001I 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 meetings act, Texas Government Code 551. The board will convene in close session pursuant to Texas Government Code Chapter 551, including sections 551.071, consultation with the board's attorney, and 551.0 072 real estate matters and 551.074 personnel matters. >> Good evening everyone. We're going to reconvene our regular meeting at 6:30 p.m. >> At this time, I'll ask you guys to rise and join me for an invocation followed by the pledges of allegiance. If you'd like to please join me in prayer. Heavenly Father, we come to you
002humbly, Lord, as we conduct the school board's work uh in public. We ask you to bless this board with wisdom to make godly decisions. Lord, we ask we ask for continued prayer for protection over our students, over our faculty and staff, our parents, and and our community. Lord, we just ask for that hedge of protection. Bless us as we go forward in this school year and try to maximize our learning and our growth. These things we ask in the Lord's name. Amen. Okay, I've got a couple of kiddos. Come on down to the podium. Um, you you guys will be right there at the podium with the microphone. Uh, let me grab my glasses so I can introduce to you Aria Bass, who is a third grade student at Cox Elementary. Her parents, Micah and
003Gwyn and Bass are are supporting her. Her favorite subject is reading because she loves to learn new things from different books, and enjoys fiction when it's a good story, right? So, I love that. Um, she likes to uh play Roblox, ride her bike, and visit with her nana on the weekend. And having a Nana at having a pool at Nana's house is a plus also. So that's important. Her proud principal, Miss Oakley, says area loves to learn. Every day she does her best to try and learn something new. And she works hard not only to be a great student, but a great friend to all the students in her classroom and around the school. So we're glad you're here. Hang on just a second. Let me introduce Alex Goodman, who's a fifth grade student at
004Cox Elementary. Thank you, Mark and Terry Goodman, for being here. His favorite subject is math and science, and he likes to I don't know. Do you do taekwondo? I don't know. He he is into taekwondo. How about that? Uh and his principal said, "Alex always does his very best. He's caring and thoughtful to others and respectful to all students and adults. And Miss Oakley can always count on Alex to come to school every day with a positive attitude and ready to do his best." So, these two are going to lead us in the pledge this evening. Thank you. I'll turn it over to you, Arian. I pledge alce 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
005all. >> I forgot. >> It's okay. Go ahead, Alex. >> Honor the Texas flag. I pledge algiance to the Texas one state under God one and indivisible. >> Thank you guys. Great job. Y'all may be seated. If you two will stay right there, our board president, Miss Murphy, is going to come bring you a small token of our appreciation and then we will turn it over to Mr. Toy for recognitions. [Applause] Good evening, President Murphy, Dr. Fast, members of the board. At this time, if President Murphy and Dr. FA can join us at the front, we'll do recognitions. So tonight we're beginning with uh two campuses. Uh they're part of our character.caracter.org recognitions this evening. We've had a lot of campuses over the years take part in character.org initiatives. Uh just making sure that we're
006building up the whole child. Uh making sure we're we're partnering with parents to raise good children. Uh so this year just 230 schools from across the United States earned the character.org Promising Practice Award. So the two campuses here tonight are starting with K. Granger Elementary School. So for their uh award, they implemented a character challenge coins program that involved veterans and first responders in the character building efforts of the school. These specially designed coins noted Granger status as a character.org school and recognized the school's kid with character winners for the school year. So by providing these coins, they encouraged other students uh to engage in high character activities. Here today from Granger is fourth grade teacher Brian Draggy, principal Michelle McAdams, assistant principal Aaron O'Shea Johnson, and counselor Amanda Jones. If you'll join us at
007the front. [Applause] Next up, we have Nance Elementary School, which earned its award for f feeding friends in Fort Worth program. Each year, the school collects items through the kindness week uh and delivers them the following Saturday and back backpacks with sack lunches to downtown Fort Worth to those in need. The program began four years ago and it's grown every year to provide more support to those in need. Here today from Nance is counselor Julie Soul, principal Lindseay Smith, assistant principal Jessica Leak, and kindergarten teacher Britney Gilmore. [Applause] In our final recognition for the evening, we'd like to extend a special recognition to the team of temporary workers who took on the enormous challenge of helping transition our student records from physical files to fully digital files. If you've ever worked on a campus, visited
008a campus, you know that these used to be physical files that we'd have for each and every student. There were tons of them, thousands of them. Uh so this was a process that initially we thought it was going to take 5 years. So this team came together working in partnership with Linda Gray from the HR department uh as well as our campuses, the technology department and they completed this task in half that time which is crazy. Uh but this team didn't just uh do that. They saved uh the district on uh space filing costs, efficiency in transferring records, faster ability to search these records, just being able to digitally search for them versus having to go through a record. So what they did is more than just digitizing. It takes time out of our day.
009It makes everyone more efficient. So what they did was truly amazing for our district. Uh so the individuals being recognized tonight are Angie Parks, Tatiana Truvian, Brienne Bickley, and not in attendance tonight is Tony Hodgeges. And then we also have Linda Gray from HR. If you can join us at the front. [Applause] And that concludes our recognitions this evening. [Applause] Okay, we're going to move to item uh number seven, which is public testimony, comment on agenda and non-aggenda items. And we have two this evening. And I'll read the statement first. Public testimony and public comments are an opportunity for the public to address the board on any agenda item or matter not on matter on or not on the agenda. Is that the right one? >> Yes. >> Okay. Sorry. I apologize. The board may
010place reasonable restraints on the length of presentations so long as it does not unfairly discriminate among speakers based on viewpoint. People who wish to speak must have signed up and complete completed a public request to speak form before the meeting begins and identify the topic they wish to address with the board. Each presentation is limited to three minutes. Speakers requiring language translation will be limited to six minutes. Speakers should refrain from mentioning by name an employee or student about whom they are complaining. Our first speaker this evening is Kyler Dugan. Could you please step to the podium and state your name and address? Hello. Um, my name is Kyler Dugan and I'm here to talk address um SB12. Oh, can I go? Oh, sorry. Um, hi, my name is Kyler and I'm a student at
011James M. Steel Early College. I want to talk about the the debageness in SB12's bill regarding pronoun usage in schools. I am transgender and I have been socially transitioning since I was 9 years old. This is who I am. Since this new legislation has gone into effect, my teachers under the a fear that they will lose their jobs have to misgender me due to the legislation inhibit inhibitated them from supporting me. Every time it happens, it it really hurts. It makes it impossible to focus in school. I come to class to learn and instead I I end up in tears and unable to do my work. This makes me feel as if I don't belong in this school or the state in general. All I want is recognition that I exist and that my identity
012is real. I think it's um the bare minimum any student deserves in Northwest ISD. Please think about the students who are being hurt by this law. It's just it's not just me. Um, many of my classmates are upset and hurt from this, and it makes me upset seeing them upset. I see it every day in school about when they can't um use their um preferred pronouns or names. And thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um, our second speaker, um, April Grimes, please step to the podium and state your name and address. >> My home address, correct? >> Yeah, that'll be deleted out of the recording, right? Hopefully not aired out for all of the world to know, but uh, yes, April Grimes, 2801 Redwolf Drive. Um, my name is April. I'm a mother of
013two at the wonderful K Granger Elementary School, a recent Byron Nelson graduate, and a me and I am a mental health therapist serving teens across DFW, many of whom are in Northwest ISD and other local districts. I'm also a proud alumni of Northwest High School just a few years ago. Couple one to two maybe maybe a few more. But um I'm here because misinterpretations of SB12 have already hurt many of our students and staff. Specifically section 7, chapter 11, subchapter 1 of SB12. It requires districts to establish policies prohibiting staff from assisting with social transitioning, meaning providing guidelines, information, or resources explicitly guiding a student through a gender transition, particularly without parental awareness or consent. Critically, nothing in SB12 mandates disciplinary action against a teacher or staff member simply for respectfully acknowledging a student's affirming
