Waco ISD School Board Meeting from May 15, 2025

001Okay, 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 really just do want to extend a warm welcome to everyone here and to our television viewers. The board's purpose is to set goals, listen to reports of the superintendent, approve budgets, contracts, personnel 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. And if you would do so right now, if you would turn your um cell phones to silent, would really appreciate that. I'll find mine in a bit and send turn it to silent. But uh really we want to just

002uh really have appreciate the time you've taken to join us and for your interest in Waco Independent School District. Uh let's see. YouTube in Waco ISD. The Waco um board we uh go by we follow a code of ethics and the code of ethics is uh honor and conduct. So we as the Waco Independent School Board will always tell the truth. We will share our views while working for consensus. We will respect the majority decision as a decision of the board and we will base our decisions on fact rather than supposition, opinion or public favor. Um, moving on to item number two, oath of office. Uh, Mr. Patton and Mr. Bledsoe, could you meet us in the front? [Music] As a notary public, I'm honored to administer the oath of office. Please raise your right

003hand. In the name and by the authority of the state of Texas, please repeat after me. I state your name. do solemnly swear I do swear that I will faithfully execute the duties that I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of trustees of the office of trustees of the Waco Independent School District of the Waco Independent School District of the state of Texas of the state of Texas and will to the best of my ability and will to the best of my ability preserve protect and defend the Constitution preserve protect the Constitution and laws of the United States and the laws of the United States and of this state of this state. So help me God. So help me God. Thank you very much and congratulations. [Applause] Okay. We're going to take some

004quick pictures. Welcome back. Okay, moving on. Um, welcome, uh, Mr. Bledsoe and Mr. Patton. We're so excited that you're continuing and that you're beginning your journey here with us. Thank you. Um item number three, public comments. Is there anyone signed up for public comments? Okay, moving on to item number four, moment of silence and pledge of allegiance. If you would please just pause with me as we take time for prayer, contemplation, reflection, andor meditation. Thank you. Um, pledge of allegiance or pledge leaders. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The board would mute me down front. Thank you. [Music] Tonight's pledge leaders are Jaslyn Pototts from Caesar Chavez Middle School. She

005is an eighth grader whose favorite subject is math. She enjoys cheerleading, playing basketball, volleyball, and drawing. And when she grows up, Jasine wants to be a [Applause] pediatrician. Next is Cavon Johnson. He is also an eighth grader from Caesar Chavez Middle School. He loves math, cross country, running, working at his family-owned business. His teachers say he is a naturalb born leader and he wants to be a principal when he grows [Applause] up. Do they take their pictures now? Okay. Sorry. I'm new at this, y'all. I'm just going with the flow. Okay, now we are going to recognize the UIL state speech and debate students. University High School student Derek Thompson. Thomas Thomas. He captured first place in the pros category at the regional UIL speech and debate competition and advances to the state [Music] [Applause]

006contest. And this is his teacher, Savannah Jones. [Applause] Next we have the UIL all state band solo and ensemble from Waco High School. First is Tevin Parker. [Applause] Joan Visero. I say it right. [Applause] Steven [Applause] Tally, James [Applause] Nava. Oh my god. Aane, I said it right when I met read these originally. Aane [Applause] Davis, Luke [Applause] Hammerly, Genesis [Applause] Romero, Aiden Dante, Aiden Damian uh Damian Dominguez. [Applause] Aiden Aiden Dante, right? Dante. Okay. Dwarte. Sorry. [Applause] Urecy [Applause] Garcia, Britney [Applause] Lea, Pedro [Applause] Gonzalez, and Lily Rose. [Applause] Okay, Daniela Ricardo. Okay, [Applause] sorry. And their teacher, Michelle Linker. [Applause] Students that were not able to be here tonight are Jose Adalco, Miguel Lopez, Theodore Adulco, Matthew Everett, Marisol Leiddesma, Joselyn Salazar, Jeremy Williams, Judith Aras, Anelise Galan, and Angel Warz Lozano. [Applause]

