of course the consideration approval of two bond refundings. There'll be two separate action items saving the district total future interest costs of over $1.6 million. And that concludes the presentation unless you have questions. Any questions for Miss Clark? >> Great presentation. Thank you.

094>> Thank you very much. Appreciate it. So, we've heard from Evid. >> You two are safe because we like to save money. >> We've heard from CNI, our custodial and grounds finance. This meeting is going great. >> Yeah. Keep moving. >> How about >> and it's going to continue to go great. >> Wow. What a what a pressure. >> What a setup. >> Welcome, Miss Smith. >> Miss Smith, it's going to be good. I know it's going to be good. >> Welcome the director of student services to give a brief update. We've already had this update once before, but you're getting it again. You may get it again and again because we want to see the trends that are happening. So, thank you, Miss Smith, for being here. Right. This this is board requested um

095to allow for some uh exchange of conversation at the end. So, thank you, Miss Smith. I know this is going to be a good presentation. I've already reviewed. >> No pressure. All right. Good evening, uh President Campy, Dr. for Brian and the board. So, y'all did ask for an update on our personal communications devices since we implemented it in August. Um, and just as a reminder, it is not just cell phones. It's all of those wonderful things that I have up there from earbuds to headphones to cell phones, smartwatches, etc. So, as a reminder, at our August 4th board meeting, we did pass the policy regarding uh the devices during the school day along with the associated consequences. So, for the first uh seven weeks since we've implemented this because again, we started school August

09611th. However, we did give grace that first week since it was going to be an overhaul and a new way of thinking. So we um I started tracking the data the first week uh the week of August 18th and these were the district totals um across the district elementary through high school and the week seven um that is as of this morning. So that is through this this past Friday. I updated it um for y'all uh for this meeting. So, numbers by grade level. Um, as of right now, uh, we've had 12 of the elementary campuses for with a total of 37 cell phones. Uh, the six junior highs have had 292. Um, and high schools have had 1,744. And again, I say cell phones, but it could be smartwatches, um, earphones, um, etc. for

097a total of 273. Um the breakdown for elementary um is there. We've had three elementaryaries that have had students that have had more than one offense. Um so at Harlem we've got one student that's on their second offense. At Highlands Elementary, you've got one and at Pumprey, you've got two students that are on their second offenses. At Junior High, um these are their numbers broken down. And um with the exception of the one junior high Baytown junior, uh most all of the students are at second offense and we've got um a couple at third offense. Um they are at three of the junior highs and the high schools. Um those are broken down um by each high school um along with their offenses. Um the three comprehensive high schools have the larger numbers um with

098Sterling having the most and they're broken down um there as well for you. As a reminder, first offense um is one day ISS. Uh second offense is two. Third offense is three and then your fourth offense is a DAP placement and then subsequent after that. And that's how it's broken down. >> Go back a slide and let >> ask any questions they might have >> or I can go back to any of the slides. >> Yes, sir. It is trending downward. If I go back to that Oops, that one right there. Yes, sir. That's >> and I can tell you the this last the week six um that was a four- day week because we had that Friday the students had off for PLC. So actually the 169 would have been probably a little higher

099but obviously it was a 4-day week that week. So >> are the uh incidents of cell phone usage, pads, whatever, are all of the staff uh adhering to the policy on a daily basis or they just kind of blowing it off if they see a kid on his cell phone or whatever? >> No, sir. They're they're implementing it. Now, I can't speak to the classrooms, >> right? um that would be, you know, up to the administration at each campus. Um but as far as the administrative teams, they are addressing them in the hallways and in the classroom. We do have a few exceptions. We have some of our special needs students who are allowed to wear the noiseancelling headphones, but they have a special sticker on their ID that allows them to wear those. And

100then of course we have our medically documented students, right? >> Um that are allowed either a smartwatch or a cell phone depending on if it's could be a heart condition or diabetic etc. >> And and the kids can if they need to use the phone, they can go to the office. >> Yes, sir. Any office um any grade level office, the front office, the nurse's office, >> etc. So yes, they're allowed to use any phone in the building. >> Is it for emergencies only or? >> Yes, sir. It should be for emergencies only. >> Okay. All right. Well, that's it. That's all I got. >> Okay. >> Uh, so the students are allowed the fitness like watches and things like that if they have a heart condition. >> If it's a documented heart condition, they're