014names or pronouns in daily interaction, especially when honoring the request of that student and their parents. Yet some districts have conflated assisting with ordinary affirming practices, creating a hostile school climate, and risking vi violations of Title 9 of the Civil Rights Act, which forbid se sex-based discrimination, including on the basis of gender identity. The stakes are life and death, and unfortunately, that is not an exaggeration. Our LGBTQ students are already twice as likely to their cisgender peers, uh, cis and heteropers, to attempt suicide. trans kiddos, that percentage just continues to go up. Imagine a child in one of our classrooms whose name the staff refuses to use out of fear of losing their livelihood, whose identity is questioned not by policy or by law, but by misinterpretation. That child's sense of safety and belonging is
015stripped away in an instant. And you all have the power to correct this by issuing a clear district directive or policy memo distributed to every campus and every staff member. You can clarify that SB12's only prohibition is on guiding a student through transition by providing those materials listed in the law. It does not apply to using affirming names and pronouns. you can train our educators to apply the law accurately and restore trust and psychological safety within our schools. Thank you so much for your leadership and for ensuring that our district remains a place where all of our children can learn, thrive, and be themselves. Um, it looks like the proposed policy from our wonderful admin team does directly reflect this law and that is amazing. However, I do want to strongly advocate that our staff
016is given some sort of memo or directive that clarifies what that law means and does not mean. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay, we will move on to item eight on the agenda, which is the consent agenda. >> Madam President, >> Mr. Schlutoter. >> I'll first ask if any of the board members have any items they would like to have removed and discussed. Seeing none, I move to approve the consent agenda as submitted. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Schlutoter and a second by Dr. Rous to approve the consent agenda as submitted. All in favor? That's 6. Thank you board. Item nine is to consider any item removed from the consent agenda and there were none. So we will move on to 10 which is discussion action. The first item on
017discussion action is course request for TEA to advance SUAS applications. >> Good evening region 11 school board of the year. It's my pleasure as director of CTE um to introduce two exceptional leaders and veterans of this United States, Jeff Nees and Donnie Farre, who run our aviation academy at Eaton High School um within our district. One of the things that sets these gentlemen apart from many of the other ummies or CTE aviation programs in the state is they're true aviators. They actually served as aviators for this country. Many other programs have teachers that do a wonderful job, but these two gentlemen really are special. They've recently developed an innovative drone course um including TEICSS they created for the whole state of Texas. And I'm going to not waste your time or even act like I
018understand as much as they do. And I'm going to turn it over to them to go through the course for you. Thank you. >> Good evening. Uh my name is Donnie Far. This is uh Mr. Jeff Nees. And uh we're going to speak to you tonight about our uh uh request for application to the state. I think this button makes it go next. >> Down. Down is up. >> Down is up. There it is. Okay, sorry about that. Um, okay, here we go. Our course overview. Um, the course was designed with input from industry professionals and we've been working on this for several years. Um, those industry professionals recommended that we focus on a few areas to get our students ready and prepared for real world applications. And some of those include aerial mapping and
019modeling, aerial inspections and thermal inspections, search and rescue, disaster response. Um, but the question that we're here for is what do we need this course for? Um, currently the the drone regional program of study that the state has uses drones to enhance learning in other areas such as engineering and coding and robotics. They don't focus on the flying and the operating of those drones. Um, additionally, there's only one drone course for the entire state currently, and that drone course just focuses on the certification process really, which is the part 107 uh, commercial drone certification. And unfortunately, the FA does not require, and neither does that course require any student to ever pilot or fly a drone to get that certification. So, they're not ready to move out into the real world. So this course that
020we've put together, it prepares students for flying and operating drones and their sensors and it introduces them to the variety of drone missions, but also aligns with courses that are being offered now uh postsecary. And as the drone world comes about, we can already see that colleges are starting to offer courses, programs, and degrees all the way up to PhDs in unmanned aerial systems. So we're uh we're pushing along with them as we're moving forward. Uh currently in NISD in our aviation program, we offer four sequential courses uh in our aviation program for drones and the last two are specific to drone pilots. Um, additionally, we offer advanced vertical robotics opportunities, drone soccer opportunities, and um, we've hosted or we're going to host the advanced vertical robotics competition this year at Eaton as we move
021forward and, uh, move with the industry there. We've also had several students earn internships at BNSF. And for the last three years under Mr. needs. We've had a 100% pass rate of our part 107 certification inside our program. So, where are we at in this process today? Um, this started back in 2003. We met with some local industry uh professionals to try and see what we needed to do to get our students ready for the real world. And um under their guidance and we created a course and we piloted that in uh inside our academy there. Uh the next year we reached out to some nationwide drone curriculum uh providers to see what they had and how we could develop a full course and we partnered with Dart Drone to fully develop a high school
022curriculum. Um they had the powerpoints in the bases because it was adult learning. Um and then we worked with them and we got the um scope and sequence. We got activities for all the students to do, formative, summitative assessments and really got that curriculum ready for the state. We piloted that that last year uh while we were doing that. Um this summer we wrote all the TEICSS to be uh presented to the state as part of this application and I'm proud here tonight to stand here. The last part of that application that we need is your blessing and approval to send that to the state. Um, and that's the the quick with that. Any questions for us. >> Hey guys, uh, thank you. And, uh, I'm really excited about this program because as we've seen
023over the the last few years, this drone industry is it's going places I don't think anybody could have anticipated a few years ago. and the fact that those uh e those alum students that went on to work for BNSF with that program that's absolutely amazing. So I I'm really excited about this. But I just want to go back to the slide that showed the four years the course. So I just want to make sure that yes, that one. Thank you. The freshman and sophomore year that those two classes everybody takes that regardless of the the pathway. >> Yes, you're correct. Uh everybody takes those. our our core base and then the junior and the senior courses is when everybody decides what direction they want to focus on. >> Okay. And so that junior year for
024for this program, where do they do their classes at? >> So the junior year is um at Eaten, all of our drone courses are at Eaton at >> um and we do the junior year is their part 107 certification. >> And where a lot of schools are taking almost the whole year to do that, uh Mr. has really developed a a great program through there and and we do it in the first quarter and then we can start focusing on some advanced photography and videography and just getting the kids ready ahead for what they need. >> Okay. Yeah. You know, especially when you talk about the photography, the uh I think there's the the um creative media production graduate that went on to Hollywood to do a type movies using drones, but I don't think
025he went through y'all's program, but he just picked up. So, I know it's out there and I was just watching a TV show the other day that used a lot of drones to do their shots. So, they were doing 360° shots while the action continued. It was just absolutely incredible to watch and just see how that industry is growing. But here locally, the I've I've heard I don't remember if I heard it from here in Northwest Corners or if I've heard it elsewhere, but I know Hillwood has been really testing the drone delivery in this area. And I I was kind of curious, are we tied with them at all on that? Are they part of this program? anything going on with Hillwood and drone delivery? >> Uh we haven't done anything specifically with uh
026Hillwood, but Mr. Nes can talk about some things that he did with that drone delivery. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Yeah. So uh actually Hillwood has created uh the Miz mobile uh innovative zone and one of the companies that they brought in was a company called Mana drone and we actually did have three student two students who were employed by Mana doing drone delivery and that was in uh was it the Pon Square Pan Square neighborhood. >> So we've had um and then we're looking for future endeavors as well. I know Taylor Sheridan just opened up a new production studio here. So, we're going to try to work and find some constantly looking for opportunities for our students. Um, BNSF Railroad just reached out to me last week saying, "Hey, do you have any more students?
