001Good evening. I call this meeting of the Northwest Independent School District to order at 5:00 PM. Let the record show that a quorum of board members is present, that this meeting has been duly called, and that notice of the meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas Open Meeting Acts, Act, Texas Government Code 551. We will move into close session. The board will convene in close session pursuant to Texas Government Code Chapter 551, including sections 551.071 071 consultation with the board's attorney and 551.072 real estate matters and 551.074 personnel matters. Welcome back. We'll reconvene the regular meeting at 6:34 p.m. We'll move to the invocation and pledge of allegiance. >> Would you all please rise? Um I'm going to open up with a word of prayer. if you'd like to uh please join me
002in prayer. Heavenly Father, we just come to you humbly, Lord. We thank you so much for this day and for this opportunity to serve you. Lord, we pray for godly wisdom as the board makes decisions on behalf of our students and our staff and our families in Northwest ISD. Lord, we pray for your continued hedge of protection. Keep our students safe. Keep our teachers and and all of our staff safe. keep our community safe, Lord, from all those things that are out there in the world. These things we ask in the Lord's name. Amen. I'm pretty excited. Um, if you guys will remain standing, we'll do the pledges, but I'm going to invite Grayson Green, third grade student, to the podium and also Holden Lyall, second grade student. You guys come on up. Let me
003introduce you. >> Uh, Grayson is his parents, Terrence and Angie Green, are here somewhere. Wave at us. Thank you for being here. And um Grayson's favorite subject is math and recess. Like it well played. And um he likes to play sports as you can tell. And then um his proud principal, Miss Smith, said that Grayson is known around Nance for his fun spirit and great smile. And three traits that come to mind when she thinks of Grayson are witty, perceptive, and a friend to all. So that's high praise. And then also with him tonight helping us with the pledge is Holden Lyall, second grade student. Uh thank you Joe and Britney Ly. Are you guys here with us? Thank you all for being here. Um, his favorite subject is uh math or subjects are math
004and science. Um, he likes to play sports and to go hunting. So, that sounds awfully fun. Um, and Miss Smith said that Holden is known around Nance for his tender heart and his old soul. And three traits that come to mind um when she thinks of Holden are that he's thoughtful, gentle, and trustworthy. So, these two guys are going to lead us in the pledges this evening. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one indivisible. You're good. >> Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. >> Hey guys, real quick, can one of you guys or both of you guys, why don't y'all help us in the pledge of allegiance to the United States? just start by saying I
005pledge allegiance and we'll join in with you. All right, both of you guys get in there. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Thank you guys very much. Can we give them a round of applause? Thank you. You did it. Y'all did great. At this time, we'll turn it over to Mr. Tossy. We have some very special recognitions this evening. Good evening, President Murphy, Dr. Fast, members of the board. Uh, tonight we begin with a very special recognition. Uh, in Northwest ISD, we love honoring our history. No matter how many students we grow to, uh, what our enrollment is, uh, we always look to the past to guide
006us. Uh, so tonight we have a unique recognition in that Northwest High School alumnist Shannon Jones is generally generously, excuse me, donating the original 1952 Rome School basketball goal to Northwest ISD in honor of Miss Linda Green. This piece of district history is a reminder of the powerful connections that students can have and the adults who pour into their lives. Mrs. Green coached Mr. Jones as an elementary school student in Rome. Mr. Jones and his classmates have expressed that Mrs. Green had a tremendous impact on those who attended the school both when she both as a coach and a mentor. The plaque that we have along with uh this goal that will go into a future school in the town of Rome reads Rome School 1952 basketball goal donated in honor of Linda Green by
007Shannon Jones. A dedicated teachers aid and volunteer youth coach, Miss Green built lasting bonds with students and inspired generations of Rome children through her love of the game, coaching youth teams between 1967 and 1984. So, as I mentioned earlier, in time, we'll have this goal in a future uh school in the town of Rome. But at this time, we'd like to invite Mr. Jones as well as Judy Cop, members of the COP family, members of the Jones family, uh, to come over here for a photo. And as you're going that direction, including Dr. Fon, President Murphy, uh, you can also see that Mrs. Green's uniforms are on display. Those are both from when she played basketball as a Rome student and another from when she coached at the school. So, members of the family, feel
008free to join us for the photo. So, if memory serves me correct, you were a substitute teacher of mine, too, right? >> Probably. Yes, I think I was. >> This is one of the plaques. I went to the old school today, the second grade. >> Oh, was above the door in the old school. >> Yep. >> The other one that was in there went to Wanda Richardson. I delivered it to her today. And if you will give this one to Dolores McKinnon for me. >> I will try. >> Only ones left. So thank you. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> I love her. [Applause] >> So we look forward to showcasing that in a future Rome school. And now I'll turn it over to Candle Pierce to recognize our community partners. Good evening, President Murphy,
