Northwest ISD School Board Meeting - August 12, 2025

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 Meetings Act, Texas Government Code 551. The board will now 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. Good evening everyone. We will reconvene with the public meeting to discuss the 2025 2026 budget and proposed tax rate. How's that? Good evening, board. Sorry it took a little longer to get around than I expected. Um, we're going to start off with the public meeting on the budget, the proposed

002tax rate. I want to show this slide before I get into it. Mainly because this this presentation is going to be a little bit confusing in the beginning. Um, our tax rate, as you can see up there in the green, I'm sorry. Yes, in the top portion is the dollar five that we would be at this year. You can see on the far left that M is a 6331. That is our new compressed tax rate. We got that on August 5th. That's a key point of this. Um if we do go out for a Vader, which we'll talk about later on, that's where it would go to the 6631. But I wanted to start by showing that that is our new MCR maximum compressed tax rate. So now going to the actual notice for the

003budget and proposed tax rate and it may take a second to switch over. We have to publish this 10 days prior to this meeting. So we had to publish this in the paper before August 2nd. I didn't get the new tax rate from the state till August 5th. The reason we have to do that is because if we do decide to call for Vader, you have to do that 78 days prior to the election. So there's a timing pattern here. So we had to put this in the paper prior to getting our new tax rate. The law says that as long as we do this notice and publicly do it and the tax rates lower, we're good. It just cannot be higher. So the good thing is I used last year's tax rate which was

0046669 and as you saw just a second ago the new rate is 6331. So we are below what this notice was. But I want to start off with that because I think that's going to be confusing. Um and as you can see on this budget notice we went through this um back in June kind of the same information but just because it is a public meeting I need to go through some of it. You can see the 6969 is what we put in the notice. You can see how that would increase our operational budgets. Maintenance and operation would only increase about 610 of a percent. A lot of that's due to growth. So, it's not necessarily due to tax rate. It's due to growth. Um, as you go down, you can see that our total

005bond indebtedness is about $2 billion. The next section shows where our money is coming from. And I think the biggest point here is you can see that last year's rate we were getting about 13,495 per student and this year it'll be about 13,921. Now when I say that that's INS remember bonds and it's also our M. So it's not quite that much but I wanted you to see those numbers. The other good point that I'd like to show is this is before our tax rate was lowered. If you look at the average home value and the taxes, you would see that taxes last year were about $4,297. With the tax rate at 6969, the average home tax would be about $4,57 or a $239 decrease. A lot of that's due to the homestead exemption that

006will go into vote in November. And it's assumed that it will pass and we have to assume that based on state law. So even at the 6969 homeowners, an average home would see a $239 decrease in their taxes. Now when we reduce the taxes even more, which was another three cents, I think the the number was somewhere around $440. Um but you'll see that later on. And then the last thing is you can see our fund balances in the um M of 110 million and INS of 91 million. And then of course if we adopt any tax rate over the MCR it does trigger a Vader election which we will discuss later but this is a public meeting. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing. If anyone has any questions or would like to

007make any comments, please step to the podium. >> If not, we will go ahead and close the public meeting. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay, we will now reconvene the regular meeting at 6:42 p.m. Um, it's time for the invocation and the pledge. If >> you guys please stand with me. Uh, I'll invite you to uh join me in prayer. If you'd like to do so, please bow your head. >> Heavenly Father, we come to you with with great thanks, Lord. Uh we are thankful for this opportunity as we open school tomorrow uh to shape and mold minds to shape and mold the future of of our country of our state of our communities that we serve. Lord we thank you for that opportunity and that responsibility. We ask for your blessing and for you

008to shower upon us godly wisdom to make godly decisions and to protect our our students and our children and to help them to grow and learn to the best of their ability and use us to the best of our ability for your purposes. We ask for your hedge of protection throughout this school year for our staff, our students, for all the families of Northwest ISTD. These things we pray in the Lord's name. Amen. So, we haven't yet started uh school. That's officially tomorrow. So, we don't have kids with the pledge. So, would you guys help me out and join me in the pledges of allegiance? We've got flags in both directions. So, uh I was told all I have to say is the first three words and then you guys will take over from there.

009So, we'll start with the national. I I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. Thank you. Please be seated. >> Okay, we'll now move on to recognitions. Mr. Tossy. >> Good evening, President Murphy, Dr. Fast, members of the board. If President Murphy, and Dr. Fast could join us at the front, we'll begin with our conditions. Tonight we'll begin with our financial services department. And this is actually a very long recognition because it is not just one recognition. Jonathan's team cannot stop winning awards. So we'll go through a few of them. Uh and I'll just read

010some of them uh to start. We have the association of school business officials excellence in financial reporting and meritorious budget. We have the government finance officers association excellence in financial reporting and meritorious budget. We have the Texas Association of School Business Officials Purchasing Award of Merit. We have the TEA Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas AORE and we have the Texas Comproller Transparency Stars. So, I won't go into detail about every uh single award because we could be here for quite a while, but I'll touch on some of the highlights. So, some of these awards Jonathan's team, the financial services department has won for more than two decades running. Uh, one of those, for example, is the A rating on the the first score. So, there are districts around us that have not gotten an

011A for many years, and their team has done that for 23 consecutive years. And then when you're talking about the uh the purchasing award, that's one that only 80 school districts in the entire state, and there are more than 1,200 school districts in Texas that have won this award. So, these are not awards that you just win for being a finance department in a school district. you actually have to be very good at your job. They are reviewed by a panel of finance experts and each of these awards was very hard to earn. So, they definitely did a great job for our district and representing us. A lot of these awards are for financial transparency. So, making sure that we're transparent with our public, making sure that they know we're spending the money how we

012say we're spending it. They can easily access it on our website. And then the other uh aspect of most of these awards is actually reporting the information accurately and correctly because that's something that almost every single one of those awards looks for. But to before we take a photo and before I hand out these, I'd like Jonathan to introduce his team so that we can hear about all of them. I have to have my little cheat sheet. Not because I don't know who they are, but I can't remember their titles. So, u I want to make sure I start with that first. I'm going to start with the purchasing department and Mark Vonne is the executive director of purchasing. Um with him I would like director of purchasing Christa Spearman, contract specialist Tory Daniel, senior

013buyer Jennifer Sutton, senior buyer and the bonds Denise Frell and is Janelle here? Did I see? Janelle is not here but purchasing specialist in travel and administrative assistant to Mark. That is the purchasing side. Next, I'm going to introduce um and you'll get to hear from her in just a second, our executive director of finance. Um she just moved into this role. Um that would be Shannon Barton. Director of payroll. Um and these departments are under Shannon. Director of payroll Robin Ward. Payroll coordinator Tana Booker. Payroll lead Liz Zarang. payroll specialist Roxanna Reyes and payroll assistant Agnes Giovanetti. Next we would have our assistant director of accounts payable Marus Dong in our accounts payable department, accounts payable specialist K Payekch, accounts payable Tia Sheldon, accounts payable Amy Rodm, and accounts payable Melissa Batty. And our

014payment solutions coordinator would be Will Wilma Adams and financial services assistant of Holly Arnold. And then in our accounting department, um Shannon was the director of accounting, so that is vacant. And we have a senior accountant vacant. Um we also have our senior accountant of federal grants, Sandra Aguilera. And then we are also um a staff accountant vacant as well. Um, and then our last department would be our director of budget and financial planning, Tandoval. Our assistant director of position control, Winona Hodes, and then our budget analyst, Jennifer Lee. And last but not least, probably the most difficult job because she is my administrative assistant. So, she has the toughest job is Monica McDonald. And that would be everybody. Jesus. Okay. So, for our next award, I actually need all of the board members to

015come down because you all are being recognized. Uh, and I will not be the one recognizing you. We have a visitor. She probably had a very tough time figuring out where to go. may not recognize her, but Haley Fasic, the senior director of communications for region 11 is here to present you all with an award. >> Hey guys, I like the new digs. Good job. Planning and construction technology, the whole scene. This looks great. Have you guys acknowledged that you're in a new space yet tonight? Is this the first board meeting here? Good job, guys. I mean, that's quite incredible. Looks really good. Um, so good evening. Something about this feels a little familiar to me, but also a little different. So, I am so glad to be back in front of all of you

016tonight. Um, and it is my honor to be here this evening to help celebrate and recognize, you know, a group of individuals who really just go above and beyond to serve their district on a daily basis. And that is each and every one of you up there. A little bit about this program. So TASA created the school board awards program in 1971 to recognize school boards whose dedication and ethical service had made a positive impact on school ch children of Texas. It's an excellent way for districts to recognize their hardworking, dedicated board members and nominate them for regional consideration. Each year eligible Texas school superintendent nominate their boards of trustees by submitting information that meets the lengthy award criteria, which Anthony, I'm sure you know a little something about. um in guidelines to their regional

017education service center. All regional submissions are judged based on many things. I'm going to mention a few of those now because I think it's important. Functions as a policymaking body, adherence to adopted board policies, support for educational performance in accordance with state established standards, support for educational improvement projects and school transformation initiatives, commitment to a code of ethics, provision of financial support for the school system. Good job, Jonathan. Participation in workshops and other performance improvement programs, placement of the welfare of children served by the school system above personal or political motives, public relation efforts, including community awareness, and maintenance of harmonious and supportive relationships among board members. The selection committee is made up of five TASA members in the region, including the region's TASA executive committee member and another member designated by the TASA president.

018Out of 76 school districts in region 11, the Northwest ISD board of trustees was selected as the outstanding school board to represent our greater Fort Worth region. And at ESC region 11, we are honored to have each of you represent what is really good about Texas public education. And no, I did not rig this award. I promise. You guys just really deserve it. So, I'm really proud of you guys and glad I could be here tonight to do this. Special to me. Congrats. We're gonna just mix it up. There's a Yeah. >> Yeah. So, as you all are making your way back up there, I will just add on to that. I don't know if our full community knows what a what an honor, what a recognition that is, but I can tell you that

019I've talked to a ton of principles, a ton of teachers who every remark that they make, the first thing they say is always they deserve it. We always see them see them at events. They come out, they support us. We know that they make good decisions for our district. So, I can tell you that our staff definitely recognizes the work you all put in. So, for our final two recognitions are actually introductions. And to give you some brief background on each of them, first you'll hear from Nate Rob who's our new principal of Hughes Elementary School. He joins us from Keller ISD where he was a principal for three years. Following him, you'll hear from Shannon Barton, the district's new executive director of financial services. She previously served as our director of accounting and she

020has 18 years in school district in municipal finance. So I'll turn it over to Nate. >> Good evening. How are you guys? I don't know if you're allowed to answer, but um well, good evening board of trustees and Dr. FA. I just wanted to say uh thank you for this opportunity. Um I really probably can't put into words how blessed and honored I feel to be a part of Northwest. Um my family and I live in the district. My wife teaches in Northwest and um the last two weeks with teachers being back have been invigorating. Um, and school starts tomorrow. And so, um, I told somebody today, I'm tired of meetings and trainings. I'm ready to start school. Ready to get the kids back in, um, and start. And so, um, I'm just really appreciative

