001Heat. Heat. >> [music] >> Hey everybody, hey This regular meeting of the Waco Independent School Board is hereby called to order. All items which may be discussed or voted upon this evening have been posted as required by state law. I extend a warm welcome to those present and to our television viewers. The board's purpose is to set goals, listen to reports of the superintendent, approve budgets, contracts, and personal appointments, and make policy for the district. We are not here to make management decisions or solve problems of individuals. Management is the responsibility of the superintendent and her staff. I ask that you turn your cell phones to silent alert if you have not already done so. We appreciate the time you have taken to join us and for your interest in the Waco Independent School District.
002As part of the board operation procedures, the Waco SD board follows 10 guiding commitments that help keep our focus and on students and community. To begin tonight's meeting, I'd like to invite Vice President Mr. Mr. Davis and Trustee Bleo to share one of these commitments. >> I'll share number nine, inclusive engagement. The board will encourage diverse perspectives, foster community trust, and ensure all stakeholders feel heard. >> And I will share number three, respectful communication. Trustees will listen actively, treat all individuals with dignity, and engage in civil discourse even when differences arise. Thank you, Vice President Davis and Trustee Bledo. Uh, do we have anyone signed up for public comment? Okay, moving on to a moment of silence. Thank you. Now, we'll move on to the pledge of allegiance. [snorts] Good evening, President Vana, Superintendent Spicer.
003Leading our pledge of allegiance this evening are Cedar Ridge Elementary students Mia Perez and Clara Medita Kamacho. I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, for liberty and justice for all. Now we're moving on to special recognitions. What an excellent job that was by both Mia and Clara. Mia Perez is a first grade student at Cedar Ridge Elementary and she hopes to be a teacher just like Mrs. Alammon one day. Mia loves art, drawing, and playing soccer. Her team is the Mighty Munchkins. Mia's teach Mia's teacher says that she has a bright future because of how she shines in her classroom. Accompanying Mia tonight are her parents, Mrs. Alvarez and Mr. Raphael Medina. Clara [applause] Clara is a
004third grade student at Cedar Ridge. Her favorite subject in school is math and she is also on our soccer team, the Dream Girls. Clara loves to color and watch television and she wants to be a chef when she grows up. Clara's teacher knows she will achieve what she puts her mind to because she says Clara is deter is a determined student who loves to learn and tries her best every day. Thank you, Mia and Clara. And thank you again to Cedar Ridge Elementary School principal, Miss Aaron Lingy for having her students with us tonight. [applause] As you can tell tonight, trustees, we've got quite a full house with all of our advanced academics awards. So, we're doing things in a little bit of a different order. Um, next up tonight is our community partner award.
005The community partner award for October is proudly presented to Baylor Athletics for their tremendous support and partnership with Waco ISD. [applause] Baylor brought together the College Football Playoff Foundation, the Big 12 Conference, and School Specialty to create a $50,000 dedicated wellness space for students at JH Hines Elementary that was revealed in September of this year. Along with the gift of the makeover, a $5,000 grant was given to the campus for school needs and a thousand dollars was gifted to a firstear teacher for her classroom. Baylor athletics also hosted breakfast with the Bears at Crestview, Brook Avenue, and Cedar Ridge elementary schools. At this event, Baylor student athletes join Waco ICD students for breakfast and help them start their day with encouragement and energy. Knowing literacy is important. Baylor has partnered with South Waco Elementary and
006Kendrick Elementary to support students as reading skills and comprehension through Bears for Books. This program specifically engages third grade classrooms to promote learning through fun interactive reading activities, serving as celebration for students who participated in the Bears for Books program. Students were invited to attend a Baylor women's basketball game last year. Conversely, members of the Baylor's women's basketball team attend South Waco Elementary's back- tochool event this August when they were opening up the building, making it extra special, and they donated supplies to students and staff to help prepare for the new academic year and almost done. And most recently, the Lo Los Mariachi Troyanos um from University High School were invited to play at a Baylor football game as a part of Baylor's Vamos Osos Hispanic Heritage Celebration. We are grateful for your support and
007partnership with Waco ISD. Here to accept the award are Joan Overshone, deputy athletics director and chief operating officer, and Kenny Boyd, executive senior associate athletics director of student athlete services. Thank you all so much. [applause] And from this Red Rider, I think the right term is sickum. Is that Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] So, thank y'all. Yeah, I know. Just it's just so much more natural to do this. So, >> thank y'all so much. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Next, we're gonna honor one of our own, one of our team members here, Lieutenant Jeff Freeman. Today, we get the opportunity to celebrate Lieutenant Jeff Freeman with the Waco IC Police Department who graduated from the Bill Blackwood Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas Command College in September of this year. The program taught by a consortium of
008universities throughout Texas provides law enforcement administrators and executives with the skills necessary to effectively manage police agencies and deliver a high level of service to their communities. Topics include leadership, professional ethics and integrity, communication and personnel management, which are taught by top national and international law enforcement experts. Waco ISD is proud to celebrate you, Lieutenant Freeman, and all of your accomplishments. Congratulations and thank you for your service. And I also want to we're going to take a group picture, but we got to add a few other charact cast of characters to this because you wouldn't be who you are if you weren't supported also by Miss Christy Freeman. Another one of Waco's own. We're going to get that picture first and then Chief, I know you're in the building. So wait, just let's take one
009with just them and then Chief will add you. >> Yeah. >> This is not a date. Yes. Okay. Now, Chief, hop in there. Yep. Okay. Congratulations and thank you for your service. [applause] Okay, we're getting set up for for for the big the big part of tonight. Um, each year Waco ISD recognizes students who are named advanced placement scholars by the College Board in recognition of high achievement on college level AP exams. Students receive this honor with a score of three or higher on three or more AP exams. This year, 56 students from both Waco High School and University High School are being recognized. Now, I don't think all 56 are here, but that conference room was full of some of our best and brightest. So, we're going to do our best to make sure
010everybody gets called out. are >> everyone is welcome in the room. So, they're also welcome. Yeah, y'all are welcome to I I >> come on in. >> No, I think there's still I don't want anybody there. Y'all are welcome to come sit up here. >> I don't know which group they're here for. >> Yeah, let me just >> Okay. Our students were successful in part because of their incredible teachers. We also want to recognize high school teachers who supported eight or more students who received a three or higher score on the 2025 AP exams. Please step forward as as you know as with your certificate as I call your name. We will take one group picture for each high school at the end of this section. So first up, Waco High School advanced placement scholars.
011Carlos Alvarez Frame Elena Bond Adam Strada, [applause] Crystal Ramirez, >> [applause] >> Riley Stoles, [applause] Dorothy Uker, >> [applause] >> Maximilliano Zapetta. [applause] Moving on to advanced placement with honor. First up, Mr. Joshua Nelson, [applause] Emanuel Perez, and a frequent flyer usually here for her fine arts activities, Miss Eleanor Rhodess. Advanced Placement with Distinction. Sandra Lawson. [applause] Daniela Ricardo, Mr. August Zimmerton. [applause] We're now going to recognize our Waco High School teachers, Miss Nora Burnham. We're going to say that counts as a lion on her sweater, too. Katherine Hopkins, [applause] the one and only Miss Shannon Jones, Rosa Pea, [applause] Mr. James Yasco. Okay, now we're going to take our Waco High School group photo and trustees, we're going to try to divide the group with a some coming in the back and some coming
012in the front. I think Mrs. Miller, we're going to try to get into windows. And yes, parents, if this if you have someone in this group, feel free to come take a picture. We will post all the photos on Waco IC's Flickr account in the next 24 48 hours. Okay, >> I think we're gonna have to scoot in even further. Okay. Yep. Perfect. Keep smiling. Y'all have a lot of fans. Keep smiling. Okay, congratulations. [applause] We're going to see some of these students again in the next group. So, we're going to get reset. Thank you teachers for being with us tonight. Okay. University High School Advanced Placement Scholars, Mr. Thomas Fedana. Thankfully, he made the trip back in from Austin. Okay, we're going to move on to our University High School teachers. Mr. Spencer Daniel,
013[applause] Coach Jack Laroo, Mr. Reyes Lopez, Tom Lions, Colton Wheeler, Becky Zinert. Congratulations to these University High School teachers. And we're this is our group for this this with some really cute friends. Oh, there's another two. She needs to come through. future AP scholars with distinction. Okay, can we get our university high school group back out here for photos? Misser, your daughters are more than welcome to join the photo, too. [laughter] And any parents or proud supporters of these teachers are welcome to come take photos. Look this way. Keep smiling. Keep smiling. Congratulations. [applause] And don't go far, Dr. Johnson. >> So much fun. Our next group tonight are College Board recognitions. Waco ISTD recognizes students who've earned College Board National School Awards. These awards include the School Recognition Award, an award that honors students
014who are in the top 10% of test takers at their high school or who or who earn a score of three or higher on two or more distinct AP exams by the end of 10th grade. 10th grade, y'all. and the first generation recognition award recognizing students who are on track to be the first in their family to complete college. This year we have a total of 127 students who earned this recognition. [applause] 24 of whom also earned the along with that that um school recognition award the first generation recognition. We want to congratulate the following students. First up at Waco High School for the College Board National School recognition. A familiar face, Miss Alana Bond. [applause] Austin Cotney. [applause] Another familiar face at Ammeris Estrada. >> [applause] >> Jeremiah Haggood, another frequent flyer for her
015theater and her academic. Sandra Lawson, Dan Daniela Marcato, Mr. Mr. Joshua Nelson, I should say the very dapper, Mr. Nelson. Oh, no. No. Take your time. Pablo. Lopez, Cameroona, passiana. Thank you. Good to see you again, Mrs. Eleanor Rhodess, Riley Stoultz, collect that second certificate, Emory Sakinis, [applause] Yah Truhelio selecting her second certificate. Dorothy Uker and another second for Mr. August Zimmerman. [applause] This next group of students receive both the College Board National School recognition and the first generation recognition. Marco Antonio Gatanne, [applause] Jaori Johnson, Camila Morales, Emanuel Perez, Jorge Solless. Carlos Sigura, Saul Trilio, [applause] and that's our Waco High School group. So, we're going to pause right now for a group photo. And while we're doing that, while we're getting them back set up, I wanted to acknowledge that this is the group
016that will also have the traditional banners hung in the campus for them. The banners were not here in time. So, thanks to the quick thinking of Mrs. Paula Miller, Miss Lisa Saxinian, and Ferman's, we have a great takeaway for the families, a copy of the banner that got printed so that they can take home what will be hanging in the school. Congratulations, scholars. >> [applause] >> And all parents come up take pictures. >> And I'm going to repeat, all of the communications team photos will again be posted on Waco ISD's Flickr account. We're still waiting. The students still hold. I think you have some proud folks out here. And we still haven't gotten our communications picture. Okay, everyone, please look at Mrs. Hines right here in the middle. Smile big. Okay, get everybody. Congratulations. Thank
017you all. [applause] students. I think if we're done, y'all are welcome to exit. >> And we're going to pause just a second to let us get reset before we recognize our University High School students. Maybe this will give some University High School parents a chance to get a more front row seat. >> It's a great problem to have so many advanced scholars. Mr. Hatton, there's front row seat over here. Okay. Our University High School National College Board School Recognition Awardees, Mr. Jayen Alamon, Dinario Alexander, Serena Aras, Nicholas Arispe, Sandra Cardinius, Karen Chavez, Angel Dela Cruz, Sebastian Dela Cruz Gomez, Melanie D'vorah, Luca Dia Diaz Vasquez Jade Duron. We're going to pause. Getting a little bit of a backlog. Camari Green Leaf, Gabriella Gara Sanchez, Emily Guerrero, Miss Alexandria Hatton. Sorry, I got ahead of the