009Dr. Fast, and members of the board. It's my honor to help recognize several deserving individuals and organizations this evening. First, I would like to recognize our volunteer of the month for August. Although she could not attend tonight, Katherine Benhaftton from Hassla Elementary served the campus for over 70 hours in the month of August. Principal Busby said Katherine has been an amazing supporter for our campus. We appreciate the time and energy she has spent serving the students and staff of Hasslett. Thank you, Catherine, for all you do. In July, we hosted our annual back- toschool fair where we were able to help almost 2,000 students and families with back- to-school supplies and services. We know that if students don't have the items they need, it's harder to start a successful school year. We would not have
010been able to provide the supplies, eye exams, dental screenings, immunizations, haircuts, and physicals without the amazing groups I would like to recognize this evening. First, we would like to recognize Texas Health and Core Rehabilitation. They could not be here. CORE is in Hawaii. So, on behalf of them, um we would like to say thank you for all of the work that they did. These two groups work to provide sports physicals for our student athletes across the district who attended the fair and help them get ready for their seasons. Thank you to both of these amazing teams. Next, we would like to recognize the team at pediatric dentistry of Hasslett and North Lake. Dr. Ashcraftoft and his team administered dental screenings for our students and their families at no charge and handed out dental care goodie
011bags to make our students equipped to have good oral hygiene. This was a wonderful opportunity for our students who might not otherwise get this type of care. Thank you so much, Dr. Ashccraftoft. [Applause] Next, we would like to recognize the eyes on Westlake. They were unable to attend, but this group administered vision screenings for our student. Each child was able to pick out a fun prize when they completed the screening and got information if further services were needed. Thanks to the Eyes on Westlake for making this possible. This year we were able to offer immunizations free of charge which were led by the NISD nurses. The coordinator of health services, Rebecca Delasio Blazley, I said that wrong. Is representing this amazing group of healthc care providers. Many of our families utilized this resource to make
012sure they were ready for the first day. Thank you so much to our NISD nurses. We were also we also added a new partner this year, Bladesmith Barber College, who provided amazing haircuts for any student in need. Representing Bladesmith is Charnie Smith. The Bladesmith team brought energy and excitement to the event and we so appreciate the time and resources they donated. Thank you again to Bladesmith Barber College. [Applause] I would also like to recognize the Northwest ISD Education Foundation for their support. They could not be here also in Hawaii, but the foundation provided funding for the supplies as well as helping with volunteers, setup, and everything in between. We couldn't accomplish what we do without them. So, thank you, Nef. Last, I would like to recognize Tanganger Outlets and United Way of Denton for their
013partnership with our stuff the bus program. NISD provided a bus to Tanganger Outlets and these two organizations promoted and ran a very successful event getting a full b full bus of school supplies, clothes, and more to donate to NISD. We are so grateful for their partnership with the district and for generously providing for our students. Representing Tanganger Outlets is Holly Connor, marketing director, and Jim Anderson, general manager. Representing United Way is Mark Bryan, development manager. Thank you so much to Tanger Outlets and United Way. [Applause] Thank you to all of our partners. And that concludes recognitions for tonight. All right, we're going to move on in the agenda to item number six, which is public testimony, comment on agenda and non-aggenda items, and there is none this evening. So, we will move to uh item
014number seven, which is the consent agenda. Madam President, I understand uh that there is an item eight that someone would like to have removed from the consideration. I would like to >> Is there any other item that needs to be removed by any of the board members for consideration? Seeing none, I move to approve the consent agenda as submitted with the exception of item H to pull out and discuss. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Schlutoter and a second by Dr. Rous to approve the consent agenda minus letter H which has been pulled. Um, sorry, I did that really bad. Let me reread that again. I have a motion by Mr. Schlutoter and a second by Dr. Roush to approve the consent agenda with letter H removed. All in favor? 70. Thank
015you, board. Okay, let um we're going to now consider any item removed from the consent agenda. And I I asked for letter H to be removed because I had some questions and wanted to learn more about this grant program um that we have been awarded. Um, and uh, so if these very nice ladies will talk about this amazing grant and just give us some background information and how we got it and how long it is and what we're going to be doing. >> Absolutely. And I'm going to turn it over to Cynthia because she's the one who wrote the grant and deserves all the credit. So >> Oh, go ahead. >> Well, thank you so much. So, we have been very fortunate to continue to build services with our early childhood programs based on parents