021and honored, uh, that you are giving me this opportunity. Um, I don't take it lightly. It's a huge job being a campus principal and, um, and I'm really excited for the school year and we're going to do some great things for kids. So, thank you. That's all I've got to say. So, thanks, Good evening. Um, let me pull it down. I'm a little shorter than everybody else. Um, good evening, President Murphy, Dr. FA, board of trustees. Um, I appreciate this opportunity. I sincerely thank you for allowing me to serve as your executive director of financial services. Um, I am looking forward to this opportunity to continue the great work that we've been doing. Um, I promise to lead with integrity, transparency, and heart. Um, I believe that strong financial leadership is not about numbers. Um,

022it's about ensuring that the decisions that we make support our core beliefs that kids come first. So, I look forward to continuing the great work. Thank you so much for this opportunity. And I'm ready for school to start, too. Thank you. Okay, we will now move to public testimony and comment on agenda and non-aggenda items. And we have two this evening. I will go ahead and read the statement first. Public testimony and public comments are an opportunity for the public to address the board on an agenda item or matter not on the board agenda. The board will place or may place reasonable constraints 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 completed a public request

023to 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 by whom they are complaining. Um, our first speaker, Mr. Chuck Kelly, please step to the podium and state your name and address. >> Hi there. I'm Chuck Kelly, 2617 Trophy Club Drive in Trophy Club. Well, hi board. I wanted to uh address you guys uh this evening. I appreciate the opportunity. I've been a Trophy Club resident for 14 years. I'm going to be an NISTD kinder dad. I have a son who's a senior football player, uh, senior sophomore football player at Byron and an ice hockey player for Northwest and

024I also have a daughter who's an eighth grader at Medlin. So, we're going to go coast to coast in ISD. So, I'm not an outsider here. U, on the professional front, I you say, who is this guy? Okay, I'm a sports cer. I grew up in Weatherford. Always wanted to be a play-by-play guy one day and I guess I kind of got that chance. Went to KRLD, started there. uh ESPN radio, Fox Sports Radio, uh University of Oklahoma did seven years of playbyplay. So if you hate the Sooners, I'm sorry. It's my alma mater. Um but I guess what I've known probably my company is for broadcasting the highest level high school football and baseball broadcast in Texas. And it's been that way for the past 22 years. I served 20 years in South Lake,

025one year in Dotto, one year in Duncanville. So, in trophy club, I've been asked a thousand times, not literally, but a hundred times. How about that? Uh, why don't you ever do Byron? I said, "Well, because there's three schools, about four, and you can't do one. You got to do them all." Okay. Well, why don't you do them all? All right. Well, that's a fair question. And I'm here to ask you guys tonight just to hear me out for a second about there's an opportunity that's in front that I'd like to share with you and of course the athletic director, uh, Mr. Johnson, and and, uh, but you've got to care. You've got to want something as bad as I want it because I'm passionate about what I do and it comes out on the

026air now to do things the right way and to get the publicity like the kind that uh Cooper Lucen House got. Now that's publicity. You you can't buy that, right? I mean that everybody sees Northwest. Well, we try to do that on a level every game, every broadcast, every person we reach. And it's more than just a football game. It's more than just a broadcast. There's an hourong countdown to kickoff. There's a 45minute postgame show. There's interviews that these uh the start of the the broadcast. Of course, we have these player interviews that become family treasures. The halftime interviews with the advertising partners get to talk about their businesses and tell people, hey, this is what I do. This is what's great. And then the faculty and staff and the school district stuff that we

027put on the air that they get to talk about great things with the district. It's a plus plus. Everything just goes amazing, you know, through these broadcasts. But Northwest has never had that and there's no reason why. I mean, it just it hasn't happened. It's a very rare treat to have a broadcast like this and I just wanted to know it's available. Now, don't forget one thing. I'm almost out of time, but CTE amazing opportunity for kids to be a part of this broadcast to learn from professionals, people who have covered World Series, uh, Super Bowls, things like that. They get that training and of course the district gets financial benefits as well. So, I'm going to wrap it up here and send it all uh you an email. I appreciate the time because I'm

028going to put a QR code so you can hear these broadcast, but thank you for hearing it. I appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Okay, our second speaker, if you'll please step to the podium, Mr. Eric Cryle board. Good evening, Eric Crow. Uh 11325 Gail Ridge Fort Worth. First I want to talk about uh this is on for my wife cell phone policy. I know Belltobell she asked she wanted me to ask this question the lunch periods right our daughter paid for lunch um using Apple Pay. My wife has conveyed to me that you guys don't take cash for payments and the app that they use charges the fee. She'd like it to if there's some way for you guys to look around to where we don't have to pay that fee. Um, second thing

029I want to talk about, I'm here going to ask you guys for your help. So, I live in the neighborhood where Schlutoter Elementary is, the parks at Willow Ridge. The county and the city are about to widen Bonds Ranch Road. Now, there's a there's a road there where they're going to tag into it. Waggley Robertson. Waggly Robertson's right now is a dead end, but when they open it up, it's going to come up through the neighborhood. Well, sorry, it's going to connect Bonds Ranch to Waggley. When that opens up, there is going to be no onboarding for 287 at the end of Waggley. So, people are going to start coming through our neighborhood. You have a lot of kids that are riding their bikes and walking through school, walking to school there. I've asked the

030city when they build it to delay opening that extension until the 287 on-ramp is built. Uh I have a meeting with Councilman Bllelock next Wednesday to bring this issue up with him. But I'm not sure if you guys are aware, but you if you ever go down Bonds Ranch, when that train comes across the tracks, people will sit there for large for large time large amounts of time and that cut through will be right through your through our neighborhood. And if they hit it during elementary or high school times, it's going to be a disaster. Last thing I want to talk about, uh, TAD TAD had their budget meeting today. It was approved. Um overall 1.46% down. Um you guys have 30 days if you guys want to pass a resolution disapproving of it. And

031let's see went to uh couple meetings today. So there there's actually a nominee now for a TAD appointment this year. I was nominated by um Vidian, which is one of the conservation districts. I was able to get the water board and all the conservation districts in Tarant County to participate in the election process this year. So, they did their nomination period and I was nominated today and I thank you all for your help. I have this um packet if I could give to somebody to hand out to them. Thank you. Okay, we will that concludes um public testimony and public comment. We'll move to agenda item number eight, which is the consent agenda. >> Madam President, >> Mr. Schlutter, >> I'd first like to ask the board members if anyone has an item they'd like

032to remove from the consent agenda. Seeing none, I move to approve the consent agenda as submitted. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Schlutoter and a second by Dr. Roush to approve the consent agenda as submitted. Any questions? All in favor? That's 70. Thank you. Okay. Item nine is consider any item removed from the consent agenda and we have none. So we will move on to item 10. Uh we will do a resolution of the Northwest ISD levying the tax rate for the Northwest ISD for the tax year 2025 and providing for an effective date. Mr. Pusk. >> Okay. So, we're going to talk tax rate. I know we talked a little bit about it a second ago, so you're going to see a little bit of that again, but I want to

033go through it a little more clear. 2526. The state said our maximum compressed tax rate is the 6331. Our INS has been static for the last two or three years at 0.4210. So that would remain the same. So that would put us at a$1541. If the board does decide to approve a voter approved tax rate election, you can see that the M would increase to the three golden pennies to a 6631 leaving the INS still at the 4210 which would make your total tax rate a$1841. So it would increase at 3 cents. That's for this year. If you look at last year's tax rate, it was $18.79. So, it is actually 0.038 lower than last year's tax rate. And that is with the three um golden pennies in that rate. I just throw this slide

034in here just so people can still understand. If you remember, the purple line is your INS tax rate. You can see it's been consistent since around 2020, 2021. The light blue rate would be the M rate that now the state has started telling us what that is in 2019. So you can see we were at a dollar4 stayed consistent all the way till 2019. That's when House Bill 3 said they compress our tax rate. The faster you grow, the faster they compress your tax rate. So you can see because we're fast growth, we are at the floor of 6669 for last year. This year it would be 66 I'm sorry 6331. And then of course the top is those two combined. So there's where you can see last year our tax rate was $1879. If

035the board does this decide to approve the Vader, it would be a $1841. The Vader impact for 2526. Um, right now we're estimating to be about $12 million in increased revenue. Um, again, that can go up, but we want to make sure we give the cons the the conservative number, and I feel very confident that it would generate $12 million. In your resolution, there are two things that I want to make sure that were designated that we have to to put in the resolution. And the first one is that this tax rate will raise more taxes for maintenance and operations than last year's tax rate. And this tax rate will effectively be be a raise of a negative.35%. I want that to be out there because that is very confusing. It's not going to increase.

036It is a negative. But the statute says I have to say it must raise. So it will raise by a negative.35%. annual tax for maintenance and operation on $100,000 home by approximately $0. $100,000 home has a $100,000 homestead exemption, so it doesn't affect that. So that's why that's a weird number, but that's the way the statute reads. So that's what we add in there. And so that will be the resolution that you'll be voting on for the tax rate. >> Any questions? >> I do have a question. So Mr. Pusk, I would like for you to pull out your crystal ball. In times past, the legislature has told us they will hold us harmless uh for these tax compressions. Uh what if any danger if they decide not to >> on on the M side,

037there's not a worry as much because the M has, if you remember the old teeter totter effect, less taxes, more state pay, less more taxes, less state pays, right? So that's balancing that equation out. So that's been the way it's been for forever since I've ever been in school finance and that's the way it hopefully will continue unless they did something dramatic. When you really start looking at the hold harmless now we're starting to talk on the debt side on the INS side. So yes, we will lose money on the INS side. One of the things that they said in this bill is as long as you had sold the bonds prior to September 1, we would be held harmless for any money lost due to the homestead exemption. That is one reason we had

038the bond sell for 800 million that we did. So we will be held harmless for all that money for the 23 bond authorization. That means we only have about 400 million left only. That sounds out of the two billion to $400 million left. Whenever we do sell that, it will not be held harmless for this $40,000 increase in homestead exemptions. So that will cost the taxpayers more in essence because they will be having to pay that that they wouldn't before. So it would take longer to pay off. But we did maximize how much we could get and hold harmless. And I think by selling that $800 million, we saved taxpayers $65 million. >> Madam President, um Mr. Patusk, since we're going to be talking about a lot of tax rates and I'm I'm going to

039be asking this question a couple times today because people are going to go back and watch this on video uh press and different people in the community. But could you remind everyone um the ratings you get from TEA and how many years in a row? I think the first rating. >> The first rating. Yes, sir. We get a we have got the A or superior rating for 23 straight years. >> Could you just briefly elevator pitch what that is? >> Um it's a it's changed over the last couple years. It used to be 20 indicators. I think right now it varies between 15 sometimes 16 because some of the indicators they take out due to certain years like COVID had an effect. And it's basically indicators that make sure we're being very transparent. We're being

040very financially sound with our fund balance to be able to make payroll. We meet all of our deadlines, all of our taxes for payroll. Um, as well as some of our there's some measures in there that get tough with assets to liabilities and how we're managing all that. So, it's just a number of indicators that you must score a certain amount on to be um rated an A. >> So, this is a TEA rating of an A saying that you're doing a you and your folks are doing a really good job. Yes sir. >> How many years in a row was it? >> 23 years in a row. >> Okay. Thank you. And let's talk about that efficiency report that we had to do. You want to briefly describe that? >> Uh yes sir. So