101allowed a smartwatch. We have um, in fact, we have one student that has a heart transplant, >> so he definitely has to have his watch to monitor his heart rate. Um and then our um diabetic students have the Dexcoms, so they have their cell phones to monitor their blood sugar. >> Okay. >> So, >> anyone with hypertension um and again they have a special sticker >> um that they um obtain from the nurse. Okay. >> And those are specifically and the and the teachers know which of those students have those conditions obviously. >> Okay. Um I was just a little confused because like um you know like Apple and and Samsung they they have a disclaimer on their smartwatches saying that they're not medical devices you know so and you should you know talk to

102your doctor obviously about but >> there's a there's a certain app that some of them have downloaded on there for those specific reasons especially our students with hypertension. >> Okay. Yeah. I mean that sounds cool you know safety first and all that. >> Yes. >> Thanks. >> And I think diabetic as well. >> Yes. the um the end result is we've got 20 almost 24,000 students. You have less than well right at 2,000 violations. So less than 10% maybe 8% of the student population only like if I saw it right 10 or 11 students that have violated for the fourth time. >> Um it's 12 total. We've got one at the junior high and we've had 11 total at the high school. So 12 total in the seven weeks. what is the cut off time

103that they can in other words when school is out >> when school is out they're allowed to use it when we implemented it um back on the 4th we had said that it was going to be 30 minutes before school started so for our tier 1 schools it's 650 to 250 uh tier 2 is 7:30 to 3:30 tier 3 is 8:10 to 410 so once the bell rings at the end of the day >> so they can They can they can be walking out of class and calling mom and saying, "Hey, I'm on my way out." >> Yeah. I just wanted to make sure cuz my niece, you know, kind of get on that a little early. I want to make sure I tell them she can. >> It's only only during the instructional day.

104>> It's during the instructional day. So, we did start it once they arrived at school. So, that way there wasn't the argument between breakfast and class. Well, I'm happy to see the numbers are trending down. This isn't just a policy. It's a culture change and it we're we're not unique. This is happening across the great state of Texas. Every school district has gone through what we're doing. >> Um, and Krie, my question to you is, do you think the policy that this board has put in place is sufficient in its current form? And is it working well >> considering? >> Yes, sir. And actually, I do I do think it is because I if the numbers weren't trending down, I feel like that we would be, you know, maybe possibly needing to revisit, but the

105numbers are going down and I think they'll still be going down. No different than when um House Bill 1481 was passed for um I mean, I'm sorry, House Bill 114 for the vapes. When we passed that, or we didn't, but the law did. Um then we we saw those numbers extremely high. I was presenting to you and those numbers were high. They've come down in the last two years tremendously and I think this again will continue to trend down. >> It's a cultural change and it takes time. >> Yes, sir. >> Uh when going back to people my age, when we got in a car when we were younger, we just got in and drove. We didn't think of seat belts. Now we know automatically we just put them on. It's it's the culture change.

106Um >> I'm happy with the results that we're seeing. I thank you for coming and allowing this board to ask questions. It was a great report. You did great. We're five for five. Are there any more questions for Miss Smith? Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. >> You're welcome. >> And that concludes superintendence reports. We'll move on to action items. Dr. O'Brien. 6A. >> 6A. We have a handful of action items. We'll ask you to vote on independently before going. Consent agenda items. Consider and approve an order authorizing the issuance of Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School District unlimited tax refunding bond series 2025A. Setting certain parameters for the bonds. Authorizing the superintendent or chief financial officer to approve the amount, the interest rate, and price including the terms thereof. authorizing the redemption prior

107to maturity of certain outstanding bonds and certain other procedures and provisions related thereto administration brings this to the board for approval. >> I got one question >> after we take a motion. >> Okay, >> please sir. >> I move to approve. >> I second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Clim and a second by Mr. Martinez on item 6A. We've all received this information prior to the meeting. Uh Mr. Samson, go ahead with your question. Sir, >> there's one statement in here cert setting certain parameters for the bonds. What does that entail? I mean, does that mean certain things you can use it for? Uh >> 65. The attorneys are being paid by the letter for that legal caption. >> I'm going to let uh Josh respond to that one. Josh Mclofflin. >> Good

