MISD Board Meeting: March 18, 2025

001[Music] this is the March 18th special meeting of the mcgomery Independent School District Board of Trustees I'd like to call the meeting to order please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Al to Def the United States of America to the for it stands Nation indivisible flag St and indivisible Miss alcantar there any registered public comments there are no registered public comments the board will go into close session for the reasons listed on our agenda and we will return shortly we have the GT coordinator conf on also Adra and professional okay got it got it ladies and gentlemen thanks for joining us we are returning from closed session tonight board members I would like to make a motion um I'd like to approve administrative and professional contracts as presented in closed session is

002there a second I'll second thank you Miss Turner all those in favor I oppose Asain that motion carries folks that concludes the the special meeting this is the March 18th regular meeting of the mcgomery Independent School District Board of Trustees I'd like to call the meeting to order ladies and Gentlemen please stand for the invocation and Pledge of Allegiance Heavenly Father we ask that you guide this board guide our administrative team and we ask that you continue to bless our town with the abundance that you have given us as we turn to Spring father we look to all the wonderful blessings you have given us and we ask that you continue to see through the work that we are doing um in your son's holy name amen I pledge allegiance to the flag of the

003United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy andice honor the Tas all right um again thank you for joining us tonight folks Dr ruffen do we have any special recognitions or presentations sure who Mr Marino who you got for us tonight see some singers back there good evening uh board Dr Ruffin uh this weekend we had a birthday a very special birthday uh Montgomery ISD turned 100 years old on March 16th I have to say Montgomery ISD looks pretty good for 100 um so we have some posters around the room from our campuses to celebrate and we have a few um special recognitions and speakers tonight to share a little bit of History uh about our school district but first uh we wanted to

004inv invite the Lake Creek uh High School chamber choir for a performance um they recently uh finished first I'm sorry Mr Carley I'll probably butcher this uh they finished first in the the mixed division choir did I get that right he's shaking his head yes for the first time in school history that's a Hu that's a huge achievement so we definitely want to recognize that so so at this time invite uh Mr Carley and the Chamber choir up for a performance and Bard if you want to come out here take an open seat so you can better enjoy it that would be awesome piure all right good evening y'all so um we're going to sing two pieces for you tonight um the first one is is uh the piece that we opened our set with

005at Festival competition this is called Vision chant and it was inspired by Native American tribes um and we hope that you enjoy [Music] he you [Music] you [Music] [Applause] [Music] my [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] h [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] of [Applause] [Music] all [Music] [Applause] [Music] and since Montgomery is just turned 100 years old we had a little special song for them as well happy birth to you happy birthday to you happy bir de happy birthday to you [Applause] [Music] thank you good stuff gang that was wonderful y'all sound uh amazing I spoke to the two ladies sitting in front of me and I I think I was getting winded for them because they only breathe like twice that whole time so y'all sound great one more round of applause

006for them ladies and gentlemen Dr Ruffin anything else we're going to continue with the celebrations there are countless uh hundreds of individuals who have made Montgomery ISD what it is today and um all year long we'll be celebrating uh Montgomery ISD and the individuals that have made it such an incredible place to live um through videos and social media posts and recognitions uh in the community and uh this video is uh just a quick preview of uh a few of the amazing folks that will be featured through the Centennial recognition happy [Music] birthday Happ birthday Montgomery happy birthday Montgomery happy birthday happy 100th birthday Montgomery [Music] IST happy birthday mcgomery is happy birthday happy birthday mgy happy birthday happy birthday mcgomery s [Music] d and Dr Ruffin and board um absolutely won of the individuals

007who I guarantee if you ask them uh who is a special person in the history of Montgomery ISD uh most people would say Miss Brenda bevon um and she is here to uh give a little bit of history about the school district and present a document uh that details the land transaction to purchase uh location for our first school in 1925 Miss Miss beon can I say one thing before you start you probably know what it's going to be but I'm GNA say that too um so that video y'all just watched and every video that we do in mcgomery and produced it's that little lady sitting behind those two monitors over there miss te will you stand up real quick this lady's phenomenal and she does such a great job with these things so thank

008you Miss deal um so my favorite Middle School teacher is here like my middle school teacher from this District not from them tassy to middle school when I heard he was coming I actually called Berlin and said I think and she said you taught him I did teach him and so on his first day over i w down I said think your Texas history teer looked at me said conat and Dr to superintendent of schools when you were in school and also in addition to that he said he was 38 years old when he became the superintendent of Umble ISD and he wanted me to tell you that too so it was kind of fun talking to him so um I have been in this District on and off because I retired and then I

009rehired and then I retired and then I rehired and then I retired so I've been here for 26 years on and off and uh this has been a great District the history of the town uh is what helps to make this District such a great district and luckily because of all all of the support from the superintendents that we've had on down to all the board members uh keeping the history alive of the uh of the town of Montgomery and putting it into part of our history of our school district and if you'll notice all the district all the um the schools are named so you have lonar Elementary they're either named after the geography of the area or after the history and Lake Creek High School for any of you who are left from

010Lake Creek High School that was part of the original name of Montgomery so just to let you know there does have history to it so why I'm here and also there are members here of the Historical Society who also showed up to do this presentation first of all this document um was given to me and to be taken care of and I did and it was scanned into Sam Houston's uh archives so it will always be protected um the original one was in bad shape so they made a copy and this is it if you look at it carefully you can see some of the original names of the landram family the Connor family the Davis family um and they and the price family which is all of these are names that many of you

011are familiar with and uh they are also listed here this is dated 1848 so Montgomery is celebrating its 100th birthday but in 184 the very first example of um education in Montgomery was on that date and this shows the purchase of the land in order to build Montgomery Academy so uh and that was a long time ago so and that's uh so if you get a chance to come up here and take a look at it I would appreciate it so thank you [Applause] and in uh further celebration um we have some students who at the rodeo the Houston Rodeo livestock my favorite thing is to go look at the art and I love seeing Montgomery ISD um displayed at the rodeo so we have some winners of the rodeo art contest to celebrate so

012I'm going to ask Carrie Fitzpatrick to introduce uh Miss subtles from Keenan Elementary good evening I have been gifted the opportunity to introduce somebody that I have had um the opportunity to go grow very close to the last couple of years in our work together not only is she an amazing individual but she is truly a teacher extraordinaire when you walk into her classroom it's not only about art but it is truly about learning and discovering it is my pleasure to introduce Amy subtles the art teacher at ke in elementary as the fearless leader of our Elementary art team she is going to share some very exciting celebrations that our Mis student MISD students have recently um celebrated hello good evening I never had Miss Bevan as a teacher either but she's really my favorite

013as well she's been in my classroom when I used to teach um in regular Ed and I had her come in and she was telling all these great stories about the history of Montgomery so she's wonderful I love her that a good pick um I would like to have all of the students and their teachers uh and their families come on up if they want to and then while they're heading up I just want to tell youall a little bit about the Houston thank you oh oh I'm in charge of this okay as you introduce just as I go okay um we have been participating in the Houston Livestock Show in r since 2018 um we love it because it separates elementary junior high and high school categories Elementary is allowed to have 10 pieces

014and that's for all seven elementaries we can only have 10 pieces come in and then for secondary it is 20 pieces so these were our winners this year and we have such amazing talent in our school district um these will be be displayed at the Hay Loft at the Houston Livestock Show in Rodeo until the end of the month and then I'll go pick those up I think the plan is to have these pieces of art displayed at the Montgomery District art show next month and on that note I really hope that everyone is able to come out I believe it's April 26th from 10: to 12 we're going to have food trucks um and the kids you'll be able to see so many beautiful pieces of art from such talented artists so we'll go

015ahead and get started um our first person our first winner Aurora Anderson from lonar um Elementary so Aurora won a gold medal um this is her piece here her teacher is Stacy seelbach where's Stacy at hi aora are you Aurora oh hi okay it's beautiful piece next okay I was told to say this with as an Italian Angelina don't tell me okay napoleo did I get it right nap oh Napolitano I knew I was gonna put that gum okay um she is Montgomery Elementary her teacher is Ashley shook um and she won Best in Show which is she gets this wonderful beautiful really heavy trophy um and out of thousands of pieces she was one of our Blue Ribbon winners so congratulations next Hannah Gomez from Montgomery Junior High so Hannah won the Blue Ribbon

016which is yet another really big trophy um the junior high pieces that we had this year were just really unbelievable Mr Yates does a phenomenal job in every piece that he submitted this year was stunning Claire right Claire right where are you hi Claire um Claire is from Montgomery Junior High she got a gold medal um again these pieces were phenomenal you would think that a high schooler had done these they were gorgeous Paige Fitz Simmons where's Paige hi I didn't realize I was sitting right next to you okay um mcgomery High School won Best in Show um and so she also received one of these lovely trophies um her teachers are Susanna Stout and Laura pagee Kerner and Gracin Skelton and I'm where's Gracin at so was this your grandfather oh wow that's a

017beautiful piece so she won a gold medal um and she did this really beautiful sketch of her uh grandfather which was really cool again her teachers are Susanna Stout and Laura paage Kerner okay that was it but they did a phenomenal job I can't wait until next year and I really hope that you guys are able to to make it to our district art show next month thank you leave this here yeah okay te you're fine everybody get okay artist y [Applause] hey neor good to see you across the street thank you that was soti were got it let me get my purse did you enjoy fing to the restom Dr Ruffin are there any additional special recognitions there are none I was going to say um when it comes to our art teachers one

018of the most exciting things I get to do is be on our campuses and go into these classrooms and like Miss shook back there walk into her room and you cannot be excited to be in that classroom um miss subtles that just came and spoke I've got an 8-year-old that wants to ride Bulls play baseball and work cows for a living that's all he ever wants to do and he came home in the summertime and said I want to go to art camp art camp the these teachers pull in and pull on kids interests that don't even know they exist and so I just am so appreciative of the work that they do and I want to say thank you'all for that but no that's it awesome thank you okay folks uh moving on from