016um needs. They're asking us for these things. So, as you know, we've had a vibrant parents as teachers program for since 2007, I believe, and it's just been able to continue to grow. the other services like developmental screenings offering to help preschool um parents who are their kids are struggling to adjust to preschool. They might not have found us before going to preschool um was another need that was um we needed staff to partner with those preschool teachers in those campuses in additional to some fatherhood programs. And so we have built um a very wonderful relationship with HHSC. And so when they put out another RFA, I asked for permission to submit so we can hire nine new staff to continue building the partnership with these parents even before their kids get in school. >>
017So you're hiring nine new staff. Yes. And it's a five-year grant for just over $5 million. Is that correct? >> Exactly. Correct. Yes. >> Okay. That's awesome. That was a competitive RFA, correct? Not just >> very competitive programs across the state that did unfortunately lose their funding. Um but it is renewable. So it's not just that we would have the grant for four to five years, but it is renewable. And as of right now, we're in very good standing with the granters. >> Good. Good. Okay. Um, that's perfect. That's really what I wanted to know. And it's sounds like an amazing opportunity and I love the fact that you went after the grant and got it and we're diversifying some funding. So, that is really, really exciting. So, does anybody else have any questions? >>
018Yeah, I know. Thank you. And kudos to you. Those are not easy to do. >> Not easy at all to it's a team. There were many, many, many people involved in it and yeah, it's a profound amount of work that we did it. >> Good. I'm glad we got to highlight that a little bit and thank you for all of your work. >> You're welcome. Appreciate it. [Applause] >> Dr. Fast, >> sorry, do you mind if I just um jump in? Cynthia does such a fabulous job and our parents as teachers program is so amazing. she is preparing a report for y'all in um October, I believe, sometime this fall, so you can learn more about the program overall. So, just wanted to let y'all know that. Okay. Um, I will go since I pulled
019it, I'll go ahead and make the motion to um, uh, approve the ratification of the Texas Health and Human Services Grant Agreement, uh, contract number HHF0015358009 under the Health Outcomes through Prevention and Early Support Grant Program. >> Second. Okay. I have a motion by Mrs. Murphy and a second by uh Mrs. Hatfield uh to approve the ratification of the Texas Health and Human Services Grant Agreement contract number HHS0000153580000009 under the Health Outcomes through prevention and early support grant program. All in favor 70. Thank you. Okay, we will now move on to our discussion action agenda for the evening and the first thing on the agenda is the 2025 2026 district improvement plan. Dr. Griffin, thank you. Yes. Well, good evening. Um this is this is a team effort. So, I'm going to um share part
020of the our district improvement plan and then other cabinet members are going to help as well. So um as you know we um every year share with you our um draft of our district improvement plan. You have the full hund and some odd page document in front of you and this is just to highlight um the strategies that are in front of you. So just as a reminder um every year you all um must approve an the development u and approval of our district and our campus performance objectives. So tonight it's our district objectives and um strategies and then um will be followed with our campus improvement plans in the next upcoming meeting. U we also annually develop, evaluate and revise our district plan um and it's a joint effort. It's an ongoing living breathing
021document that that we work through um and with all throughout the year. And it has to include several pieces. It must have a needs assessment. That's the first um set of pages that you have in front of you. And then the performance objectives um which we typically coin as our strategic goals. And then within each of our priorities, we have strategies as well. And then you'll see it also includes which staff members are responsible for monitoring it. Um that we have timelines that we monitor them periodically um every quarter and then resources as well. So it all stems from our core beliefs and our vision and mission and then our strategic goals and our priorities which you approved in 2023. And from there we um evaluate our work throughout the year and then develop a
022new district improvement plan each year. And then our departments have action plans that they develop based on our district improvement plan. And our campuses develop campus improvement plans. So just as a reminder, our 2023 to 2028 strategic goals and priorities uh which you're very familiar with um definitely grounded in our beliefs, our vision and our mission. So we have three strategic goals and then within each strategic goal we have three priorities. And so within each of those strategic goals and priorities, we have a set of strategies that will guide the work that we um engage in throughout the school year. So our first priority is our most important one, literacy. And so as you will see within our literacy priority, we have four strategies that will guide our work with our teachers and our staff.