041the efficiency audit which will be online and is online for everybody to see. Um one of the things when you do go out for Vaders you have to do an efficiency audit and we talked about at the last board meeting we presented it and it what it does it compares us to peer districts and state average. And so we had 10 peer districts that we compared ourselves to. most of them around our area that are similar. Some that are farther away like down in Dripping Springs. Um we had one down Lamar and then like Prosper up Northeast Metroplex. And it compares us to things like um how many teachers we have versus other staff, those kind of things. And um I think the quote from the auditor, and I don't want to say it wrong,

042was we are extremely efficient with our funding and as successful as we are in the classroom that we're extremely efficient. That's what the efficiency on for is to show how efficient we are. >> And in comparison to our neighboring districts, we're one of the most efficient, if not the most efficient in North Texas. >> I would say in my opinion, yes, sir. Most definitely. Mainly because we receive the lowest revenue per student as anybody around us because we do not have these Vader pennies or any of the copper Vader pennies. So, no, the golden or the copper. And so we receive the least amount of funding per student, yet we're still very competitive in pay, programs, offerings, all the things that we do well. And of course, our academics and the way we score. So

043we're extremely competitive. All of our money goes back to the classroom. Um I would say we're extremely efficient in that and very lean. And then that was going to be my third question was in comparison we we don't have those golden pennies in comparison to the other districts who are less efficient and get lower ratings than we do. >> Yes sir. And if you'll look at um whenever we do post our if the board decides to go with Devader, there is a website that will be up and it will show our presentation that actually shows that data. And I'm speaking from the cuff, but we were some we were as as far wide as $2,500 less per student than some of our neighboring districts. Yet our salaries are in the top 10 or 11 in

044the area. So I would say that makes us extremely efficient. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. Any other questions? Okay, >> Madam President. >> Mr. Sprouls, >> I move to increase a property tax rate by the adoption of a tax rate of $06631 per $100 valuation of taxable property for the purpose of maintenance and operation, which is effectively a negative 0.35% increase. Let me say that again. which is effectively a negative 0.35% increase in the tax rate. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Sprouls and a second by Mrs. Hatfield to increase the property tax rate by the adoption of a tax rate of 0.6631 6631 per $100 valuation of taxable property for the purpose of maintenance and operations, which is effectively a negative 0.35% increase in the tax rate. All in

045favor 70. Thank you, >> Madam President. >> Mr. I move to adopt a tax rate of $100 valuation for property located within the Northwest Independent School District for the tax year 2025 as follows. $04210 cents for the payment of principal and interest on debt of the district. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Sprouls and a second by Mrs. COP to adop to adopt a tax rate of $100 valuation for property located within the Northwest Independent School District for the tax year 2025 as follows. 0.4210 for the payment of principal and interest on debt of the district. All in favor? That's a 70. >> Hey, Madam President. >> Mr. I move to adopt the resolution levying the tax rate for the Northwest Independent School District for the tax year 2025 and provided for

046an effective date. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Sprouls and a second by Dr. Roush to adopt the resolution levying the tax rate for the Northwest Independent School District for the tax year 2025 and providing for an effective date. All in favor? That's 70. Thank you, board. Okay, we will move on to item B, consider an order calling a voter approval tax rate election. >> So, the way the statute reads is to call for a Vader, you must first approve the tax rate. And if it's above the maximum compressed tax rate, which we just did, then that triggers the resolution to call for the voter approved tax rate election. The only thing I'm going to say on this is um the ballot language. Um it will read for or against. So you

047check four against and it will say ratifying the advalorum tax rate of a$18 per $100 value in Northwest Independent School District for the current year. A rate that will increase of 5.67% 67% in maintenance and operations tax revenue for the district for the current year as compared to the preceding year which is an additional 14,324,215. The reason I bring this up is I want to make sure we understand the ballot language. Um it says it's an increase in just taxes that we were receiving. That is a correct statement. Did I tell you your tax rate was going down? Yes. So why the difference, Jonathan? The reason is is Northwest ISD is growing. I think we're well aware of that. So what it does is it compares the previous year's tax rate and previous year's taxes

048compared to New Year's tax rate and New Year's growth in property value. So it's really not comparing apples to oranges to me and it gets very confusing. We grew over 8% in property value in the district, mainly new businesses, new homes. If you remember correctly, Tarant County's homes are stagnant. So you know it's all in growth of new construction. So when it says it increased $14 million, it did because of growth, not because of the tax rate increase. But I think that's going to be very confusing to the general public is that they think the tax rate is being increased and it is not. It is still going down. But I just wanted to kind of clarify that in how the bond language reads and making sure y'all are aware of that. Madam President, >>

049Mr. Schlutoter. >> I move that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of a tax rate of 1.0841, which is effectively a negative0.35% increase in the tax rate. And I might add that uh I've studied quantum mechanics and school finance is much more difficult. >> Second. >> I would second that. I have a motion by Mr. Schlutoter and a second by Mrs. Hatfield uh that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of a tax rate of 1.0841 which is effectively a negative 0.35% increase in the tax rate. All in favor >> Madam President before the next vote can I ask a couple questions? >> Absolutely. >> Thank you Mr. forusic. So I just want to verify for people coming late to the video at this point. How many years in a

050row was it for the A for first? >> 23 sir. >> 23. So it's almost since the beginning of the new millennium. >> We've been doing awesome and we're very efficient. Correct. >> And I think it's ever since they had the first rating. I think it was actually created in that year. So we've received it ever since its inception. >> Okay. Very efficient and trying to get access to make it an even playing field in a sense with our surrounding district. So, and and you mentioned last week at the budget workshop uh raising 12 million. This is looking to raise $12 million. Could you real quickly specify what 8 million is going to go for? What four million is going to go for? >> The plan right now is that 8 million would go for

051um basically student programs. And when I say that, I mean the classroom. We're going to put try to put back as much as we can on lowering the class sizes. Um if you remember correctly, in these last budget um cuts, we had to increase class sizes. We want to get that back lower as much as we can. It's also to put a lot of the things that we had to cut back in fine arts and try to have a system that's um not quite as I think you're going to see that it's going to be pretty painful um some of our fine arts programs this year and some of the cuts we had to make. So, we want to put some of that back and get some of those programs back where they were. And

052then lastly, um to keep some of the programs we currently have, if we're not able to increase our revenue any sense and stay competitive, we will not be able to stay competitive with salaries or we will have to cut programs in the future to be able to stay competitive. So we want to maintain what we have now, all the programs in athletics and fine arts and CTE and academics. And so it's to continue to put that towards that. The remaining four million would go to recruiting and retaining quality staff to stay competitive within the market that we're in and and continue to be um one of the top paying in the area to ret recruit that talent and retain it. >> And I'm glad you said that being painful. these cuts we made are painful

053for the fine arts because I was talking to an elementary fine arts teacher and the impact it is having on their classroom uh brought tears to eyes. So and just I then I was shocked at what the budget was going to be for the year for that one campus that it was as low as it was. So um yes it is reached the classroom and they are starting to feel the impact of it. So hopefully the community understands that as well. So >> yes sir. Thank you. >> Thank you. Just wanted to make one additional uh comment that these three additional pennies are not subject to recapture. We can't emphasize enough that these are local tax dollars that stay in our local schools. They don't go back to the state to be used in some

054coffer that we have no idea what that's for. >> And I'll add one more thing to that that I've been meaning to say and I didn't say it. These everything the state legislature has done recently is very pigeonhold the money where they want it and and some of that's great. We want to give teachers more money and that's where a lot of it went this year. However, it does not give us any local control. So, we can't do what's best for our district. And so, these three pennies are local dollars that will always stay local and we will always have local control over. So, it allows us to continue to do what's best for Northwest ISTD and the students. Can you do me a favor and talk about um what a a vader would do

055to uh someone's taxes this fall um especially if the homestead exemption does increase and go through. >> So the average home and I'm I'm maybe off slightly. Um Anthony is probably over there checking me in my numbers to the penny. I know how he is. Um but if the um homestead exemption goes through and we do not go for a Vader, so the three cents, the average home currently in Northwest ISD will see a decrease in taxes of a little over $500 on their tax bill. If the Vader passes, those same homeowners in that same average home would see a decrease in their taxes of about $448. So there is a difference. We want to be fully transparent. It is more that you would be paying. It's really not more from last year. It's more

056that you could save, I guess, um, would be the the way to say that. So, I think it's 500 a little over $500 with no Vader in savings. It's $448 with a Vader. So, either way, the average home in Northwest ISD would see a reduction in their tax mainly because the taxable value is decreasing and the tax rate is decreasing by 38 even with the Vader pennies. I hope I explained that well. >> Any other questions? Entertain a motion. >> Madam President, >> Mr. Sprouls, >> I move to adopt an order to hold a tax ratification election. >> Second. I have a motion by Mr. Sprouls and a second by Dr. Rous to adopt an order to hold a tax ratification election. Any additional questions? All in favor? That's 70. Thank you. >> Thank you,

057board. >> Thank you, Jonathan. >> Okay, we will move on to item C, which is the 2025 2026 student code of conduct. Hi, good evening. I'm here to present some of the prop well the proposed changes to our student code of conduct this year and our changes come from chapter 37 Texas education code. We get a lot of campus feedback throughout the year. We spend a lot of time under district review. We look at the law and policies, legal requirements, and this year particularly, there have been a lot of changes because of the 89th legislative sessions. So, I did note at least four of the bills in the 89th legislative session that have affected our code of conduct. Of course, there are many more, but House Bill six made some substantial changes to chapter 37,

058clarifying the length of suspensions, removing mandatory DAP placements for possession of ecigarettes and allowing districts to create virtual expulsion programs. House Bill 1481 mandates that districts put in place um a policy prohibiting student use of personal communication devices during the school day, but there are exceptions provided for students who have a medical need documented in their IEPs or their 504 plan. Here are two more of bills that I mentioned. Senate Bill 328, 326, sorry. Um it has the definition of anti-semitism as a um prohibited conduct behavior that cannot be allowed in school. And then it even has a definition and an example of what that means. Senate Bill 569 that mandates that we consider virtual or hybrid education as an alternative program for possible expulsion. Okay. So here are the changes that you will see

059in our code of conduct. One is um the campus behavior coordinator or the CBC and this is an administrator at the campus who basically oversees compliance of discipline. They monitor um how it discipline is imposed and then they also um are part of that threat assessment team. anti-semitism from Senate Bill 326. Again, it says students shall not engage in anti-semitism. And I also showed what the definition is and the um example that they you can find in the glossery. Okay. House Bill 1481, personal communication device. As I mentioned that students will not be allowed to use them during the school day. We are asking them to stay in their backpack, but I know it's later in our agenda that this will be in our policy FNC local. We will have some processes in place though

060for students who have a medical need from their doctor that will be documented in their IEP or their 504 plan. with the development of technology. They've added a blurb in here about artificial intelligence and how it will not be allowed to be used in an unauthorized way that could constitute academic dishonesty. And here's one of the changes that I mentioned with House Bill 6. So last year possession was required DAE. Now the student would either go to DAP or they could have 10 days of inschool suspension. So that is a change this year with possession or use of nicotine products. Another new piece to the code of conduct is from HB6 parental involvement. And this is where a principal or campus administrator would notify the parents their rights to um if their if their child

061is being placed in DAP, they have a right to request a behavioral agreement that specifies responsibilities for the students and the parents. And then if both parties or all parties I guess um meet those responsibilities the decision to reduce, revoke or amend the disciplinary placement period could be at the discretion of the principal. It could be considered. We are waiting for the commissioner to adopt a model behavior agreement for the school districts to use as a guideline. Also from House Bill six is teacher removal. These next two slides I just provided for some background for you. This is not the exact language that is in the code of conduct, but I wanted you to see some of the legal background information that basically teachers can formally request that a student be removed from their classroom