027We need more drone pilots." So, constantly looking for opportunities for our students. >> With BNSF, what exactly are they doing uh with drones? What's a how do they make that work? >> Combination of things. We have some students who are working at the interotal facility and they're using drones to do inventory and check the carts to make sure that everything is where it's supposed to be. Um, they're also using drones to inspect the engines. Instead of having somebody crawl up on top of the engine, look down in the stack, they can have a drone fly over and look in it. Uh, another student that we had get a job was doing it as a part-time. He was going to the University of Kentucky. He would go back to his dorm room. He would fly a
028drone that was located in Washington State and he would inspect railroad tracks. >> Just, you know, Dr. F, we mentioned uh as well actually Dr. Rue was the first to mention it and I I'm not sure how long y'all been here, but a few superintendents ago, you know, she she said that preparing our students for jobs that don't exist. >> And this drone fits into that category from when she was talking uh back then. So, I I just can't imagine the technology going in what's that uh that vertical lift takeoff taxi thing that they're even talking about. How we're we're we're going that direction as well. And it's just an exciting industry to watch develop uh really from the ground up. And I'm excited that y'all have developed a program that will make us a
029part of that. So, um so congratulations on that. But one thing it was kind of I want to try to find out personally what what is y'all's background? He uh he alluded to it, but what what is y'all's background? >> Um I retired from the Marine Corps. I was a KC130 flight engineer, so I flew all over the world, uh, doing fun stuff there. Uh, retired and became a teacher. I'm also a FAA certified drone pilot, uh, an FAA advanced ground instructor, and I'm also an FAA private pilot, uh, working on my instrument rating, sir. And, um, I'm with the I'm actually still serving in the Texas Air National Guard. Uh, I work on C130s, crew chief for them. And, um, I'm a advanced ground school instructor, FAA certified. uh FAA certified AMP mechanic as
030well and then remote pilot. So, >> okay, good. Thanks for that. And it's on a complete with within the aviation academy, but on a different subject. I've been trying for almost four years now to get Southwest to come visit visit the academy just because of that destination 225 program they have. And then also with the mechanic uh intern program they have. trying to just to get them to make that hour drive, but it's you would think that they they don't know that Fort Worth exists when you go go into the headquarters and talk to them. It's very frustrating. And I was talking to one girl uh she was saying she goes, "Yeah, we were talking to this uh school in California that's just spinning up their aviation program." And I said, "Ours has been going
031on for 10 years. Just please make the drive so y'all can come see how awesome you guys are." So, yeah, appreciate the hard work going there. >> What's that? >> We'll go to them if they have an opportunity. They don't. >> We'll make it an effort. We've we've gone to American before and we've toured their their hanger facilities or maintenance facilities. So, if you have a connection and we can get over there, we'll we'll be happy to go. >> I know people that know people in both places. So, I think uh I think we can make that work. Dr. Fast and uh might get some simulator rides out of it too if we uh if we do it. Dr. FA. So, um but but um you mentioned advanced robotic competition that you're going to host
032that. When is that and can we get invitations? Yeah, absolutely. The two events are going to be November 8th and 9th that weekend and then November 15th, 16th as well. This is our This will be our fourth year competing. Our first year um we didn't make it out of the qualifying events. It was a learning experience. It didn't go very well, but uh we learned a lot. We we ranked seventh in the nation the year before last. Last year we were fifth in the nation. So, we've got goals of getting in the top three this year. And then we we offered to host it at our school so that we could get an inside edge honestly. >> Nice. No, whatever it takes. That's amazing. So, yeah, just if you don't mind, please make sure we
033get invitations to that and uh love to love to come attend and watch it if if my work schedule lets me be in town. So, thank y'all for the amazing things y'all have done with this program and um good luck going forward on uh at the state level and getting this approved and and thank you'all for your service as well. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you guys. Great presentation and again this is a discussion action item. So in order for us to send this to the course uh to the state as an innovative course uh request we would need board to approve it. >> Thank you >> Madame President. Dr. Rous. >> Um, I would like to um motion to approve the course request to TEA for advanced SUAS applications as recommended by the
034administration. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Dr. Roush and a second by Mr. Sprouls to approve the course request to TEA for advanced S UAS applications as recommended by the administration. All in favor? That's a six to zero. Thank you, gentlemen. We appreciate you very much. Thank you. >> Okay, we will go. >> I gave him the thumbs up. I'm sure we got this. >> We will move on to um >> confidence for you. >> Item B. We will move on to item B which consideration of a teacher's late resignation without good cause and proposed complaint to the state board of educator certification for abandonment of contract. >> Dr. F. >> Just very quickly, we have one this evening. Uh Kathleen McCann um resigned and we believe took a job with another district.