007Yeah, you're good. We have so many that we have to get them all together correctly. Yes. Go for it. Oh, I do. You can dance because your socks smack your tie. That's what I'm saying. Sort of. Yeah. Oh heaven. Okay, so now we're going to do University High School Maddie Trojan band members qualified for the state solo and ensemble contest with several earning a sweep stakes award at UIL concert and site reading. Members competing in both are indicated with the asterk on the screen. Okay, I am so sorry, but I'm gonna try to say this the right way. Leoardo Gama Serato. [Applause] Gotcha. Thank you, Brandon Dominguez. [Applause] Andrea Montreal, [Applause] Sayia [Applause] Sanchez, Jackson [Applause] Ruby, Angel Dela Cruz, [Applause] Eric [Applause] Lopez, Gabriel [Applause] Ramirez, Jason [Applause] Cervantes, A Evan [Applause] Quas, Laniah

008[Applause] Davis, Israel [Applause] Lozano, Diego Martinez, [Applause] Hector tooka de la [Applause] Hoya, Maddox Wheeler, Tristan Bailey, [Applause] Abel Seronto, [Applause] Amy Ugalde, Mayana Chen [Applause] and teacher David Gerardo and Jason Perez. [Applause] Wait a little bit. Way to work as a team. Congratulations. [Applause] Next, we have our UIL Allstate Choir solo. Waco High School students advanced to the UIL all-star solo and ensemble contest to be held in Austin on May 24th. All Waco High students advanced in the class one vocal solo category. Emma Clark [Applause] Martinez, Eliia [Applause] Contrarus, Ted Darius Dobbins, [Applause] Mera [Applause] Goodson, Lucius, Luna, Caris [Applause] Henderson Grace Epago. Sorry, no, I saw her face. I'm sorry. I butchered it. Andrew Lano, [Applause] Eliza Reyes, [Applause] Jordan Williams, Teachers are Brenley Bartlett and Emily Chandler. [Applause] Our University High School

009students qualified for the state UIL all state solo and ensemble contest to be held in Austin on May 24th. All University High School students advanced in the class one vocal solo category. Marlene Frius [Applause] Jade [Applause] Garcia, Oliver [Applause] Houston, Anna Mendoza, [Applause] Kennedy Miner, Shayla Montes, [Applause] Ariana [Applause] Lejo, Narcissus Ramirez. [Applause] Ava [Applause] Rodriguez, Mariah [Applause] Rodriguez, Giovanni Serrano, [Applause] Aiden [Applause] Tarvar, Thomas Vana, [Applause] Aureli [Applause] Salazar and Vana [Applause] Palasios. Oh, I'm so sorry. Joy Marshall. [Applause] Amanda Garcia. [Applause] Congratulations. Okay. And tonight our community partner award is going to Waterburger. Waterburger is [Applause] honored. Waterburgger is honored with the TASBY Standup for Public Education Award as the May Waco ISD community partner of the month. Receiving the award, our field marketing partner, Chad. There you go. Clip Naru. They really

010set me up tonight. So since August 2023, Waterburgger has gone above and beyond to support our Waco ISD community. From back to school celebrations to honoring our educators on National Special Education Day, their commitment to recognizing the hard work happening on our campuses has been extraordinary. Through the Bayer Baylor's water teacher promotion, they've celebrated outstanding teachers and during National Teacher Appreciation Week, they awarded 1,000 Waterburger water teacher grants to help educators go even further for their students. But their support hasn't stopped there. From breakfast donations to energize our staff to fun game day activities for Waco ISD at the Waco ISD stadium and plenty of Waterburger swag and coupon shared along the way. Waterburger has truly been a partner in celebrating and uplifting Waco ISD. Thank you. [Applause] That is it. Okay. It's always so

011great to honor uh so many students and I think with that magnitude and number of students it at times gets a little bit difficult to see who's here and who's not. So thank you so much for everyone bearing with us while we kind of figure things out. So um moving on to um item number six, superintendence report, Dr. Spicer, our most important 6A bus driver appreciation. Yes. Okay. So, last month we did celebrate our bus drivers and um I'm going to read what I wrote, but I had the opportunity to be a monitor on a bus, three-hour drive, and let me tell you, them kids gave me the business, but that's not in the script. So, this item is really just a chance for me to publicly publicly just say thank you and share my