062for the behaviors that are listed um and really disruptive. Um but if that was to happen, the principal cannot just return the student to the class without a written consent from the teacher. Um there must be a placement review committee that determines the best way to support that student. The principal must prepare a plan for returning the student. The teacher must be provided an opportunity for a conference within three days of their removal and the plan is to be discussed with the teacher at that conference. We're also waiting for the commissioner to develop a model plan for returning students to class. um teacher removal placement review committee. Just to let you know what that is, each campus must have a placement committee in place with three members. Two that the faculty chooses and one that

063the principal chooses. Now, here's the language that you will see about teacher removal. So, it lets you know why a teacher may be able to remove them based on their behavior, repeatedly interfering with a learning environment, if their behavior is unruly, disruptive, or abusive, and then if they're engaging in bullying. And notice that a teacher can remove a student from class based on just a single incident. Then within three days of the formal removal, the principal or the CBC must schedule that conference for the parent, the student, and the teacher to all come together with the administrator. And at that conference, the administrator shall inform the student of that misconduct, the alleged misconduct, the proposed consequences, and then the student has the opportunity to respond to the allegations. When the student is removed from the

064classroom while that conference is pending, the student could be placed in another classroom, ISS, out of school suspension, or even DAP. Then returning the student to the classroom. A student cannot be returned to the classroom without the teacher's written consent unless the placement committee determines that the teacher's class is the best or the only alternative but not later than the third class day after the student was removed. A conference in which the teacher was provided an opportunity to participate has been held. The student may not be returned to the teacher's class unless the teacher provides written consent for the student's return or a return to class plan has been prepared for the student. It's a lot of information just to read to you, isn't it? Okay. Now, just so you can know this that a

065student can appeal the teacher's removal. So, a student can appeal by going to that conference and um letting them know that they don't agree. Inschool suspension is a new section of the handbook that very specifically outlines the process for this that there's no time limit now but every 10 days the administrator must um review if the students education is um continuing appropriately while they're in inschool suspension. We must provide behavior support in any behavior, I'm sorry, any educational services that they should have. Here's the process that is outlined. Just making sure that first the student is in well not first but primarily the student is informed of the conduct the alleged conduct that they have an opportunity to respond and then before giving them their consequences that all of these factors are considered. Parents can

066appeal these discipline measures by following FNG policy, which will also be included in the appendix this year of our code of conduct. Alternative assignment. So, a parent can provide a written request for their child to have an alternative assignment to um the out of school suspension that provides information or documentation that they're unable to provide suitable supervision for that student during school hours, but it is at the discretion of the principal to grant that request. DAP. So, DAP this year we are including elementary students. They must be six years or older to receive DAP for their different behaviors. Also, if a student is in DAP, we are to allow them to participate in summer school. There are several slides for DAP offenses this year where this one shows what we may consider DAP for. And

067then the next several slides from House Bill 6, these are required DAP mandatory um placements. One of the changes on this slide I want to point out was last year again it said it was a mandatory DAP for even possession or use of an ecigarette. This year that has been removed. So it's mandatory if they sell, give or deliver another person the ecigarette. The possession of an ecigarette is where you may give them DAP or the 10day inschool suspension. Here are some more mandatory DAP behaviors. Now, as I said before, you have to be six years of age or older to go to DAP. Unless you commit a federal firearms violation and you're younger than six, then you would be required to go to DAP. If a student receives deferred prosecution or the court or

068jury finds a student has engaged in delinquent conduct. Here's some other mandatory DAP behaviors. And this is a change in the language as well. A student must be expelled under federal or state law for any of the following offenses that occur last year for all those mandatory expulsion behaviors. You had to stated while attending a school sponsored or school related activity. Now those mandatory expulsion behaviors can happen just on or off school property. So I must say with um all the different things that lead to the changes in code of conduct, I forgot to mention um the district review that is recommended changes are reviewed by the executive leadership team as well as district directors and coordinators for potential implementation. a lot of time was spent these last couple weeks um making sense of all

069the state changes and making sure that our policies and practices align with the state. So, I appreciate a lot of people in this room for helping with that. But do you have any questions? >> Of course. Um Dr. Weber, the uh cell phone use. >> Yes. Really the only big difference from what we were doing last year is passing periods and lunch. They cannot be used any longer. Correct. >> Correct. >> Okay. So, and the the speaker we had earlier, Mr. Cra had mentioned that and I have seen that uh in comments on social media pages about using Apple Pay. Yes. To pay and now they can't. Then also going back when I was a parent, that airmark app to deposit funds with a credit card, you're there's a dollar amount that you're limited to,

070but there's a high it's a it's the same fee, I think, regardless of dollar amount. And when you have a teenage boy, that fee starts adding up in a school year. So is there are there other options or what's the workaround to that? >> I think that's something worth talking to Mark about after. Um >> yeah, that's I'm s asking you the question. when I have we had that speaker earlier that was something I wondered about like what else could we do with the credit card charges so that we can say just go online and pay before your kid gets there. >> Yeah. And I know Dr. Foster you're getting ready to talk but that's if I have any negativity about air markets that pay how to pay how to add money because it is

071a high fee and they limit the dollar amount that you can do. So I'm so I'm curious what's a what's a workaround on that so we can >> we'll follow up. >> Okay sir. >> Okay. >> Can can I also make a comment on that? >> Yeah. >> Yes. The fee is if you use the app, if you do it in person, I do not believe there is a fee. So, they still can pay at the school at the front office and all that. If I'm correct, Bobby. Yes. So, there is options where they can't can pay without the fee. It's just that they want the convenience of using the app, there is a fee. And like you said, if it's $1 or $100, the fee is the same. So, but just to clarify that,

072>> but yeah, but then the the easiness of Apple Pay as well with no fee. So, okay. um everything in from the presentation between the cell phone used to do to the last part of DAP a lot of more it just seems like it was just more communication both ways between the the schools and the parents and the students. What um are there really any big changes in what we have been doing in the past or is it just >> It just seems like just making sure you're giving a voice to everyone that's more involved and um considering also making sure we're considering all those factors with >> things that could interfere with like homelessness. Those things have been there before but slowing down I think and before we give consequences. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah,

073because a lot of it just seems like it's it's more more along the common sense line that that I thought we had been doing already. Yes. >> It's just now that the state made it >> well they're they're agreeing like you may give them this or you must give them this which I feel like we were kind of there already but this just really lines it out. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions? There was quite a bit there. Thank you for all that work. >> I I hated to read the slides but >> No, it's great. >> A lot of information. Um the tracking I was teacher the teacher removal thing I don't know why it stuck with me but I mean is that something we're going to track and kind of look

074at or you know is it are we not really worried about it a whole lot? I don't know. I just kind >> I have a feeling we'll definitely be tracking it. I know we're still working on forms and what that process will look like. So since it will be digital forms I'm sure we can definitely track that. >> Yeah. Just curious what that'll look like at the end. >> Yeah. I I think the most important thing is it's a partnership in the campus and we're all in this together. I think we we um hope that we have folks on our team that all about kids first and that matches the culture of the district, but we don't want to put any teacher in a position where they feel hung out to dry. Uh what I

075appreciate about the law, whether I agree or disagree with the process, is that peers of that teacher are on that committee to help make that decision about placement. So again, and the teachers involved, the the kids are involved in that placement decision or replacement decision, however that goes. So I think what you said earlier, Miss Weber, about the voice, people have, you know, the teacher has a voice, the student that's disrupting has a voice, and we try to engage everybody and come make a common sense decision uh for students. So I I think those ongoing communications and formalizing the process um I can't object to that and I really appreciate again that teachers peers other other teachers in that building are on that committee. >> Any other questions >> Madame President? Um, you know, based

076on those lines, I think my biggest concern was the the younger group, the the kindergarten and the first grade along with all that that I had discussed that and and u so I I I'm just making the statement I guess more than anything when when you look at IEPs and stuff for for things that hadn't been identified yet was where my concern was on that piece of it. >> So, I appreciate all the work that y'all have put into that. Thank you. >> Okay. Anyone else? This is a a discussion action item. >> Madame Madame President, >> Dr. Rous, >> I would like to motion to approve the 2025 2026 student code of conduct as recommended by the administration. >> Second. I have a motion by Dr. Rous and a second by Mr. Daring to

077approve the 2025 2026 student code of conduct as recommended by the administration. All in favor? It's 70. Thank you very much for all your work. >> You know, uh I want to follow up with one general comment that um if there was ever a year that we had to bring the student code of conduct back because there's some update that we get from TEA or uh information that's new, this might be that cycle. such a complex legislative session. I think tea um a number of governing bodies are trying to understand some of the details in the law, the intended or the unintended consequences. So, I wouldn't be completely surprised. I'd love it if we didn't have to uh because of all the work that's already gone into it. Uh but please be open to that

078possibility that we may have to bring back some revisions. Miss Hobbs, any comment there or just a nod of the head? >> Yeah. Okay, we'll move on to item D, which is consideration of a teacher's late resignation without good cause and proposed complaint to the state board of educator certification for abandonment of contract. >> Madame President, >> Mr. Schlutoter, >> I move that the board finds that good cause did not exist under section 21.210C 2110C of the Texas Education Code for Nicole Bernat, Sarah Titus, Andy Wallace, Megan Davis, and Chanel Perez to resign their contracts for the 2025 2026 school year. That the board did not consent to their resignations, and that the board authorizes the superintendent to file a complaint with the state board for educator certification to seek sanctions for their abandonment. Second.