018certificates. Sorry. [laughter] Nyla Jamashed Tyrion Jones Mr. Devontre Cook Kirkland Drain I think right Eric Lopez Elijah Martinez Kevin Martinez Yita Mc Mcgriff Camila Medina, Jocelyn Moreno, Annalia Padron, Ivan Perez, >> [cheering] >> They're fast. Okay. Leslie Perez, Avala, Jel Perez, Gardia, Gabrielle Ramirez, Jaylen Raone, Joseph Ramos, Savannah Reyes, Jasmine Rodriguez, Yadira Selenus, Cassandra Saledo, Aaron Taylor, McKenzie Truhit, Amelia Vasquez, O King, Rashelle Via, Ayana Willis, and Annayia Zavala. The next group of students receive both the College Board National School recognition and the first generation recognition. Mr. Brian Coral, [applause] Anna Mendoza [applause] and Annayia Taylor. Congratulations to all these University High School advanced academic students and their proud principal, Dr. Johnson. We're now going to try to organize ourselves for another group photo. Parents, feel free to move forward. This might be a group
019that we need to double up. Fancy. Is that a G? Yes, sir. Keep smiling. >> Oh, no. Uhoh. >> Hold on. >> Oh. Tyrone. Congratulations. Hold on one second. Yeah, one more. We still don't think >> y'all can return. We have one more recognition. We don't think she made it, but I'm still going to recognize her. Go back. >> Yep. Because we don't think No, we're going to still recognize her. >> Yep. Thank you. [laughter] They They made it look good. They made it look good. While we get reset, I want to take another moment to thank Paula Miller, the advanced academics team, Lisa Saxinian, and the communication ations team for the big lift that it is to try to make that look so organized. And thank you Dr. Johnson and Mr. Alexander for being
020here with us tonight. Our final recognition of the evening, I don't think she made it. I confirmed with Mr. Alexander we don't see her in the crowd, but I want to go ahead and recognize her because it's a unique distinction that we've already put out information about. So I want you all to make sure you're aware. Jerry, can we switch to the next? We were going to recognize our I am Texas contest finalist, Miss Nvea Dow. Nvea Dow is a Waco High School sophomore. She was was recognized for placing first as a finalist in the I am Texas writing and art contest. Due her to her placement level. Her piece titled the silver fields will be placed in the permanent collection the permanent collection at the Brian Museum in Galveston, Texas. Her written piece is
021on display at the museum until November 23rd of 2025. So if you find yourself in Galveastston, go check it out. Nvea has been featured on Waco ID's website and social media channels. And I have to tell you, when uh Jill and Michael came back from interviewing Nvea, they were just a buzz with what an amazing young woman she is. Um so we really wanted to get to bring her here for this unique recognition just um just to share her with you. And here's a quick clip of her video in which she shares what inspires her writing. Deep feelings. I know like personal feelings can be like a a little scary to put out into the real world, scary to put out in the public world. But when you find somebody that you trust [music] to
022like share those things with you, somehow you can turn it into like an actual story and be like, "Hey, this is about me, but it's also about somebody else." And I want to share that so people [music] can know that you have somebody to relate to. You can have somebody to know like, you know, to somebody to like look at, [music] somebody to look to like you're not alone. to hear more about Naa and her work. Um, besides going to meet her at the campus, which I think we all are going to want to, um, watch the full video on Waco IC's YouTube channel and be on the lookout for more great work from Jill and Michael, featuring some of our students and their unique accomplishments. I think the next one that's coming, Mr. Abnusi,
023was uh, sent our way by you, our Cuber. Yeah, congratulations, Na. We are proud of you and all that you are accomplishing and we can't wait to all uh get to shake your hand. And that is all for recognitions tonight. Thank you all. Thank you communications team. >> I now will be moving on to the superintendent report. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Trustees, strategic plan publication. I'm pleased to share that our district's new strategic plan developed through our extensive collaboration with our board, our staff, families, students, and community partners has officially been published. And you have a copyright in front of you. This plan reflects our shared vision for the future of our schools, outlining clear goals, measurable outcomes, and actionable strategies that will guide our work over the next several years. It emphasizes our
024commitment to student achievement, staff excellence, and strong community engagement. The plan has been posted on the district website and will continue to be shared through our communication channels just as it was during my first 60 seconds with Spicer community message to ensure transparency and accessibility. I want to thank the board for your leadership and your input throughout this entire process. Your guidance has been instrumental in creating a roadmap that truly aligns our district for the important work ahead. Thanksgiving is around the corner. Can't believe it. Beginning November 5th, Waco ISD families will begin enjoying Thanksgiving family meals at our schools. I'm excited for this special tradition of our students, staff, and families. Again, I want to thank our nutrition services team for their planning and preparation efforts. We will share the meal calendar on our
025website, social media accounts, and in our newsletters. Two important things to note, as in the past three years, we have both lunch and dinner meal times, and some school meals will be hosted at larger campuses to accommodate more attendees. And then last but not least in the education world, the end of October, the last Friday of October is a very special day. Tomorrow is the last Friday in October, which is a day of our official snapshot data that is provided to our TEA, which is Texas Education Agency for the 2025 20226 school year. While we're still refining the data, as of yesterday, our records reflect that we have 12,910 students. That's about 466 students less than last year, representing just under a 3.5 decrease from last year. Compared to the 155 students we were down
026at this time last school year, it's clearly concerning. And while we're taking this larger than expected decrease very seriously, I do want to say that we're not alone in this area or in our state. In diving deeper into our numbers, one of the key takeaways is where our loss in enrollment is occurring. And that's at the prek level, the kindergarten level, and our ninth grade level. Additional information about what we are seeing with our enrollment this year. Approximately 89.19% of our students are economically disadvantaged, which is a slight increase from last year. We're also seeing an increase of 2.6% 6% in the number of students in special education and a small uptick in the number of students qualifying for GT which is our gift and talent and services up to 11.46% from 10.91% last year.
027Thank you for your time. >> Thank you Dr. Spicer. >> Yes, sir. >> Uh we will now move on to item number six, information items and reports. Trusty Bledo, do you have any questions? >> No. Trusty Abnusi, do you have any questions? >> No. >> Trusty Davis, do you have any questions? >> No. >> Trusty Patton, do you have any questions? >> No. >> Trusty Ela, do you have any questions? >> No. >> Next on the agenda is the public hearing of the 2025 annual physical integrity rating system of Texas and report. I will open the public hearing at 6:42. I will now turn it over to Cheryl Smith. So, good evening, Dr. Spicer, President Vana, and distinguished board members. I have the privilege of presenting our 2025 school first report to you tonight. So,
028what is school first? Okay, school first is our financial accountability rating system that was implemented um in 2000 after it was authorized by the legislature in 1999. The goal is to achieve improvement in the management of school district resources statewide. It's to measure and report the extent of those resources used for instruction and evaluate the quality of the management decisions that we make as a district regarding our financial uh decisions. There are 21 indicators with this school first report. Four are critical indicators. They're like yes, no, pass, fail type indicators. And then there are 17 solveny indicators. There's also some of the indicators. So there are solveny indicators that are ceiling indicators meaning if you fail those there is like a maximum score that the district can receive for their entire report. The remaining indicators
029are just valued on a point spread of 0 to 10 points. So once we get our school first report what do we have to do? We have to create an annual financial management report. Um that report has all the results of those 21 indicators. It compares our results this year versus the results last year. We have to conduct a public hearing which is what we're doing tonight. We have to publish the notice of the hearing in the newspaper which we did back on October 2nd and we have to invite public to comment if they so desire. Okay. So, the four critical indicators um basically mainly revolve around uh our financial report. Did we turn in our financial report to TEA by the state's deadline? Was the report did the report have an unmodified opinion? Um
030were we in compliance with all of our payment terms for our debt agreements? and did we make timely payments to the government agencies like TRS, workers comp, IRS? And the following four slides has the remaining indicators and I'm not going to go over those in detail tonight, [snorts] but besides these 21 indicators, there's some other items that we have to include in our annual report. We have to include the superintendent's current contract. So even though this report is for the 23 24 financial data, it has Dr. Spicer's current contract in it. Um we have the schedule of lodging, meals, travel, and other reimbursements to board members and superintendent that were made during that time. Any outside compensation made to the superintendent, any gifts made to the superintendent or board members over $250, and any business
031transactions between the board and the district. The score that we receive is just like a traditional school report card. 90 to 100's an A, 80 to 89's B, and so on. And so our score this year is drum roll. Hey A, we got a D4 this year. [applause and cheering] Y. So, we have superior achievement and this coincides with our priority four of our strategic plan. Um, specifically with the the goal of district accountability, maintaining strong financial health, raising our first score from 92 last year to 98 by 2030. And by raising it two points from last year, we're on our way to meet that goal. >> Yes, ma'am. So, this is really in thanks to our chief financial officer, Cheryl Davis, the whole finance [applause] team, >> the district leadership, and of course, the
032board of trustees. So, how did we get our 94 points? Well, we answered yes. I mean, we passed all four of the critical indicators and we received the maximum points for all of our solveny indicators with the exception of three. We lost two points for each indicator 11, 12, and 13. And that's what I'm going to go over with you today. Okay. So, solveny indicator number 11 is asking, was the ratio of our long-term liabilities to total assets for the school district sufficient to support long-term solveny? So, basically, that question is like asking someone if their mortgage exceeds the value of their home. So at August of 24, our ratio was 69.95% and last year our ratio was 70.12%. So with the issuance of our 22 uh B and 23 bond issues, it did cause
033um our ratio to uh put us in a position to where we lost two points for that indicator. Now last year we lost four points. This year we lost two points, but to be honest, we're going to be teetering back and forth because this year um we just barely made it to the eight point range where we just lost two points. But as you can tell with the numbers of 6995 and 7012, we're just right there on the edge. The next indicator is indicator number 12 and this is asking what is the correlation between future debt requirements and the district's assessed property value. Um again because of the issuance of our bonded debt we did lose two points but um our ratio this year is I'm sorry 5.16 and our ratio last year was 5
034and that caused us to lose the two points. And then the last indicator was indicator 13. It's asking if our school district's administrative cost ratio is equal to or less than the threshold ratio that TEA sets for a district of our size. Now, at 13,000 kids, we are in the largest ADA size bracket. Everybody over $10,000 is all lump I mean 10,000 students, sorry, is all lumped together. So, we're in the same bracket that the Houston and the, you know, Dallas and Austin and all the big districts are at, and we're just, you know, fairly above that 10,000 ADA. But, um, so our administrative cost ratio this year is 9.66% compared to last year of 9.75%. So, we did make an improvement, but we did lose two points for that indicator. And that concludes my
035presentation tonight. And we just have the invitation for public input if anybody so desires. And we do have um I have copies of the school first report if anybody would like a copy tonight. Otherwise, it's going to be posted on our website and it can be requested from our public information office as well. >> Anybody have any questions for me? >> Great. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate you. Thank you. The public hearing is now closed at 650. Thank you, Sher. Miss Smith, we will now move on to item eight, the consent agenda. Mr. Bledo, is there anything you like pulled? [clears throat] >> No. >> Mr. Abnusi, is there anything you like pulled? >> No. >> Mr. Davis, is there anything you like pulled? >> No. >> Mr. Patton, is there anything you like pulled?