012appreciation for our Waco ID transportation team. I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon in the bus bar office watching how our teams respond to campus call, support parents needing information, and provide logistical support to drivers out on the road. I also had the chance to ride two bus routes as a bus monitor. And let me tell you, they did put me to work. Like, I thought the monitor was going to stay with me. No, she got on another bus. I was the monitor. Did not know that. I was kind of set up, but it's okay. As I've had the end ofear meetings with staff and students, one of the glows that consistently comes up is how awesome our transportation services team is now that they're a part of Waco ISD, our team and our

013family. From me and the entire district, I wanted to say thank you and just share my appreciation publicly for all that you do. So, at this time, can we please just give them a round of applause so they know how much we appreciate them? Absolutely. Stand up. Thank you guys so much. They are the first and the last to see our students and that's just so important. So I want to make sure that we make sure that they can see this and see that we do appreciate everything that they do. Graduation next week is time. We're looking forward to celebrating the class of 2025. Waco High ceremony will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 22nd. and University High School's graduation is scheduled for Friday at 7:30 p.m. Both ceremonies are Waco at are at

014Waco Stadium will be enforcing a clearback policy and attendees need to plan for time to walk through our security protocols before entering. This will include metal detectors. Board members, you're requested to arrive one hour prior to this event. We will provide food. Yes, please. One hour, please. Us? Yes, y'all. Summer school and other programs. Waco OSD will be hosting summer school June 2nd through June 25th. Our elementary students will be hosted at four campuses in the district. Bell's Hill, Dean Highland, JH Hines, and Crest View. And our secondary students will be at Caesar Chavez Middle School and all of our high school students will be at University High School. Additional special population programming and targeted reading programs are also planned through the month of July. Waco OSD has also partnered with mentoring alliance, YMCA, and

015other organizations through facility rentals to provide students and families in the community with opportunities for engaging in summer activities to keep our students learning this summer. Superintendent Superhero Fun Run and Family Fest. Looking ahead to next school year, believe it or not, that starts July 1. We have set a date for our annual back to school family fest for Saturday, July 26th from 9:00 a.m. to 12 noon. I'm excited to share that this year we will include our first superintendent superhero fun run 5K for families in our community. Trustees, please join us. You do not have to run, walk something, crawl something. Come on out. Come on out. This is a challenge. Except I'll drive the golf cart. Okay, we'll take it. Thank you to Miss Rianna Settles and Courtney Parnell for jump jumping in

016and bringing this idea to life. The run will be timed and we'll be sending out information about the registration in June. University High School will again serve as the location for the single district-wide event. Students registered for family fest will receive a voucher for free clear backpacks with school supplies while supplies last. And we will again partner with Waco Mcclennon County Public Health District to provide all school required immunizations and COVID vaccines for our students. And last but not least, Waco SD Education Foundation Enrichment Grants. The Waco Education Foundation Surprise Patrol had a busy two days delivering checks for 34 teachers and grants to 50 recipients. This year, the foundation awarded $148,400, bringing the total amount of grants funded over the past decade and a half to over $2.45 million. Can we just give them

017a round of [Applause] applause? Those are truly impressive numbers and our thanks to the incredible generosity and support of the Waco community and the hard work and dedication of the foundation's board and our community partnership coordinator, Miss Stephanie Hines. I know she's here. she was here earlier. Thank you for leading this work for us. I can't wait to see these incredible learning experiences come to take uh shape and fruition next year. So, thank you for the people and the teachers who put in for the grants and thank you for the students who get to benefit for this hard work. So, thank you so much to our foundation. Thank you. Thank you so much, Miss Spicer. All great stuff that's going on here. um yeah into the education foundation I think $148,000 of grants is significant

018for our teachers and all that money goes straight into classrooms which I think is um such needed so needed for this time because I know teachers kind of take out of their own pockets to make ensure that their lessons and their curriculum and everything is engaging. So thank you so much for that. Um, moving on to item number seven, information item and reports. Uh, Trusty Bledsoe, do you have any questions on that item 7 A or 7B? Okay, great. Mr. uh, Trusty Davis, do you have any questions? No. Uh, Trusty Vidia, no. Trusty uh Gillery, no. Uh, trusty OOA, no. Trusty Patton? No, ma'am. Okay, moving on to item number eight. Review, discuss, and take appropriate action on K12 math resource adoption and purchase. for this um item. We have moved it up because we