035Um she she abandoned her contract. Madame President, Mrs. Hatfield, make the motion that the board finds that good cause did not exist under section 21.210C of the Texas Education Code for Kathleen McCann to resign her contract for the 2025 2026 school year. that the board did not consent to her resignations and that the board authorizes the superintendent to file a complaint with the state board for educator certification to seek sanctions for her abandonment. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mrs. Hatfield and a second by Mrs. Cobb that the board finds that good cause did not exist under section 21.210C 2110C of the Texas Education Code for Kathleen McCann to resign her contract for the 2025 2026 school year and that the board did not consent to her resignation and that the board authorizes
036a superintendent to file a complaint with the state board for educator certification to seek sanctions for her abandonment. All in favor? That's six to zero. Thank you, board. We will move on to item C, which is a resolution regarding Senate Bill 12 and parental rights. Well, good evening board, Dr. Fast. Um, before you this evening is a uh resolution uh regarding Senate B Senate Bill 12 and parent rights. Um the resolution basically tracks the language of the statute and it just affirms to our community and to our staff that it is our intention that uh the district comply with um the contours of Senate Bill 12. >> Does anyone have any questions? Madam President, uh the question I would have is not really a question, but it's a statement because Senate Bill 12, as we've
037been advised and looked at it from different angles, is very confusing from all sides. So, we just try to keep our students, teachers, our district, uh safe from litigation, which may be impossible, but uh we're going to do our best to take care of all of those. And with that, I move to approve the resolution regarding Senate Bill 12 and parent rights as recommended by the administration. >> Second. I have a motion by Mr. Schlutoter and a second by Dr. Rous to approve the resolution regarding Senate Bill 12 and parental rights or parent rights as recommended by the administration. All in favor 6. Thank you board. We'll move on to item D which is the district of innovation revised plan. All right. Um there are a few changes that the administration proposes making to the
038DOI plan um following the most recent legislative session. Um those fall into three categories. Um first is grievances, second is uh library collections and third are um chapter 37 of the education code which relates to student discipline. Um so the first set of uh exemptions we are seeking comes out of Texas education code uh sections 26A.01 through 0.004. Um the legislature created a new chapter in the education code that governs grievances filed against the school district. Um this chapter is contrary to Northwest ISD's long-standing practice of resolving grievances in a prompt, efficient, fair way for um for students and staff and for parents. Um for example um section 26A.01 O1 allows complainants to amend their complaints and supplement their grievance at any point in the grievance process. That interferes with a prompt resolution of the
039grievance because you could get to level two or even to level three and a grievant can bring you new evidence and new information that might not have been considered at the lower levels. The law does allow for at those higher levels to send the grievance right back to level one so that those new claims can be reviewed. Um, but you can imagine if a parent tries to bring new information up at level two and then we kick them back to level one, that can be frustrating for the parent as well as for the administrators who've already put a good deal of time and effort into resolving their complaint. Um, additionally, uh, section 268.02 allows complainants up to 90 days to file a level one complaint. Um, our district works very hard to resolve those complaints
040close to the time of the event that a person is complaining about. um dragging that out for um a semester before a person even has to file a level one complaint can really interfere with administration's ability to investigate and take prompt action to resolve the the person's complaint. And so the district would request that we continue our long-standing practice and procedures of resolving complaints promptly and efficiently for our parents and to become exempt from this chapter so we can continue doing that good work. Um, a a subsection to that um um exemption is um needing to also exempt the district from a portion of Texas Education Code 26.01. Um that statute requires the board to adopt policies for the grievance procedure quote that comply with chapter 26A. But if we are exempt from chapter 26A,
041um we would also want to eliminate that particular language in the other portion of the law so that we can fully be exempt from chapter 26A. Um the second set of exemptions that the administration uh seeks um deal with library collections. Um so uh Texas Education Code 33.025 025 allows school boards to establish a local school library advisory council a slack. Um at your last meeting you voted to establish a slack. You appointed members to that slack. Uh the challenge with this particular statute is that it burdens the slack with a number of statutory duties u membership requirements and meeting requirements that are frankly honorous and interfere with the ability of the slack to have frank conversations and to do their work efficiently. Um and so the district absolutely values the the contributions and opinions
042of our community members, of our Slack members. Um particularly when we are evaluating library collections. Um but the district seeks to exempt from the particularly honorous requirements that are placed upon the Slack. so that Slack can continue evaluating library collections, continue um evaluating challenges, but do so in a manner that more um effectively represents our community and and serves our constituents. Um secondary to that is um the acquisition of library materials in education code 33.026. That statute would require the board of trustees to approve every um acquisition, every purchase to the library collection in the entire district. Um the challenge with that particular law is that um trustees, many of you have full-time jobs. You have families and um it it is um unreasonable to expect trustees to be experts in every book title that
043a district might hope to purchase. And so, um, the the DOI committee recommends becoming exempt from this statute as well. Um, so that the board can rely on the professionals you've hired to be responsible for library acquisitions, many of whom have master's degree in library science, in student literature, um, in education. Um, so that you can let the educators and the professionals u make those recommendations in collaboration with the Slack. um to really let the experts do do their work in that regard. Um along with that um the DOI committee also recommends um exemption from the statute that governs the challenge of library materials. That's education code 33.027. Um this new law creates a um process for people to challenge library materials. We in Northwest have had a process for many years. It works very
044well. It is efficient. it has served our community well. Um there are some problems with this particular statute. Um one of them is that immediately after a challenge is filed um while that challenge is pending um the book must be removed from um access to every student in the district during that pendency. And so, for example, if if a parent were to um challenge that perhaps the Diary of VanFrank is inappropriate for an elementary library, the moment that challenge is filed, that book must be removed from every library collection throughout the district. Um the statute doesn't have um parameters or accounting for whether the book is appropriate for one particular age group or um the maturity of of certain students. If a challenge is filed anywhere in the district, it must be removed from all
045library collections while that um challenge is pending. Um and so again um the district the DOI committee do value community input. They do value the challenge process. Um but the DOI committee uh believes that um challenges can be resolved more effectively through the processes that we already have in place and that we can continue um to develop with the Slack um um better serving our community. Um the final group of exemptions that the DOI committee uh seeks um are all related to chapter 37 of the education code. One of the new laws that came into effect this session um prohibits school districts from using DOI to be exempt from any portion of chapter 37 of the education code which relates to student discipline. So we had in our plan several exemptions under chapter 37. Um
046these are no longer available under the law and so we would ask that these be removed um so that our plan does comply with the law. Um that includes an exemption for campus behavior coordinator, a three-day limit on suspensions, mandatory DAP placement for ecigarettes, and removal of unwanted visitors. Um so that concludes the summary of the the changes we are proposing. Um any questions? Any questions? Anyone? Christy, can you explain to us a little bit about the process for how these changes came about? Uh these statutory changes? No, for uh our DOI committee. >> Sure. So, um our DOI committee u met last week to consider several um several of these changes. Um the DOI committee was actually unanimous in approving every single one of these proposed changes. um administrative staff have met over the