036>> Uh, I request at Oh, I'm sorry. I'm abstaining from AT. I'm not pulling it. My bad. Mr. Cho, is there anything you'd like pulled? >> No. >> All right. At this time, I'd entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda excluding agenda item 18. Do I have a motion? >> So move. >> Mr. Davis, do I have a second? >> Second. >> I'll give it to Mr. Patton. >> All right. Thank. All right. Mr. Patton, Mr. Bledo, is there any discussion? >> No. >> Mr. Abnusi, is there any discussion? >> No. >> Mr. Davis, is there any discussion? >> No. >> Mr. Patton, is there any discussion? No. >> Mr. Oo, is there any discussion? >> No. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Passes. Now I like to entertain a motion
037to approve the consent agenda item 8, administrator compliance with House Bill 3372. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Mr. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Mr. Bledo. Uh, Mr. Bledo, is there any discussion? >> No. >> Mr. Abnusi, is there any discussion? >> No. >> Mr. Davis, is there any discussion? No. >> Mr. Oo, is there any discussion? >> No. >> All in favor? >> I The motion passes with Mr. Patton abstaining. We are moving on to item nine, review and discuss priority 1.2, increase college, career, and or military ready students. Presented by Dr. Dina Cornblum. >> Good evening, Mr. President, Dr. Spicer and trustee members. So tonight I'll be um reviewing our priority one from our strategic plan and strategic objective 1.2 which is increase college career
038military readiness. So priority 1.2 is ensure academic success for all students in CCMR. When we look ahead, we know in our strategic plan that's mapped out for five years. So, our goal, it says the district's long-term goal in CCMR is to increase the percentage of graduates meeting CCMR criteria from 62% in 2025 to 86% by August 30 or 2030 rather. And we know that those annual targets have been set and those are the targets um over the five-year period listed in our strategic plan. So when we think about college, career, and military readiness, what we're talking about here is a measure of high school graduates preparedness for life after graduation. And so when we're looking at that, it's measured by the percentage of annual graduates who demonstrate readiness by meeting one of the criteria below
039in those boxes. So I'll give you just a moment to look over those. There are several. The only one up there that we do not offer in Waco is the on-ramps um dual enrollment um option. So as we're looking at a baseline Waco SDCMR percentage for the class of 2024. So thinking about the graduates is 62%. And so what I want to say about that is for the um 2025 accountability if we remember that CCMR is lag data. So it's actually based on the graduates in 2024. So right now when we're thinking about our um accountability for end of this year, it will be based off of our graduates in 2025. So accountability for 2026, that goal is to um increase the percentage of graduates who meet the criteria for CCMR from 62% once again
040to 74% by August 2026. So again, that's based on data from our 2025 graduates. And so I'll share a little celebration because that data is still considered preliminary at this point and will be preliminary although those students have already graduated until our accountability concludes in 2026. When we are thinking about CCMR how do they how do we determine this and where does it count for us? So CCMR counts in domain one and in domain 2B and for the state it's the number of graduates who achieved at least one CCMR indicator um divided by the number of total graduates in domain three which is our federal accountability rating. It's a little bit different. It's any student who is considered a grade 12 student. They may not graduate but they're considered a grade 12 students divided by
041all students in grade 12. As I said already that CCMR is lag data. So in looking at our accountability for this year it's based on the class of 2025. Um and that is any student who graduated from September 124 to 8:3125 and snapshot is not a part of the criteria here. If you were here with us you count. So here's the celebration. So thinking about our graduates we saw what our goal was was 74%. We already know based on preliminary data that for our class of 2025 that they are sitting at a 76.5%. So they've exceeded the goal that was set. And then if we're looking at the grade 12 students, they're at 74.8%. So either way, we've exceeded that 74% goal. So yay. Yeah. All right. So some overall highlights um as related to
042CCMR indicators. So we have 584 IBC's earned um last year. That was up from 142 IBC's before. 540 students earned at least one IBC and so that's up 129 students from the year before. Um we have an increase in AP and dual credit participation with a particular increase in dual credit. And then um a part of that is attributed to um our cohort advising systems and the work that they're doing at the high school um between the principles, the counselors, our executive directors and their whole um leadership team and really looking at where kids are and providing great advising to ensure that they're meeting these indicators. So what are we doing? Well, so we have um aligned CTE programs of study and that's really important for accountability because that is a part of our indicators.
043Our students do have to graduate um at starting this year is being a completer in an area or a pathway improve graduation planning and pathway advising. Our counselors have really worked hard in this area. done a lot of work around looking at different scenarios with students and um thinking about how we would advise those students and looking at SAT and TSI supports. So, we know that we have those supports in our win classes also um in our English three and English 4. There's extra support there and we're partnering with region 12 um for some extra coaching and some um walkthrough assistance with our advanced academics department um to strengthen in those areas. We're also offering some Saturday tutorials and then that kind of hits on the when and tutorial support um that's in place there.
044So areas that we're looking at to strengthen um our TSI readiness cycles and structured retesting. Um so looking at TSI A2 specifically. So that's the college readiness test. So ensuring that we are really preparing our students for that assessment. That's the assessment that if they take that, they would not have to take a remedial math or English in college. And that does count as a CCMR indicator for us. And so when a student um isn't successful, how how are we then intervening before they take the test again to ensure that they're successful? Um support dual credit completion. So one of our goals is dual credit enrollment, but also that dual credit completion. Um strengthen AP instructional supports. So again, um, enrollment in AP is a part of the goal, but we want those students scoring
045who are in AP courses scoring a three or higher on those exams um to be able to count for us for CCMR, but also for them because then they can usually transfer it to another university and then exam expand associates degree pathways mapping. So what we're talking about there is our accelerate program which starts at the freshman year. Um but looking at if a student doesn't get in on that program the freshman year, are there some other things that we can do with course mapping a little bit higher up to um provide space in their course load to where perhaps they could get in at their sophomore year. Um so that if they really want to pursue that avenue that just because they didn't get in on it on their freshman year that that's not
046um kind of a foregone conclusion for them. So um updated strategies and processes for 2025. So um again looking at we've worked with counselors and um with the student services department when working tightly with them around planning um advising um graduation plans and all of those areas implementing cohort tracking systems. We've been doing that but we've started tracking down to ninth grade now. that's going to become particularly important important around CTE um because now our students have to be completers which means they have to take more courses in a pathway to be able to get that um indicator conducting CCMR focused meetings with both campuses and district staff to monitor that progress and make adjustments. I've already talked about those embedded supports for TSI and SAT embedded SAT preparation, English three and English four. That's
047our work with region 12. Enrolling students needing a CCMR indicator into college bridge. Um that's this year. And so looking at some other possibilities for next year where that's concerned, but that can count um not only for CCMR, but it can also count for the fourth English or a fourth math. um offering targeted remediation intervention based on students performance TSI wherever they need it trying to support that so that they can improve um the outcome there and then strengthen data systems and student advising to ensure consistent monitoring and timely support across all CCMR pathways. So um as they're in these cohort meetings and discussing students um as they're seeing a student who was on a pathway possibly not really okay what can we do to help that student? what's another avenue for them or help
048them get back on track. So just intervening early where that's concerned. So we do have strong systems in place but we are continuing to refine those systems um and make those stronger and then the next phase is really focusing on once you know we continue to refine is really the consistent execution of that. So um as always with any system it's the execution and so that's um really what we're focusing on. So any questions? I just wanted to say Dana that's really impressive growth and I think you and your team should be commended. So way to go. >> Absolutely. I was going to say the same thing. Question >> Mr. Just one question. You may have already answered it. Um are we are we talking with those department heads about maybe some students who can
049test out of these AP classes before they even get into them? That might free up time. is one where we where we um look at that. So we've bumped Spanish um down to like Spanish three down to the middle school level. So looking at especially those native speakers, can they test out of it? So that's one area in particular that we've started focusing on this year. >> Great. Great. Yeah, that's that's fantastic. Thank you. >> Thanks, Dr. Cornbloom. >> Thank you all. >> Great presentation. >> Thank you, Dr. Cornbloom. we're moving on to item number 10. Consider, discuss, and take appropriate action regarding the approval of turnaround plans and target targeted improvement plans presented by Carmen Logan. [laughter] I joked earlier that someone else did a drum roll. Um I don't know if there's a
050drum roll for this one, but um so hopefully next year we'll be able to do that drum roll appropriately. So tonight um we're considering and discussing turnaround plans and targeted improvement plans. But just before we start, I want to remind us that we had three years of data dropped on us within a very short amount of time. So, as you already know, we had um we approved the um turnaround plan for South Waco back in June. And so, tonight we're going to be looking at five campuses who will um we're looking at a turnaround plan for them. And then in addition to that, five campuses with targeted improvement plans and we'll discuss um each of those throughout the presentation. So the five campuses that we are looking at that require uh turnaround plans are listed
051here. We have two middle schools and three elementary schools. And just this gives in our education code the reasons for and so I wanted to highlight here GWA Carver and Dean Highland the first two campuses listed those campuses are at um they have three years of unacceptable ratings and so they're required to not only develop but also to implement the turnaround plan once approved and then the campuses below Caesar Chavez Parkdale and Kendrick are required to develop the plan this year. Um, and then just on this notice, I just wanted to point out here that notification is required to be given and that the campuses are required to be give to get feedback. And so as we're going through um but just so you know all campuses um we put notification on the website uh
052about the required plan to notify parents with a date for them to be able to um to come and give feedback as well as the campuses. Put that information on parent square for families to attend. Just a quick overview for the turnaround plans which we're talking about first. The definition is plans uh for campuses rated DRF for multiple years. So um campuses that have two or more years. The purpose is to drive rapid improvement um through systems leadership and instruction and the requirements are that they have board approval which is why we're here tonight and then uh to have stakeholder engagement and then finally submission to TEA. And as we talked about when we approved the plan in uh June, it requires that we have a strategy. And so there's different strategies that TEA is
053looking for. And the one is most appropriate for our district. Um because we know we have 11 campuses, failing campuses. And we know when there's that many campuses that are looking at this, it is a system concern. And so we first look at what we were doing in curriculum that we looked internally um not at the campuses when we we had that many. And so as you know this past year we went through an extensive search for uh implementation for changing our curriculum in mathematics. So K through 12 we have adopted blue bonnet math and then we also for RLA had a um change. So we had the curriculum in place, but we were supplementing with lots of other resources. And so we've really worked very hard between professional development and then coaching and feedback
054to implement those different curriculums with Fidelity this year. And so I just wanted to put this on here because when you choose this strategy, the state for their success criteria has certain qualifications and those are listed on here. And that first of all, it requires that we adopt materials that are state approved. And so all of the materials that we have for reading, language arts, and math are state board approved. And then the second part is that we have to have show that we have 165 days um within our instructional calendar and we have 168 days on our instructional calendar. And then lastly that we have campuses have a minimum of one quality PLC every week um focused on instructional delivery um and focused on student outcomes. And so each one of our campuses that
055is a requirement that they are having a minimum at least one weekly PLC. Some campuses have built-in time that exceeds that expectation. And another requirement for the plan is that we have capacity building support and that we have that we partner with um organizations that have proven success with that. And so within our district office of school leadership, our principal managers have um proven success of turnaround with campuses. So um within that our principal supervisors along with our district teaching and learning department um that our coordinators that are going out and supporting under the direction of Dr. Corn blue. And then uh in addition to that, we mentioned um previously that we have a lasso grant and the partnership that is approved through TEA is through a partner called instruction partners and they are specifically
056working with Dean Highland and um Carver Middle School and at elementary at Dean Highland they're focused on RLA that they've observed classrooms, they've observed PLC's and they're focused on looking at what are those structures that we have in place and how we can be more efficient and effective with those. And the same thing at Carver Middle School that they're focused on our math and looking at that and looking um we've done walks at the classrooms there looking at PLC's and then they'll be following up um at another elementary and middle school um to look and see it at other campuses so that we can look and use this information so that we can improve district-wide systems and be efficient especially as we've moved from the lesson planning process to an internal internalization process within the
057district. And then of course we don't want to forget our partners at region 12 uh and the partnership that we have with them both in the area of curriculum as well as um leadership and within that leadership all of these principles have either gone through the principal academy with region 12 are currently going through that academy with region 12 um which all of that is supporting the work that they're doing to u as instructional leaders and then with our curriculum each of those companies that we've adopted for um reading, language arts, and math that we are partnering with them for professional development and follow-up um support. And again, this is just a list of our different curriculums. And then another requirement is student outcomes. But I want you to note on these that the graph