019special recognitions we do have a registered public comment tonight so give me just a second um for public comments tonight uh we thank you for registering to speak to the bo to the board this evening so that everyone has an opportunity to speak we ask that you limit your comments to three minutes um there are a limit limited number of instances in which the board can respond to anyone making public comment um we cannot we cannot take any votes or actions based upon public comments and we ask that you please keep comments respectful and focused on the topic that you registered to speak I would like to call Mr Jason drw of Montgomery to the podium to speak on House Bill 3 School voucher School voucher Bill good evening members of the school board I'm

020here tonight as a concerned parent watching as our public education system faces another threat House Bill 3 the school bville is currently being dis baited by our legislature and its consequences could be devastating for our schools our teachers and most importantly our children to quickly summarize the bill would Place tax dollars into uh taxpayer dollars into the education savings accounts allowing some students access to public funds for private school tuition books and other expenses while this may provide a choice for some families uh the reality is that it will drain M funding from public schools leaving them underfunded and enable to provide an education that every child deserves the experiences of other states have made it clear what happens when the public dollars are diverted to private institutions Public Schools suffer especially in low and

021middle- inome in communities where access to private schools and access to the tuition for private schools remains Out Of Reach Beyond immediate financial harm this bill poses a long-term threat to the stability of the teacher retirement system as budgets shrink school districts are forced to cut staff fewer teachers and employees will be paying into the system and even TRS director executive director Brian Guri has already voiced serious concerns about these vouchers and how they could destabilize the pension fund creating uncertainty for those who have dedicated their careers to our schools while we don't know yet exactly how hard TRS will be hit the risk is undeniable um despite having adequate funds available State leaders have refused to increase school funding effectively forcing districts into Financial strain I've been attending these Schoolboard meetings for a long

022time and I've seen firsthand how hard this board works to navigate the state's lack of support and yet rather than providing real solutions legislators continue to push an agenda that undermines our schools while offering no real benefit to the majority of Texas students let me be clear these vouchers are unpopular in Texas I spoken to many parents Educators and community members who are deeply worried about what this means for the future of public education in the state this this isn't just a policy debate it's about the future of our children and about the stability of our communities our the school board to take a firm stand against these vouchers be The Advocates that our students and teachers need recognize that this policy would harm Student Success destabilize unemployment and further erode trust in public education

023system and most importantly please don't align yourselves with the legislators who are pushing this harmful agenda if we hear strong words against the vouchers from the board members but then we see photos of them smiling alongside those who seek to dismantle public education it will come across as a betrayal with the Schoolboard elections around the corner we want to know that our school board represents us the families and Educators who depend upon our Public Schools even if the bill passes knowing that the school board stood in defense of public education will mean everything now is not the time for pleasantries or small disagreements now it's time to take a stand thank you thank you Mr J uh board members we'll move now to consent agenda is there a board member that wishes to pull a

024consent agenda item for discussion hearing none is there a motion on consent agenda thank thank you Mr Cameron is there a second thank you Mr W all those in favor I I opposed abstained consent agenda carries uh action items action I'm 6A consider approval of CTE a science center name as presented all right Mr Marino popular tonight um I've been waiting three and a half years for this moment I uh just thinking uh reflecting back when we first initially had conversations about the 2022 Bond and CTE being a huge component of it um it was just a thought and now that we see the buildings coming in and we're recommending names it just really goes full circle and we're really excited uh for this evening and this next step in this important process to opening

025these buildings um so like every um building opening um and naming a building there we have a process uh we formed a committee in January U the committee was about 25 folks um that reflected both feeder patterns um they met twice um to develop a recommendation we put out a districtwide survey and we're bringing those recommendations to you tonight uh on the committee were parents from Lake Creek and Montgomery High School we had four students who were absolutely incredible um just can't over can't understate that enough they they were uh they added so much value to that to that work uh we had um District level employees and campus principal from each feeder pattern and members of our um Bond subcommittee of our board and we had um an assistant principal and CTE teachers from

026each High School uh participate on the committee um first meeting we went through uh the site design of both buildings to just give them some context on uh what would be featured within the buildings and sort of the the layout of the of the whole complex and and each facility we reviewed U board policy there are uh guidelines within the board policy that um spell out how buildings in Montgomery ISD um are to be named um and then we participated in a uh thought exchange uh it's a program we have to get input from community and staff um we asked them sort of what um themes would be important for them in the names of the facilities uh we put out a districtwide survey from February 21st um through March 2nd that asked um for

027input from the community on the themes and values they wanted to see in the names of the buildings and we ask for recommendations um that's also a part of our Bo board policy um is to collect input from the community on a name for the facility and why so we we followed the policy um in that regard the second meeting um of the committee on March 6th we reviewed the input collected through District the districtwide survey looked at all the names um our program that we use thought exchange allows us to pull out what were um the most recommended name um through the through the survey um we had a discussion um each member of the committee had an opportunity to um share their thoughts reflections of what they saw in the survey and make

028a recommendation and state their C cases on why they recommended that name and then we held it to a vote um just a traditional vote and for both fac we landed on a recommendation for both buildings but also for the entire complex which was really exciting um the sorry the vote for all three um was majority um to if you took the rest of the um recommendations the votes didn't add up to the to what the majority vote was so for the mcgomery ISD CTE Center the recommendation is the Montgomery ISD Career and Technical education center for the a science center the recommendation is the Montgomery ISC Agricultural Science Center and those uh will the higher complex it was recommended to be referred to as the den uh discover explore navigate um the names of

029the two buildings that we're recommending reflect the feedback in the survey those were the two most recommended names in our community survey so with that I'm happy to answer any questions about this process board members any questions I just want to make um one comment um being on that committee um the thing that really resonated with me and stuck out with me is when the name got thrown out there for the den the the four students the high school students um it just the their eyes lit up and to be able to to have a place that they can just go to that they they say we're going to the den it's they've just resignated with it and they were um for the two from Montgomery High School and two from Lake Creek High School

030um they just couldn't quit talk they talked about it all night long um they just wouldn't quit so um that was probably just just seeing their input and seeing how they resignated and to think that that's how the rest of their fellow classmates at both campuses um will think about it as well it was um it was pretty inspiring I just want to say thank you for going through this process I'm so glad that we have a process in place to follow each time we have a facility that's going to open um that we need to name and I love that you gather so much information from so many people across the community and in our schools um so that they feel that ownership when we when we name this so is that the official

031logo got taken down this this is an initial uh branding concept um we're still working on fin final analyzing The Branding concepts for both buildings um but we wanted to share this tonight to get everybody excited about the name for the complex can you elaborate on I was also a part of this committee so I know the answer but can you elaborate on how we got to that name sure um we discussed naming both buildings um and they were traditional conservative names that were recommended uh by not only through the survey but this group agreed um but we wanted something that was um like Eddie mentioned something exciting for the kids and the community sort of talk about where we're going we're going to the den so we looked at possibilities for an acronym you

032know an acronym was something that was was brought up by the committee in the first meeting is having a meaningful acronym that we talk about um as getting as an exciting meeting place or somewhere that's um you know we we brand it and so we came up with the Den because we have bears and we have Lions and the Bears Den the Lion's Den and we uh came up with the words discover explore navigate as um you know just as as words that talk about you know looking at career opportunities and um discovering opport opportunities post uh High School into the college or career and exploring different um different Avenues uh post high school and then getting with um possible employers to navigate Futures so those words really resonated with everybody on the committee and

033um it was ex really exciting to see the students sort of jump at that and start advocating for it when it was brought up as an idea thank you all right any other questions all right hearing none is there a motion I'll make the motion to consider approval of the all right thank you Mr W is there a second I'll second thank you Mr Rob all those in favor I opposed obain that carries n unanimously thank you for all the hard work that has gone into naming this world class facility all right information items uh 7A employee benefits all right so um first I want to give a shout out to miss Shon and Johnson out there who is in our HR department and coordinates all of our benefits and uh it's not an easy

034job um but we've got uh Mr John Leed better here with us to talk about our benefits um trustees it's something that we we really have to remain cognizant of because uh if you want to think about the rising cost that we've faced uh with inflation and the bills we have to pay as a district unfortunately our employees continue to face Rising costs in their Healthcare benefits um I got friends of mine that are in the private sector and when when they complain about their health care what their premiums are and things like this I said well listen what ours are and they are shocked and Blown Away um and unfortunately Mr Le better will'll get into little more detail um it's just something we really need to be cognizant of uh and make sure

035that we're doing absolutely everything we can for our employees to get them in the best position possible so thank you for being here thank you Dr ruin uh John Leber um hien Botham we've um I've partnered with Montgomery ISD since 2009 as your benefits consultant um my team partners with sioban Lin's team and Denise's team to um come out and deliver education Enrollment Services uh put together the complete benefit package that your employees walk through during open enrollment open enrollment um goes into a live active enrollment goes into uh action July and it goes into effect September 1 and so all the benefits your employees elect going to effect September 1 that's the plan year this is a Blue Cross Blue Shield medical report for just medical uh with medical and Pharmacy together inside you'll

036see on the cover it runs uh a period of the start date of September 1 through February and so I just wanted to highight highlight that because during this uh just brief Insight overview you're going to see the September one through February compared to Prior here so on some of the pages that we'd like for you to look at page four if you look at that top bracket of medical subscribers 804 that's been your employee account that enroll into the medical out of all your employees 800 and about close to 800 and that was the average last plan year as well um total members with spouses and children 1300 close to, 1400 if you go down to the bottom I kind of high if you follow the yellow highlights enrollment by tier you'll see there's

037just one small little light blue line and that's employee plus spouse so very few employees add their spouse because the cost is close to $900 or 1,00 for the options uh for you to select if you want to just add your spouse only um so spouses in all of Texas uh in most of all the school districts we work in the percentage is extremely low because of the cost for spouses to add them to the medical plan um you'll see the gender uh it is heavily weighted towards the female gender and that's uh really the average across the state we work in 550 school districts so um when I reference the state we have a pretty good understanding of of of the enrollment and the ages and uh the demographics you'll see an average age