023Um the first one is just to really in u continue our work on being responsive teachers and responding to our students needs based on differentiation small groupoup instruction and really using the the data and our resources to respond to our students individual needs. The second strategy is um supporting our teachers and our campuses on foundational literacy skills and then making those instructional decisions and progress monitoring along the way to make sure our students are growing throughout the year. Our third strategy is to um strengthen our writing in across all of our content areas through the writing process. And then the fourth is to um strengthen writing through common academic vocabulary. our students strengths um strengthen our students abilities to think critically, communicate effectively, and demonstrate mastery in all content areas. You'll also notice within the
024DIP that in each of these we outline what our expected outcome is to um increase the percent of students that are meeting and exceeding a year's growth and also um to ensure that our students are continuing to grow in uh performing at or above level through a variety of metrics. Priority 1.2 is our academic progress looking at all of the other content areas. So first strategy is really focused on implementing lessons that have high cognitive demand dialogue and application of meaning meaningful academic content. Really making sure our students are thinking at high levels. Strategy two, formative assessment tools to really monitor our students progress so that we have a year's growth or more in all of our content areas. Strategy three is ensuring that we have clear learning targets and are using formative assessments to
025really guide our students and our teachers through the learning process. And then strategy four relates specifically to math to really sure ensure that we our students are really having to think critically um engage in productive struggle through intentional problem solving and with lots of resources embedded in our math curriculum. Priority 1.3 is our college, career, military, and life readiness priority. Our first strategy is on really making sure that we are continuing to have strong communication touch points with all of our stakeholders um at all of our secondary campuses. Strategy two is to make sure that our students we increase our students access and also their performance on TSI. Strategy three is a military awareness program to really make sure that uh we're celebrating our students who choose to join the service and increasing their um
026opportunities and awareness and strategy for to identify any barriers that we may have for our students to be CTE program completers and also earning certification so that they are um really college, career and life ready when they leave us. Good evening board. Um I will speak with you now about um our goals for strategic goal two. Um as you know that's to recruit, value and retain um our employees and our staff that we have here. And I'm pleased to share that the strategies that you will hear in this section tonight really are a a collaborative group effort among multiple departments to take care of our staff. Very proud of that. So for 2.1 recruit, our first strategy is to strengthen and develop collaborative partnerships with our universities and research um opportunities for us to expand
027the number of candidates who may student teach with us, move into residency programs, or have certification experiences. Our strategy two will be to um conduct a staff engagement survey uh later this this spring to measure our workforce workplace culture, communication effectiveness, leadership support and professional growth opportunities. And then um DIP strategy 3 really aligns with our new legislation and working to be um beyond compliant with that to strengthen the integrity of our onboarding um our safety and efficiency of employee recruitment, screening and hiring as well. strategy. Our priority 2.2 is value. And so our first strategy of course is to always provide a competitive total compensation package for our employees. A dip strategy 2 will be to really work with our principles to give them opportunities to enhance their leadership and collaborate together. DIP strategy
028three will be familiar. We'll continue to support our teachers through the use of our um Nef, our ed education foundation and Nephi. And then DIP strategy 4 will sound familiar as well where we will continue our staff listening sessions as that has been very um very intrical in us moving the district forward. And then priority 2.3 is to make sure that we are retaining our awesome teachers and staff. So the first strategy in doing that is just um continuing with our professional learning. Uh really having a balance of choice that our teachers um can make in their professional learning and then having targeted opportunities um based on those other pieces that we went over in strategic goal one. Um to really make sure that we're supporting our teachers and also making sure that our instructional
029coaches are providing job embedded learning for our teachers along the way. And then also we're starting this year um a new program called principal pathway. And this is to really engage with our assistant principles who are um right on the cusp for um being ready to step into the principal role so that we have a pipeline of um talented and ready assistant principles ready to um move into that principal um role when as we continue to grow so fast. All right, DIP strategy three, you may recall one of our updates, you approved us to add a day of wellness leave for all full-time uh staff that work with us. We that was very wellreceived and we have individuals already taking advantage of that wellness day. Diff strategy 4 is uh the expansion of our red