079>> I have a motion by Mr. Schlutoter 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 Nicole Bernett, uh Sarah Titus, Andy Wallace, Megan Davis, and Chanel Perez to resign their contracts for the 2025 2026 school year, and that the board did not consent to their resignations, and that the board authorizes the superintendent to file a complaint with the state board for educator certification to seek sanctions for their abandonment. All in favor? That's 70. Thank you. Okay, we will move on to item E which is local district policy update 2025.03 EFB local on library materials FNC local on cell phones. Well, good evening board. Dr. fast. Um, one of the gifts that the legislature gave us this session

080is that there are a few action items that statutes require that the board take action on either before the first day of school or before September 1. And so the two policy updates that we are looking at tonight are among those changes that are required in a a fast manner. Um, the first one is EFB local, the policy on library materials. SB13 requires that school boards adopt a policy for the acquisition of library materials before the first day of school. That's tomorrow. Um the statute sets out specific things that the policy must do. Um the slide includes a bulleted list of those things and the proposed policy um does meet all of those requirements. Um, notably, um, the the next item on the agenda after this is a separate resolution that would establish, um, the

081school library advisory, uh, council and, um, that that will be the next action item. I just wanted to remind you that that's coming up. Um, and then the second policy that's a part of this local update is um, the policy on personal communications and electronic devices, otherwise known as cell phones. Um HB1 1481 requires that school boards adopt a policy that prohibits students from using personal communication devices on school property during the school day. Um this proposed policy is in line with that statute. Um locally um Northwest ISD has decided that the means of um complying with that is that students will be required to power down those devices during the school day and store them in their backpacks. Um, and as I think we've mentioned, they're not permitted to use those during lunch or

082um passing periods or other times during the school day. Um, any questions about the update? Any questions? This is a discussion action. >> Madam President, >> Mr. Pearls. >> I move to approve local district policy update 2025.03 EFB local on library materials and FNC local on cell phones as recommended by the administration and tasby policy services. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Sprouls and a second by Dr. Rous to approve local district policy update 2025.03 EFB local on library materials and FNC local on cell phones as recommended by the administration and TASBY policy services. Any additional questions? All in favor with 70. Thank you. >> Thank you board. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh we'll move to item F. It's a resolution establishing a school library advisory council. All right. As mentioned before,

083this is part two um of complying with the um provision regarding library materials. There's a model resolution for your consideration as well as an opportunity for each of the board members to appoint or nominate um a member to the slack, the school library advisory council. I I will first open the floor up for us to nominate each of us to nominate an individual. >> Uh why don't we start at the end? Mr. Sprouls. >> Madam President, I nominate Natalie Span. >> Madame President, I nominate Stephanie Leslie. >> Madame President, I nominate Britney Bragg. Madame President, I nominate Amanda Connley. >> Madame President, I nominate Lauren Smith. >> And Madame President, I nominate Desiree Pignatelli, a parent, >> and I nominate Jamie Iikenberry, an employee. >> We'll entertain a motion for this res. Madam President, Miss

084Cop, >> I move to approve the resolution to establish a school library advisory council as recommended by the administration and nominating the following people to serve on the committee. I need to Amanda Connley, Brittany Bragg, Lauren Smith, Stephanie Lesley, Desiree Pigantelli, Natalie Span, and Jamie Eckenberry. second. >> I can alter. >> Um >> I think that needs to be said. >> Yeah, I think that we're going to amend it and to name the alternates. Just I just want to mention that the the last two Natalie Span and Jamie Echinberry are >> Oh, is it Desiree? Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, okay. That two of these that were nominated are alternates. Desiree Pagantelli and Jamie Ekenberry. Good. Yeah, you're good. Gota. >> Okay. I have a motion by Mrs. Cop and a second by Mrs. Hatfield to

085approve the resolution to establish a school library advisory council as recommended by the administration and nominating the following people to serve on the committee. Amanda Connley, parent. Brittany Bragg, employee. Lauren Smith, parent. Stephanie Leslie, parent. Desiree Pignatelli, parent alternate. Natalie Span, employee, and Jamie Iikenberry, employee alternate. Any additional questions? All in favor? It's 70. Thank you, board. That's okay. It's okay. Don't worry about it. We got it. Okay. The last uh on the agenda is G. resolution regarding a period of prayer and reading of religious texts during the school day. All right. So, the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill 11, which requires that school boards take a vote on whether or not they will adopt a resolution establishing a period of prayer and religious reading during the school day. Now, Senate Bill 11 may sound

086appealing if you only read the title of the bill. Of course, students should have the right to pray and read scripture during the school day. In fact, they already have those rights. Um, they've had these rights for generations. And we at Northwest ISD honor those rights every day. Experienced teachers will tell you that as long as there are tests in school, there will be prayer in school. And experienced teachers will also tell you that as long as students are testing their patience, the teachers will be praying at school as well. They'll be praying for wisdom and patience and strength. Um, and the the rights of students to pray and read scripture in schools is wellestablished. The general principle is that the first amendment of the United States Constitution protects private religious expression, meaning the right

087of individuals to express themselves. At the same time, the first amendment also prohibits government action that establishes, advances, or coerces religion in public schools. Now, the Supreme Court has a long history of protecting students rights in this regard. In 1962, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Engle versus Vitali that students have a right to pray at school as long as the prayer is student initiated and not disruptive. A generation later in 1995, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Dov Duncanville ISD that students may pray in groups during non-instructional time again as long as they're not disruptive or harassing others. In 2000, 25 years ago, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Santa Fe ISDV. Do that nothing in the United States Constitution prohibits a public school student from voluntarily praying at any

088time during the school day. We also have laws on the books in Texas that protect students rights. Texas Education Code 25.091 091 states that a public school student has an absolute right to pray or meditate individually, voluntarily, and silently during the school day. Texas Education Code 25.154 provides that students may organize prayer groups, religious groups, and other religious gatherings during the school day to the same extent that students can engage in other types of non-religious activities. And our campuses here in Northwest ISD implement these laws and honor these rights every single day. Already in our schools and for many years, students in Northwest ISD organize religious clubs like Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Glory for God. These organizations have faculty sponsors. They meet on campus and they advertise on campus the same way non-religious clubs

089do. Every September at nearly every campus, if not every campus in our district, students gather at the flag pole to pray for their school with the National Seu at the Pole prayer event. Students are free to read the Bible or any religious text of their choosing during the school day. At times when they're not doing other active learning, nothing prohibits a student from reading the Bible, the Torah, or the Quran during lunch, during advisory, or when they're finished with their work in class. Sometimes students need a quiet place to pray during the school day. And when they request that, our campus administrators provide them a safe, quiet place to practice their faith. It's also not uncommon for students who are fasting for religious purposes to ask if they can go to the library during lunch

090because for a fasting teenager, being around the smell of tater tots can be really hard. And in those cases, our school staff make accommodations for those students and provide them a safe place outside the cafeteria where they can go during lunch so that they can still practice their faith and honor their religion. We also as a school district honor the rights of our employees. Now, employees religious rights are not as broad as student religious rights. And that's because when a school employee is acting in their role as a school employee, uh the employee is a representative of the school district, a representative of the government. And so they should avoid coercing students to engage in religious expression. They should also avoid taking action that violates the establishment clause. But employees are still free to discuss

091their faith at work. Um, they can do this while on campus, during their free time away from students. Employees can meet in prayer groups, in Bible studies, during lunch, before school, or after school um to pray and read scripture with their fellow um employees as long as not they're not forcing their faith on others or harassing others. Um, in 2022, in fact, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Kennedy v. Breton school district that a school employee, a football coach, had the right to engage in private personal prayer at work on the football field after a football game. As long as his students were otherwise occupied, he wasn't responsible for supervising them in that moment. And he was otherwise free to engage in private communication um like a personal phone call. Under federal law, Title

0927, employees may request accommodations to engage in religious expression, and our district works with employees to provide those accommodations so that our employees may practice their faith as needed. So, Northwest ISD already honors the rights of staff and students to express their faith within the school setting, consistent with federal law, state law, and board policy. And now when we look at Senate Bill 11, Senate Bill 11 doesn't actually advance the rights of staff or students in the school setting. Not only that, if a school board adopts the Senate Bill 11 resolution, the law requires that those school districts take specific steps that are set out in statute. And these steps are problematic from a constitutional perspective and from a practical perspective. Um, for example, to participate in the Senate Bill 11 prayer and reading, a

093student's parents must sign a written consent waving their right to challenge the violation of the establishment clause of the US Constitution. The establishment clause basically says that a government, including the school district, may not establish or endorse a religion. In other words, the government cannot create a state religion or favor one religion over another. This was important to America's founding fathers. That's why many of them came to this land because they were trying to escape religious persecution in Europe. Americans should be wary of people who are asking them to wave their constitutional rights and school boards should be cautious about asking parents to wave their rights under the US Constitution. Secondly, the statute says that Senate Bill 11 prayer and reading must not be done in the physical presence or in the hearing of any

094person who did not sign that written consent. In other words, the Senate Bill 11 prayer and reading may only be observed in segregated spaces where families who consented their children are separated from the children of families who did not consent. Further, Senate Bill 11 doesn't have different rules based on the age or maturity of the students involved. Um, several of you taught elementary school students. you know how impressionable they can be, how eagerly they want to please their teachers and that sense of um impressionable impressionability and and vulnerability um makes them more susceptible to coercion in the religious context. And Senate Bill 11 doesn't provide for different procedures for high school students than it does for elementary students. and and frankly people of faith should be cautious about elementary school students receiving religious instruction away

095from their parents even if their parents signed a waiver. So Senate Bill 11 is problematic on many levels. The administration does not recommend that the board adopt the Senate Bill 11 resolution. State law, federal law, and board policy already allow students and staff to engage in religious expression, to pray, to read scripture during the school day. And students and staff are free to continue exercising those rights whether or not the board adopts the Senate Bill 11 resolution. Accordingly, the the administration recommends that the board decline to adopt the Senate Bill 11 resolution. Are there any questions, >> Madam President? >> Are there Do you have any Sorry, I was going to ask for questions first. Anybody have any questions? >> Um, I just wanted to say thank you so much for all the effort that

096you put into that. That was absolutely outstanding explaining the differences of that. Um, you know, I know it's concerning for for some people when you read the language, but until you dive into it and and really deep dive of of all the particulars and u you put a tremendous amount of work into that and I thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Other questions or comments? Mr. Schneider. >> Yes, I do have a comment. You know, at first glance, you look at this and said, "Hey, why wouldn't we want to adopt SE Senate Bill 11, but the history that you brought up, as Mr. Daring said, helped us to see what we're already doing and not to negatively influence what we're promoting at this point in time, and that's the freedom of religion in

097our school and to pray and to do those things associated with that." So, thank you for those clarifications, and I hope somebody that sees this said, "Why would a board vote against something like prayer?" But you tell us the reasons why. >> Additional comments from other board members. >> I thank you very much for that. It was very um I it was just very indepth the way that you looked at all of that and and brought all that to light. And I agree with you. I pray all the time, but my prayer is my prayer. and and and I pray on campuses all the time and I I do agree that we all have the ability to do what we need to do um and pray when we need to pray and I think all

098of our students do that too. So I will entertain a motion if no one else has any questions. Mr. Schlutoter. >> Madam President, >> Mr. Schlutter, >> I move to decline to adopt a resolution regarding a period of prayer and reading of the religious text during the social day pursuant to Senate Bill 11. And I appreciate the music to go along with my motion. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Schlutoter, a second by Dr. Roush to decline to adopt a resolution regarding a period of prayer and reading of religious text during the school day pursuant to Senate Bill 11. All in favor? That's 70. Thank you, board. Thank you, Miss Hobbs. That was a very nice presentation. Okay, we will move on to the reports. Uh the first port report tonight will

099be the elementary and secondary education district effectiveness report. >> Well, good evening board. Dr. FA, Miss Speak and I are excited to present to you our elementary secondary education report from 2425 school year with a soundtrack. So, this is going to be great. Um so of course all of our work uh with our campuses is directly tied to our strategic framework uh digging into our belief, vision and mission as well as our goals and priorities. So tonight we wanted to really dive into some of those priorities and show you some of the highlights of the worker campuses have done last year. Um so to start with literacy um here are some of the focus we had last year with content literacy. Of course, we want our kids reading and writing across all cont content areas.