038I thought you know sometimes the data points might not mean anything to the medical itself but it's good to understand where your employees the age brackets and and where they average out and I think it's good to know the enrollment as well um if you turn to page six this is the financial summary page I highlighted group liability breakdown that is going to show you from a Medical paid claims and Pharmacy paid from September 2023 to February 2024 so the same uh set of of months of last plane year to this plane year you see an increase and that is the trend you're going to see in all the numbers if you were to compare what it was last plane year to this plane year just the trend itself is going up in cost um

039claims cost could be inflation definitely is having an impact medical claims as well um and that's not related to your employees going out of network so when I look at Dental claims and I look at vision claims they are extremely high and they're high because a majority of employees choose to go out a network so you're not uh the the claim is not a contracted rate so you you have to pay more for those claims that go out of network uh dentists and eye doctors charge more uh than they and they don't want want to take the network right because they have to reduce their cost and and what they receive but with Blue Cross Blue Shield in your plans two of them the majority of employees are enrolled in the hmos so there is

040no aut of network coverage there's only one option which is the high deductible option which is a PO and so um I just want you to kind of resonate with that as you kind of see claims and then if you look at the medical and Pharmacy loss ratio page page seven you almost could land on this page um and this is the trend and it was the trend last year um when the first year we implemented Blue Cross Blue Shield for September one of 2023 that the claim loss ratio runs higher than the premiums and so technically last year we ended up at the end of August 31st of 2024 the loss ratio was 127% and Blue Cross wanted to pass a rate increase of 35% but we had negotiated when we initiated the contract

041with Denise and shobon delin and when we were were finalizing it a 10.5% rate cap in year two so Blue Cross could not raise the rates higher than 10.5% based on the contract um when you look at the medical claims so if you look at the columns by month from March of 2024 to February and you look at your monthly premium it it's 500,000 and it went up in September to what 550,000 so it went up 10% that I mean that that's where your 10% is it it added ,000 to the premium uh per month but the claims you'll see with medical and Pharmacy adding up in the total paid um exceeds that in most of the months now there can be a a little bit of a a rainbow a little bit of a

042light that you see in in February your claims came down to 74% and so that is a positive that shanell and I have been really hoping to see is maybe a little Trend down in the claims that will help okay um I highlighted and and you could scan through this your leisure there's a lot of information in it but just to kind of keep it based on the medical claims expenses page number 10 the expensed distribution this highlights paid claims how many claims are less than $200 and how many total claimants and so that first set of brackets up in the top is less than 200 all the way down to 30,000 to 50,000 where you're starting to get into a high cost claim okay and when you're looking at your medical really medical not

043dental medical you're looking at high cost claims the ones that that start to hit 50,000 and above those are the ones that you focus in on from an underwriter perspective and an actuary they're looking at the high cost claims and they're looking at the specialty drugs because if you look at your thousand claimants in that first bracket they're a total of 56% of your claims majority of them are under a thousand 863 so your medical is wide open for employees to receive any prescription and any medical service that doesn't have any exclusions to it maybe other than um if you wanted to get plastic surgery or something something that's not medically necessary okay so that's why we have a medical plan it it doesn't exclude anybody no matter what their condition and so it's an

044all for one and a one for all and that's what you have to buy into um and maybe that's my opinion of it um as a as a group if you look at the bottom category what does it tell you eight members equal 43% of the claims and that's not abnormal so you're not seeing anything that's just just mcgomery istd the state is self-funded you're not self-funded you're fully insured you're not exposed to any risk okay and and the state itself TRS is sees the same Trends and and sees the same high cost claims um because the cost of of insurance is continually increasing and the treatments that are available for all of us are so Advanced that the cost of those treatments are increasing uh there's another page if you were to turn um

045to I want to take you to um page 19 some of you might not have that page this is for you guys just page 19 it shows you um specialty drugs and it shows you the green how that bar on the green has gone from the blue bar has increased and and that so the insight to this report is there's a little bit of hope that February ran at 74% um but the plan from last year continues into this year where the claims are running hot so our goal and we've met in a timeline would be we want one more month of claims and the goal is is uh to see claims through March and then we go out to bid and we have a bid timeline where I put out a bid on the

046market and we send it out to all the top carriers uh any pro program that has a program available for you to possibly join um we bring those assemble those results that meet your criteria as a school district um and we review those and we bring it down to some finalists that would be an option because we don't have the Blue Cross renewal Blue Cross can wait until June to provide us a renewal and that's just the control they have uh you can't force them to give you a renewal they have to give it to you within 45 days of the plan your starting and so we will go out to bid is the is the plan that we've set in place and we will hopefully March's claims we'll also we see a positive number

047a low number which will benefit give actuaries and Underwriters an opportunity to to get aggressive and and give us some better options than what blue crosses renewal could be um but I want to say this your employees they can go you know the network they go to their providers and so we would not compromise on where they can go and how they have to seek treatment um where they have to call and get uh approval and things like that we've experienced that before uh so we know that this this model has been a very SU successful model um where employees don't have to make phone calls to get approval for to be able to go have a surgery or something like that so we will be looking at a very similar model um with United

048Health Care with Sigma uh with some platforms out there that are pull programs but they don't have risk on any of the member districts so there's there's some Avenues we can look at and that's what I had to share today unless I miss something shanan was my backup she was supposed to you got great you've got great backup I do have one question Mr Li um can and not for tonight but at some point can you help us get a better picture of those providers that are in our ZIP code that we have to choose from because I've I hear a rumor from a lot of teachers that they just don't really have someone here to pick they have to go to another town is that something we can get in the nearest Future sh

049well at the very start of enrollment what we usually do like John was saying before if we decide to select another provider we kind of look at all of the providers in this area that they're currently seeing to make sure that they would be able to see those same doctors so I'm not sure um we I'm sure we did that for blue CR shell but what you're referring to as not being able to see the local providers you know they should but I will say this and John you can speak on this as well sometimes doctors you know are unable to take new patients that's one of the things that we have seen with one doctor locally not that he's not in network it's just simply he's full gotta it's one of the doctors that

050a lot of the local people like to see and at any time they can say hey we're at capacity and so right now we are not accepting your patients and that can open up the next one they like okay we we can accept the patient so but for if we do decide to make any changes we will definitely make sure that in the zip codes locally that they won't have to travel far you know to see and and to that to shalin thank you sholan that's excellent that's what I would have said we can provide you a a provider report um for this ZIP code and and maybe just the neighboring zip codes right here actually I think shanin answered my question well enough there's no need for that followup we would search the providers

051we would receive a disrup report from Blue Cross um and they'll provide that to us and to chandolin and then we submit that out with the bid specs so that any carrier that's going to send in a a proposal they have to match their Network up and do a disruption report so we would be able to identify any gaps in in that Network all right any questions I have a couple questions is it normal for a two-year contract is that typically what we go out for uh to to lock in and then is it normal to have that Max rate that they can go up like you said 10 and a half% well um so blue like the State Medical if I referenced it just as an example the state can increase the rates across

052every region but can't go above 10% based on some guidelines that they have put in place in legislature but they can increase a certain region more than 10% because they can provide uh another region lower than 10% in the fully insured Market it's a 12-month usually it's a 12-month Market you will get carriers right now that are opportunistic and will offer you a two-year rate guarantee or a one-year rate guarantee with a second-year rate cap and so that is um what we see in the market and what's causing these numbers these claim numbers to go up and down is there trends that are showing why they're they're higher or why they're lower like you said in February we were down to 75 yeah there's a page in there that I didn't reference to you but

053you would see it it's a high cost claim it page and so there are claims asso the the dollar amounts Associated to some very large claims are what are in this program that so there's not anything any different from one uh District of Montgomery to maybe Conroe from normal claims but a high cost claim it is going to be one that exceeds 200 500 up to a million dollars over a million dollars and you have experienced that all right any other questions on the premiums is there a certain point how many members you have that the price changes well it's it's more about how they can sprad spread their risk over the the total population to the total claims so if you're a if you're a burkville and you have 50 employees but only 25

054of them enroll they opted out of TRS and um it wasn't good for them um because after year one they got a substantial rate increase and so it's hard for them to fight off that so definitely your numbers at a, um you know you have 800 employees enrolled is a good percentage of your employees it's able to spread the risk um the risk is exceeding your premium of 550,000 a month it's a to me it's just a it's it's a number it's a it's a law of numbers and so the averages in the claims are increasing above that premium so they're going to your premiums need to increase if you were to make plan changes um if you look there's another page in here that I handed out that has out-of pocket expenses you'll see

055that very little of the claims is paid by the employees because the deductible is 1,200 or 2500 their max out of pocket is 5,000 so the member really in the grand scope of how much they're really at risk compared to the medical plan that is on the burden of the whole group as it adds up is very little per member and if we started let's say well let's make some medical plan changes to get more to pass it on to more of the members which you have to do that sometimes TRS has done that um with a higher out of pocket maximums and lower co- insurances so the member has to pay more when they go it still doesn't add up because the claims are going to be the claim when you have a high

056cost claim and you have prescriptions I don't know if that has there ever been like an alliance between other districts to combine together as one customer yes sir how did that work um it can fail miserably okay it can put districts at some serious risk why so why why yeah um that would be typically because the funding of the plane has to be affordable enough for a group to have the appetite to join and then when the group joins and the claims of the group exceed the premiums the group's responsible for paying that difference and you're not going to get a fully insured pull you're going to get a self-insured pull which means that self-insured pools come with reinsurance and reinsurance is just another expense it's it's covering the roof the roof is the ceiling

057but who has to pay the claim and until it hits the roof the districts have to pay the claims and so it's an exposure to some upfront dollars that you have to have liquid because you have to pay claims until you're reimbursed once it hits the reinsurance and then you're exposed for an unlimited amount that your District would be open up to so they have been there have been co-ops uh interlocs uh consortiums in the state um we will We I I have one that we will submit it to uh that has districts and we I'm not opposed to you guys seeing any option I don't control the options that you're going to see you're going to see whatever option meets the criteria and is viable and I want you to select the best option

058for you that that I have no um other desire to help you guys other than that so I want to protect you is what I would say is I will you know so that everybody's aware of what contract you're entering into and where the risk is and that is there any neighboring districts that as part of the co-op that you know of um or can you say no I I mean I would share it with you I don't I don't know of any districts that Umble might Umble as part of a a Consortium but Umble when you're part of some of these consortiums you're still rated based on your experience what you're what you're joining in is more of what kind of they consider a captive they're able to lower lower the expenses because they