030rover software to become part of our time clock keeping system. It allows for more efficiency and a better employee experience. um as well as allowing us to use temporary like white time sheets will now become something that will be electronic, increasing our um our efficiency. And then our very last strategy here is really working to manage our financial integrity and our balanced budget um by moving forward pursuing a VATRE. Uh hoping to get that funding that way we can have local control of our funds uh and be strategic with our class size ratios, program staffing while providing a maximum compensation for our staff. All right, there's something on the floor. Oh, okay. Mr. Tossy and I are going to tag team this next set. Uh, strategic goal three um really is our culture and our
031environment um safety and in safe environment um strategy. So, priority 3.1 is about engaging um all of our stakeholders and making sure that they have a sense of belonging. So strategy number one is um thinking about our CCMR education awareness opportunities. Um our CTE and CCMR departments are um really working with our elementary schools in K through five to make sure our students and their parents and um all of our stakeholders know the great opportunities that are ahead of them as they metriculate into middle school and then into high school. Um strategy number two is um just exploring opportunities for potentially opening up um enrollment to interdist um enrollment opportunities. We may have areas in the district where um if our enrollment isn't at a level that isn't um maximizing the campus, then we're just
032going to explore what it could look like if we were to um offer interdist transfers to families wanting to join our district in certain areas. >> And the next one is actually about you all. Uh so we have a great relationship with our PTAs, uh the Northwest ISD Council of PTAs, which oversees all of our school PTAs. So as part of that, uh there's always things, advice they give, comments they make that we would love for you all to directly hear. Uh sometimes things get lost in translation if we're relaying it to you. So having you involved in that process. Uh so for our superintendent roundtables going forward we'd like one of you to attend each meeting just so that we can have that collaborative process and you all can be more involved in that
033not that you're already huge supporters of PTA and then next we have a implement new to NISD quarterly questionnaire so I think everyone in here knows that Northwest ISD is growing and has been for quite some time. Uh one thing that we did last year is we implemented a a change in terms of how we communicate with families who are new to the district. we upgraded uh we added a web portal that they can easily access some of the the tools the services that we expect our families to know. So the next step in that process is making sure that they do know it. So every quarter we're going to have a list of families who have joined Northwest ISD for that quarter. We're going to ask them are you able to easily find X
034Y and Z and then ask for that qualitative feedback of what are we not telling you that you need to know as a family member who's uh new to Northwest ISD. Uh priority 3.2 is our um focus on our culture and strategy number one is um continuing to support our teachers and our campuses with student behavior. So we are in year three of our campus behavior support framework and so we are fully implementing uh tier one at all of our campuses and also starting to embed tier 2 strategies with students who need additional support as well as tier three in some of our um targeted student groups. And then um strategic uh strategy number two is um continuing to really pay attention to our student attendance and monitoring uh that very closely working with our
035campuses to provide them support and in particular targeting our students who have chronic who are chronically absent and working with them to meet their needs. Um the next one you want to talk about this. >> Okay. >> Yes. Um, DIP strategy three is about implementing a district-wide code of civility. Um, we're still in process. We started that last um, uh, improvement cycle, but we're still in process. Senate Bill 12 has so many details and new policies and procedures related to parental rights that we want to get fully rolled out so that these things aren't in opposition to our code of civility. But our intent is to align it with the emergency emergent tree nomenclature that we've been using that vocabulary of be safe, be responsible, and be respectful. Um, so we you have parental rights,
036but you also have parental roles and responsibilities, and we'd like to align them to emergency. So, look for that to happen as at some point during this school year. And I don't know if you all heard, but there were a lot of new laws that were passed in the most most recent legislative session. Uh, I think Mrs. Hobbs is finally starting to get some sleep every now and again. Uh but one of the laws was that we now have to adapt our crisis communications plan to a template that the state uh has created or has told the Texas school safety center to create. So we've had a crisis communication plan probably for at least two decades in Northwest ISD. The problem is the template is very rigid. So we're adapting what our plan is and
037moving it over to the state plan. I've heard from some districts who are actually having two plans. It's like here's the plan that we actually like and here's putting it into the template. That's just very confusing. So, it's going to take a little bit of time to move everything in there. Make sure we're checking all the boxes that the state wants us to check. School safety center does a great job. Uh this is just one challenge that we're going to work through. And then finally, priority 3.3 is our focus on safety. Um you heard back in I believe it was May or June when Dr. Farber um share the counseling update that feedback from our students and also when uh Mr. Tossy gave feedback on our parent survey. An area that um we want to