058that goes across for each campus. The first two boxes are around domain one under our accountability which has to do with the percentage of students that are at meet in both reading, language arts and math. The last four boxes under each campus is the amount of points that they get under domain three. And so this is a pretty complicated. It's not a percentage. its number of points under different areas. Um and so just for example for Carver Middle School these the first number there um that shows a 33% at meets. Last year they were at 19% um meets and so an aggressive jump to move from 19% to 33%. For math they were at 9%. So 9% to a 32% that may be seven but it's seven or nine percent uh that they are moving
059um to 32% and then the same with their other goals. So each of these campuses have worked and um we've alongside with our director of accountability Jessica Still and working with the campus to set goals for each of our campuses and then to support the process throughout the year and then the same thing for our elementary schools. Are there any questions there before I proceed? do have a question. Sorry. Quickly. And so the PLC time we're talking about that minimum is one. Is that correct? And you mentioned there are some campuses that have more than one. Is the goal here because I know that's something we all worry as teachers. We don't have enough time to plan. >> Absolutely. >> Is there a a plan in place or some u kind of thoughts in maximizing
060it or making it possibly more than one? I know you mentioned some have more than one. Is that correct? >> Yes. And so I'm not going to say that there is a plan in place, but each campus is looking at the needs of their campus. And that is a goal for each of the principles to look at the needs of their campus. We also, as you know, have built-in planning days. Um, in fact, one of them is tomorrow for our teachers to be able to have that time um spent for planning and stuff too, which we are very fortunate for um because most of our neighboring districts do not have that built in. >> Thank you. >> That's a great question. Okay, we'll move right along. And so we also the targeted improvement plans and
061a question that's come up a lot is what is the difference between these targeted improvement plans and turnaround plans. And first of all, the campuses that are part of this plan is because that they have a they're at a one F right now or they had three consecutive D's as you will probably know um equals an F in the state of uh Texas requirement. I will say there is one caveat to that. We have Cedar Ridge Elementary listed in here. They were actually uh C-rated this past year. um but they had been included previously in the lasso grant that was written and so because of that grant they were included as part of the targeted improvement plan but even when I went to Miss Langi um the principal and you know explained to her that
062this was going to be a requirement um she knows that even with their federal rating that there's improvement to do and all of us have improvement to do and they're doing the same work and stuff at their campus. So she was completely on board and um supportive the plan. So these are the campuses, Waco High, Cedar Ridge, Crest View, JHS, and Mountain View. And then overview of our targeted improvement plan. Again, just to share that these are plans identified under the federal accountability that this is their first year with the F4, the 3DS. And again, the plan is to look at the root causes of underperformance. And as we've already discussed, we know this underperformance has been a challenge in the district. And several of you came this week and so I didn't put on
063my Mickey Mouse ears. Um, but I'm just going to go ahead and throw it in at at this time that a couple years ago went through a leadership training with Disney. And as Disney um was talking about, there are certain guarantees that no matter which Disney park that you go to um anywhere in the world, there are certain things that they guarantee. And so it's really been a neat thing as we've been doing calibrated walks with our leadership team to now for the first time in years that we really see that equity um across the district that we can go across campuses and see we've been focusing at elementary school doing walks across fourth grade. Now we're looking at fifth grade the same thing for math that they've been focused on and then even at
064high school. And so and then I've had the opportunity to go from elementary to middle school to high school um to these different campuses and to see that alignment of the curriculum across um it's a really cool thing to see. So, I just wanted to add. And so, these are our goals set for our uh targeted improvement campuses. And so, then we have our performance management. So, how are we looking at this data and monitoring that data? So part of that data goes through um just ongoing v visits through our principal supervisors um but it's also calibration walks so that again we're looking at that fidelity and consistency of implementation of this curriculum across uh the district but ultimately we want to see how is that making a difference for our students in the classroom.
065So it's looking at the data, district assessments, our ongoing TCAs. Um we will have benchmark release in January and February. And then we have our I Ready data as you know at beginning of year, middle of year and end of year. And then um something that has been very specific this year is we've always as principal supervisors met with principles and done like review. But I want to commend uh Dr. Spicer, Dr. King Nolles and our team is that this time we have district leadership from the superintendent office as well as principal supervisors. We've also invited region 12 to come in and so we will be having s tomorrow is our first quarterly review with our campuses that they're going to be presenting and going through each of their data with us. And so looking
066forward to hearing um the progress that we're making and where they're working and the barriers that they still have and how they're overcoming those. Um one of the requirements is that we have a district coordinator of school improvement knows a DCSI that is me and that as you know so I have been the DCSI for previous years. Um but now that is my focus in the director of school improvement. And then additional resources that we have the professional development, curriculum training, principal leadership training, instructional specialist meetings that we have all focused on the implementation and follow-up support of our curriculum and instruction. And then our math and RLA cohort meetings. um I'm sure you've probably heard about before, but if you don't remember that monthly both at the elementary and at the secondary level, we
067have uh trainings for model teachers as well as isser dive into the curriculum and coaching support so that they can come back and be model classrooms at their campus and also to be able to lead PD. I was at Caesar Chavez this morning in Carnegie was doing some professional development and sitting in on PLC's and doing walks today and then I was speaking with one of the teachers there that had been a part of the cohort meeting just a week or so ago and she was sharing that tomorrow during their um planning day that she was going to go through some of the differentiation strategies that they had learned at the cohort meeting with her staff. And then as you know we purchased the the the blue bonnet math for elementary and secondary. Um all
068the campuses all of our turnaround campuses have held their meetings. Um there is the attached feedback for those campuses and then our tip campuses have started this week because we got later notification uh on that but all of that will be um done. But we've had a couple of them that have had this this week after we've already had um everything posted. And so GW Carver held theirs on a spooky math night and ran through and had um parents come through and they uh went over and um each one of them had a survey there at the end. Caesar Chavez Middle School was having theirs during an open house night and so they were able to get feedback. Parkdale Elementary held theirs in in conjunction with PTA inviting parents to come and be a part
069of that and trying to bump up their PTA. Um, Kendrick Elementary had this during their open house and so parents funneled uh through there um before the open house meeting and they went through the presentation. And then Dean Highland, as you see, it looks a little bit different, but it wasn't at any fault of um they had publicizers. They were actually the first one held. They jumped on it and had the meeting. Um, but we did have very low turnout and um, it most of the parents that did come were um, Spanish- speakaking, but everything was in Spanish and they translated and everything for the parents and the parents really I just kind of put on there, the parents were appreciative of the help and the work that they were doing. Um and they did
070have one community member that was there um who um helps and supports that campus on a regular basis with tutoring and she just her only feedback was we just need more community help and support which we all know and welcome within our schools. And so last but not least, our next steps are why we're here tonight is board approval of our TAP and our TIP plans. And then from this it will follow up with November 21st. submission is due to TEA. And then following that, you'll notice this timeline from TEA is that they will notify districts of the plan of any needs of revision by January 23rd of 2026. Any revisions then from that are due March 24th, 2026. And then they will issue their final notice by April 8th, 2026. So that is my
071presentation. What questions do you have? >> You have any questions, Mr. Patton? >> Um, Mr. Logan, when we did the uh the plan for South Waco in June, >> correct? >> Have we already had approval? Do we have approval from TEA on that plan? >> Yes. Yes, they initially they did submit back um a revision and the revision was because again with our timeline was about on the stakeholder feedback and so um but we did go back and they said they knew that we had had the board meeting it was open for open comment and so they included that but we also had scheduled at that time for Miss Atnip to have a parent meeting which she did have after that. So, um, considering that this is an open meeting, this will also count toward
072the other plans that we're putting into place. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So, and region 12 has also um reviewed the milestones and reviewed um everything as far as the plan as well too. >> Good. Mr. Ela, >> um, first, thank you for your work on this. I know it's a lot a lot. Um I my question I guess to put to use a teacher term is um there's it just seems like there's no differentiation. Um you know what what Kendrick needs might be different than what Parkdale needs. So how do we determine I'm just thinking if Kendrick's over capacity what they need is more teachers and that's going to look different than what Parkell might need. >> And and I so I will speak to the the curriculum side of it. So first of
073all um the amount of walks and calibrated walks um at these campuses are we have more for our turnaround campuses as well as our targeted improvement campuses as well as the principal coaching and support at those campuses and then um just our coordinators. So 85% of our coordinators support is at these campuses um that have been identified for support. >> Um so that leads me to another question I guess. Um the walks are those principal walks or are we taking I just remember when I was a teacher and five or six people would come into my classroom. It was very distracting. And I wonder at that point how much good we're doing with with walkthroughs. At that point, >> I would say I mean the principles and their teams are going in classrooms a lot
074and I think initially there was probably more um more in there but most of the time it's been um the principal supervisor myself and maybe one or two coordinators if we're in RLA rooms our reading coordinator is with them if it's for math and the math coordinators >> and we're providing feedback for those teachers and PLC's or >> Yes. So the way it works before we leave each of the rooms um Dr. Brown under her leadership has had that we leave them a positive sticky on their door before they leave. But then the process too is after we leave the classroom we debrief and talk about what are the glows um that we saw the successes in the classroom and then what could we do to um to grow and how could we enhance the
075lesson. And so then the whoever is the supervisor for that teacher is then responsible for giving that feedback to the teachers. >> Um sorry I got a couple more. >> Sorry you have a couple. >> Um so I I love that we have aligned curriculum now across the district especially in math. Um we we worked really hard last year I think to try and take as much as we could off of teachers plates. Is any of this going to add more to it in terms of data we need to track or anything we're expecting from teachers? >> I not as much from our teachers, but I want to take this time to acknowledge our principles who are here. Um, [applause] it is a hard job and they are working very hard. They're here most of
076these are all principles who are going to be presenting um tomorrow which is something something in addition to what our other principles are doing. Um, and they're doing the work and they're working hard. So, um, I just want to give kudos to them. Um, because yes, teachers are working hard. these ladies and gentlemen are are champions who are championing for for their teachers doing a lot of the heavy lift and along with I mean I want to can't also there's so many people I could shout out but Jessica still has also done an amazing job and anytime principles have needed support um she's there to help the federal so [applause] use an abuser >> and I'll just add to that um one of the things that we're working on is we know the work is
077heavy and I've talked to principles and we've talked about the fact that like we're we've added new math and we've updated English and a in a in a sane person's mind you never do two sets of curriculum at the same time there's no ever where that's cool right but because of where we are in 2025 in Waco ISD we had to make that change with that change we know that that presents um a heavy lift on our principles on our teachers especially especially our elementary teachers, right? So, we're aware of that. And I want to commend just not just like you, Miss Logan, but our principles, these women and men, they're a beast. They're holding it down. They're setting the standard. They're trying to make sure we get the results we need for students and
078their staff. So, is it hard? Yes. Do we know it was going to be hard? Yes. Are we done yet? Not by a long shot. So, we're trying to make sure that we're putting the supports they need. Some of our campuses need more behavior support, so that looks different. Some of our campuses need more academic support, so that looks different. Some of our campuses need more, I'll say, culture support, so that looks different. So, they have been sharing with their direct reports and some with me, some with Dr. King No, some Madoo Brown, some with Logan. Hey, this is what I need or this is how you can help me or I just need to vent. Right? And so that's what we're trying to do to make sure that we're staying the course, not losing
079focus on the students and what we're trying to do as we go through this. Um, so October's over tomorrow, there's no students in the school. It'll be November when we come back. We get to reset and hopefully exhale as we kind of push through and get through Thanksgiving and then push through to get through Christmas as we go into 2026. So, we know the work. Um, lots of changes. Y'all know this, that we've been trying to adjust and make do with. Um, but we have the right people and the right leaders and, um, I'd go down fighting with these ladies and men because they they care about kids and they're passionate about the work. So, but yeah, we're we're really trying our best to support all the different players and people leading this work. So,
080thank you. >> And I do want to just say one more thing to your question, Mr. Roachoa was about the work on teachers and that is one of the things that I appreciate with our instruction partners that we're working with is looking at our systems as an outside entity that goes into districts. They're very familiar with internalization. They're familiar with the curriculums that we're using. And so they are not just coming in and telling us a way to do it. They're looking at the systems that we have in place and how to effectively and more efficiently do the work. >> Great. And then I got one more. Oh, and I'm done. I'll be quiet. Um, you regarding the 165 days of instruction, um, we do a lot of testing in the district. Um, some of