047last few months to identify um which changes would be appropriate um for our district. And so the list was made the the list was brought to the the DOI committee um last week and and they unanimously approved every one of these uh recommended changes. Thank you. Any other questions? This is a discussion action. Madame President, Mr. Scott, >> I make a motion to approve the revised district of innovation plan as recommended by the DOI committee and the administration. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mrs. Copen and a second by Dr. Rous to approve the revised district of innovation plan as recommended by the DOI committee and the administration. All in favor 6. Thank you board. All right, that concludes the discussion action portion of our agenda tonight. We'll move on to reports. The
048first report of the evening is the demographic report. >> Yes, this evening we have Stuart Kio. Did I say that correctly? Yes sir. >> Okay. Um he's uh presenting on behalf of U Bob Tim Templeton from Zonda, but he is not only our a presenter this evening, he's also a customer. He has kids in our system. So please introduce yourself. Thank you for being here. >> Yes, sir. Uh thank you, Dr. FA. Good evening, President Murphy, trustees. Dr. FA, uh I am the proud parent of two Lance Lions. So, I took the 15-minute drive down the road to be here with you tonight, but very happy to be here and most importantly share the second quarter demographic update from for Northwest ISD. Very excited uh for this school year uh as a former educator. Um
049just happy to get it going and excited to share this with you. So, let's get started. Perfect. So, when we look at the broader uh economy, unemployment is one of the best indicators of local economic health. Both the DFW region and Denton County continue to have very low unemployment which helps support steady housing growth in our area. Currently, Denton County um lower than 4% which is great. Moving on to housing activity. Housing activity across the DFW metro area continues to be the strongest in the nation. In fact, four of the top 10 housing markets in the US are in Texas. Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin. Year-over-year, Dallas has had a 0% change with a 38% increase in uh year-over-year starts from 2019. Our second quarter 2025 starts in Dallas for Worth area
050were 45,229. So on this chart, uh the purple bars are going to represent the housing starts and the light blue represents the closings. Year-to- date starts are up about 1% while closings are up 6%. What's notable is that closings have just edged above starts. Some of last year's slowdown in closing was tied to economic uncertainty and families waiting on interest rate changes. We're now seeing that activity pick back up. When we look at the DFW housing market trends in the first half of 2025, home sales across DFW slowed just slightly. Rising construction costs pushed up the medium prices, which increased inventory. Interestingly, average home prices actually declined compared to the same period in 2023 because more listings were available. Even so, currently, Texas housing markets are still considered overvalued. I love this slide. It just
051grabs all of what's happening in North Texas. So, when we compare the districts across the DFW area, Northwest ISD continues to rank among the very fastest growing. The only district that it's currently outpacing Northwest is Princeton, but they are expected to reach buildout much sooner. With the nearly 42,000 future lots planned, Northwest ISD should remain in the top rankings for many years. As comparison, the only other district that has more future lots available is going to be Salina ISD. So here you can see Northwest Trends specifically. Purple shows the annual starts and light blue shows the annual closings. Compared to last year, we've seen a small uptick in the start in starts and a small dip in closings. The dip most likely reflects buyers waiting on Federal Reserve interest rate adjustment. Um, if that does
052happen, we could see a rebound in those closing numbers in quarters three and quarters four. Uh, so far this year, we've had uh in quarter 1, 757 starts. Quarter two, we've had 826 starts. In quarters one, we'd had 697 closings. And in the second quarter, 948 closings. There is a lot of information on this chart. So, let's break this down by elementary zones. Uh Justin remains one of the most active uh zones with nearly 7,000 future lots. Daniel had the um one of the highest amount of clo of activity with closings in particular in their area with 503 starts. Um we uh Daniel is uh their available lot count is beginning to narrow. We also have Carter, Parin, and Prairie View all kind of close in that third spot for annual starts with Carter leading
053in new starts. One thing to keep in mind and kind of keep an eye on is all the available lots in places like Prairie View, uh Parin, Justin, and Carter areas. Prairie View is looking at 13,000 future lots planned. So this is our uh activity map of the district. One of the first takeaways when I look at this and I notice is you know almost all of the activity is going to be happening on the western side of I35 with uh not as much growth happening in the Lake View Beck Rowano Cox Hughes uh Hughes areas. So across the district there is currently 69 active building subdivisions. In addition, there are 34 future subdivisions in the planning pipeline. Of these, groundwork is already underway on over 6,200 lots across 15 subdivisions. In just the second
054quarter alone, 769 lots were delivered and made ready for homes. So when we zoom in a little bit further to our top five performing subdivisions, we have PCON with the most amount of annual closings in the Daniel zone with 454 closings. Madero and Northstar with 278 and 229 respectively over in the Carter area. Um we're our second and fourth spot. Wildflower Ranch, excuse me, just down the road here with 235 uh lots closed or 235 closings. And finally, Shale Creek with 179 closings over in the Prairie View area. So, let's take a closer look at a couple of our active areas. Um, we we grabbed this from our satellite here uh at the beginning of August. So, this is the Madero area. Uh Madero is a master plan community with nearly 4,800 total lots. 3,400
055of those are future lots with 600 that are already vacant developed lots. There about 95 homes under construction, 96 inventory homes available, and 550 homes already occupied. Average price range in this neighborhood is running from 289,000 to 575,000. Lots of dirt being moved over there in that area as you can see from the satellite. We also have Pan Square, which I mentioned earlier, is closing in on being u it's its full buildout. Lots of activity has happened there in the last few years. Uh living across the street from it, I can tell you that firsthand. So, we have um Pon Square has just under 4,800 total lots with about 660 future lots left, 190 vacant developed lots and 2,000 homes already occupied right there in that Daniel zone. Um sitting right there where the future
056middle school is very much under construction. Uh currently 128 homes under construction, 55 finished inventory homes available. Price points in the Pan Square area are 379 up to a million. We also want to draw your attention to two future uh areas that have started moving some dirt around a little bit. So, we have uh the TerraLa area is just getting underway. As you can see by our satellite, there's been lots of movement going on there with roads and and these lots getting built out. It's going to have about 1,460 total lots, all of which are future at the moment. Groundwork is underway with Green Brick Partners uh develop development and they will feature trophy signature homes priced at the 300,000s. The next one I'd like to draw your attention to is the Oliver Creek area
057in the northern part of the district. So Oliver Creek is a planned community with just over a thousand total lots. In May of 2024, the Justin City Council approved the developers agreement for water and sewer services. And this July, a preliminary plot was submitted with 1,031 homes, which means this development is very close to getting going. All right, let's shift our attention to our multif family market trends. So, our occupancy rates in the area are fairly steady. Not a lot of changes going on here. Uh, both asking and effective rates are seeing a slight increase right now. About a quarter of the properties are giving concessions. In comparison, in the Austin area, about 50% of the apartments there are giving concessions currently. Here's our overview of the district multifamily activity. So on this map, the
058purple dots represent projects under construction and the light blue show our future developments. There are currently 1500 rental units under construction uh including more than 600 single family rental homes. Looking ahead, there are about 6,150 additional rental units in planning, including another 400 single family rentals. We would like to point out this new project happening at the intersection of 114 and I35 on the southern part of 114. So this major project is the Chadwick Chadwick farms. It's at that kind of the corner intersection of the Ron Oak and Cox zone. This development will have three different units with 300 uh unit complexes, so 900 total. It's going to be part of a larger mixeduse project that includes the Star Center, commercial area, um and some retail space as well. the construction. They've started moving things,
059but we're the first phase of construction is expected to begin this fall. So, some key takeaways to wrap this all up for y'all. New home starts in Northwest ISD were up 9.5% year-over-year in the second quarter despite higher e uh higher interest rates and broader economic uncertainty. The district has 69 active subdivisions with more than 4,600 lots available right now for builders. Another 34 subdivisions with nearly 42,700 lots are in planning. Groundwork is underway on more than 6,200 of these lots. And over the next two to three years, these developments will drive new mobility patterns within the district and Zonda Demographics will continue to add data to help Northwest ISD plan for those changes. Thank you all. Are there any questions? >> Any questions, Mr. Yeah, I got a question. Um, something I asked Mr.