038increase is respectful behavior between our students. Our parents said between teacher and student it's really good. Our students said between teacher and student respect is really high. But both groups said respect between and among students um wasn't as great as we would want it to be. So we are really focused on improving respectful behavior between our students. That ties in with our behavior framework and our work with emergent treat as well. And then uh strategy number two is continuing our work with um providing our teachers and staff support and training in youth mental mental health first aid. And then to tie into that somewhat, strategy number three, we are kicking off an NISD student wellness center. It actually um starts tonight, I believe. Is it tonight or tomorrow night? This week um will be the
039first session. It's going to be at Northwest High School after hours. Um and our counseling uh staff are providing that service to our families who need additional support for their for their children um in the health and the wellness area, mental wellness. And then um strategy four, we have uh worked with our special program center to develop an elementary discipline alternative education program um for students that have serious behavior um challenges. And so that is up and running. Uh we have not had anyone placed there yet, but um we do have that ready to go. >> I accidentally got ahead of myself. That's what I get for trying to memorize this. Uh, but the next one is the standard response protocol. Uh, Mike's team, Mike Conklin and his team, Albeck, they do a great job
040of making our students and staff aware of the standard response protocol. So, one thing we want to do as a district is we want to get all of our families involved. So, we'll be working on some communication on that to make sure that that every family is informed on what we do uh whenever there's a lockdown, a hold, secure, anything like that. And going back to the one that I accidentally skipped, uh, we are doing a standardized process of communication for new schools to Northwest ISD. When Worththington opened, Principal Childris did a great job of creating a timeline for middle schools. There were some things that we realized as our communications department that we can help out even further for uh, helping them get uh, social media accounts set up. And it's even more important
041at the elementary level because you hire the principal later on. So, if we can go ahead and reserve those accounts on social media for them so that there's less work for them to do, but also making sure that we're communicating the major timelines in the school uh construction process so that families are excited about a new school opening. And I'll turn it over to Sarah. Good evening, board. Uh strategy strategy seven develop and implement a large-scale reunification process and training to strengthen safety procedures and ensure effective emergency response. All of our campuses have their individual spaces when if they need to leave their campus. But this is a larger scale say central campus we need to leave the central campus. We need to find a process and where to go and how parents pick up
042the students um if we have to to leave the central campus. So we'll be working on that for the next year. Oops, wrong direction. And I will just wrap up with the timeline. You can see that this work started back in May whenever we met with our DEIC committee to get feedback from them to start the needs assessment. Um, and then we shared the last year's um, DIP review with you at the end of the year. We um are bringing the DIP to you tonight as a discussion item and we're sharing it with DEIC tomorrow and they will um give us feedback and then vote to approve um DEIC which is a part of the process and then we'll come back to you at our next um board meeting for final approval. So with that,
043do you have any questions for any of us? >> Mr. BS, you have questions. >> Just more of a comment. And for uh Anthony, the was it 3.1 engagement and the new new to NISD survey. I think that's amazing. I think it's a great next step in your evolution of continuing to improve communication with the district because that's all when we see parent comments on social media and whatnot, that always seems to be a struggle is they just don't know what they don't know. So to be able to actually engage them directly and get that information, I think that's amazing. And then then I'm going to be looking forward to what you're what feedback you're getting from that as well. So look forward to that. So good job. Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> I
044have a couple quick ones. >> Okay. um staff listening sessions this year. Are we having specific topics that we're talking about at them or are we just being open for comment? >> No, I'll open that. We we will we try to sort of design those questions around the topic duour. Um hopefully Anthony hasn't designed all of them just yet, but I guarantee you there's some things percolating over there. Um and a lot of times it's based on feedback. Sometimes it's followup from previous year, but it's next evolution. I'd certainly be open to if the board thinks there are things that we should hone in on um based on what you're hearing in the community or from parents or staff, any of those things, please share with us your thoughts. >> Dr. F told me, do
045you mind if I say it? >> Go ahead. >> Uh he told me one that uh is a really great idea. just what are things that we can take off teachers plates whether it's paperwork or things like that like give us very specific examples so that we can go and look through those processes I know that uh Cara Carter's team has done a great job of looking at what can we transition to laserfish to make it an easier process to uh if there is paperwork that's mandated by the state that it doesn't take a whole lot of time or that it's very efficient for our families or for our teachers I mean uh there are other things that we're thinking about still we do want to see the impact of the election and is that