108evening. Again, essentially those parameters are certain items that we have to live under. The main one for the district is a minimum savings amount. >> Okay. For example, for the 206 or 25A bonds that you're considering right now, that minimum savings would be $1 million. We can't move forward unless you save at least a million dollars net of all cost. Uh we also have an interest rate parameter in this order. Uh the interest rate cannot exceed 3.25%. The final maturity cannot go beyond what the current bonds are, which is February 15 of 2030. and we essentially have a year to get this done. The reality is we're trying to get this done over the next few months. >> Okay, but those are the specific parameters. Unless each and every one of those is achieved, the

109district can't move forward with bonet. >> Maybe I may be coming at it wrong. I'm thinking when you say parameters like what can you spend it on? So the purpose of this bond issue is only to refinance a portion of your existing debt. >> So we're not spending any extra money. We're simply issuing new bonds to refinance your existing bonds. >> Okay. Okay. >> That's what I had. That's we >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Yes. >> We've already spent the funds. We're just refinancing the debt now >> for a cheaper rate and saving money. >> Correct. >> Right. And they won't it won't happen unless we do save money. So that's a good guarantee. >> Yes, sir. >> Right. Are there any further questions? >> I'll just stay there till the next one's over.

110>> Might as well sit tight. Um, so we have a motion and a second for item 6A. All in favor, please raise your hand. Seeing 7, four, and zero against. The motion passes. Item 6B, consider and approve the order authorizing the issuance of Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School District unlimited tax refunding bonds series 2025B, setting certain parameters for the bonds, authorizing superintendent or chief financial officer to approve the amount, the interest rate and price, including the terms thereof, authorizing the redemption prior to maturity of certain outstanding bonds and certain other procedures and provisions related thereto. I move to approve 6B. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Martinez and a second by Mr. Clem to approve item 6B on the agenda. Is there any discussion on this one? >> Hearing none. All in

111favor, please raise your hand. Seeing 7 4 and zero opposed, Miss Garcia, the motion passes. 6 C consideration of approval of resolution fixing and levying school district advalum tax rate for the fiscal year 2526 administration brings it to the board recommending approval. What is the pleasure of the board? >> There are so many things I could say right now but I'll just read what the state says I have to say. I move that the total property tax rate be increased by the adoption of a tax rate of $17, which is effectively a 2.9% increase in the tax rate. >> So, we have a motion by Mr. Clim >> and a second by Mr. Martinez. Any discussion on this item? >> Hearing none. All in favor, please raise your hand. Seeing seven four and zero against.

112The motion passes. >> Action item 6D, consideration of consent agenda one, purchasing cooperative contract related fees. Excuse me. >> Oh, we we're excusing the panel. >> Yes. Thank you. I jumped right into business. >> Let's start over on >> consideration of consent agenda number one, purchasing cooperative contract related fees. Two, 90 days 90day extension of CSP number 21-02 for special education equipment supplies and services. Number three, first extension of RFP number 24-0100 for contracted services and related products extended response. Number four, financial advisory services agreement between Goose Creek CSD and Bach Financial Securities, Inc. in all matters in incident and related thereto. Number five, budget amendments administration brings to the board for consideration. Seeing on agenda D1, consent agenda, items D1 through five, are there any items we need to pull for separate discussion? Seeing

113none, what's the pleasure of the board for the consent? Oh, go ahead and I'll let we'll pick >> we'll pull item number three for a separate consideration. So, we're now looking at one, two, four, and five. Are there any others that need to be pulled? What is the pleasure of the board on consent agenda? >> I move to approve consent agenda items 1, two, four, and five as presented. >> A second. >> Have a motion by Mr. Clim and a second by Miss Bars to approve consent agenda items one, two, four, and five. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, please raise your hand. Seeing seven, four, and zero against, the motion passes. Now we'll revert back to item number three. Dr. O'Brien, would you read item number D3, please? >> D3, first

114extension of RFP number 24-01 for contracted services and related products. Extended response. >> What is the pleasure of the board? >> Move to approve. I have a motion by Mr. Clem to approve item D3. Do I have a second? >> I have a second by Mr. Rentry. And now I'll open it up for discussion. Miss Sky. >> So I really just have a comment. I don't really have a question. Um, I just have to say that I it's very I guess disappointing that after questioning a specific vendor that they were continued to be used and like and the amount that we were spending on them almost doubled in a year and um I just feel like that could have been money better used to better serve our students. Dr. O'Brien, can you comment on that