059have a group of of employers so they can go out to bid for reinsurance and get a better quote on reinsurance because they're using the block to but but each group is still rated based on their individual claims and will have different premiums than other groups in the C so they don't all have the same premium and so that could be an option that you would consider um it's based on your risk tolerance and so and you know what that goal is and so we would we would provide those options from the results and I think I'd like to see the comparison just to see it yeah I think whenever we put it out for bid we'll get those back right um as long as they meet the criteria of what like going out for

060a you know RFP or RFQ for RFP for vehicles right as long as they fit the criteria what the RFP is it's it's something we can consider um I have a question so so the and we we've talked previously a Insurance Group will look at that 10 whatever 12 month snapshot of what our um loss ratio part of it is right and what are if if we want to look at a path of doing what we can do to control that the best we can um and and get on a path to lowering premiums or at least not be subject or put ourselves in a position to have such a large loss ratio there things that we can do to incentivize a certain one of our plans that we offer so I know there's a

061high deductible there's the HMO there's these things is there one of those that we're better off maybe incentivizing employees to go with by funding it differently or or our contributions to help impact this at all outside the box Creative Solutions anything like that yeah no I think that that's a great question um employers try to find a way to maybe steer employees um into a plan that tends to maybe run better um and that would be the high deductible plan and as an employer you can put an incentive that any employee that signs up for the high deductible plan you would um maybe make a deposit into an HSA account uh you would maybe be able to bundle um some protection from a supplemental plan that you could overall purchase for anybody that picks that

062high deductible plan so that they could have money going into an HSA account a little bit of protection for Hospital andity those are little Hospital Indemnity plans that you at bolt on um you know your plan already has tella health so members can utilize tella Health um built into the bluec cross plans but there would be uh a few things that you maybe could steer members into a plan and that plan could run better because uh members that are in that plan um are going to have to pay the deductible upfront and the other two plans have co-pays and are kind of user friendly um you can raise the out-of- pocket maximums on your plans you can adjust the co Insurance on your plans and it'll add it'll decrease they'll take some loads off of

063your premium by making some plane adjustments I have one other question and I think this is really the the one that most of our staff would ask is what and I I would never hold you to anything it's more just of hypothetically thinking what are we looking at on an increase in premiums as we move forward 10% 20% um next year just so that we can plan um when we work on our budget for next year and how we're going to compensate how we can array that we're contemplating on giving our staff and so on and so forth what should we figure that the um the cost of an insurance premium going up in the coming year and I'll add on to that is there any possibility would stay the same or even if we

064shopped around reduce our plan do you see do you foresee that at all well yeah I mean I think that um you know we alluded to hopefully seeing March might go down it might not um when we go out to bid you're going to have carriers that are more than more willing to to pick up this business so you might see a 25% increase um in that range you could with a two-year rate guarantee so you might be able to negotiate you know 20 to 25% increase but a two-year rate guarantee um and they they can offer some concessions as well um and I think you know if you're 135% over you're 35% over 100% And that would mean that they still are at a severe loss and so they would prefer to be running

065at 70% and um and so you're you're running at 130 and so we I don't I wouldn't want to paint a picture until we get results back it could be 25 to 30% 30 35% I just want to confirm just because I'm you know first year in the board we are lock out of going back to the the TRS for another three years correct we were five years total from my understanding you know without hoping on maybe um a bill because there is a bill out there 2911 um you whether that bill if it's passed and what the eligibility is it's it's designed to allow groups in one year early okay Senate Bill 2911 so that could be two years then instead of three years or House Bill 29 house bill um because we're on

066our second year correct so that would mean that you're you're going to you're going to start this September um so you opted in or opted out and started your new planer out on September one of 2022 so that plan year runs your second plan year was September one of um you're in your third plan year right now now and then we'll start the fourth planer September 1 of 2025 okay it I called Katrina she says you can come back in on September 1 of 2027 so it's if they let you in a year early you'll be able to go back in September one of 2026 okay thank you and so what we're what we would go out to bid for would be to replace or put Blue Cross into a position that they would lower

067their increase uh to not lose it but most likely you would see favorable options from another carrier because they're going to be more eager to win the business and put a two-year rate guarantee Blue Cross is not going to put another twoyear rate guarantee um and you can see that getting you through to 2027 you know if you were trying to plot it out if it didn't turn and um in and the claims projection if it does you know if it starts to turn and go down you'd be able to start making maybe a different decision on whether you wanted to opt back into TRS because you can do it from one year to the next your claims are going up the height of your claim loss ratio is related to high cost claims and

068so we will we will do every effort to make sure you guys see that every result that would be out there on the market that would be a viable option for you I'll make sure of that and that's what I do so that's not anything different all right board members any any other questions John shandan thank y'all that's all that we can ask is that you do the best by our staff and help us make a wise prudent decision um and that we consider all options um and negotiations moving forward so yes sir thank you thank you all right information item seven b Department update Athletics all right I'll welcome our our brand new athletic director coach the plant down to give us first update welcome man Dr FY Dr Ruffman thank you for giving

069me a moment to really not talk about me it is my update but it's talking about our coaches and community and and more importantly the the kids and what what they're doing I've had a a good chance to uh to see a lot of things that that they've been doing but coming into this uh I did have a plan of of who I felt I needed to have meetings with uh get face Toof face time and just create those relationships to make sure that the good things that we've been doing uh here in MISD Athletics uh continue so you see the list of people anywhere from one-on ones with uh Dr Ruffin to you know group meetings with my four High School uh coordinators and and down to uh Partners in in this building who

070have uh been awesome to me and helped me uh uh stay online and and stay in task and so you'll see uh our department kind of change over to a a theme or a motto of of building Champions well well what is it um the logo at the bottom of that stool I'd like to uh reference that is part of building Champions so the stool represents each kid in our program and you have three legs in that stool uh you've got the athlete leg you've got the coach in the school Community leg uh and the family those legs all support the student athlete we all know that if one of the legs fails the stool Falls so we want to make sure that within uh our school Walls Within our our kids our coaches our

071teachers our our principes along with our student athletes and their families we all need to have that shared investment to do awesome things uh for kids and so as far as building Champions core values love discipline integrity and pride if we are making decisions based on those four values we're going to be just fine and that's coaches and kids that's definitely coaches and kids but you know being uh positive and making great choices daily Positive Choices generally have uh positive results so coaches and kids should be leading and impact each other you know if a kid sees somebody down the uh the ninth grade Hall having a bad day we expect them to pick them up even if they've never met that kid before could be a senior and a freshman that that's what building

072Champions is being that best person there and it's a lifestyle of giving your uh best but also investing in others and it's not just on the athletic field it's in the classroom it's in the community but certainly in the competition uh Arena as well but one of my goals uh of building champ is just to make sure that that every kid in our program every coach in our program has a positive experience well if we're all making those daily positive uh impacts on each other and great choices we know good things will happen so that that's definitely a goal of of building Champions prior to the uh the break I'm sure my employees were happy with this but I did give them a little little homework gave them a gave them a survey but but

073it was it's important to me and it's important to to our culture so I wanted to get to know them and certainly I've already had met with the coaches uh a large group on the Lake Creek Side a large group on the Montgomery side and and certainly I've seen them at at games and practices and in the uh the athletic period but I want to know about their family more you know spouse kids dogs what have you but I want to know why they've been here what they've been doing here other places that they've been years in education just to to get to know more about them and then get some input back you know what are good things that we're doing here what are some things that you know if I give you uh

074three wish list items what can you get to do your job better so that that employee feedback and input is going to be uh very important for me to help retain our great people and we're going to lose people there's going to be an assistant coach that's going to go uh be a great head coach down the road it's inevitable they're they're going to leave our uh but we need to retain those people we know that but then the other part about it is with that input the next person that comes in how are we going to recruit the best uh to come here uh but building culture was definitely a part of that uh survey just because they need to know that they're important to me you know it's tough to be over four

075buildings and get that one-on-one time so for them to have value coming back to me in print uh is important so I'll be reading that over the next uh couple weeks but they need to know that they're important that the job that they do uh is important and that it does not go unnoticed I did have the opportunity to make between 20 and 30 uh campus visits and uh just some goals with that you know just observe I want to see the good things that our kids and our coaches uh are doing in their realm and their exciting Place uh they need to know that I support them uh that I plan on being visible and that's at all of our uh campus you know to make sure that the Seventh Grade B team is

076just as important at the varsity they're all kids they're all having fun uh they're all doing extra we know the hours that those coaches and those kids are are are putting in so it's important to be visible and and promotee those kidss also on social media that's that's a big thing for uh for those kids and it's it's a place for me where I'm not with those kids every day to bridge the gap you know they they research me and they find out hey you're from Minnesota well hey do you know the coach at Northern Iowa I see you know coach fricky well just to bridge that uh has been very important and uh not only have I've been able to uh be in uh you know waight rooms and and offseason and inseason and

077and be at games and and be in maybe summer strength planning um times I also did as as the picture shows get to go to the the fourth grade classroom over there at uh at Stewart Elementary and uh that was probably I've slept good all nights believe me it's it's been uh awesome soaking in all the good things but after an hour and a half with those fourth graders I slept very well uh that night but uh that brought me back to 2001 because I was an elementary teacher back in 2001 so that was uh one one day that was awesome of many here but uh takeaways from from my visits okay let start with the athletes okay they work hard we have great kids here we have great kids here it doesn't matter if

078it's a weight room session if they're in a classroom session they're intentive they're intentional uh they want to get better they want to get coached hard they take coaching and that's why we see the level uh that we do uh I think they compete you know I was originally supposed to start on January 15th then I started to look at the game calendar the night before it was mowtown Showdown on the 14th with our basketball team so sorry honey I'm going one day early I have to see this it it was one of the best cross town Rivals that I had seen from number one compete hard but number two respect each other and just seeing people and of course I was only in one gym at at the end of a game but to