100Um, I'm going to steal a quote from one of our newest principles, Dr. Daryl Porter. Um, he likes to say, "I want my kids reading a little a lot throughout the day." And we just I love that phrase just again um making sure our kids are reading, writing across all content areas um consistently throughout the day. Um, also we're looking at increasing opportunities for our students to use their student journals to stack to track our goal progress um, at secondary campuses as well. Um, and then also continuing to work with staff in how we teach, grade, and provide feedback to our students regarding their short constructed responses and extended responses for their STAR results or tests. And here is some examples of just in our learning teams um in our PLC work with our principles

101as well as our secondary elementary updates. Um just some of the evidence that we use and we to have conversations about learning targets about formative assessments and just how we track the progress of our campus goals in literacy for example. And then just to show you some of the evidence of some of the progress looking at ELAR reading data across all grade levels. Happy to report that the district um was at above state and region for passing percentages for approaches meets and masters in all grade levels. And then just looking for uh work for the next year. Again, continuing to look at formative assessments and progress monitoring, working with our staff, our teachers really to with every lesson, every class period, have a plan to assess whether their students met the learning objectives for the

102date or that class period. um if they didn't address their ad address their instruction to circle back and see where students were deficit or if they did meet those objectives, how can we enrich that and go deeper into the context? Um al as well as look at again increasing small group instruction across all um levels including secondary levels and again writing in content areas looking at 1.2 to academic progress. Um, again working with our principles, system principles and PLC's really looking at that that center infographic. We're looking at all the different components, content literacy, instructional frame, behavior framework, how all these different components impact student achievement um, across the district. And then look again looking at math and some of our progress. Again, for approaches uh, for meets, we are at or we're above, excuse

103me, state and region in all those areas. and then masters. Um, in the majority, we're also above the state and region and a few grade levels we are just a point below the region which again we're working towards making sure that doesn't happen in the future as well. And then again uh in math going deeper into concepts using real world examples multi-step problems um using those common format assessments in daily instruction and also those short instructed responses as well. I'll turn to Miss Beacon. that one. >> Okay, perfect. >> Good evening. So, I'll go ahead and continue with um strategic goal two and talk to you a little bit about how we support and develop our principles and APS. So, starting with our new administrator, some of the things that we continue to do is

104we have our new admin academy which supports our new and new to NISD principles. We have our mentor program where we pair up our first and second year principles and APS with a um existing principal or AP and they meet with them throughout the year. Uh we have our new principal collaboration which it which are meetings designed by those principles based on their needs and what just kind of what's on their plate at that time of year and they get support from the district. And then over the past two years, we had the opportunity to partner with TCU in a principal intern program. And I'm happy to say that two of our four interns then became APS in our district this year. So, we were super excited about that. Um, I know that uh Mr.

105Hill kind of talked about our principal PLC and learning teams, but one piece that I want to specifically talk about when it comes to supporting our administrators and developing them, we had a book study we did all year, state of the school. This book study came to us from one of our principles who went to a conference in the state and came back and could not wait to share how geeky excited she was about this book and what she was going to implement on our campus, her campus. We went and watched it, really liked it. And so last year, our principles did this book study and three times last year, they each presented a state of their campus. And in this, they showed celebrations that were aligned with their campus and district goals, but then

106went on to talk about the specific steps they took to get there. but then also went on to talk about but then what are the next gap what gaps they're going to fill or what areas are they going to push next most of our campuses also those principles turned around and replicated this as a state of the school and it really was a huge success and what we found it did is that it really inspired our leaders um with a positive sense of urgency and that call to action we also had two opt optional book studies that we offered once in the fall and once in the spring. So principles had an opportunity to dive deep into these two books and it was purely optional but we had great attendance. Um back in high demand

107were trainings that our principles were wanting to come back so we made sure that happened. Um protocol training with someone who's not from NISD but pretty much should be Thomas um Van Zulan. and then also crucial conversations and crucial accountability which is led by our own Dr. Griffin. Looking forward, we're going to continue those book studies. We have one we know which is a John Maxwell book and then one is just coming soon. We're still perusing some options and we want to make sure that we get the best bang for our buck. Something new this year and this came specifically from principal feedback. We are um exploring something called collaboration for impact. This is going to be small groups of principles in groups of about four that are led and facilitated by one of their

108very own veteran principles. This is an opportunity for our principles to grow and learn through each other to share each other's genius and really support with what's going on during the school year. Something else that we are implementing this year based on our principal feedback is a principal leadership pathway. Our assistant principles gave some feedback that they wanted some more specified training for th those that want to become principles. They want it to be more streamlined for the needs of the things they need to do. So this will be one of our leadership pathways. It will be led by Dr. Griffin, but it will be supported by many of us in CNI as well as um some of our veteran principles and even Dr. Faustst. All right. To support strategic goal three, we will continue

109with our work with the behavior framework and um I know you're familiar. We've shown you this the past couple of years. This last year, we really worked to sustain that tier one, the tier one supports. We also implemented tier 2 with our elementary campuses as well as one secondary. Going forward, we are going to continue that sustained support. We're going to fully implement tier 2 and we're going to implement tier three in all of our um behavior units. One thing we're excited about going forward is the bus driver and guest educator training which has taken place. It happened. Our principles led those trainings. our principles designed the uh language that was created for our NISD facilities and buses. So, we're super excited just about that collaboration with them and taking this work forward. Just a

110shout out to some of our campuses. Um this is just a few, not all of the accolades, but um we have with character.org K Granger and Nance got some shoutouts this year for promising practice in National School of Character. These four campuses for the second year in a row got the Texas Student Leadership Award. That's Daniel Granger, Hatfield, and Hughes. We're hoping we can add to that list. In secondary, CW Warthington was named a Texas school to watch. And Miss Deerdorf over at Byron Nelson was named the TASSP region 11 high school principal of the year. Also, we always really just show out when it comes to destination imagination. We had 13 39 teams that medalled, 14 went to state with two advancing to globals and one placing uh second at the global competition. And

111you know, we love what we do. Chris and I couldn't do it without our fabulous team of four. And we just want to give a huge shout out to Dr. Raven and Miss Williams for all the support they give us. And with that, that's the end of our presentation. Do you have any questions? Any questions, Mr. Schlooter? >> Uh, yes. U those are amazing programs that you bring our educators in and you educate them and just give them the confidence to move up in the chain. Uh, I was wondering if you had any spare books that I might be able to borrow because they look very motivational. So, if you have some, I'd love to take a read. >> Just one? I'm just kidding. We have plenty. We have a lot. Any other questions? Okay,

112thank you very much for all your hard work. We appreciate you both and your whole team. Okay, we'll move to report B, which is college career and military readiness readiness district effectiveness report. It's one of my favorites. You can set your water here. All right. Well, I will go ahead and start with introductions while we wait for our slide presentation. So, thank you all for the opportunity to present our CCMR effectiveness report for tonight. um you are just going to be dazzled because I will not be the only presenter tonight. We are actually going to have one of our CTE ambassadors here and also one of our advanced academic ambassadors here tonight who are really going to help to um share our data but even more show you what we do. So I'm going to

113kick us off with just giving you big picture overview and then I'm going to hand it over to Sanskriti Vane that we have here from Byron Nelson and also Sarah Norris who is also here from Byron Nelson. So first off we align to strategic goal um number one and in that 1.3 of having our kids prepared for life. I am starting with showing you the biggest um indicator for our CCMR readiness. And just to remind you, this does count for 40% of our overall A throughF accountability rating. You will see in the maroon um this is our 2024 percentage which is at 74%. Keep in mind it is always 2 years behind. So you are seeing the grade or the percentage for students who graduated in 2023 from that 22 23 class. So we're currently

114sitting at 74. Um we did go up one percentage doesn't sound like a lot but we were overcoming some serious CCMR changes at the time with the state. So we were happy to see that we not only sustained our level but actually increased to that 74%. Here are our population trends districtwide where you can see a variety of our subpopuls and their growth in CCMR readiness across the district and then also our special education economically disadvantaged and English language learners. So, for example, you can see that our special education department went from a 79% with those 2022 grads up to an 84.6% for those 2023 grads. So, another way for you to look at this is to look at the two buckets that compose that overall 74%. So, it is college ready on one side.

115That's all of your on-ramps, AP, dual credit, and advanced academics. And then you have the career ready which is your CTE completion plus an IBC certification. So you can see that we are 61.7% college ready, 45.7% career ready. And when you look down at um yearbyear from 2020 to 2024, you can see overall an increase. And then we wanted to remind you of the changes that we've gone through year after year with the state changing our CCMR accountability calculations and you can see those over to the right hand side there. So we added this one this year and I love it because it shows multiple things to you. So first off it shows four area school districts and their comparison to our CCMR number to help you see how we're doing overall. And then it

116compares their college ready and career ready. And one thing to highlight is that it shows us high in college ready and also high and career ready and not heavily weighted one way or the other. This is key because we are creating students here at Northwest ISD who are well-rounded, who oftentimes do both, do all, and do multiple things, which I think you're definitely going to hear tonight from these two how that works. So the two buckets are really composed of our CTE department and our CCR department. So our CTE department is led by Mr. Ed Schelstead who is here tonight and available for questions. And I am going to allow Sanskriti Veneron Nelson to take you through our CTE department information and tell you a little bit about herself. That's gonna be this. Hi everyone,

117my name is Sanskriti Barnet and thank you so much for having me here tonight. So at Byron, I'm in the biomedical sciences academy and so far in the academy, I've received my OSHA certification and I'm going to be working towards my base certification this coming year. I've also taken many college courses and to be specific I've taken eight AP classes out of which I've earned fives on six of them and fours on the rest and I've also taken two honors classes as well as four dual credit classes in which I've earned A's in all of them. Um, through the Biomemed Academy, I'm going to be having an internship which allows me to have real world experience and I'm most likely to be interning at the Texas Health Alliance Hospital. And in Byron, I'm a part

118of some clubs. So, I'm in the National Honor Society in which I will serve as a secretary. I'm the founder and president of the Byron Nelson Mu Mu Alpha Theta, which is a math national honor society in which we tutor math students and create um a rich environment for all math students. And I'm also a proud violinist and the varsity orchestra. >> So very well-rounded. >> Thank you. So CTE has 21 programs of study and we are an acade academy model in NISD. So in the 2024 to 2025 school year there have been 13,75 students in a CTE class and 80% of secondary students are in a CTE course. So we also have CTE industry certifications. So as of 2025 7,136 students have earned a certification and out of these I certain I have my

119OSHA certificate right now and I'm also going to get my Microsoft certification and we still have so many more certifications that students can get. So, CTE also has student enterprises which are basically businesses and they help students get real world experience and a competitive advantage. So, some of them that we have are the Byron Beastro, the Eden Pet Spa, Byron Blooms and Northwest Texan Designs. We also have practicums. So more than 800 students annually receive internship and field experiences with more than 88 external business um partners and 32 NISD partners. And myself, I'm in an internship this coming year as well. So we also have career and technical student organizations. So these are clubs in which the students can compete so that they can learn skills such as problem solving or in HOSA which is

120a club that I'm in we can learn things like mental health awareness and public health in which I actually participated in and one of my topics was on obesity. So I also want to point out that we have national achievements on every campus for the 2024 to 2025 school year. So I think that's a really proud statement for me to be saying here. And we also have the student influencers of alliance Texas. So in 2024 we've had 18 students and students have lots of opportunities to learn from businesses such as Hillwood, BNSF and Medical City Alliance Hospital. >> Thank you. So, one of our initiatives or one of many was to really branch into elementary outreach this year for CTE and for CCR. So, this year we increased the number of CTE student volunteers that

121we had at our elementary events. We partnered with um elementary presentations at Expo to have our CTE program showcased to a wide variety of parents. We also developed our career explorers videos which were for elementary students and then separate videos for their parents to really teach them about the career opportunities at the high school level. And then we added a new STEM practicum internship that's starting this year where STEM Academy students are going to go into our elementary campuses and do all sorts of really cool STEMI projects with our elementary kids. So multiple avenues that we are taking CTE and dripping that into our elementary campuses. A quick side note um in talking about the national achievements is we did just get notification that one of our AG students Riley Copeland is a top four