081those TCA testings, it's my understanding that we have built in like a day to test. Um, and some of those tests I know take two days, sometimes three days to test. So, how do we account or how do we make up for those days that might be lost for those? So, they're not intended to take that amount of time. And so, that's that's one of the concerns is and that's one of the the things with the lessons um within the curriculum is getting the pacing done for our students because if students are having that much struggle with the test, we need them to just take the time because we don't need to spend that many many days working on a test. The whole goal of a test, right, is to see where students are and
082to be able to move forward. If students are taking that much time, that's a sign to us of needs that we have is what I would answer to that. >> Uh you mentioned just something about community community involvement and just like as members of the community, what can we what can we be doing to like tell people that here's tangible ways you can go help some of these schools. Um >> glad you asked. So we >> promise that wasn't a setup. [laughter] So, um, and I I reference back to when I first got here a year ago, we did, uh, entry plans and we I met with community members, internal, external, you name it. Anybody who wanted to meet with Spicer, we met [snorts] throughout the year and a lot of people said, "What can
083I do?" And I was like, "I don't know yet, but give us time." [snorts] So, we have circled back to people in our community, people who are retired educators. There's a letter that uh, Miss Sexinian has, Dr. Ro has been helping us pulling back and pushing back into the community to our retired educators and saying, "Hey, if you can give us time, whether it's to come in and read to our littles or provide math support or come and be a substitute, we need you." So, there is a letter floating around. If you want a copy, we can share it with you, but we're pushing that out and we're going to just say, "Hey, this is all hands- on deck. We need you." And then you don't have to commit your life with blood, but give
084us some hours and we can tell you where there's need in which campus and if you give us one hour a week or two hours a week. So that's the ask that [clears throat] we're asking of our communities, those who have the knowledge and or who are willing just to say, I've never taught in my life, but I'll come and read to a prek baby or a kinder baby. Okay. >> Sorry. Do we prefer like do you want that to go through the district or would you just have them approach a principal? Like if there were people like I want to go read the kids and help. >> We're trying to control it. And the reason I say that is they have their hands full already, but they're letting us know. I talked to a
085principal yesterday or today. I have a lady out on FMLA. We cannot get a sub. I cannot get a sub. So if we know those things, we can say, "Hey, we're trying to take the burden off of them, but if they come to us, we can farm them out because we have people who are in contact with our principles and they know the needs and we can push the people out." So we're trying to, you know, funnel it, if you will. And I will say there's an organization, Stars Book Club. I'll give a shout out to them. I was originally on their board when they started. And so they're a great organization that um really comes into our schools, does a great job. I know as a former principal um when our school was in
086the same spot that they came in and um started work and I was able to really target which group of students I wanted them to work with. And so um I can say it made a huge difference for those kids. So, um, stars book clubs and they do a great job taking things off of our principles and doing the work um to help with that as well. >> How often do these articulated walks occur on campuses? >> Calibrated walk. >> Calibrated. Thank you. I I could not find that date. >> No, you're good. You're good. They're happening all the time as Dr. Brown or Mr. Mcadoo y'all want to because they're the um so our curriculum team also is doing walks but they are specifically the walks that we've been talking about where we're focused
087on um just going through a grade level doing a deep dive on um that's through the work of Dr. Brown and Mr. McAdoo, our principal supervisors. >> Is that where you were saying? I'm sorry, Carmen. The fourth, seventh, and then high school. So, those are the grades that you're focusing on on your >> I I'm stuck on articulated. >> Calibrated. Thank you. >> Articulating. >> No, I'm not. >> You are very articulate though. >> President Vida, uh, members of the board, Dr. Spicer, Tamika Brown, executive director of elementary. Um, so the we actually created a calendar that allows us to focus on specific grade levels at specific times, not taking away from all grade levels, all students. Um, but it allows us to go deep and not wide. Um, the the question earlier about um
088differentiating the support. Um what we believe is that the best practices for transformational uh leadership uh are the same. Um they have actually been established by the state of Texas. Um and what we want to do is ensure that we differentiate the amount of time that we spend on those across the campuses as well as the amount of coaching and support we provide to individuals leading the work. So we have been focusing on so far in elementary fourth grade. We spent three weeks all administrators, all instructional leadership teams. They really dug deep into what was happening in the fourth grade looking at instruction, looking at coherence, what happens between the stu what happens with the student experience in the classroom as uh in in intervention. Um, also what happens in pull out resource to make
089sure that a student's experience is coherent. Um, we also are coaching and supporting our teachers. They are doing an amazing job. I I would love for you to join uh the principles as they do these walks, but they do them every day. Um, we are currently focused in fifth grade, still going into fourth grade. We're going to add third grade and continue that cycle of continuous improvement. Um the work is happening. Uh we're really excited about the progress that we're seeing and we're excited about what's going to happen this year. >> Greetings for secondary. We had the principles and assistant principles continue their walks as normal. They had five walkthroughs per week. And what we did, we had a focus on seven well eighth grade math and reading. >> And we looked at that area
090along with algebra and English one this past three weeks. And what we did, we went into those classrooms. Myself and the district content specialist went in together collectively every math, every content I just mentioned. We went into every class that week. And in the following week, we split up and went at different times to see how we could get that data as we can create our, you know, our data tracker. Then we had our final meeting to conclude what action steps and what feedback can give the principles to to correct any action that's needed. what positive things are we seeing to make sure we highlight that and encourage our teachers to keep that going. And then it's also tied into our principal PC where we had everyone come together and we went through those classrooms
091at two particular schools to really look at I say Carver's 8th grade English class and Waco High's algebra one class give some feedback and grow collectively together. what can we do as a uh as educational leaders versus well what am I doing differently trying to keep that to ourselves but really made it a professional PLC and then this three weeks we're combining the instructional specialist getting them getting them to join us and then moving forward to having the principles join us so it's weekly every classroom and then we actually use that data we don't just walk in and just leave it at that no we we need to do something with it so that's what we're doing >> thanks Alonzo so um Mr. from Makadoo. Um, once you do your or Miss Logan, who once
092you do those calibrated walkthroughs, thank you for telling me to write it down. Um, how many times, so Carmen, you said fourth grade. How many times have you have you guys been in each fourth grade on a campus? So, say uh Dean Highland, how many times have you been in that in those fourth grade campuses, fourth grade classes on that specific campus, for example? Is it once and done or is it like once a week and done or is it two days a week and you know, how often and how consistent are you showing up to those campuses and in those grade levels? >> Thank you for that question. So Dean Highland specifically, I think we've had three actually, uh where um teaching and learning and office of school leadership are working with the principles
093to go in and support um the teachers. >> But what I will tell you is the campus is in the classroom every day, right? >> So um the collaboration has been great. Um and we are excited when we get to support the principles in those walks. Um, but to answer your question, I think it's been three three visits to Dean Highland. >> Okay. So, once uh once you guys do these data walks, for lack of better word, um, do the principles go with you guys? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. So, once y'all get the data and then I believe Mr. Makadoo uh said y'all debrief afterwards. Is that immediate turnaround or is that like I'm going to debrief and get you this information next week or next time we have a principal PLC? How quick
094of a turnaround are the campus leadership getting information from you guys and from the people that are doing the walks? How quickly and how quick is that turnaround? And is that timely? >> It's immediate. So as soon as we walk out of the classroom, we circle and we identify very objectively what engagement is. So we start by counting the number of students. We identify the number of students that were directly engaged in an activity aligned to the objective [clears throat] and we quantify it so that is not subjective. Following that conversation, we talk about what we saw specifically with instruction and how we're going to coach or support. And a lot of times it's a celebration because our teachers are working extremely hard. They're aligned. They are working to ensure that they understand the components
095of the curriculum. So, a lot of times it's a it's a celebration of what they're doing followed by how we can make small um steps or take small steps or small actions to make it even greater so that we can um leverage the work of the team that's present to help that teacher do the best work that they can do. >> Do these walks tie in with TCAs? >> Yes. >> Is that the correct Dr. Cornblam? TCAs. >> Yes. Yes. So the talk curriculum the talk curriculum assessments are our way of identifying if the work is effective. So that's a moment in time where we are assessing the mastery across a set of standards. Yes sir. >> And it tells us if the degree of mastery is happening it is or it's not. >> Um
096and depending on what we see with the TCAs and that's actually what Dr. Spicer has challenged us to communicate tomorrow. Um, we're looking at the data that we've already gotten from the first two TCAs um against the goals that she had us set and we're identifying if we're making progress. I'm really excited for you to see that by the way um because we are making progress um and we are able to in real time say yes ma'am we're work we're making progress or we're not but we are making progress. So, we're excited to share that with Dr. Spicer in the morning. Um, but that's how the TCA is connected. So, we do the work and then we assess whether our work is effective. >> Okay. Um, another question. Um, when you do your calibrated walks,
097are you guys looking going in during intervention times >> or are you going into uh direct teach moments? So, so we're we're we're doing both. So, one of the things that we do in elementary with the sit classrooms is we're looking at the coherence. We don't want students to have like a student that's already struggling in mathematics. Um, Trusty Davis talked about this um a couple of board meetings ago. We don't want a student that already struggles to have 15 different experiences. So part of what we are doing when we go in is we're looking at coherence and trying to make sure that a student who is struggling in mathematics is getting support in the standards that they're learning in their classrooms. So, if the teacher has just taught a lesson, the student is pulled
098out, we want to make sure that as we are supporting that student that we're supporting them in the way that is aligned to the instruction they're receiving from their classroom teacher and not separate. Um, >> and that is clearly uh explained to principal, campus principles and and faculty and staff. >> Yeah, our principles are on fire. Like, >> oh, I I have no doubt. I'm looking at several dynamite leaders. I I'm just asking when we're doing these calibrated walks. Yes. If we are also focusing on interventions because I'm being made to believe that interventions from the first of the year have kind of changed as we're going through and I want to make sure if we're doing calibrated walks and things are slightly starting to change, does that not indeed change some of our data
099that we're pulling to look at effective uh instruction? Well, we want to make sure that it's a coherent experience. So, >> I figured that would get Courtney up here when I >> So, one of the things that we are doing in elementary is looking at the content that is being used to provide support for [snorts] elementary students. Yes. So there is a curriculum catalyst or catalyze >> catalyst um that is directly aligned to how students are learning mathematics. Um blue bonnet the design of the curriculum is constructing knowledge. It's it's it has moved away from just an abstract way of learning mathematics to um constructing knowledge parts of a whole. And so the intervention that our students are now receiving is directly aligned to the pedigogy that they get in their regular classes. So what
100we're seeing now is more of an alignment and it's a it's a work in progress. I do want to state that it's a work in progress. um and it is being scaled across all of the schools but it is the right work to ensure that our the coherence that I spoke of earlier is happening >> and that's done in collaboration with our campus uh leadership teams. >> Yes, sir. >> Okay, >> Courtney, you wanted to say something when I brought up intervention. >> I did want to just say I appreciate y'all's hard work and I'm happy to hear that we have systems that give instant feedback. We really appreciate everything. Mr. Verdon, you had something to say. >> Well, >> I just want to add to uh what was said just then because you were
101asking about uh I believe really the impact of us going to those campuses over multiple weeks. The great thing is because as Dr. Brown shared that we debrief with those um administrators, they turn around and give the feedback to teachers and then it's a beautiful thing because the next time we go back to that teacher's classroom, we've been able to see um that improvement across the classrooms across the district. Um so the power of Yes. So we're seeing the power of the work that's happening on the campuses in real time. >> Okay. >> Jose, can I say one more thing? Miss, >> we we I think >> we all done with our I just wanted to say I know multiple people have thanked our principles tonight. Um but just I know like all this stuff
102is really heavy and it's kind of sobering and it's a bunch of numbers and and jargon that I don't even understand half of if I'm being honest. Um kids [snorts] are more than numbers and I think y'all know that. Uh and we are so so grateful for you guys. I know that you guys are just doing unbelievable work and working really, really hard on behalf of our kiddos. And I just want you all to know that we are so, so, so grateful for y'all. Um, and y'all do really important work. No matter what any of these numbers say, no matter grades or any of that, you guys are doing a really, really outstanding job. >> Mr. Okawa. >> Yeah. I just want to ask this out loud so I don't forget. We can talk about
103it later. Uh, but I'm just curious because it's Texas and I wish it wasn't this way, but we teach to the test and I'm curious um how aligned the blue bonnet curriculum is to the star test. But we don't have to talk about that now because that's that's a whole another thing. But I do add real quick to that as in the PLC's part of the process what they are doing is they're looking at starline questions to the standard linking that with the assessments within the curriculum and then linking that back to the lessons that they're in. So for example, I was at uh South Waco today sitting in PLC's. Miss ATN uh shout out to her was leading the PLC's for fourth and fifth grade math. And so they were looking at those standards.