079see the way that people interacted that was exactly what we would expect you play hard you have fun when it's over it's over and we go back to being community members that was that was awesome uh to see uh then when you get to uh to our coaches okay number one they love kids and I think they're kid magnets and they have the best interests uh in mind as I go around to the uh the four buildings I think they coach them hard and they coach them every chance that they get whether it's just be behind the line or we're doing something at uh the free throw line or again I probably was in three classroom sessions you just talking philosophy or uh awesome character development things and then uh I I think they're they're

080detail oriented and they've got a plan for our kids and that was great uh to see uh then lastly uh on this one here with the parents and Community Support certainly the uh the slide there that's you know I've been to a lot of high school softball games and they've been cross town Ries or they've been one Horse Town against the the neighboring school it's been a rival that's the biggest crowd that I've ever been to uh at a softball game that was awesome to see it was electric uh it was good but that's what our our people here are it's great support and and you know as I go around and talk to uh our coaches uh about our our families uh they're involved and they give so they they love our families and

081what they're doing and our coaches have a lot of respect for for the community here I think our numbers are great they are absolutely great to walk into uh first period down at one of the uh junior highs and see 142 lined up taking attendance and getting ready to go that is great numbers i' I've seen some middle schools before that are in the the 70s and we've doubled that those are those are great numbers it's a problem when it comes to tryouts we understand that but overall our our uh numbers are are really really great uh we do have some facility challenges certainly we've got some fun going on with with Brad and his team with construction and summer planning at camps and different things but our our team is doing a great job

082with that and we've got a great plan U moving forward we've got some programs that uh maybe don't fit in all the weight rooms or they may have have an outside group and inside group and our coaches are doing a great job with that we do have some aging uh facilities that's probably no secret to anybody here and and we had some fun I think it was two Tuesdays ago about 9:00 a.m. where we ended up with a uh a high jump mat up in the goalpost at uh Montgomery Junior High and some different things so jump to jump it jumped it got up there it got up there so we're assessing that right now and we've got some some teamwork going on with with the egg Department trying to weld some uh um some

083crossbars there and uh some track things because we really only have one set of P Vault standards that we can use right now for competition so we got a team it up and we'll have to travel W with some of those and get some of those uh ready for competition but uh I would really like to uh to compliment uh the people in this building um I still don't have all the hallways and and offices and and rooms uh memorized here and thank God there's a map in our office there but Jill and Lori have absolutely taken care of me uh and help me out a bunch but you know it doesn't matter what the department is from from facilities to to HR to to communication to finances we've got some great people here so

084if they don't have the answer they're telling me who does if they don't have it right then they'll get back uh I may call them and say hey is there a time today or tomorrow that's good for you how about right now I'll come down to your office that is outstanding to be around uh those people that will give to each other uh day in and day out and and they're great listeners I don't always get a yes I'm already asking for things I'm I'm not expecting a yes but but they're listening and they want to find a way to yes or or give a better uh better situation so continuing on with with people here and and again this is this is a seventh grade group uh that was at uh Montgomery Junior High

085that was their uh their summer planning uh for the for the strength and and conditioning so just seeing all of our coaches okay they want to be the best they they give to kids okay they definitely want to impact others in a positive fashion their hard work transfers over to the kids it's it goes back and forth it's so good to see and I just love our people here that are uh just genuine I can't talk about our people enough but when you talk about our principles our assistant principles our teachers and everybody that that really is with the kids daily uh when you watch them and You observe them they're invested in our kids and even the people that you know maybe work in this building that we have to leave to go to

086a campus to to go interact with those kids that same investment is there just in in a uh in a different role but U you know talking to those kids there uh that was important for them I think to hear from me about what summer training is because everybody gets the athletic period everybody in the state of Texas is getting that so whatever those minutes are it's the same but what are we doing outside of the athletic period because some kids in some communities are going to sit their rear end on the uh couch all summer and they're going to come back and they're going to have soft tissue injuries all fall but our kids won't I know our kids are are committed and they're going to they're going to have a great summer here

087uh as we plan so as I went around and and made the visits and and just thought about things that that I've done whether it's been at the Collegiate level or at the high school level in the directing job uh some things that I plan uh in the months and in school years to come here uh and Implement here the first thing just athlete of the month I want to celebrate our kids that's going to be an easy one to uh Implement next year all four of our buildings and get coaches recommendations and get great words uh to talk about our kids and and really highlight them and it's not always going to be you know the kid that hits the home run or the kid that scores 27 points it's probably be a kid

088every now and then that that has all a and just is that glue player that keeps everybody together we want to highlight those kids that's a great chance to do that I also want our community to know who our coaches are so we'll talk about a coach's Spotlight so so people know hey where did you go to college why are you in this profession what is your why why are you giving to kids all these hours that you are I feel a mentoring program for our coach coaches uh is very important that's something that I've done a one-on-one and it might be a volleyball basketball coach it might be a 17-year veteran with a seconde coach how they can bounce things off each other and you know it's just it's just difference bouncing things off

089a here than maybe it is a supervisor so it's it's been good where I've I've been also our younger coaches in particular first year coaches U when we get them in the district to properly uh give them support uh because it is overwhelming your first couple years until you get the hang of it um thsca I'd like to highlight that seat at the table okay all across the state in and the nation uh it's hard to keep uh female coaches you see a lot of male volleyball coaches a lot of male uh girls uh basketball coaches so the T gsca does a program called seat at the table uh and I'm going to bring that to uh to Montgomery where we support and Empower our our female coaching staff I've already talked to two of

090our crafty veterans that helped me plan up that night and and definitely do good things uh with that and I think that's important to retain our our awesome lady coaching staff but then retain uh a group in uh as well and then uh other professional development opportunities whether it's resume review you know everybody does a head coaches Academy but not everybody wants to be a head coach somebody out there just wants to be the best assistant that there is or maybe they want to go down to the middle school and coordinate something there and not be a a head softball coach at at the high school level but different uh opportunities for every employee to uh to get better there and and I I think the other thing that's best to come about our kids

091is going to the continued academic success wins championships and you know I was here right away in February when we had a signing date has a lot of kids then to come to find out how many I missed last fall you know when you have six or seven golfers going you know to different places that's that's a great thing uh for our kids but it was uh great to get around meet people uh invest in relationships uh in this building um see parents uh at games uh have seventh graders already knowing me by name because I've been to a couple basketball games and seeing them at the athletic period I mean that's that's what I want to create and I want our coaches uh to follow that and we've got great coaches and and they

092will as well in that uh that all relationship business that we're in and building the uh building Champions culture and Athletics here at Montgomery ISD all right thanks coach llant any questions I I have a couple real quick how do we first I want to compliment you on um I've seen you at a lot of these uh events and I just seeing your face there seeing you be visible it's just uh it's a welcome site and we really really appreciate that um the the real question is how do we create an environment to where we encourage uh multisport athletes it's funny you asked that we uh talked about the other day we're going to create a t-shirt for the multi- uh student athlete and it's going to be a big thing that we as coaches

093have to promote and again I I'll it's hard to come in at the uh the middle of the year and say this is what we're going to do well when we have our August 6th or August 7th all coaches meeting next year it'll be absolutely crystal clear that those are our best kids and we all will promote it not just at the seventh grade level I mean you know at a couple stops I've had a girls basketball player and a soccer player well they play always on Tuesdays and Fridays we made it work if we did it there we can absolutely do it here so it's going to be up to the kids the kids are going to have to know that it is a possibility now it's going to take some extra time and

094extra effort it might have to be you know parent sitting down with two head coaches and the coordinator of that building but we can absolutely make those situations work uh inside our school walls because that's different than playing Club volleyball during the time of year volleyball when it's us and we control it we can absolutely make it happen but it starts with having the culture of we can do it and we want to do it I love it thank you you sir what about our sports that are really struggling I'm swim swimming for example like how do we what is your plan to recruit when we're not offering swim lessons you know what I mean we offer nothing with our Auditorium just to recruit into those programs that yes ma'am and that's been brought up

095more than once so I I appreciate the uh the candidate uh um bringing it up again so number one we're already advertising for an open swim job at uh Montgomery High School okay so that has been for the coaching job absolutely absolutely so we've got to find a leader uh of that program and make sure that we've got the right person uh in place there and then uh I will also be sitting down it'll be within the next month to sit down with Lou to talk about all right how do we get community things coming into the nitorum I think we were offering swim lessons at one point and now our families when we're a swim family I'm sending them to Magnolia or I'm sending them to conro ISD yes ma'am some of that is

096having the hours available and and talking to her about we do have the hours available I would just like to see that offered to our community as this beautiful atorium that they built offering this is a Lake Community um so just because of that I would just like to see that absolutely Montgomery ISD and and I guess as far as my plan I need to sit down and find out what is going on at the natatorium because I know some districts even run neutral budgets with their Natatorium I mean that's a huge feat but um I would just really like to see at least swim lessons being offered again for our community like it great input thank you board members other questions coach the plant thank you and looking forward to great things ahead awesome

097thank you'all item 7c Department update from CTE hey Miss Vance come on down sorry I'm shy um and I'm sorry I'm standing between y'all and dinner so um I will cupcakes back there I will try my best if you get hungry there's food in the back um I will speak as fast as I can um so if y'all have questions write them down ask them at the end because I'll be going pretty fast so you may have a question about something I didn't expand on but I'm known for expanding well um tonight we're going to go over our um strategic plan and how the district goals align with our CT Department goals we've done this every year this is my fourth time to stand before yall um and give a department update uh my first

098year I had a community parent sitting right here um wanting to hear all about my plans for the CTE program who's now a Schoolboard member um and it was a first for our president to allow him to speak and ask questions so um it was a great opportunity to break me in um I it was I was only um two two months into the school year that first year so I had lots of lofty goals but it was nice to set them so now being towards the end of the school year I get to reflect on this year and the past four years um so we're going to talk about our strategies um for goals we've met what the strategies are to continue to meet those goals every year I use this opportunity to we