122finalist in the entire nation in his proficiency um competition. So he graduated with us this year and he's continuing to compete and is in top four in FFA for his proficiency for his Amech project that you probably all remember um coming to the board meeting and being recognized. So top four in the nation is incredible. So just wanted to share that with you all. So our next department is CCR. So this is led by Bobby Morris who is here also tonight. And I have Sarah Norris who is going to share with you all some of our data and a little bit about her advanced academic experience. >> Um, thank you for having me here tonight. I'm a senior at Thank you. I'm a senior at Byron Nelson High School. My name is Sarah Norris and

123I am an advanced academics um, ambassador. So far, I have taken seven AP classes, three on-ramps classes, and three dual credit classes. I have received fours and fives on every single one of my AP exams, earning me the AP Scholar with distinction award, and I have also completed my AP Capstone program. In addition to this, I have been a ceramic student throughout all of high school and I'm continuing that this year. I am also the president of the Byron Nelson Crochet Club and a co-founder of the Byron Nelson Dungeons and Dragons Club. Um, I'll begin with on-ramps achievement. So, this school year, 91% of our on-ramp students earned credit and 79% accepted the college credit that they earned in their classes. Both of these areas saw 3% growth from the 23 24 school year. I

124personally this year received credit for both of my semesters of honest history. So, I believe I earned six hours of college credit and have also earned college credit from my on-ramps pre-calculus and college algebra classes in years past. This is our total on-ramps impact as a district. Last year, we had almost 3,000 on-ramps courses taken and almost 8,000 college credit hours accepted. These on-ramps classes saved NISTD students millions of dollars in average tuition and over triple that amount in average actual savings which include the cost of books, fees, and housing that these students are avoiding by taking college classes early. For advanced placement, 87% of AP students who took an AP exam scored a three or higher on at least one of their exams, making up 80% of all AP students, even the ones who

125chose not to take any exams at all. This is reflected on the graph where you can see the red line at the top is the number of exams taken. The red, sorry, the blue bars represent the number of total AP students and the maroon bar is the AP students with scores of three or higher. This is a deeper dive into our humanities advanced placement data where you can see um that the blue bars on the left represent the average AP scores for NISD and the red bars on the right represent the average scores for the state of Texas. As you can see in most of these categories, the NISD average scores are greater than or even higher than the average state scores for these AP classes. A lot of the same can be said for

126our STEM advanced placement classes, which include our sciences, our math, and our fine arts classes as well. TSIA testing also increased greatly this year, partly due to strategies that were employed within the district, such as testing all 9th graders in the ELA portion of the TSI, as well as focusing on 11th and 12th grade TSI testing by making TSI a qualifier for senior release and adding additional school day TSI opportunities, which allowed me personally to take the test this year. So Texas College Bridge is something that we wanted to share with you tonight. So last year we started a pilot program for starting to use Texas College Bridge as a bridge to CCMR readiness. So we had 897 students enroll in the English side of Texas College Bridge. We had 895 in the math and

127you can see their completion statuses below that. In general, students were going through the self-paced just for it to be a pilot program for our teachers to learn the program and figure out how to embed it for future years. It's important because this is the bridge where if a student isn't um CCMR met in other categories, we can help get them TSI tutoring through Texas College Bridge and completion of it actually gets them the CCMR met accountability. So our next steps for this is to have it this year fully embedded in onle English 4, also in AQR, which is a math course, and then also in financial math. And so those are strategic courses that if we place Texas College Bridge into them and in the curriculum and in class time, then our students will

128be able to complete Texas College Bridge at a very high level for CCMART readiness. Dual credit enrollment increased greatly this school year, seeing 22% growth with the addition of 635 new student enrollments. I have taken three dual credit courses through Tarant County College throughout my high school career. And not only have these courses allowed me to earn college credit, but they've also allowed me to take even more classes and get even more out of my high school experience. Lastly, this 2025 graduating class was the inaugural graduating class of the Steel Early College High School. 35 of their 41 seniors completed their associates degrees with 97% of seniors graduating CCMR ready and 97% additionally meeting outcome bonus criteria. Class sizes only continue to grow each year and the 2025 2026 class has 74 seniors. Thank you.

129All right. So, what's next for NISD CCR? There's probably more than we can put on bullet points um because we're having a lot of growth and a lot of innovation happening in both departments. But as of tomorrow, we will officially open the construction academy at Northwest High School. We also relocated our cosmetology academy over to Northwest High School and today they passed TDLR inspection. Huge win. Um, thank you construction department for getting us in in time to have that done. Um, we also are programming out the high school number four with our transportation automation and logistics academy and also another a center for half of our district to be served with. We have a 27% increase in CTE practicums. That should make you smile because that means those children are going to be CTE complete

130and career ready assuming they also get their IBC which we will do. We have our CCMR campus teams that are so strong. last year they were meeting every single month um the majority of them on the high school campuses and their committees that are the counselors APS um our department all coming together and strategizing goals for CCMAR readiness that is personal to each high school campus we will fully implement the Texas college bridge program collection has um improved because the military is now actually sending us the DD forms where we're not having to chase uh kids after actually not kids, adults after high school to get those DD forms. So, we anticipate that being a better reflection of the kids who do enlist. And then lastly, we are um creating our marketing plan this year

131to increase community outreach in all of our areas. So, we're offering um information nights and zooms that are courses like AP for all, military proud, fasta prep, college application week, and so many more from our department. And that concludes our presentation. What questions do you have for us? >> Before we get into questions, I want to say um you guys have to be the two coolest kids. you get to come to a schoolboard meeting the night before school starts. I know and hang out with us and present. Y'all are both seniors. Is that correct? >> Thank you so much for doing this before your senior year. And one word of advice, of course, I don't know if y'all need to slow down because you said 36 hours of of college credit, 30 hours of college

132credit, and probably more this year that you're going to end up gaining. But enjoy the moments of your senior year. It really goes fast. And I say that as a former high school senior 120 years ago. Also, as a dad of two daughters who were seniors, it just goes really, really fast. So, savor the moments. Make sure you have you take time to study hard, but have fun as well in your senior year. So, thank you guys for your presentation. >> Questions, friends? I mean, Steve, you got questions? >> You're up. >> First, uh, since greet and Sarah, yeah, nice job on what y'all did. I have a ton of questions for y'all, but Ben, school starts tomorrow. I'll save those for in the hallways when I see you see you next time. But to

133get a good uh miss for you, um, DND club at Byron, that's pretty cool. What's your alignment? That'll tell me a lot about you. Um, so I actually have several characters across different campaigns. I have a true neutral, a chaotic neutral, >> um, and a lawful good, I believe. >> Okay. So, you do a little of everything. Okay. Because you come across kind of meek and and but very intelligent, but I knew there had to be some chaotic in you at some point. So, Okay. Good job. No, good job for both of y'all. Uh, as Miss Henderson probably warned you before you came here, I'm a big proponent of CTE and especially um the the college credits onramps in particular. So, congratulations and what you've done Sarah is amazing and since greedy the Yeah, there's

134there's going to be some cool stuff coming your way. So, biomemed and interning at Alliance Medical, is that what you said? >> Yes, Texas Health Alliance Health. >> Texas Health. Okay. What are you going to be doing there? >> So, I'm going to become I won't be able to actually practice medical like >> that would probably be unethical. But I'm going to be watching doctors and nurses how they uh interact with their patients so that I can like get a sense of how to do that and how they treat their patients, how they can make diagnosises because for biat actually in the summer I had to read a book called compassionics. So like in a field that seems kind of unimportant, it showed me how important it is. So that's why it gives me completely

135new meaning to look forward to my internship because like things that seem unimportant are actually going to be more important than ever. So I'm going to be getting to see like the interaction. So that's what I'm excited for. >> Okay, good. Well, good luck good good luck to both of y'all. Again, thank you very much. Um so Miss Henderson, I think the these questions are for you now. The um I I got to watch those explore videos that you did and those were those are good videos and you know we've talked before about taking down to the elementary level. So that's those are I don't know whose idea that was, but kudos to whoever came up with that. >> Mr. Ed Shelstead actually led that charge with um a couple others in our office and

136Bobby Morris had quite a bit to do with that as well. Okay, so all accolades can go to both of them. >> Nice job. >> And then um Riley uh Mr. Copeland, he's number four. Is there still more contests? Is he still competing or is that the highest level? >> Yeah, so they actually have their national competition in September. Okay. in Indianapolis. I hope I'm not saying that wrong. In FFA, people in here will know. Am I correct? Okay. Um, so they always compete even after they graduate. So they keep going into the next school year with FFA. What that means is he's top four finalist in the entire nation in that proficiency. And so he won't actually take his machine there because it's not about the fabrication. It's actually about all of his process,

137research, and implementation. and then his showmanship of how he speaks about it. So neat to have both components recognized. >> He's got that then he's he's very well spoken. >> Yeah, I can't wait to see. >> We might have to fly up there. >> So question dual credit. So what's where are we at on cost now to families and students for dual credit and on-ramps and and also for dual credit al for steel where how does all because I know it used to be free then it's not and I just kind of curious where we are now. >> Yeah. So, it actually all of our courses through TCC are free. Um, and that's >> regardless of what county the student lives in. >> Correct. Okay. That was something that we really negotiated and worked on

138when um the House bill came through that allowed them to jump into the program that allowed free tuition. And then we have Tarlton who we use for a couple CTE programs. We actually um cover the cost of that in our CTE programs for those courses. So, our education and training is um 1301 and 2301. And we changed the actual program to be dual credit only, but it has a cost to it that is around Bobby $150, >> $149 for each of those courses for students. Well, because we made it their only option and because we have a belief in providing that opportunity, CTE funds actually cover the cost of that dual credit for students. So there's no cost to students for that. >> Okay. And on-ramps is your cost for that. >> And then the

139exact cost for on-ramps, >> same 149. Yeah.$149 per course. >> Okay. But the the families cover that. >> Yes. And a lot of our options that we have for on-ramps also have an option for AP or also have an option for dual credit. So there's a free option as well as a cost option and not just one or the other. >> Okay. >> As a someone who's uh paid for college, the honors saved me so much money. at 149. That's a good investment >> for the amount of money it saved cuz >> my Sarah only uh no she uh her friends got threes in US history but when they went to tech you needed a four so they had to take the class again where Sarah Maser did on-ramps she didn't have to take the

140class so it saved us a ton of money on that >> it's pretty dynamic the comparison between the two and what different universities >> and with with on-ramps I know that was a just I'm kind of curious how the expansion of the program which it's more the credit has to be accepted for any Texas public school if the student so chooses but are other programs say Arkansas Oklahoma are they accepting these credits from on-ramps out of state or is it just strictly in Texas? >> We see it out of state as well because it really is looked at by many as a University of Texas credit. >> What you see sometimes is an actual program of study may not honor it. So, for example, you might have a program that's like computer science at the

141university level and they want their students to take all of their um courses that are specific to engineering or specific to computer science only through that university and so then the student might not be able to use it. >> Okay. >> And I could have questions. We could talk for another hour or two, but I'm going to leave it at that. We'll talk we'll talk more later. So, yeah. Thank you. >> Can I just add one piece to that? Um similarly with AP um you know certain universities will not accept even if you get a five in AP physics if you're in their physics program they won't accept that advanced placement they want you to take their course so it's not just dual credit it depends >> okay they can and I will say with