046going to change the kind of questions we get? Uh sometimes there are a few questions we don't really think of until the last minute just because it starts coming to us very quickly. Uh but any feedback you all have, we definitely appreciate. >> Appreciate that invitation. I want to when I was reading through this uh this weekend, the code of civility really stuck out to me, which I think is a very interesting way to go about um tackling all the challenges of Senate Bill 12. Um, I will be very interested to see how we're going to work through that. Um, my guess is you guys are having lots of talks about this one. Um, and all the things. I'm I'm very interested in it. >> Yes, ma'am. I'll add a little bit of color to
047that. So, we started with gathering feedback from parent groups last year and I I hit several different groups, PTA, superintendent round table, several different locations where we got um input from staff. Cara helped me dump that into a couple of different um AI bots and uh and then we tried to combine it with um some other I guess forms of I don't know how to explain what I'm trying to say, but we dumped it into AI. spit out kind of a version for us, but aligning that to or having it not be in competition with what came through the legislative process this cycle. That's what we're trying to avoid. We want it to be aligned and supportive rather than um in opposition. So, we want to work through that. >> I assume we're rolling it
048out to the entire community because this is a it's a parent. It's not just a student teacher thing. It's a parent thing, too. >> Yeah. it it would be something that we would want to have sort of common vocabulary and common symbols that you would see uh displayed on every campus. So, still working on it. >> Okay, that's the last question I have. Anybody else have questions? Thanks everybody for all your work. We appreciate you. >> Okay, that uh closes the discussion action portion of the meeting. We will move on to item 10 which is reports. The first report is the 2025 summer school district effectiveness report. Melissa Weber. >> Good evening. Hello. >> Oh. Okay. I'm here to give you just a little overview about the exciting things that happened in summer of 2025.
049So, our summer programs do a few different things. They provide accelerated learning, trying to target those learning gaps. We provide some enrichment opportunities. And then for our high school students, some opportunities to recoup credits that they may have lost or to get ahead in their schedules with some credit, original credit courses. Here's the numbers, and you'll see we stay pretty steady with participation. Kids love things in the summer. Isn't that great? Okay. our in-person summer school we um had for elementary and middle school grades through third through 8th grade. A shout out to Nef because they came through really great with snacks again and supplies for us. And this in-person summer school provided some great targeted instruction along with students who may have earned some opportunities for accelerated instruction for not passing STAR. They got
05015 hours worth of that accelerated instruction by coming to our in-person summer school at the high school level. That was our online learning platform and those were the two different opportunities of credit recovery and original credit. Um we had a lot of students participate in the original credit. They like they seem to like getting ahead in their schedules or if they're involved in fine arts or athletics that helps with their schedules um during the school year. ESY. Those students are selected by an AR committee decision and that provides skills that they may not have mastered during the school year and that happened u during June and July and we had about 30 students participate. Language camps, those happened over at Clare Love Elementary. And this is a really fun opportunity throughout June and July for
051our newcomers and students with those beginning English skills. And they really spend a lot of time on vocabulary and academic language. And then all the kids love these summer enrichment camps put on by our awesome technology department and our GT department. um they come we even have some out some kids outside of the school district that participate in some of these but they're a lot of fun and that ends our presentation. Do you have any questions? Any questions for >> it looks pretty amazing to me. >> Oh yeah, >> maybe I should come to a camp. >> I think you should bring Mark with you. I think we're set. Thank you very much for all your time and all your work. Okay, that ends the reports version or section of our agenda. We will move
052on to 11, which is the board president's report. Um, only real uh update I have as text edcon conference is this week. Everybody's going. It should be a great week of learning um and listening and connecting. I can't wait to see everybody there. All right, we'll move on to 12, which is the superintendence report. >> Just a couple of upcoming events. Um we will be hosting the North Texas uh area association of school boards uh meeting uh here in this room on September 24th. So, we're excited to to do that to share this building with our neighboring uh board of trust boards of trustees. Uh, also on 9:25 we have the Prairie View Elementary dedication. Um, that'll be an exciting event, the new Prairie View. And the Mercury Multi-Purpose Center ribbon cutting is on September
05330th. Uh, so a ton of events upcoming. Uh, not to mention uh about eight days a week, we'll be getting be giving the Proposition A presentation um to our campuses, to a bunch of community events, to anyone who will care to hear the facts. And we'll be sharing that pretty aggressively. And that's campus and district leaders across the district will be working on that over the remainder of September and October. So that's all we have. Move