060Templeton all the time on the single family or um, yeah, single family homes uh, for for purchase. In the past, it was like half a kid or 6 kit per door. Is that still what y'all look at going forward or has that ratio changed? >> Yes. So, that's gotten very uh much more complicated with the uh, addition of school choice vouchers. homeschooling is becoming very very uh a much larger movement within the state. So, we're looking very closely at individual uh subdivisions and things of that nature. There's it's not, you know, I met with Rocky today. I don't know if he's presented with y'all as well. He's a close colleague of Bob's, but he says, you know, it used to be a half point6 kid and it's not that case anymore. So, um those calculations
061are getting a bit more complex, but we're adding in a lot of those variables as we go. Um that that get your >> Yeah, I think so. So, so what you're saying with the new changes, it's a little too early to Yeah. to have those numbers. >> Yeah. I think as we move forward with the the roll out, especially the vouchers, we're going to take a very close look at, you know, campus by campus, district by district, and see what the trends are so we can adjust accordingly. >> Okay. Yeah. It just helps me when I see when you talk about specific communities, how many houses are going there? It was easy math just to divide by half and that's how many kids to expect. Uh kind of a same question for the two different
062types of multif family, the traditional apartments and the single family uh for rent for rental multifamilies. Is it still too early to tell what those ratios are per door? >> I think it's too early to tell. I think uh Bob and I actually met and spoke about the single family rental houses. I know in our in my neighborhood there are some that are zoned with Argyle over there. I believe he said and and I I want to check with him and I can get back to you on this answer, but I think that those uh single family rentals are uh trending to be a little bit lower for enrollment than a traditional purchase single family. >> Okay. And there used to be a chart in here that kind of broke down projections of attendance per
063school looking forward. So, and it's always it's starting to be I guess Bob uh a year or so ago presented at an overall DFW uh school board function to talk about DFW as a whole was decreasing. Enrollment was decreasing, but the outliers like us and Prosper were still growing, >> right? >> And now we're starting to see it on the east side of our district. The enrollment's kind of dropping off, but it's still growing on the west. >> But there's still a trend of growth overall in the west. Is that are y'all seeing that? We are seeing that um our hypothesis I say our my I'll speak on my own behalf here is a lot of it has to do with um purchases made with low interest rates and refinancing where in low interest rates.
064So folks are staying in their houses longer. There's less mobility with families. Um folks that had kids that have gone through these school districts are staying put in their houses rather than moving to different places again because of the refinancing post pandemic. And so we are seeing a little bit less mobility in other districts um especially some landlock districts where there's no room for additional growth. >> Okay. So the uh the interest rate is still straining >> younger families moving into neighborhoods that would normally I I'll give you an example. Gra I live in the Granger neighborhood and watching the enrollment decline when it used to be busted at the seams, >> right? >> But but the with their inflation and these interest rates, we I'm not seeing new families move in like they used
065to. So, >> and we're seeing that in a lot of other districts as well. They're um again the there are districts where in their central portion, which are the older parts of their districts, they are seeing declining enrollment where on the outskirts of their district, they're seeing schools that are over capacity. So, that is 100% a trend that we are seeing everywhere across the state of Texas. >> Okay. And what and what uh what are y'all showing for our growth expectations for this year overall? >> Um I don't have that number in front of me. I think >> so. Our number was uh right at 1100 if I remember correct or correct Mr. plus two, 1100 for our projected for. >> Yes. So, we haven't hit that. Um, but typically that is from snapshot to
066snapshot. >> And that's October, right? >> October 31st. >> I think we're only, we checked this morning. I think we're >> uh south of that number by just a couple hundred kiddos. So, I think when snapshot happens, we're going to be very, very, very close to the overall district enrollment. >> I think we're about a percent off right now. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. Any other questions? >> Thank you for coming this evening. >> Thank you so much. I appreciate your time. >> Appreciate you >> and thank you for your business. Appreciate it. >> Okay. Report B is facilities planning and construction report. Is that better? All right. Good evening. I just wanted to go over the um construction and planning report for um this past summer to give you guys
067an idea of how um busy we were um when it came to both departments. Um, here's uh an outline of what planning department did when it came to the summer work that we did over campuses. So, not only construction does projects, but planning does them as well. Um, just going through Northwest High School, the cafeteria, if you guys haven't seen that, um, it's a lot lighter, it's bigger, new furniture, and the red just looks great in that in that space. as well as the cosmetology academy. They um brought in the furniture for that and brought it over from steel. Um that's another that's another showcase place over at Northwest High School. For the middle schools, Wilson, Medlin, Chisum, and Tidwell. We put Wayne's coat on the walls. This helps us um preserve our walls so
068we don't have to keep painting them um every other every four years. And so it looks a lot uh the the buildings look amazing with the new Wayne's coat throughout it. Um, if you haven't been to Medlin Chisum, you need to. We took away, unfortunately, the purple wall, but it didn't go with the building. And so now we have the school colors on that wall with the graphics because we couldn't put tile on that round that round wall. It would not have looked um appropriate in that spot. And so we we took the option of putting graphics in there um to give it a more school spirit. And here's Chisum Trails um area u in the same space in the buildings. We also put uh new flooring down at Hughes Elementary School in the gym
069and the corridors uh more of the school colors throughout the building. And then we also added two elementary schools at DAP. And this is just the outside of of the classrooms and then one inside um interior classroom view for uh those spaces. And then here's our list of construction projects that we did over the summer. still working on a few um cleanups but or follow-ups on those projects. But here's our our main um schedule for all of our um projects that are in uh taken away right now. And then our Byron Nelson eaten schedules that um working working on those all those projects uh currently. Northwest again if you haven't been in that build, y'all been in the building, you've been in the arena, but I recommend taking a tour. You will not recommend that
070or you will not recognize that building. So, um, this is the entrance of the building and the entrance of the arena. Something that I love that we did. It's something very minimal, but there's stairs now from the pack to the entrance of the of the building. You used to have to go all the way around that retaining wall to get to the front doors, but now we have a direct from the pack to the front doors. It doesn't seem like much, but I know that will be um when it comes to maintaining that building and having to walk that that building. And then we did the um upgrades for the fine arts entrance. Um on the right side of the picture, the left picture has the extension of the band hall um at Northwest. And
071then the right picture has the expansion of the cafeteria as well as the kitchen and then construction showing off their their work that they did at the cosmetology academy. Again, it's a beautiful space. Um can't wait to go over there and see all the kids working in there and um seeing what they can develop out of that program. On the left picture, just history moment. This is where the old cafeteria was when I went into that school. And the only reason I know is the clear story windows is the only clear story windows in that building and it was in the cafeteria. And then on the left is just a a a shared space for for kids to collaborate. We also have the construction academy, the outside of it just to um identify it as
072well as inside. Um that was just a picture I think prior to school starting just getting that program started at that at that campus. And then here's some more shots of the cafeteria. Um Northstar who's our builder at that at building did miracles all three summers. Um this summer was one of the worst summers that they had to do at that campus. We had a plan B for the kitchen. We weren't sure if we were going to actually have um a kitchen for the first week, two weeks of school. And believe it or not, they can uh them as well as Tommy and his team, they can measure for a serving line and get it ordered and install in three weeks. Just FYI. So um they did some incredible miracles um to get that kitchen
073um ready for school, first day of school, and it it and it happened. Here's just another angle of the cafeteria facing the office entrance of the building. The stage is on the left hand side where the ceiling is um changes. And then we we took the old competition gym and we split it into a PE gym as well as the dance gym. And the dance is on the left and the compet or the practice uh gym is on the right. And then we gave the wrestling room a a larger space like we have in um at our other high schools. This is the old weight room that we had um for the um for the kids. The weight room is in the new addition by the arena. And then just showing you some of the