142that with my my daughter Sarah when she was doing honors she liked the the aspect of test and forget where AP you have to learn and retain especially with the economics if you took it first semester you got to retain it for a little longer. So, okay. >> Yeah. Thanks. They they definitely have different pros and cons. >> Yes. >> Y. >> Any other questions? >> Okay. Thanks everybody. Thank you, girls. Thank you so much. Have a great year. >> Thank you. >> Okay, we'll move on to the next report, item C, which is the safety and security report. Good evening board. Dr. Faustst. Um, I've been working hard. I think I got this under 30 minutes, so u may be past some of your bad times, but we'll we'll get there. Um, the topics

143we're going to go over tonight are here. Um, chapter 1961 are the requirements and like we've talked before over over my visits with you, we've really been ahead on all a lot of this stuff. Uh, there's a lot of the new legislation coming down, but through the guidance of y'all and and and our leadership, we've we've really had an easy go at some of these. Talk about some trainings, the craze training, civil response and active shooter events. Um, go over our door security refresher. um some new administrator stuff, the Sentinel portal and uh our current safety initiatives, just kind of the high points on these. Um fencing and glass, we've talked about this as part of that 1961. Um we are compliant. We've got a couple of punch out stuff on that, but we're we're

144pretty much there. Everything's good with that. Uh primary entrance and vestibules. I'm starting my 18th year, and we've we were already there. I mean, that's how far ahead this stuff were. We already had vestibials. We already had check-in at the front offices. They wanted one primary entrance. If you remember, Northwest High School was the only campus that had two entrances. So, we're now we're now um have one there as well. Door numbering, again, that was done before I was here. That was something that was it was an initiative that that we've been doing a long time. uh door construction and function. Again, the district in construction has been putting steel door, steel frame doors in, all the proper hinges, all the locking mechanisms, all those have been done um to meet all these these uh

145new uh laws that are coming out. Uh roof access doors, um the state in their wisdom, uh wanting to put locks, actual locks on these hatches. Um we found a great solution. A couple pictures there. Um it's safe for everybody. They don't have to climb up the ladder to manipulate the lock. They can they can um open the latch from the bottom. Actually, maintenance department Jim's crew found these and they they really really do a great job. So, when we get audited, we'll talk about that a little bit. I think they're going to be really surprised by this this uh addition we've done here. And then communication infrastructure. Um there's some neat technologies that we're doing with that uh to meet some of the mandates. Some of them in progress, some of them, again, we've

146been ahead of the curve on those. Uh communication infrastructure. Um the red boxes on the right is kind of the whisbang stuff that they they put in for first responders. It does all the neat communications. It allows a signal from inside our building at a low wattage to then be uh sent back out through the antenna there that's on the roof. So that allows first responders, uh police, fire to have good communications inside our buildings. Again, that was a mandate. Um and they call that the birectional antenna system. Then we've got the silent panic alert technology. Um uh we did a great job. Technology uh helped us come up with a solution with the soft button on the key there. Uh every classroom has one. Uh the teachers push that button. It comes to our

147call center and then we have a whole um process that we do to um uh provide support to those to those classrooms. Uh the civil response uh to active shooter events. Uh we do that every year with new uh with new staff. do a great job um getting all the staff in one place. We run through the entire gamut of the full program. And then of course we have our returning staff which get a uh uh a refresher every year. We were able to do that in one session at Pike. Our external doors uh we continue to do all those checks with our external doors. Um we have a great process for those. Um, again, we call it the look, uh, listen, latch, and we continue every year and as needed on campus. We keep

148pushing the importance of making sure those doors are closed, make sure we have a process to report damaged or malfunction doors. Um, we remind them how that's done. Um, we also have some training on the SPAT button, that silent panic alert technology. We're, um, actually developing some, uh, videos and some, uh, further education on that. So, um, they'll actually see what that looks like. We want to show them what the backside looks like when they push that button, what what we're doing to provide that service for them. Um, we'll be working with, um, uh, the high school uh, uh, students are going to help us put some of that together. And then new administrators, it's pretty neat. Um, we get to talk to them when they're new to our district or if they're new in

149the position as a group through the summer. And then we schedule one-on-one time with them. And we really like that time. It's a time when it's convenient for them and we can spend as much time as they need to go all over anything they want to talk about safety security related, answer their questions, do any visits, do any walks, those type of things. And then um the Sentinel um intruder detections will continue. We're on year three of that. Um everything's the same with those. Our district, we've already got our September notice that they're coming. a district our size, we get audited every month to get through all of our campuses. Uh the district vulnerability assessment is a four-year process. We haven't had ours yet. Um but we are due within the next two years to

150have that done. And again, that goes back to that uh chapter 1961, all those laws, all those mandates. They're going to come and make sure that we're um compliant on all those. Some of that um things that uh make us compliant is the document repository. We talk about that as as a group in the district. It's a great place for us to continue to put those documents across all platforms of of the district. Weekly door audits, we're still doing those. Um we have a great process to do those. Um they've been they've been going really well. Um the state likes our format. We don't we actually don't use their Sentinel format. We use ours, but they allow us to update the logs and and they appreciate that. Drills and maintenance. Same thing with drills. There

151is a drill requirement in Sentinel and uh our team in safety security is taking the drill and the maintenance weight off the campus again this year. The state expects the campuses to log in and and do all that. But we have right now we have the ability to help them with that. We get those drills in, we get them um processed, and all the maintenance, the buy maintenance reports that are mandated uh for the campus to do, we're able to get out there and do those to help those administrators uh stay focused on other tasks. And then these last two red ones are new this year. Um you've heard them talk about behavioral threat assessment. Um in the state's infinite wisdom, they felt it best to to have us do a statewide program. Um and

152it was it was mandatory August 1st. So moving forward, all of our behavioral threat assessments will be done in the Sentinel program. I know student services curriculum is working hard to get all those all those folks set up in that and to get them prepared to run that program this year. And then as well, this is the safe and supportive school program. Those reports are also run by the campus. Uh and those are mandated to be put in the Sentinel as well. Uh last couple um one of the neat things we're doing with uh staff accountability is we've really tried to um to do better and we we we try to figure out where we're we're lacking just a little bit and we found that we can do better on when we run uh drills

153and we um if we have to evacuate or we have to do some sort of emergency procedure. we really didn't have a great way to really show numbers on campus and now we really have come up with a a great way to do that and we're rolling that out. Um, and one of the other challenges was ga guest educators. You know, they really move across a district and they're not a staff member that's assigned to a campus. So, we also have a process now where they can get information, collect uh phone numbers and if we do have those um need to use those in an event. It's a QR code. It's a link sent to their cell phone. They fill out the link. It's all captured in one dashboard. And then we can start adding

154those numbers and account accounting for everybody and get those uh get them the help they need. Uh we're also excited that we've got uh all of our first responder permissions to have um their channels in our call center. Uh our dispatch center will actually have law enforcement radios in there. It'll be great. We'll be able to listen to North Patrol, Trophy Club, Justin, all first responders and then we'll be able to communicate with them in the need of a mass emergency. So, we're really excited about that. That's that's above and beyond what most school districts are able to to do, especially with all of our different agencies. and door sounders. Um, it's a neat technology. Um, we're rolling this out across the district in partnership with technology. And if a door is propped open, um,

155there's an audible sound, which is the physical response. Uh, staff hears it, they respond, they shut the door. Um, and then if that extended period of time happens, our call center gets involved. We pull up cameras. So we can get on radios, phones, contact the campus, um contact the armed guard, contact our SRO and uh assess that door. Any questions? Almost 30 minutes. >> Anyone have any questions? That was great. Thank you very much. >> You're welcome. >> Okay, our last report of the night will be the June 2025 bond sale results report. So, back in June, if you remember correctly, I came to you and we said we were going to sell that remaining 800 or 800 million of the remaining um authorization, part of the remaining authorization of the bond from 23 u

156mainly because of the hold harmless that we talked about earlier um Mr. Schlutter's question and we were able to do that. If you remember in that you set a parameter that's how we the bonds are sold is the board sets a parameter of what we expect and then it must meet that pri parameter or we cannot sell it. So as you can see here the parameter is there for $800 million. Um the most that we would do on a max true interest cost at the time was 5.75 and the final maturity for these bonds would be 2015 to 55. As you can see, the principal issued 783. I still received 800 million into our account, but because of the premium paid, it only cost me 783 of borrowed funds. The max true interest cost on

157that 4.975. So below the parameter, and that's with that same final maturity of 215 of 55. Last couple notes, 673 million of that was from Prop A and 126 million of it was was Prop B. That would be your um athletic stadiums. They were two and a half times overs subscribed during that period. And what that means is we had enough people wanting to buy it that it wasn't just I sold 800 million over let's see 800 times 2.5. So about that many people wanted the bonds basically. So when that happens you can go back to the investors and try to negotiate prices and it lowers the interest rate. So we were able to lower it about four basis points in some areas. So, that saved about another million dollars just from that little bit

158of negotiations. Um, there is a 10-year call provision on these and the bond will receive the hold harmless that we will see from the 100 to 140,000 exemption. We will receive that hold harmless money on this issuance since it was sold prior to September. And that is a recap of that bond sale. I'm sorry. and we're going to make a payment prior to just in case. But um but yes, we we we did sell it before September one, which was the main parameter, but we are going to go ahead and make a little payment just to caution to the wind because the state has said before they wouldn't hold us harmless unless you made a payment. So this time they said you didn't have to, but we're going to go ahead and do it anyways

159just to be safe. >> I have a question. I just noticed there's many more underwriters than we normally have. Is that because of the size? It was because of the size and that kind of deal of that size. We wanted to make sure we had plenty of underwriters in case that it was a bad day in the market. You want to make sure you have enough people to come in and help get that sold. So, yes, ma'am. So, Mr. Patusk, because of our efficiency, our 23 years of first ratings, we have a lot of people competing for our bonds and we were able to negotiate lower rates. Yes. And and I think it I mean I'd like to say it's all because of that and it's not I mean it is a lot of that.

160Um but I think Mr. During probably knows it better than anybody. It's kind of the day in the market too. Um and we did a really good job of beating all the other school districts. Um we were we kind of prioritized that to kind of beat everybody else. All the people that had bonds approved in May, the first that they would be able to sell was going to be late June or early July. So, we knew a whole bunch of people was going to be selling and because of the old harmless, everybody's going to be hitting the market. So, we wanted to be the one of the first ones in the market and we were the biggest deal this summer. Um, so you put those two factors together with our credit, with our history. Um,

161it was kind of a successful day in the market. >> Okay, good. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> Any other questions? >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Okay, we'll move on to 12. the board president's report and all I really have is the text ed conference in Houston is September 11th through the 14th and that's it. I will move on to the superintendence report. >> Yep. Um as our athletes often say and probably our fine arts folks as well um tomorrow's the first day of school. So as this meeting ends, let's go. Let's go. Uh, also u 17 days August 29th, Friday night lights at NISD Stadium. And um don't forget our joint community lunchon September 5th, but we'll be back here for another board member uh board meeting August

16225th. So let's have a great 2526 school year. Thank you guys very much. >> Move.