104they were backtracking. What does that look like in the module? What does that look like? So that when there's so many problems within the curriculum, you can't get to all the problems. So they're making sure that the work that they are doing is linking back to that rigor and stuff of the standards. Right. And then uh lastly, just getting back to something Taylor mentioned, I would like to challenge the board, if we're not doing it already, to get in contact with one of the principles and maybe give up an hour lunch break or two a week and see how we can help, whether it's reading to kids or, you know, monitoring lunches or whatever it is. But I think we we can do that. >> Absolutely. >> All right. Thank you. Um thank you everybody.
105>> Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Goodbye, Mr. Mr. Bless. Is there any discussion? >> No. >> Mr. Abnus, is there any discussion? >> No. Thank you for everything. >> Any discussion? >> No. >> Mr. Patton, is there any discussion? >> No. >> Mr. Ela, is there any discussion? No. >> All in favor? >> I. Passes. We're moving on to item 11. Review and discuss teacher retirement system active care presentation presented by Gallagher. >> [snorts] >> Good evening, Dr. Spicer. Uh, President Vida, my name is Brad Spring. I'm the lead consultant with Gallagher. We are your health and welfare consultant. We work with finance administration on, uh, monitoring your health plan that you offer to another one of your most valuable assets, your faculty, your staff here on
106campuses. So, for this evening, I would like to briefly go through your uh your fiscal year-end reporting for your medical plan. Um, you also run on a calendar year. So, we will show you a calendar year slice and we'll also show you the fiscal year slice as well. We also take into consideration, and we do this for all of our districts that we consult on, um, a review of TRS as a potential option for your health plan pending uh, your renewals. And so we have some of that in here as well. I'd like to just walk through you uh walk through with you. Um it is just an analysis for this year and I can kind of get into how the data works with that. This will be something just so you know as a
107fiduciary responsibility we will be doing this every year and we will be working very closely with HR with finance um to make sure that the right decisions are made for your plan. So, we have data tonight through August of 2025. Just so you all know, I appreciate we're at the end of October. Data in the healthc care world comes in a month behind. And so, our September data is just dropping now, but because this was the end of your fiscal year, we wanted to make sure we got in front of the board to have this discussion. This uh these few bullet points are related to your August data running on a calendar year. So very quickly everyone, we work in per employee per month. So we divide out things by a per employee per month.
108And currently your gross medical plan expense for the month of August was at $1.7 million. Roughly $948 in on a per employee per month basis, which includes your medical, your pharmacy, and your fixed cost claims. And we'll walk through that a little bit more in detail in just a moment. We also walk through and look at your year-to date. Your gross medical expense for all the months is right at 10.7 million. So this is a very large expense on your budget. So we definitely keep track of this. We work on a monthly basis with HR and administration. We have meetings. We go through the data. We keep a pulse on your plan. The actual year-to-ate results. Now again, this is through August and this is on a calendar year. I'm going to show you fiscal
109in just a moment. We're running about 8.2% 2% above budget 8.2%. Uh we do have some months left to go. So as you can appreciate every month that comes in those that number changes somewhat, right? And ideally we appreciate from a public budget perspective. We really want to get to zero. We want to get to you're not a deficit. You're not a surplus. Everything's been made. And I can talk to you more in depth as we go through on some of the things that we've been doing uh with the plan. As of right now, current budget uh shows a projected deficit of about 811,000. And again, guys, I would just remind the board, every month that comes in, there's more premiums, there's claims experience, there are stop-loss reimbursements, there are pharmacy rebates that go in
110to help offset those costs. And we calculate and show all that. This page here for the board shows from 2022 through to present 25 of August. And what you can see here just very quickly is we take your gross claims. We look at your rebates. What are rebates? Rebates are what you get back on Brandon Specialty Drug. Okay, they are a big factor for your plan. We have some pretty high utilization on prescription drugs for your plan. And so rebates are a big factor from a funding perspective. We also then look at your specific recoveries. What does that mean? That means those are claimants that have exceeded your stop-loss deductible. Because you are a self-funded plan, we have stop-loss insurance. And in fact, we are working through a procurement process right now uh to secure
111the renewal on your stop-loss. And we're working with uh Sherry Smith and team. Um and those anything over those certain amounts you would receive back. So the district is is covered and your dollars are covered. So it's the protection of the reserve to continue to pay the claims. As we go down, I won't go through every line, but as we can go down, you can see that we break it out. You can see the enrollment might be interesting. You can see enrollment from 2022 has dropped slightly. These are the enrollment is going to encompass what we refer to as subscribers. And then of course members, your subscribers are your teachers and staff members on campus. The total members is inclusive of spouses and dependent children. As we've said, your plan year runs on a calendar.
112So on a calendar year basis, this is data through August. I will briefly just walk through this with you. At the very top, we talked about your subscribers. You had in August 1,819 folks on your plan that are your teachers, your staff members, the folks doing the work day-to-day on the campuses. With the members, if we include those, we had 267. So there are 267 belly buttons on your plan. As we go down, you can see that we break out your medical claims by month. And again, everyone, we meet on a monthly cadence, if not on a weekly basis in some cases, with plan administration to make sure that we are monitoring the plan, seeing what's going on, trying to mitigate to the extent that we can cost where possible. As we go down, you
113can see your your pharmacy claims as well. And then further moving further down, you can see your RX rebates, which you can see are pretty are fairly substantial and do help to offset the plan. However, that does mean there is utilization on the plan. As we go down, we also talk about your fixed costs. We have your administrative fees. That's what you that's what is part of what is paid to the TPA to run the plan, to administer the EOBS, to take the calls, to adjudicate the claims. And then we also have your stop-loss premiums. And I just mentioned to you all that we are going out to bid for stop-loss. Now, we do that on an annual basis. We will always do that. As we continue down briefly, you can see we have your
114employee contributions. These are strictly the dollars that are going in from your members on the pre on a premium basis. And we break it out by month. And you can see over on the far right side, we have year-to-date. And we also illustrate in a rolling 12. We like to show several different slices, especially to our academically inclined clients. And we have many If we also look at the employer contributions, you can continue to see that Waco has a very generous uh contribution toward the plan, which is not uncommon within public, but I would just uh commend this team uh the finance administration team for continuing to find ways to be as generous [snorts] as possible uh to maintain a robust benefit because why are we doing that? We're trying to recruit and we're trying
115to retain valuable faculty and staff that you all need. And then finally, you can go down and you can see that we have a budgeted cost and an actual cost. And unfortunately for this plan year, and again, we have some months left, so I don't want to be in too down in the negative on it. Um, we have run a little bit over, okay, for each month. And you can see what that is. And we run a run to budget a deficit number. Um, again, more months to come, more rebates to come. In fact, I believe you just we just booked another big rebate that came in. So, the data continues to change and move. But wanted to share this on a plan year or calendar year basis with you. In the next slice really
116quick, you can see that we have your fiscal year. Same setup that we just talked about everyone. And what's interesting here is so when I used to work in public uh finance, this to me was be a pretty good year. We were we ran at the very end. If you look all the way over to the right under the year-to-ate com uh column, you can see we ran we did run 402,000 over budget. So that was a deficit. However, when we look at it and compare it on a percentage basis, that's 2.8%. We ran 2.8% over budget. As you can all appreciate from a medical perspective, things happen, claims happen. 2.8%. We're right in the sweet spot, if you will, on the fiscal year. Okay? We appreciate. We would like to see some surpluses. We
117would like to see a flat. That rarely happens from a medical perspective, but it is something that we continue to monitor. Briefly on this you can see that I call it our pizza pie down at the bottom. The combined plan expenses uh just taking the highlights 50% is being driven by medical and 37% by pharmacy. Just anecdotally in the market we are continuing to see pharmacy claims increase year-over-year and medical in some cases even eclipse. We have not seen that yet for this plan. But pharmacy obviously is a driver of cost for this plan because we have not been in front of the board necessarily with this data before. We wanted to show you what we are showing what drives the cost. Okay? And this is all deidentified information. So just very quickly on here
118you can see that we have our claimants. We list them out. These claimants are at $75,000. That's a combination of medical andor pharmacy. When we look at this, we can see that through the year they go as we go across what plan that they are in. You offer three medical plans. You can see the relationship how they who who they are in relation to the plan. Um the diagnosis that they have just very quickly on the top view we have a sepsis claim. Again, that's something that's happened in the hospital. Certainly didn't want to happen. It's something that's happened. And you go across and you can see where we break out the medical and the pharmacy. So you can see where those costs are coming from. And finally over on the far end right side
119you can see the expected reimbursement. So that would be what stop-loss is reimbursing the plan. As we go down we've had a we've had a se a we've had a uh stroke and we've also had a newborn child with some conditions. So anyway won't go into too much detail further but you can see this is the type of data that we are looking at. We are looking at it with finance administration. We are monitoring this monthly, even more so than that, but on a monthly call with the team. As we go to the next slide, you can see these are the diagnosis categories. And really quickly, I would just tell you the number one is factors influencing health. That just means office visits. And you know what? I don't get worried about that because that
120means that people are going in, they're meeting with their physicians, and they're getting the care that they need. we would prefer that they would catch something early as opposed to find it later and maybe have some more cost and and and burden upon the member with relation to that diseases of the circulatory system typically related to heart conditions. Um, one large cost driver for your plan is neoplasms which are cancer treatments and that's been something that's been going on for this plan for quite a while. Um, we've had a number of cancer claimments and as you can appreciate that does drive a lot of cost. Again, I would tell I tell all my clients, anyone that would be on this list does not want to be on this list, but it is something that we
121definitely would try. As we get into the pharmacy, as I've talked about, pharmacy is a driver of cost for your plan. Um, you can see that the majority of the drugs that are are driving costs, at least from a top drugs plan paid, are going to be your anti-diabetic medications. They're going to be your cancer medications and then also some dermatologicals which continue to we continue to see rising in utilization. Um below that we also show the top drugs by count and one thing that I don't get too concerned about here is the majority of these drugs are going to be cholesterol and blood pressure medication. So maintenance meds relatively inexpensive and it just shows that members are taking the medication that they need to take to maintain their health. As I've talked about from
122a fiduciary perspective, every year we are going to start looking at TRS as a potential option. Right now you are a self-funded plan. You manage it. You pay your claims. TRS is another option. So we will look at TRS on an annual basis. As most of you are probably aware, TRS puts out their new rates for the for the coming plan year in July. So we have to reconcile with that, right? And for you all, and we'll talk about this in just a moment, for you all, you would have to make a decision in theory by the end of this year for 91 of next year, but we don't know the rates for 91 of next year because those will not come out until July. So, we will do the analysis again. So, we're always
123going in a little bit blind, but we take the data that we have, we'll use the data we have, and what we can get from the market. Really quickly just looking at trend uh the CAGGR is the uh compound average growth rate just so you know. So really your plan historically has been running at about a 4.6% trend. That's pretty good. National trend for medical is about 7 and a half% pharmacy is anywhere from 11% on up just depending on the utilization of the plan. Pharmacy definitely is becoming a a much bigger cost driver. um in looking at that trend and then also taking a consideration of what TRS has and we've done a huge analysis on our side because we have many district clients you can see that the trend that you're experiencing now
124compared to what we're experiencing what we see with TRS is much lower. So I know it was in the agenda but I would just reiterate to this team uh to this board that it is not our recommendation to move to TRS for this year. I would say it's always an option and we will continue to look at it on an annual basis. But this is one slice of that. One other thing I would also mention here is is that TRS you are locked in for five years. Hotel California some say you check in and you cannot check out of the health plan for five years. So it is a huge commitment for a district to get into especially from the standpoint that right now your administration is able to you know in a way craft