074hallways and the locker rooms that were renovated over the summer. This is the fine arts spaces. We we did some TLC in their spaces. Gave them some paint, carpet, touch-up, new acoustic panels, all the things that match the schools. Take out the turquoise color that was in that school. And I don't believe we have any more of that color in that campus. So that's a that's one of the best things that happened on that campus. Here's some more spaces of fine arts. just the the TLC that happened over the summer. Um, and this is the foyer of the pack. On the left hand side of the picture, you can see a carveout where it used to have the ticket booth. Now it's a area for um displaying artwork for um the fine arts department. And
075then the new NISD administration building, as we all know, we we've been in a couple weeks. We're working out all the kinks, but it's a pretty beautiful building and I think everybody's on the most part happy with um with the outcome of this building. We've got our foyer of the boardroom, the boardroom, the front reception desk, and then the entrance of when you walk in with the dining on the right hand side, our wonderful NEF store, our beastro. And then our center of the building where we kind of have nicknamed it the the Dorito because it's a shape of a Dorito chip. But um I've seen a ton of people in these spaces using them um in small groups and it's just it's incredible to see. It's always a great reward once you go through
076the design and you construct it and you actually see the people using the spaces how you intended um to be. On the left is our our PDC rooms and on the right is one of our many um lounge areas that have refrigerators, coffee, tea, um water. Then we have Prairie View Elementary School. The building is 100% finished. We still have some uh site work to do on the west side of the building. where we had um the existing building. We've got to do some grading and some uh site work in order to get that finished for the playground area and it should be open by October. And just some pictures from the outside. There's the site work pouring some of the drive and then some interior pictures. And of course, we had to show the
077the purple hallway. We've got Justin uh replacement. That campus is pretty much completed. Just working on punch list items and just show some pictures of the outside and then some inside. >> Sarah, can you go back a couple pictures um to Justin, >> you know, from the demographers report? One more. Yeah, there you go. Uh at some point in the near future um that school is going to be surrounded by houses. >> That is correct. Similar to what we did with Nance or Lance. Lance was built with no homes around it and now that's all you see. And Nance, uh if you see white on the rooftop, those are the new additions that um took place over the past year. Um it was the prek edition kindergarten and then um about 10 classrooms addition added
078on with the stage to make and making the cafeteria and gym larger for the um capacity. Interior courtyards got artificial turf. It helps with our landscaping and not having to keep up with um the mess that happens in interior courtyards because our landscapers forget that we have um those in our on our campuses. And just a few pictures of cafeteria on the left, gym and the new stage on the right. Looks like prek on the left and a and a typical classroom on the right. And then we have the NICD stadium renovation. That was a renovation that we did for the fieldhouse and the press box, but it also we we rolled in the um additional capacity of the bleachers for the baseball and softball fields. So this is part of that addition. And with
079the addition of the capacity on the bleachers, it made us um increase our restrooms. So, we're going to use the the current restrooms as the men's restroom, renovate that. And this is the female restrooms that we are going we're we're building um to incorporate the capacity that we're adding to that those stadiums. And then here's Barksdale. Um looks like we're going to be in in March. Um, this is the same contractor that got us in at Northwest and did many, many miracles each summer. And so they are moving super fast. Um, almost dry. I believe we're we're pretty much dried in when it comes to the roof. Um, you can see the storm shelter, the concrete on the ceiling over there in on that one gym. But, uh, the roof is mainly in. This is
080the on the left. It's the top of the learning stairs in the library. On the right is one of the gymnasiums. This is a learning area, the open area at every each wing, academic wing that we have um open two two store volume and it's a collaboration space for the students to come out of their classrooms to to collaborate with each other. And then high school 4, we have most of our drives completed at this time and you can see in the back we've got the steel going up. Very exciting that that um building is making its way. Um and you can just see the parking lot that they continue to pour concrete by the day um on that project. Just give you some. And then Dr. Hicks early childhood center. You can see that
081grade beam starting and they're still doing some peers out there and uh getting going on that project that will open next next summer. And then Dr. Romer there, you can see that they are uh digging peers out there as well. Byron Nelson. It looks a little different uh than this right now. Um every day you go out there, it's it's different, but um it it's no more a sta little stadium. They're they're rocking and rolling and getting the work done. And so hopefully they'll be able to start building the press box around the stadium. We've got the fine arts pack um that they've um they've gutted the whole thing inside. They've taken the brick on the outside and that was due to having to um add structural u support for the balcony that is going
082inside the facility. We're not expanding it. We're just putting a balcony inside. So, the taking off the brick was helping with getting that um structural um steel in there to support the balcony and then they'll they'll um put brick up once they finish that. And then we have Eaton where they've started um dismantling the the field, the track. Um the difference between Eaton and Byron is Byron their track and field are staying in place where Eaton High School we're actually moving it southwest of where it currently is. And this is the pack over at Eaton High School. Any questions? >> I knew it. >> Usually I save my crazy questions for Tommy, but uh >> he's here. He's hiding at the back. >> He can answer them. >> So, you probably know the answer to
083this question, but could you get me a sheet count for the Northwest High School improvements and the ones for high school number four? Just kind of curious how many plan sheets, >> how many sheets we have? >> I think that's a Tommy. Tommy's one that digs into those. [Laughter] >> I know it's more than a thousand. >> I can get that for you. Any other questions? >> I just wanted to say the pictures were great and I really appreciated all of them. >> Thank you, Sarah. >> And uh we really can go ahead please, Jonathan. Uh we really can and uh offer a tour for Northwest High School. It is remarkable the changes over the last couple of years. Um so we can send something out in the Friday update and see if we can
084schedule that tour for the board. And I really do think we should go during the school day. Um, and my it'll be the cell phone challenge. We'll ask you to keep your eyes peeled. The kids are doing an incredible job. Um, how how few cell phones are really getting into the rhythm at the high schools. Not perfect. Not perfect by any imagination, but uh they're really doing a good job. So, we'll send out that invitation for a tour. >> Okay. Time to move to item C. June and July financial reports and quarterly investment report. Good evening, board. Dr. Faustst, we're going to start with the June financials. And um one of the things that's interesting, I feel like every time I come up here, I said it's a little bit complicated. Um so this is
085a little complicated, too. When we talk about the June financials, that is our year-end financials. But if you remember correctly, our fiscal year ends in June, but we actually have some liabilities still on the books for our teachers and some of our staff that work for previous year. We still pay them in July and August. So those payrolls have to get booked back as well as some of the revenue from the state. We don't even know what it's going to be until September and it gets booked back. So we're having to make a lot of projections on year end at this point. And so this is as it was at the end of July for the previous year. What that means is I still have some payroll in August that has to get booked back
086and also have some revenue. So I want to kind of walk through that. If you look on the right side, you'll see current year-to-ate revenue was at 315 million. Current year-to- date expenditures are 316 million for 1.5, I'm sorry, 1.1 deficit. That was as of the end of July. I still have about $15 million in payroll I have to book. So, that'll take that up to about 331 million. The good thing is I still have some revenue that I have to book and some of it we've already booked. We're projecting at least that to go up to 323 million. So 323 million. I gave youall kind of a little cheat sheet of my chicken scratch over there. So maybe you can kind of look at it. But there's a $323 million revenue and a $331