099have two new people that haven't heard my presentation I use this opportunity to educate on what CTE is and what some of our terminology is if you hear these words um from your students that are in the school or from us talking about them now with the CTE Center um in CTE we have endorsements um all students are required to um declare an endorsement by entering the ninth grade um and we also have programs of study now that got added in 2020 to 2021 and we're going to talk about all the programs of study that we offer and um we offer 13 of the 14 um current career clusters we would say 14 of 14 but we don't offer the energy pathway we have offered it for students and we haven't had enough students request

100it to um make it viable these are all the career clusters that we offer um which is a very vast array um of career clusters and like I said the energy pathway is one that we did put in the course guide last year and unfortunately it did not uh did not make enough to hire a staff member and continue the program programs of study um I've kind of explained this before it's in the next slide too um I kind of say an endorsement if you know about college degrees our endorsements are like our Bachelor of Science or a Bachelor of Arts it's a very broad thing that you're declaring and um our program to study is what your major would be so um and the career clusters are kind of like your college so I

101had a Bachelor of Science in the College of a and it was Agricultural Development so um it they kind of narrow it down and when we were in school they didn't make you choose you know you might take homech one year you might take a one year you might take art you do other things and the we really are wanting students to narrow it down so that they can build skills that are Workforce ready by the time they graduate and even if they aren't wanting to go into that Workforce they have four years of building into that program and those skills um that they have certification and a larger set than just one course worth more programs of study that we offer um completers so the state of Texas started off saying we want every

102kid enrolled in a CTE pathway and that was part of the a through F accountability and um all the districts met that pretty quick and so what tea likes to do is they like to continue to add things on to build the bar higher and higher and higher so the districts have to kind of like refocus and figure out how we can set the bar higher each year and they like to do it in the middle of the school year A lot of times um but they they give us warnings usually they call it sun they sunsetting and they give you like a warning year that hey we're sunsetting these rules and in two years we're going to start implementing this um and they let us know for quite a few years that we really

103want you to have completers so completers or when you have completed three courses for four or more credits in the same P program of study um and now they've tied it through a a through F by saying that their industry-based certification does not count um on our school report card as being career ready if you are not a completer um and that is starting at next year's is it next year this year's graduates next year next year's graduates um and they've given us like a four-year warning we need completers we need completers well that's a challenge for schools because kids become seniors and they want to go to work or go home early or do other things besides continue on in their CTE pathway um so we've had lots of things we'll show you some

104data of how we need to get more completers and where we're at right now with that um and once again when I first got into this eight years ago all they cared about is a student was enrolled in a coherent sequence of courses and that's how you got your point so they've really started and they did the same thing with funding they've now aligned different different weights of funding depending on how difficult they believe the courses are so um MISD offers 20 complete programs of studies for our students which we're pretty proud of um I've kind of made a little diagram right here so this is what our course catalog looks like in the CTE area we have the endorsement we have the Career Cluster and we have the program of study and I've used

105Education and Training as an example um and our courses are level one two 3 4 those are our courses offered our programs of study and our Career Cluster um and our practicum and Education and Training is what we call Ready Set teach that our students go into the elementaries and Junior highs and um Shadow a teacher and get and get experience with kids in education um we also offer a industry based certification which is an education Aid one through tea that um helps them if they want to go to college to be um a teacher's aid at a district and they have that certification from mcgomery ISD so our pe's coding that the district the state collects from our district it's called Auto coding because we don't code it um the state collects it from

106how we code our courses and we code everything in CTE um and that's part of my job is making sure everything is coded properly our courses our students because they will do if y'all heard a spring snapshot and fall snapshot they collect all that data and tell us how many completers and concentrators um non CTE students are coded participants explorers concentrators and we want completers they've completed a pathway which is three courses for four or more credits at least um concentrators are what so they started out saying a student must be a participant which is just in a course um in at least one course um explorers means they're taking courses in multiple Pathways they're more than one course in multiple Pathways but they're not really two or more aligned concentrators is they have two

107or more courses in the same program of study but they're not a complet so right now for our certifications to count they have to be a concentrator they've given us a warning and then by next year for our certifications to count towards our school report card on students being College ready they must uh be a completer for next year but this year they have one last year to be a concentrator um I'm going to go over all of our districts our strategic plan goals and how CTE has aligned to it I have my coordinator um Miss Tony Tennyson she's been a big help to get the um all of our goals met and our data that we have and everything that we've been improving on every year um she's the Hands-On Deck with the teachers

108in the classroom and a lot of really um amazing programs that we offer um our first goal one is academic achievement for mcgomery istd and the part specific part with CTE is our ccmr score and our a through f um we have CTE dual credit opportunities we also have um trainings um we teach our we provide trainings to our teachers and our staff on what the current a through f is because like I said it is changing year to year of what tea wants for how to get an a-rated district and um we also talk about our facilities being up to standards to have an a district for our students to be career ready and college ready and that's how our CTE Center falls into place that we're meeting this goal um our next goal

109is our industry based certifications we're going to talk about a few of the ones that we've offered um and we're going to show over the years where we've stood with that um Miss Tennyson's going to come up and talk about it so she's a key person with these certifications she is um helping train teachers she goes in the classroom and Proctor's exams she helps them get the right curriculum that they need ordered to be successful in their certifications um and I'll show you all the data in a minute but when I stood in front of you year one um we were looking at % of our graduating seniors which is 32 um that had an industry based certification and um our last accountability taper report is actually for um the class of 2023 we're two

110years lagging and we were over 60% of our graduating seniors with industry based certifications and that's that's a lot of my effort but um I'm only one person in um this this amazing District so it's been a really big help having a coordinator go in there and be Hands-On with the teachers so she's gonna come talk about our industry based certifications really quick short mic hey for those of you who don't know me I'm Tony Tennison I'm the CT coordinator Amy and I got hired into the district the same year um so it's been great for these last three years working alongside her and being there through the very beginning with Marino and everything with the CT Center and seeing that finally um come to frish and the name and everything so it's really great

111um you know so we have over 80 teachers in CTE and 96% of our kids are enrolled in a CTE pathway and course so that's a majority of our district um last year 9th through 12th graders we had over 850 um certifications that were earned by our students um they do great and my main role is to make sure that the school board and Amy's vision for CT is coming to life by supporting our teachers um who then can turn and support support our students and every year we've added more ibcs um oh where's our so these are all of the ibcs that we offer in the district um so once a kid gets to about their junior year um that's when they're in these courses that are eligible to prepare for their certifications and

112the teachers who teach these all have industry experience they know what it takes to pass these certifications and they do a great job preparing their the kids for these certifications and these are not just your run-of-the-mill certifications these are nationally or state recognized things like certified medical assistant our EMT program um all of our um Floral Design certifications certified vet vet assistant it goes on and on um anyway so it's been really great to work with these teachers every year we add more in fact today I was at Lake Creek talking to a kid who's going to be our first kiddo to earn his non-commission security officer certification in the district so I'm really proud of our teachers and that's my main role here is to just take those visions that Amy has for CTE

113and put those um together um 850 certifications if you don't know that equates to probably about 43% or so correct me if I'm wrong um our state average is way lower than that and so we hit the mark um way above what our what our what the state is sorry Amy I'm totally messing this up ah help me help me got it got it got it um I don't know it's lagging there we go 43% State average is 31 so we're always above that in completers in our completers yeah and we hit the mark above um above ibcs also so um we're doing really well in that realm um is there anything else I forgot to mention no um do you want me to talk about the workforce yeah while while I'm up here another

114big role I have is to reach out so when they first um brought me on board as a CT coordinator we went to the Chamber of Commerce to really try to strengthen those industry Partnerships in the community um and it started with here and there some companies participating with Montgomery I and our CT programs and now we have a list um these are just some of them they host our kids for internships um they provide training to help um prepare these students for their certifications and they really give these kids a good insight into what it takes to be successful in their chosen career after graduation and so um they're most of them are all local um and so we're honored to have them host our practicum kids do their internships um we also partner

115with Sam Houston State University and lonar college um so that we do tours of their programs especially for our kids that um use CTE as their main um way to become Workforce ready like our automotive and construction kids um those kids traditionally don't participate in a lot of dual credit and things like that and so they use that certification to enter the workforce and so we partner with those post-secondary um entities um we even have a medical school in conro which a lot of people don't know so we take all of our Healthcare kids and we bring them to the medical school so that they can see that this is an option they don't have to travel to another State they have one the College of osteopathic medicine right here in conro so it's just

116to expose them to those things and so those are industry Partnerships vital in any CT program any questions for me no thank you Tony thank you um it is going forward instead of backwards I knew I was I know you go for I'm trying to go backwards the top button I am pressing the top button found it um so we were talking about our goals with these industry based certifications we want to make sure that we're continuing to um align our current programs as well as our future programs so we when it this this school year we added Automotive welding and construction to our campuses um so that we when we open the CT Center we'll have two years worth of a cohort instead of one so we have introductory level courses so we're already

117starting to look at curriculum and Industry certification alignment with those programs so by the time they're juniors and seniors we can have what they need to be prepared for those industry certifications um and we make sure we're purchasing the correct software and require teacher training which is what Miss Tenison has been doing um this we kind of skipped over this but I mean I want you to look at this for a little bit I think we're doing amazing um we did a big jump at the beginning but we're still increasing every year and also continuing to stay above the state average um we dropped a little bit 20122 there are lots of variables in case someone wants to ask me that of things that change um they are changing our list quite frequently so they

118evaluate our current list and Industry standards and there's people at tea giving input of what they feel like our students should and shouldn't be doing they took OSHA off um which I feel like is an industry standard for a lot of Industry industrial careers um OSHA 15 30 10 none of it is on the industry based certification list so they're constantly adding and taking away what they feel like um is something that they can utilize for these taper reports uh but we have to continue to alter and make sure our programs are aligning with tea standards throughout this we still give certifications that aren't on that list because we feel like our kids need that to be prepared for the industry we get lots of feedback in our advisory committees that we have um meetings

119in the fall and the spring and that's one of our biggest things is they might mention a certification that isn't on there I mean for example our um our serve safe food handling all of our culinary kids get that because they're working in kitchens and learning how to be safe with food and that is not on the list um the restaurant manager is which they also get um so we're pretty proud they just now started putting data on the taper report for completers um because they're giving you a warning here's how many completers you have um and the only way your certifications are going to count for 2025 graduates is if they're a completer so it's great that we have 62% ibc's but they're going to start making sure you have to be a completer