125and build a um uh the funding rates and of course which translates to premiums. There is control to move to TRS. we we give it up and what we find typically with most of our clients and we have helped clients transition to TRS where it is makes sense financially um the clients that we have that move to TRS typically have no other option they just they don't have anything else this is the last ditch effort and so with that in aligning with this graph I would just say the risk that is continuing to go into that pool probably isn't the risk that Waco wants to have at least today today we still have options Part of a move to TRS, and this is something that we look at and we discuss with the team, is
126what does this mean financially for the district. It's not just pick up and leave. There are many fees and things that we would have to work through. And one of those, and I've mentioned rebates before, one of those is there would be a potential loss of rebates. Well, we know there would be because it would be a short contract. The reason it's a short contract is y'all are on a calendar year. Nothing wrong with that. It works great. TRS is on a 91 contract. So, the district potentially, our calculation is y'all could lose potentially $1.3 million. That's not losing, but leaving on the table. Leaving on the table. Um, and there's nothing really that can be done about it from a contractual perspective because the contracts are signed on on a calendar year. We also
127have to take into consideration runout on a move. There would be runout claims that would come in, right? So, those claims continue to come in. Our estimation from an actuarial perspective is you would probably be looking at one 1.1 or 1.2 million dollars in additional claims that come in. Typically those come in within the first three months of the new plan year, but it would be obviously a liability on the district. And not to get too wonky on you, but I will tell you that if you because of the shorty year, we would always recommend terminal liability on stop-loss, which means that you would still essentially have stop-loss coverage for a few more months to help the district should there be a catastrophic claim come in. Because of the short year, it's really not possible
128to have terminal liability. So, it's really not an option on the table. Now, I would tell you I will get creative with the stop-loss carrier, but at the same time, it is still a risk that I just don't see the district needs, we don't see the district needs to make at this time. We look out, data drives our decisions, as I know you all know from an education perspective. We look out and we do about a five-year out where do we think things are going, trend, actuarial analysis, etc. And what you can see is when we look at a rateto rate comparison, TRS at least in fiscal year 26 is a tad bit lower than what than what Waco is currently at. We can see in 27 TRS uh to TRS is a little bit
129lower. But what happens is as we get into fiscal year 28 and 29, we foresee that to start changing. And again, that kind of speaks to the conversation I just had or what I just mentioned with about the risk that's going into those pools. We anticipate more and more risk we don't necessarily want to go into those pools which will then translate to rates that will be dictated down uh to member well to districts and then of course how does the district fund it and then how do the what goes to the member. We also do benchmarking again as educators I know you know the importance of benchmarking. you currently have a United Healthcare as a carrier. From what I hear, I don't hear because silence is golden. I feel like everybody for the most
130part is very pleased with the plans that they have. Um, open enrollment has just has just ended and it's always a pleasure to work with HR. Just so you all know, TRS right now has Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas. Um, they are going out to bid, so we don't really know who the carrier will be. My bet would probably be they would probably remain with Blue, but we don't know. We we we shall see. They currently offer three plans as well. They currently offer three as well. Um, we do break down the plan design they have. And then what you can see at the bottom is we take just averages. It's a little hard to do some of this analysis. We take some averages of the premiums and we try to just illustrate.
131Now, this is across all plans. Now, we can break it out by plan by plan and they'll be up and they'll be down, but on a premium basis, according to what y'all fund today and what the member pays, according to what you would fund at a minimum level with TRS, you can see that for the most part, the the premiums are lower as of today with what you have on a premium basis, member level, premium basis. We also look at plan design. You can see just very quickly, we have the Waco plan designs here. you have three plans, very competitive, very common for our districts to have three plans, including usually an acco or a accountable care organization, a point of service model. Um, and then you also have a H the HMO is what
132I'm referring to. And then you have the high deductible plan and then a PO plan. Very common similar situation with TRS and their offerings. The main thing I would tell you here is yes, you can see that their deductibles are a little bit lower. So we of course take that into consideration. You can also see that in some cases uh for example the current out-of- pocket maximums on an individual basis are higher on the TRS plan. They're higher on the TRS plan today. Families are a little bit lower. The other thing I would just tell you briefly is that as we go down, you have co-pays on your high deductible plan once members meet their deductible. Right? You can't have co-pays before you meet your deductible. So they meet them within the high deductible plan
133of TRS, which we know we have a quite a bit of utilization within that plan. um which is a good plan uh that you have um they go on a co- insurance basis. So it it provides a little bit of um instability especially for a member who may not have the dollars to pay for a drug. They don't know how to calculate and figure out I'm used to this plan. I'm used to this this co-pay things can change. So that's not I'm not picking on TRS for that but I'm just pointing it out as one of the main differences that I can see. One thing I will mention for this, there is no longer a Baylor HMO uh plan offered, but Baylor is an in-et network provider, just so you know, that there is not
134an HMO plan with Baylor specifically anymore that is offered. I tell y'all, we do this on many different slices and we show it in many different ways. This is just the bar graph to illustrate the previous slide that was referencing the uh averages on your uh premiums compared to TRS. There's a lot of numbers here, but I just want to show you for full transparency. This is some of the exhibits that we work through and talk with with finance, with HR, um, and plan administration. You can see that really on a rateto rate level, if you focus just on those, uh, green boxes that TRS is anticipated to be about a $1.3 million savings. Now, that is a rateto rate. That's all we're talking about. We're not talking about benefit design. We're just talking rate
135to rate. So, that sounds pretty good, right? That looks pretty good. Well, as we continue to move into the analysis, as I mentioned earlier, there are factors and costs to move. And so, quickly, we look at a short contract year with stop-loss that makes things difficult for terminal liability, which is an exposure on the district, which is not what we want. We take into consideration medical runout claims about $1.1 million, 1.1 to 1.2 million. We're leaving roughly, and this is all calculation because we it's based on utilization, we're leaving approximately $1.1 million in rebates, which are your which are your dollars. We would be leaving those on the table. That we don't we don't like that. So, when we take a consideration, that's year one. we take in consideration of 1.3 million roughly in a
136um in a rate comparison, you know, looks pretty good for TRS. But when we also take into consideration the cost of runout claims, we take into consideration the loss of rebates, potentially two quarters of rebates, which all rebates are pretty high, around $750,000 um on a quarterly basis paid back to the district. We would anticipate, all things considered, roughly a $955,000 loss. So that 1.3 changes when we start taking into consideration all of these moves. There are other factors as well as you can appreciate any credits that the district may have received from carriers may have to be paid back. There are all kinds of things that just have to be taken into consideration for this move. But again to the board I would tell you this is something we are going to continue to
137do on an annual basis. We will show it to you in any way you would like. We will benchmark. We will use our data and we will be back in front of you. I have quickly here just some basic requirements and the main things that I would tell you all is is that TRS requires to move into TRS. You have to make the decision by the end of the year 1231. Of course, I know everybody's going to be celebrating New Year's. So, no one wants to have that call at that time, but that would be the deadline to do that. And it is a lock in for five years. Five-year lock in. Um, in addition addition to that, and I mentioned it before, terminal liability, the inability to secure that from a stop-loss perspective is
138is concerning to me based on runout potential runout claims. Um, and then of course the loss of rebate, the potent the loss of rebates and the um they also use a different uh system. I I talked to HR about this. They use a different enrollment system which can be a little uh frustrating at times. We have a potential timeline. Again, I've told I've told you all and I've talked to HR administration about this. Um, we've helped districts move where it where we find that it's financially the best solution for them. Um, and this is just a sample potential timeline of what that would look like. The main focus of that is a 1231 opt-in. We have to wait for new rates until July that would go into effect on 91 of next year. In addition
139to that, from a member perspective, because I appreciate you meet the member where they are, right? And we like to do that as well. um members that would have accumulated on their deductibles and out of pockets should there have been should there be a move at some point they would lose that credit and start over and that and for some that may not be that big of a deal but for those that are utilizers that will be uh very that could be very difficult I have an appendix here everyone that has region 12 specific data from a rate perspective we have percentages we have all kinds of things I don't think I need to go over it today but I wanted to make sure that the board had that information show it as I said
140we show it in a number of ways and that concludes my presentation. Happy to take any questions you may have. >> Thank you. Any questions? >> Just two quick ones. Um just out of curiosity, how do you what what's responsible for the dip and the TRS plan in 2027 >> responsible for the dip? >> Yeah, you had you had 2027 and your projections >> rate to rate. It's just a rate to rate analysis. So right now because they have a bigger pool. So we have to rate based on your on your membership, right? Their membership much larger. So for the first initial years on a rateto rate comparison, what I mean by that is premiums. their premiums can be a little bit lower than what y'all are that what y'all are at today. So, that
141starts out that way, but as you as you can appreciate, we anticipate those rates to continue to increase based on the risk that we are seeing entering the pool. >> Um, secondly, I I do not need the calls or the emails, so I am in no way suggesting that we get rid of of these, but um, WGO, Ozmpic, the other one, those seem to be our our top prescriptions and it seems like everyone's doing a GLP1 now. What do we have any flexibility in switching to something that probably costs 200 a month versus something that cost 1300? >> Ideally, yes, there would be something, but there's not currently from a pharmacy PBM perspective, pharmacy benefit manager. Um, outside of the plan, there are there are compounds and things I'm sure we all hear about that
142have lower costs. I continue to see in social media there daily, you know, there's $150 a month, there's a $200 a month that would be off the plan. Your plan currently does cover um weight loss drugs. That's something else that we're monitoring. And I will tell you this to this team, it is something that we are monitoring very closely. We have put into place as of January of this year, so we're over 10 months in now. um an anti what was referred to as an anti-obesity management program that is administered through the current PBM the pharmacy benefit manager and all that means is is that for the district to cover that drug at any level now keep in mind the members have co-pays you know they are paying to cover it at any level from
143a district perspective the member has to be engaged in this program within the program there is data that talks about BMI that talks about A1C and we are going to get all that data and I'm working closely with finance work closely with HR on this uh and the PBM obviously that data will all be done and reconciled in July of this coming year. And I appreciate you know I know he's like why does it take so long does the claim run in the run out the reconciliation of it all takes a little bit of time but by July of this coming year plan administration will meet we will look at that data from there they will make a determination on what we how we move forward with that drug or with those drugs being covered
144or not and so data drives our decisions. this is the last ditch effort if you will. Let's see what happens to maintain the benefit, get the member where they need to be and see where the data comes out at the end. So, we are working through that now. Um, come July, I'd be happy to come up in front of you all in maybe August uh come up in front of you all and and share that information with this team pending HR approval. >> Thank you. Any more questions? Thank you. Moving on to item 12, presentation and discussion of 2025 delinquent tax collections presented by Connor Buchanan. Good evening, Dr. Spicer, uh, President Vana, board members, thanks for having us this evening. Uh, I'm also here joined by one of the founding members of Brophy Boswick,
145Murphy, oh, excuse me, I'm sorry, beard culture and Brophy Boswick and Dixon, Mr. Rick Boswick. uh who he won't hype himself up but used to be on this board and actually was the president of the board at one point in time as well. Um we've got your property tax report both on current collections, delinquent collections, and then some of the state audit things that we do for the district to try and get some of the property tax money that's lost during the year back to the district. So, uh there should be in your packet uh a graph that matches this one that outlines total annual tax collections. So the easiest way to kind of look at this graph is to see it as a cash basis accounting of all of the property tax dollars that
146come into the district during the fiscal year. So not just current property taxes but also delinquent property taxes and then any penalties and interest that occurs on those. As these numbers are one of the numbers you set your budget on every year. It's important to get those collected. Uh you'll notice that over the last two years those numbers have dipped below 100%. And I will say that is because we have um in just our current excuse me our delinquent tax collections this last fiscal year uh we get delinquent taxes turned over to us in July to collect. In the last fiscal year we collected an additional about a million dollars. It's actually over a million dollars that is not reflected on that graph because of changes due to the tax rule by the appraisal district.