087million expenditure. That leaves a difference of right at $8 million deficit. If you remember correctly, our original budget for revenue was $321. Our original expenses were 336 for a $15.8 $8 million deficit to start the year. So, where I'm going with it is our original budget was 15.8, but we're looking to be somewhere around 8 million as a deficit by year end. Now, that still could vary a little bit. There's still some audit entries we have to look at, but where I'm going is we went from about a $16 million deficit and cut that deficit about half. So, really did a good job after we realized that the um VAT election didn't pass. We made some cost-saving measures that we enacted immediately. And again, I think it worked and we were able to do a
088pretty good job of getting that deficit down from 16 to about eight. I know that's a lot of information on that page. Any questions just on that general fund page? >> So the the general fund with the $8 million deficit is closer to 101 million. >> Yes, that's where we'll be closer to the end. Actually, if you see on the right at the end, it was 110 million. So then you could take about 8 million from that. So it' be about 102. >> Okay. >> At the year end. Yes sir. Okay. Going forward to the next slide. Again, this is our food service. Um if you remember correctly, we were really under um estimated our revenue on food service and our expenditures actually came out about where we thought. We knew that we were going
089to spend more than our revenue. If you remember, we had to have a spendown plan. So, we kind of did that. And you could see that we had about a $ 1.4 $4 million deficit on that which we had to do because of the spendown plan. So um come the audit I think Mr. Deon will be very pleased with where we ended that. So you can see right now our fund balance in food service is about $2.5 million. Um and I don't think that will change much between now and the audit. The next one is debt service. Our debt service revenue was about 171 million um and our expenditures were about 164 million. So in the end we ended up with a surplus of about 6.9 million for INS. Um so again trending very well
090there as as well. Now remember at year end when I do this report we still have an August debt service payment that comes out that we haven't made yet. It comes out in August. So right here you can see we had about a $98 million fund balance at time. I think our debt service payment was a little over 53 million. So, it takes it down to about 40 um before we get any tax revenue in for next year, start making our net our next series of debt payments. So, any questions on our um current state as of the end of July for last year's fiscal year? All right, I will continue on then. It may be another um file here. We're going to look at the new financials for the current year, which I always
091say is kind of a little bit hard because we haven't had many expenses yet and we really haven't made any revenue yet. So looking at the 2025 2026 end of July financials, you can see here that our revenue is we've actually brought in $1.5 million of our $351 million and we expended 9 million of our 351 budget. So remember we did approve a balanced budget and you can see that there. But we're already in the whole $7 million. This is another reason you have to have a fund balance to be able to operate because we will not receive revenues. Maybe a little bit in September from the state, but really we don't receive most of our revenue from taxes until December and January. So that's why there's a little bit of fund balance that you'll
092need there. But you can see actually if you really looked at it, we're trending well. We've received a little more revenue we did at this point last year and our expenses are lower at this point than they were last year. So we're trending well already. Same thing with food service. Not much has happened in food service yet because the students really were not back in July. So there's not much to report there. I think 29,000 in revenue and 19,000 expenses. So you'll see that start to change now that students are back in school. And then debt service 296,000 in revenue. So new year and we made 25 $2,59 in expenses in the current year. Those are some the fees to pay to manage our INS fund. So there's really not much to report but anything
093questions on current year financials. Okay, we will go on to the investment report. I kind of like this report's actually kind of exciting right now. I think Dian will really like it because I think there was a couple years there where our revenue that we were producing was almost zero. It felt like even with our big um balances. So, I'm going to go to this page right here first. This kind of shows our overview. And if you look in the middle column, you can see from April to June, so in the quarter, the what I call the fourth quarter for this fiscal year, we made in revenue $9,266,792 in interest. So, just under $10 million we generated in interest. And then if you look right below that between July 1 to June, so for the
094year we generated $42 million in interest during that year. So did a really good job of actually um putting our money to work and getting some interest out of it. If you look at this slide and the next one um one of the things we talk a lot about is are we maximizing our revenue and then of course the diversification side of it. Are we being diversified? We are diversified in the pools. However, I usually like to see these laded out. I know Deianne does this as well. She's shaking her head. We like to ladder these out in different portfolios or different avenues. The problem is we were really trying to watch the market. And so, I'm going to show you right now. It doesn't look like we're laded out very good. And there's a
095reason. I'm going to show you that right here. If you look here, the red line shows Northwest ISD. And the black and blue lines show some of the um six month CDs and text pool. If you noticed, we are well above that. Um we've done a really good job of doing that for the last oh, I'd say since February till now. Part of the reason is is a lot of the investments right now are really volatile in the sense of not knowing what the market's going to do. Everybody's expecting a rate to go down. Well, that means the daily liquid pools are staying where they are, but longer term investments are still a little gunshy. Don't want to put those rates up as high. So, we've done a really good job of staying above the
096market. However, we just did the bond that we sold, right? The 800 million, that's not in this report. We didn't get it till July. So, there's another 800 million we're about to put in there. We've started lading those out. And I think you'll see in this next quarterly report, you're going to see a whole lot of different investments because we're looking at from our investor or from our financial advisors, they're looking at anywhere from two to three, maybe even four rate cuts before the end of the year, early spring. So, I'm going to try to lock in a lot of these rates at the highest level I can because these text pool rates and liquid rates will begin to drop when those rates drop. So, I'm trying to lock in a longer term to get
097a higher interest rate. So, you'll see that change over the next two, three months. I think um just last week we invested over $150 million and laded some of those out. And then this last one I kind of show this. This kind of shows you where the revenue came from. Again, I said we made 9,266,000 in interest. You can see a lot of that is of course is in capital projects. That's where our bond our money is for our capital projects. It made 6.359. But in the general operating fund, we also made another 1.8. 8 million in our interest in syncing. We made just over a million. And then there are some other little funds that made a little bit for our total of $9 million in interest just from the quarter. And that should
098summarize the investment report. Are there any questions I can answer for you? >> Any questions? >> Thank you. Okay, we will move on to the board president's report and uh the only thing I really have is we have uh texted con in September in Houston and I believe everybody is going to it so we'll look forward to that. We'll move to the superintendence report. >> Yep. Just a couple of quick dates as well. Um we did have our joint community lunchon scheduled for September the 5th but we still have some work uh being completed out the OLC so we pushed that to October 3rd. Also, please uh have on your calendars Prairie Elementary dedication September 25th. Uh the McCree multi-purpose, we're doing a the multi-purpose center, we're doing a ribbon cutting on September uh the
09930th. Uh the Justin Elementary dedication uh October the 2nd and something I'll present here to the board, but follow up with a formal request. Um one of the things that you saw the construction going on at the high schools with fields. So, um, one of the fields that's getting the most activity this year is the Northwest ISTD Stadium. Uh, the week of October, uh, the 6th, we have a board meeting scheduled. Um, that week we have, um, I think four different football games, uh, scheduled for that stadium. And so, we're trying to figure out, uh, Northwest High School would like to have their, um, homecoming parade, their traditional homecoming parade here. They really need to move it from Wednesday because we've got a football game in the stadium. We can't have the parade in the
100state. I think we should just dump everybody in there at one time and have fun with that, but we won't. Uh, so if they can move their parade to Monday, then we would need to move our board meeting to Tuesday because they shut down uh Texan whenever they have the parade. So, more news at 11, but I just wanted to put that on the radar for the board. It's a little more than a month out, but we're probably going to move our Monday board meeting to a Tuesday. I'll send that request out. A lot of meetings, school has started um and we're having a lot of positive experiences. Uh we're working through those transportation delays that often happen with car rider uh drop off and pickup at the beginning of the year, bus routes, uh
101and really starting to get into a positive rhythm. So, we're excited for a good school year. That's all we have. Move. Second.