120for those account so across the state everybody's are going to drop as well because everyone's going to have to meet up to that bar to make sure kids are completing their programs of study um we're going to we do our industry needs and Workforce through our advisory committee we meet twice a year some of youall have been there and we really appreciate all the support at those advisory committees um we also are looking our enrollment to see what we need to add um if we we're adding lots of Junior High credits if anyone has seen any of our Junior High offerings or have students in those that's a big part those feed into our high school Pathways so the more offerings we can offer in the eth and seventh grade for high school credit it

121exposes kids early on to our programs that we offer the CTE Center and at the high schools so that they can get a get a leg in early and if they decide they don't like it they've got an extra year to choose and change their mind so that's a big part about building our high school programs is at the junior high level and adding those courses Career Technical student organizations FFA is the most popular but we have them in all of our Pathways BPA business Professionals of America FFA FCCLA um our robotics our Vex robotics these organizations really draw kids in where they get to be competitive against kids with their same skills and their interest so that's a way for us to also um try to get kids in our program is increase enrollment

122so District goal three is finance and operations that's everybody's favorite topic um and we've talked about how my very first goal here was allocating a budget so every year we have to make sure we're allocating a budget across um the campuses and departments for CTE we want to make sure it's comparable between all four campuses so the high schools to high schools and um we make sure it's comparability to the enrollment the amount of students the cost of the programs the technology needed um so there's lots of things that we have to make sure whenever we're allocating the budget for CTE we get teacher input as well is there something they need that they're not getting is there a wish list item they have a big a big list all of our technology needs we're

123trying to make sure that we're keeping the technology up to date with replacement um of all of our computer labs and technology and equipment at the end of the school year we have an April 1 deadline for all of our teachers to have their purchase orders in so that we can evaluate the money that's left and properly allocate with all of our needs of our programs um and there it is right there I always do this a real quick of how our CTE weighted funding is so if we have a course that's not in a program of study it still gets a 1.1 multiplier so 1.0 would be just like a kid sitting in a science class so even if they're not in a program of study this course still gets a little bit um

124all of our courses that we offer now align in a program of studies so they're all going to be a 1.28 or higher um that was our first thing was getting rid of some of the courses that are just exploratory courses for CTE so we're starting at 128 which is a level one or two in a program of study every course Al lines in mcgomery ISD 1.47 is the multiplier which is almost one and a half of the funding um if it's a level three or four course the level courses are determined tea not us so here's an example of how tea has told us what courses are weighted which levels um and you could offer all level four only if you wanted but a lot of the prerequisites are the principal courses and the

125early on so I show this as an example and by the way Ben's probably cringing in a seat when I show this um because it's not this simple there's a lot more factors that go into trying to get funding but this is the simple version of how our CTE funding goes um an FTE is one sixth of a class period so if it's one period it's one six which if you put that into a decimal point it's 0. 167 so if it's two periods you've got 33 You've Got 2 six which is a third um our basic allotment from the state right now is 6160 and we have people fighting trying to increase that um and I think they might they're trying to push just for $200 more dollars per kid not talking politics anymore

126but our current basic allotment is 60160 for every student one full FTE um so the way we do our math is the FTE times the basic allotment times the weighted multiplier we also factor in attendance so their attendance rate for that course and it's by course for CTE is also what affects funding so as an example if they're in a livestock production course that was a level three course um they will get the 1.47 weighted multiplier so we multiply one FTE that's just one class period there's 100 kids in it we get 16.7 * 6160 which is um our every kid gets that 1.47 multiplier we're just going to say a 95% attendance rate which is our goal and that comes out to 100 students in livestock production brings the district $143,600 raing funds from

127CTE 55% go directly back to the CTE programs in classrooms and Staffing and curriculum and then 45% get to go back to the district to utilize in other areas um also not an exact number but just as a comparison a non- CTE course 100 Kids enroll would bring 97,000 so we're looking at almost $50,000 more dollars just on 100 kids in a CTE course to the district um our annual summary of finances we get a report from tea and they update it throughout the year and we get what's called a final report it's usually in the fall around September for the previous school year um so when we run our budget in July we're still running off of last year's we don't have a final report from the state on what we get so this

128the number right next to the years is our FTE our full-time equivalents so one sixth so um that's how many students we had in CTE FTE we had and our budget that we got from the state and as you can see each year how it has increased and right now our current FTE which is on attendance it's factored in our attendance rate and our enrollment we get every uh grading period we get a report back from the state of what we're at we're at 1431 and right now the projection from the state this year that we will end up getting 12 million for the district so it's quite a big jump from whenever I got here in 21 till now and some amazing things that we've had going on in the district with the support

129of school board the community Administration and everything um District goal for is human capital the biggest thing I could say in CTE is we want to provide professional development trainings that's what I stand up here and say every year they're very specialized positions um and it's not like they can just um go to a training on how to be a better math teacher um there everybody has an individual and sometimes they're a Singleton they're the only person that teaches that subject um so we try to find them and provide them with opportunities for professional development across the state from last summer till now we sent 32 CTE teachers which we're pretty proud of to very content specific trainings um between any of our staff CTE staff and we want to continue to make that number

130rise every year um to make sure that they feel prepared for the content that they're teaching uh we also have implemented CTE stiens to help teachers feel incentivized for what they're doing in the classroom and with our CTE programs so um we the teachers that are giving these industry based certifications if they have 85% pass rate in their courses they get stiens also if their students advance past the local level to region and state and Nationals they get stiens and incentives for that the teachers work really hard to prepare these students for all of these different things and that was some big feedback we had from our CTE teachers was that that having more stiens available specifically for them you know they're not coaching Sports and they're not training UIL teams but they're working really

131hard after school before school weekends with these teams and doing all kinds of amazing things that we wanted to reward them so this is something this is our third year of implementation with this and we have stiens some that are available twice a year some are once a year but they are in December and may um Communications District goal five uh our advisory committee we consider that is part of our Communications we um our advisory committee we invite uh parents students Schoolboard members uh all of our community stakeholders business we have people from the colleges to give us feedback we give a report just like I'm doing now on our current programs and we also get feedback from all of these different stakeholders what are some things you'd like to see in our programs what

132are some good things we're doing what are some things you wish we could see and what is aligned with their Industries so that's one of our biggest Communications with the the community also social media I always say this you can't come watch us like you can watch sports so our biggest thing we can do is Advocate on social media of what awesome things we're doing in the classrooms with our in our laboratory spaces with CTE and all of our competitions so we want to make sure you get that word out and that's also miss Tennyson's job as a coordinator is updating that Facebook so every time you see a post she's doing a great job with that on making sure we're getting lots of good um things out to the community that we're doing finished

133um I want to give a second before youall ask tons of questions I've taken lots of questions over the year over the years um when I stood here first I was never a CTE director before so mcgomery has given me four amazing years as many of y'all know I will not be coming back next year and um I want to thank all of y'all the school board some have been here some are new for all of your support for our CT programs and everything that I've done um as well as mcgomery I Administration and I want to ensure a smooth transition and I until the day I walk out the door and the new person starts I will be um advocating for mcgomery ISD mcgomery ISD CTE the CTE Center I think it's an amazing

134Community an amazing place and I appreciate everything that y'all have done for me over the last four years and I will always be a I'll always be a big fan and a supporter of this district and everything that it stands for and that's all I'm going to say so any questions y'all have now that I can answer Miss fance I would take the first one if y'all don't mind I'd like to take the last one too um first question that I have would be so that we can help with that transition um what advice would you give to a new CTE director about the vision you have for Montgomery I because they're probably going to watch this video at some point if they're smart about preparing for their interview so once again I remember four

135years ago in April midm morning I sat at mcgomery Steakhouse with community members Schoolboard members and everybody was telling me their ideas how amazing mcgomery ISD was this is what we want with this with is what we want a CTE Center and this wasn't even in a bond yet um these were just ideas of all these supporters and I'm like oh my gosh what have I gotten myself into um as an act teacher I interacted a lot with community members and parents and I was always very visible but I was like wow they're very involved and um and every time I get in front of y'all and speak with y'all I really appreciate the hard questions and that's something that y'all are passionate about CTE and you want to know and you want the community

136and all of the stakeholders to also have their questions answered and that's why y'all are there so I've always appreciated the hard questions and every time you're always like I'm sorry no I love it it doesn't bother me at all no question is going to Rattle me but um I think the biggest thing is everything that I've inv visioned everybody has been on board with there's been most of my en Visions have come from Montgomery icy and the other goals from all the other departments so I think the biggest thing is to continue to grow to continue to be Innovative um using the CT Center but don't stop there like the programs are endless that we can offer there and what we can do we're just at the cusp of beginning um CT and mcgomery

137IC like this is your four of having a CTE director 20 years from now I can't imagine how amazing it's going to be the biggest thing I could give them was listen to your stakeholders and your community and your school board and um the superintendent at the time Justin Maro remembers this one of my biggest downfalls was using the word I I have a vision I think this but here at mcgomery ISD it's a we there's no I um we as mcgomery ISD um this is what our vision is so it's not about me and it never was about me but sometimes I felt like I was on an island when I first started out and it came across you know I was very passionate and was trying to tell people here's what CTE is

138I'm so excited everyone needs to love CTE and everybody's got on board and done that so now it's definitely a Wei there's no longer an eye of my vision it's definitely a Wii vision and um every chance they can get they need to be promoting CTE and enjoying the Wii in bbery ISD thank you Miss Vance questions so I just want to give a personal thank you to both of you too for what we've this explosion that we've gotten to watch over the last four years it's just been absolutely amazing um so exciting for our for our students um I do have a question that I tend to ask every year because I hear something about it every year and that is um we see on the administrative side how exciting all these pathways are

139and all these options but we do have students that go this is overwhelming to me and I feel like in ninth grade or eighth grade whatever that I'm I have to choose and what if I don't like it and so there's a pressure and then some parents are feeling that as well so what do you say and what's the help for that so um one of the biggest things we've implemented this year is um a four-year planning piece um and it's kind of like an academic advising piece that we're starting with where they can see the four-year plan built out um if you want to end up going to the CTE Center you can see your courses that you're going to have to get there so part of having that CTE really help implemented these