147So essentially that money made it over to the tax office. The appraisal district makes those changes on the tax role and then they have to go back and refund that money for previous property tax years. If you put that million back in, you would actually be sitting at about 10 and a half%. Uh and if I had a kind of a caution to the board is that these protests, the amount of protests that the appraisal district has seen over the last four years has gone up from about 14,000 to about 24,000 every year. So, it has increased significantly. Um, I'd like to say that this will change and that we won't have these massive numbers of refunds, but it may be a reality at this point as we've seen that the last two fiscal years
148for the district. But again, the delinquent collections and Mr. Foster will talk about those in just a moment are good. I would say great, but we're having to pay a lot of that money right back out due to those changes in the tax role after we get it collected. As Connor said, I sat in y'all's seats uh if you can believe it, almost three decades ago. Actually, my >> seat's still warm. >> Huh? >> My seat is still warm. Um and one of the things come budget time that is critical particularly in light of the vicissitudes of government funding both at the state and federal level is having delinquent or tax collection property tax collection that is consistent yeartoear and Conor's firm and mine try to balance two major factors one is we want to
149maximize uh your tax collection, but we also want to balance that at the same time with the understanding that we're collecting from your constituents, your neighbors, parents and grandparents of your students. And we try to do it in a way that is respectful of them always because when I was sitting there as you are, I expected that. And we think it's critical when you interact or when you have reason to interact with your constituents that you can feel comfortable uh that our efforts are balanced and try to respect uh the people that we're dealing with. And and the obvious reason is most people, vast majority of the people, if they're delinquent, it's not because they want to be, it's because there's a health issue or a job issue. And because of that, before any lawsuits
150are filed, and sometimes a lawsuit has to be filed, we work with them to enable them to pay out those delinquent taxes over time. And we assume and that that's the way you would want it done. and and that's really our goal is to make y'all comfortable that what we're doing is the way you would do it. Um, as Connor said, the delinquent tax collection, you hand over to us on July 1, the delinquent taxes, and over time, you collect, even without um penalties or attorneys fees, almost 100% over a period of time. um you have to as I said work with people and that takes time and in this bar graph you'll see in say the 2021 tax year you've collected 99.72% without penalty or interest being applied. And so that is a very
151very high collection and something that come budget time you can count on from year to year. Um obviously uh it takes some time because we try to work with them um amicably first and then sending out tax notices. And I'm going to hand it back to Connor to explain in a little bit more detail the process that we go through that enables you uh to sustain a collection rate over 99%. >> Rick, so if y'all will go to would be the next page, you've got some pie charts on there. That is a breakdown of, as Rick said, uh delinquent taxes get turned over to us the July after those tax bills are issued. And we do our best to, as Rick said, balance out one, the need for that money to come back to the
152district, too, with also the needs of your property owners, your taxpayers, your constituents. Uh the first pie chart would be the taxes that were turned over to us in July of this year. So that' be three short months ago. And then at that point, we've already collected 36% or more of that. And then the other two pie charts go through and they show the additional years. the longer we've had them, the more we're going to get those property taxes actually collected. Uh it also breaks down where the rest of your property taxes are, in case you were wondering about that. Uh some of the bigger ones, especially as you get to the older tax year, that would be 2022. Really, all that's left would be one, a lot of accounts that have very, very small
153number or dollar amounts on them. And therefore, really all we want to do is send notices. It doesn't make sense to try and file a lawsuit for $25 worth of property taxes. That's an oversimplification, but again, not something that we would do. The other biggest one is going to be uh what we call deferrals. So, in the state of Texas, when an individual reaches the age of 65, uh they don't have to pay property taxes on their homestead anymore. The assumption there is that they are on a fixed income and at the point at which it's no longer their homestead, the property taxes get paid at that point in time. So, those will get collected at some point. But the idea, you know, one of the only good ideas from the legislature, it seems, was
154to protect those specifically that would be on fixed incomes and therefore in danger of losing property at that point. But to that point and to what Rick said, the next couple of pages of your outline actually show our collection efforts. And what I like to refer to these as is ways that we incentivize communication. Our first priority is just to get the taxes paid. And honestly, the easiest way to do that is just to talk to your property owners. Um, we've actually moved offices uh this year and added two full-time staff members to try and facilitate that better. We set up the office in a way that is inviting and does provide for them to come in. And we actually get to live out kind of, you know, we get called counselors. We don't get
155to act like counselors a lot, but we kind of get to live out that entitlement as a counselor to individuals that come in that have issues with property taxes, whether that's setting them up on payout agreements. A lot of times we're actually helping them get exemptions that they're entitled to, which means they pay less and they are entitled to those. Uh but we do try to make it uh it's a scary process. We try to make it a lot less scary for the folks that come in to our office. And one last point that I just to kind of put into perspective. So uh the number of properties we ended up having to file lawsuits on this year was 211. We posted 38 for sale, but we only actually sold or bid into trust eight,
156which is less than two. I think is 2.7% and the number that we actually file on is a lot less than the number that's turned over to us. So really and truly the number of properties we actually have to sell which are mostly substandard properties, dilapidated properties, properties that have not been used for years and years and years, that number ends up being almost 1% or less than 1% of everything that you turn over to us. So we get a good amount really the majority of your property taxes collected without actually having to go through the entirety of the process. So and then the last thing I'll mention um I talked about those changes in the appraisal role during that first slide. Uh you end up losing property tax dollars on that. But the nice
157thing is funding for school districts is kind of a seessaw. Every time your property taxes go up, your state funding goes down. every time your state funding goes your property taxes go down, your state funding is supposed to come up, our law firm every year conducts an audit of those values to see if the property taxes have gone down so that you can increase your state funding. Uh this last year, we found another $731,000 for the district for tax year 2021. And over the last seven years, we've actually increased state funding by over $8 million for the district as a result. So yes, losing money off the tax role on the front end is not great, but there is a way to come back and to make all that up and to get that money
158back for the district. So, and this um this specific service and then all the services we provide are done at no cost to the district. So, our money comes out or our payment comes out uh of when the property tax gets collected. So, you won't see any bills to attorneys uh which some of the board members abuse. They know they can call me and not for it, but that's okay. We enjoy that. Uh, and we'll entertain any questions that you all have, whether it's about the state funding piece of this or about the property tax collections as a whole. >> I don't have any questions. I just Mr. Bosgar, I remember when you were on the school board when I was probably 10 years old and uh, thank yeah, thank you for all of your
159service and dedication to Waco ID and Connor is actually the the newest member of the Waco Education Foundation. So, thank you for your service to the district and thank you for all you guys do in such a uh a compassionate way. I appreciate that. >> Important. So, thank you so much. But you definitely demonstrate that. We appreciate it. Thank you. And >> we don't take this job uh for granted. We very much consider it an honor to work for the district and do it in a way that I hope you all appreciate. >> I I just wanted to say uh thank you guys. I mean not only do you incred do incredible work, but we just really like you guys. Uh [laughter] al also I don't know anyone that gets really excited when they hear
160from the tax man. Um so Mr. MP, I want to thank you for your words uh because you know representing the district uh you know we we really appreciate that sincerely. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate it. >> We'll move on to item 11, announcements presented by Chief Cox. >> Good evening again, President Vana, superintendent vice trustees. Tomorrow, Friday, October 31, really great in instructional calendar planning is a student holiday. Enjoy and embrace if all Hall's Eve or Halloween is your jam and enjoy it. It's also a staff in service day, so I hope our staff take the time to plan and and get caught up and go enjoy their weekend. Early voting for the November 4th, 2025 general election is underway. There are opportunities, depending on where you live, to support public schools. um, China
161Spring, Midway, I think there's a couple of others. Um, and that early voting is running through tomorrow at 7 PM. McClennon County Elections has compiled resources, including sample ballots and polling locations for the much more complicated things that are on that ballot um, than supporting our public schools. Um, Saturday, Dr. Spicer and Dr. King Nolles will be guests of the board um, for their annual participation in Creative WGO's Dia Deos Muertos Parade. Trustees, please plan to arrive at Indian Spring Middle School parking lot at 3 p.m. to decorate your golf cart um and get lined up with the other floats and participants. If that parade is not what you're up um looking for on a Saturday and you prefer a reason for a road trip, Waco High band takes the field for the UIL area
162marching contest Saturday at Pfield in Flugerville at 3:30 p.m. Please come out and cheer on um the Waco High band. Um, our next regular board meeting will be held on Thursday, November 20th. And right after that, we will transition into another Friday student holiday, protected planning day, and go enjoy a muchdeserved Thanksgiving break. Thank you so much. >> Uh, Elizabeth, I just want to invite people to the university game tomorrow, have a chance to win district if they went out. And I also want to congratulate the girls volleyball team at university for they came up short for making the playoffs, but it was a playin game that they lost. But so hopefully they can build on that for next year. >> Thank you for always keeping us connected, President Vana. Appreciate it. Yes. And if
163so, Friday night, if you're not trick-or-treating, the real treat is going to be at Waco Stadium when our um Trojans claim a district championship, right? Yep. Thank y'all. >> The Waco board of trustees will now go into close session at 8:33 this time to pursuit of Texas Open Meeting Act. Texas Government Code Chapter 551 sections 071 and 074. We do not anticipate action when we return. Take an action when we return. We are reconvening at 8:58 from close session where no action was taken and the meeting is adjourned.