115a little bit? I know we talked a little bit during agenda prep on this item. >> Yes, and I can call someone up here to talk about a specific item, but any item on the approved vendor list may be removed from the uh approved vendor list. Uh considering that we do not find the item um usable for our uh school program. So, uh that is something that can be done administratively. um at a later date or at this time at the board's pleasure. >> My question would be like are we in a contract with them? Do we have like >> being approved as a vendor? As a vendor. So >> vendors may be approved or denied >> um by administration. You're approving the overall list of vendors we can use, but administration has the the

116authority to deny a vendor should a vendor not be providing the services that we need. >> Okay. >> No, we have a motion in a second. We're just discussing it. >> I'm just one person, so I mean I don't know if anybody else Can we just pull it for now till we have >> Go ahead with your discussion, Mr. Samson. >> And and I hate to pull the whole thing because I feel like we we've already pulled it once and I think we've we're past the time where like some of these vendors aren't going to get paid if we don't do something, you know? What are you saying? We should vote onward. >> So, the options are we can go forward with it as a whole or we can uh look at maybe pulling one

117vendor off that approved list and then voting on it. >> It'd probably be best to do that administratively separate apart from this vote. >> Okay. Po p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p pulling one vendor from the listister for administrative. >> Okay, >> are we good to can call for the vote? >> Mhm. >> Okay, so we have a motion and a second on item D3. Um any further discussion hearing? None. All in favor, please raise your hand. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Mr. Martinez, I didn't catch your vote. Okay. I have 64 zero against, one abstension. The motion passes. That concludes consent

118agenda. Yes, sir. Move on to item 6E, future board agenda items, board training, board meetings. Future board agenda items. Are there any items we would like to have brought to the board at a future meeting? >> Um, Mrs. Guy and I would like to request that we revisit uh the property at Highlands Elementary School on the next agenda, please. All right. Any other items? Oh, Miss Guy, are you confirming that? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Good call, Mr. Clemeniz. Uh, okay. Board training team of eight training October 8th that's here in this building. Um, that will be the entire board, Dr. O'Brien and Miss Garcia. And our focus will be on board operating procedures. Is that correct? >> And we're moving forward with that. The next regular board meeting is on November 10th, >> 2025.

119I'd also like to remind the board as we move forward in the search superintendent search process uh toward the end of October, we're going to have a lot of meetings coming up and those will be called uh within the legal time frame and I'll let you know as soon as I know where we're at on that. All right, with that being said, we will now move into item F, closed meeting. The board will now recess into close session pursuant to one or more of the following sections of the Texas Government Code. Sections 551.071, 071, 072, 073, 074, 075, 076, 082, 083, 084, 087, and 089. No action will be taken while the board is in close session. The time is now 7:46 p.m. presentation again. >> Nobody Anybody want to see the cell phone presentation?

120Wait for you. The board will now reconvene into open session. The time is now 8:50 p.m. No action was taken while the board was in close session. We are good. All right, we'll move on to item 6H of the agenda, consideration of personnel. Dr. O'Brien. >> Yes. Administration brings before the board for consideration of personnel. H1, approve elections. H2, accept resignations and retirements. I'll move to approve resignations and um elections. >> I second. I have a motion by Mrs. Guy and a second by Mr. Martinez for H1 and H2. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please raise your hand. Any 740 against? Motion passes. Administration brings before the board H3 approve administrative elections CTE specialist Desiree B. Shankle. >> Move to approve. >> Can you turn your microphone on? Do it again.

121>> Move to approve. >> Thank you. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Clem and a second by Miss Barat Tims to approve item H3A CTE specialist. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please raise your hand. Seeing 74 zero against the motion passes. >> Item seven, consideration possible action regarding the amendment to the superintendent's contract um voluntary retirement agreement including changing the payment date from December 31st, 2025 to January 31st, 2026. >> I'll move to approve. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mrs. guy and a second by Mr. Clem to approve item seven on the agenda. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please raise your hand. Seeing 74 and zero against, the motion carries. Seeing no further business before this board, we are adjourned. The time is

122now 8:52 p.m.