140fouryear plans they call them pgps it's a personal graduation plan and um all students must have one of those and they've always been in Skyward but we wanted something a little more transparent and easier to use for students and parents and a place to go back and look at a place for changes um and as we implemented this myself and Miss Tennyson mainly Miss Tennyson because I'm getting pulled in lots of CTE Center directions we got to work Hands-On with the junior highs in the eighth grades during this process and that was definitely the feedback I don't know what I do oh my gosh I don't know what classes I want um and this online this online platform really helps guide students and parents of like questions and answers like hey I might want AP

141classes this year well let's see what four years looks like built out of starting out with the advanced English in nth grade and all the way through and it really tied together our CTE options with our academic options to see it all the way through if you're going to have to make choices or not it's not all the sudden senior year you're trying to choose between A and B you get to map out your four-year plan and really start to make choices and we really really emphasized it's okay to change your mind let's start out with a plan and it's okay freshman year to change your mind and decide this really isn't for me and I've talked about that before that's what the amazing thing about is having all these career options in high school

142is it may expose you earlier on before you became 20 years old two years into a program a technical school or a college and realize this isn't for me so that's the beauty of it is we we've really tried to educate a lot more and show them it's okay to change your mind and helping calming All the nervousness we've really experienced that a lot and saw what the we saw what the counselors and teachers and people are seeing and just to help walk them through that with this new software thank you I've uh got a couple things um this is just one of the remarkable things that public education can do for our students and I want to make sure that that's known this is being done in public education through our CTE programs um

143we saw way back when that we needed to invest as a a school district as a school board that we needed to invest in CTE and to to see what's being built around the corner from here and to to see it come to life um I think when it was talked about in these Bond planning meetings that it was the going to hopefully be the Crown Jewel of the community and I think anybody that drives by there and when it starts to to open up and everybody gets to truly see what this facility um is is going to be able to do for our community and our students I I I can't thank our community enough back to the 2022 bond that supported it this thing didn't just barely pass it passed with flying colors

144um and it showed the support that we had from our community and to to see it come to life is just it's it's it's really awesome um I was one of those guys that set at mcgomery Steakhouse with Miss Vance back four years ago and I will tell you that um there's probably not two more passionate people about CTE and these programs than Miss Vance and myself and we probably didn't see eye to eye on some of these issues uh in the very beginning but what I will tell you is the growth that that you've made the growth that the the entire process your entire department um I can't be more thankful for what you've done your um your vision your um overall passion um I I'm truly thankful to be able to say today

145that I'm a friend and if there's anything that you need as you move on I'm just a phone call away to help you in whatever it is other questions for Miss Vance yes um I was also there for that breakfast and when not a board member either at the breakfast when you walked in the door I thought what is she going to do well let me tell you over the past four years you have have taken our CTE uh department and and made it fruitful under your leadership um well we just saw the numbers so you know we we know how much it's grown uh so for that thank you uh my question is the only way that this program succeeds is through Recruitment and if we're not recruiting properly then we can't keep feeding

146the program so what be before you um move on to your next Endeavor what will you do to implement the recruitment within our Junior highs to make sure that we're we're getting uh all the kids that we we can retain and then secondly um are we able to introduce other classes is other than just the uh you know intro to act science or intro to the I mean is there anything else that we can bring in to the junior high level that will enhance uh the interest of CTE well one of the reasons I hope I answer all your questions but one of the reasons why um the numbers are so high this year was um the junior highs we unblocked some of our core classes that were tested subjects so we had double blocked

147math some double blocked um Ela classes and we had to get creative with some of those staff you know some of those staff in order to retain those staff that were amazing for Montgomery ISD we created some CTE courses that we thought they would excel in um and they're like courses like dollars and cents which is about your everyday math that Junior High kids can use um lifetime nutrition and wellness which is talking about you know health and wellness they're High School Credit courses so we were we also were utilizing staff by why a lot of our numbers were higher it open opened up in the Junior High student schedules for more courses as well and yall know from my implementation that was my biggest thing for recruitment was we have to start adding more

148CTE courses at the junior high and we've added a little more every year um we we added I don't if it was last year or two years ago we added law enforcement at the junior high uh it is going to be at the CTE Center and sometimes the numbers dwindle down we had an amazing teacher that was a veteran teacher that's gone now Valerie croisan and she did a lot for that program but order to continue to recruit and retain we added at the Junior High um the principles of law enforcement Public Safety to kind of start maybe drawing them into the program so that when it's at by the time the CTE Center opens we've got bigger numbers as well as different certifications offered for it like she was saying our level one security

149officer our Tel commmunications certification um and so I think the biggest thing that Junior High what has helped us with is with that software that's the four-year planning the graduation plans because it to get the kids excited when they start talking about it that's why they get overwhelmed because they haven't had those conversations I don't know I don't know what I want but um they have to start because the courses that we're putting there just like advanced level college classes they have prerequisites you can't all of a sudden senior be like I want to go work on cars you're going to be at the principal's courses so we're trying to expose them early on to as many principal courses as possible but also make the reality here's what your plan will look like in high

150school if you want to go to that CTE Center I think a biggest recruitment tool is going to be the CT Center once it's up and built um to do fifth grade tours so start recruiting earlier on in fifth grade so when they start to get in Junior High having those conversations taking CTE classes they're looking so like a fifth grade career expo at the CTE Center would be awesome um as well as the eighth grade tours will be at the CTE Center along with their high school so if it's a mcgomery high Montgomery Junior High they'll go part of the morning at the CTE center part of the morning at the high school so I think it's going to be really big this is a real big all state-of-the-art facility right now the students

151have nothing to look at um so we've tried different things like showing them pictures of what other CT centers look like like here's what an automotive program is going to look like here's really cool and we have Renditions as well from hucke so we've tried to like get them enticed and get them excited and um we think once the building is there it's going to be a lot more I think that's a very important question to ask the person that's taking over is what type of Innovations and plans do you have for recruitment with this CT Center to continue because I have lots of great ideas but I think that's a key thing with whoever takes over this position is to continue that Recruitment and sustain it you we're building $62 million building and we

152need kids to go in it you know we have to continue the hard work that we've put to get those numbers that were on that slide if you ever back down the hard work the numbers are going to go down too so any other questions I didn't ask I can tell you from being in that meeting on the naming meeting the other day I don't know if the the students that were brought in were all in CTE already they were okay well they were all excited so I guess that's why they are seniors so they were really excited they're not going to get there but the good thing is they go back and talk to their friends um the Communications Department um Mr Marino and I we went into the culinary classrooms just to get

153ideas about what if we want to name the beastro and you to name the restaurant and this some of them had mixed classes so there was some juniors in there some seniors some had sophomores but hearing them light up some of them were like I don't know what it's going to look like I don't so there is a lot of questions still and educating that we still need to do but once that's buildings built it'll it'll really help promote and push that but every time you start having conversations around those students and educating them and getting the pictures and the ideas and what the possibilities are which are endless for that CTE Center and all the opportunities for kids they really do start to open their eyes and get excited like on that naming committee

154like oh we had no idea we'd have all these really neat opportunities and um they were even asking questions we had some robotics kids asking about the robotics Arena and getting really excited about that as well that the kids are going to have that opportunity because they have little makeshift robotics areas at both campuses right now in classrooms board members other questions thank you Amy I've got um going back to that slide you don't have to go back to it but uh the FTE and the increase and the funding that was attached to it I think the projected one this year was $12 million and I think it's important to know and Ben correct me if I'm wrong but you know opening Creekside Elementary in August the light bill the utilities all of that hits

155our general budget that that is extra expenses that we have to cover all of those costs at the CTE Center can come directly from the funds correct so it's not truly an increased cost we have to find ways to spend this amount of money each year and that's 55% of that number and and um when it comes to funding I will say that one thing the state has done a pretty good job of is funding the career in Tech Pathways and it has resulted in this but there's a ceiling in that right there's only so much you're going to be able to do and then you get this money that you have to allocate specifically so hiring staff can come from these funds it's not just well now we can go buy a million dollars

156of robot equipment because we've got to spend this it's not how that works um youall do a great job of of finding very um intentional and meaningful ways to to operationalize these funds in a way that benefit our districts and grow our programs so thank You' all for that I just wanted to recognize that opening the CTE Center doesn't necessarily mean that now you guys are just incurring all these costs already well we have funding for that so most districts um most districts are about 90% of that 55% goes towards payroll and staff um and so it looks like big numbers but it takes a lot of you know very highly qualified people to staff CTE programs in all ways whether that's like you're saying a janitor of a CTE Center everybody is contribued in

157some way to Career and Technical education and I've talked about it before adding those Junior High classes they're getting that weighted funding but they don't have laboratory spaces so you've got that extra money they're generating that you can utilize on these upper level programs that do cost a lot so that's one of the benefits is all you might have for them is their starting cost with curriculum or computer lab that you don't have to replace every five years so that's one of the benefits when you add the younger grades is they don't cost a lot to operate and you can then push that money up to the upper level second to last comment M I got one more thing I want to say um we we talked about what Mr leant was talking about um

158creting an environment where we encourage multisport athletes I would also encourage to have not only athletes but people in our CTE programs to where we welcome those two programs to work together and I think we do a good job of it but I think there's still room for growth there as we move forward U to to cross those two programs together all right I asked for the last comment on it I'm going to take it if y'all are okay any other questions um it's already been said by Mr Rob and Mr W and everyone on this board feels the same way uh Miss Vance but and Dr Ruffin um as well as other people that you've worked with throughout the years you always have a place here you have left an indelible mark on not

159just this District but this town um I too uh consider you a friend and I I want you to know that at any point if you want to come back and tour um you know if at any point you want to come teach a class um at any point you're welcome come here and I just want to say a sincere thank you don't be call me for a teacher openings guys I'm retired sincere thank you and uh give you a round of applause so thank you with that ladies and gentlemen it's 8:15 let's adjourn [Music]