019have guests who are going to who are speaking teachers and we don't want to keep them too terribly late. So, we've moved this item up. Um as the uh speakers are speaking, um we're going to let them go through the entire presentation. You have notepads on your um on your table right next to you. If you have any questions, if you would just please write it down there. I'm not looking at anybody. I'm looking at everybody. I'm not singling out anybody here, but if you have questions, if you would please just write them down and then at the end, we'll go ahead and open up open up the floor for discussion. Okay. Uh Dr. Cornbloom. Hi, good evening, Madame President, trustees, and Dr. Spicer. Okay. Well, let's jump in. So, we are going to talk

020about our K12 and math resource adoption. And so what we're going to do is talk about it from the standpoint of the district process, the campus process, and then um the resources and get and also um get some feedback from teachers as well. So um why this matters. So really I mean in looking at our math resources um you might have seen this in your memo. So I'll let you read kind of what's up on the screen but this is important to us because it has been since 2014 since a math adoption um has taken place here in Waco. Those run on a cycle with the state. The last math adoption was pushed by the state and so this is the first time that they have come up again for adoption. So we've um adopted

021um science curriculum last year um English curriculum 2020 and then um I think it was 2019 also another part of that um English curriculum and then prek was bought in there as well. So but 11 years since we've had a math adoption. So the focus of this when you're buying new curriculum resources is really to focus on your tier one instruction. So looking at the resource that we can put in the hands of teachers to teach their lessons um every day. So things that we were considering when we approached this adoption really came from not only what we know but also feedback received from teachers as well. So obviously which resources provided strong tier one instruction without heavy modifications. um that you know came a lot from um think about our reading how folks have

022talked about a lot of having too many resources and different things like that. So really what what can we put in their hands that won't um have to be supplemented as much right now with our current math um curriculum because it is a bit outdated um we have um had to provide supplemental resources to plug holes because our TEICSS have changed the test has changed and so we've we've plugged that way. So, we considered if the mass resource um or the the resource supported students at mastering grade level standards effectively, how well did the resource align to our instructional vision? So, we've been working on a math framework for the last two years that we want to continue with that framework and so we wanted a resource that would fit inside of that framework. Did

023the resource provide support for teachers in both content knowledge and pedigogy? So if I'm a new teacher, helping me understand not only what I'm teaching, but also how to deliver that instruction to my students as well and then focus on selecting the best foundational resource for core instruction. So, um, you've seen this timeline before. Um, we've provided it. And so, this started way back, um, actually before, um, March 17th, late February, there was a symposium that happened at region 12 where, um, folks could come and look at all of the resources from different vendors. And so, um, we took a team of people from the curriculum instruction department, looked at different vendors that were there and, um, then invited vendors into the district to showcase their their resources here in the boardroom actually. And then

024we continued onto the process, um, campus level or district level, then campus level, and now here we are today. So, how did the district level vetting process look? So at the district level, we started with um a group of our curriculum coordinators. Um some instructional specialists provided um principles were invited um instructional um or sorry teacher leaders from various campuses. So this wasn't inclusive of all principles. You know, this was kind of a smaller group of folks. There were more invited than um than actually showed up. And I had that on a sticky and I forgot to bring those numbers with me. So when my my support system over here comes up and speaks if we want that one um they can um pull those numbers for us. So what we did at this level

025is the vendors came and actually presented and um talked to us about their resources more in depth than what was at the re at the service center. And so again we were looking at um the core structure of the components for each program ensuring that things aligned. We've been talking about alignment, right, a lot always when we talk about curriculum um not just with our state standards but also with our priorities and identifying any immediate concerns that would prevent a resource from moving for um forward. So something that might have pre prevented a resource from moving forward might have been that um it was approved for maybe K2 but it wasn't approved for three through five or you know something along those lines. So looking at you know different different components like that. Um so

026this rubric um that you see in front of you is this was actually produced by the state board of education. It's a rubric that they used when they were vetting things. So we condensed it a bit and brought it into the district. And so this is the rubric that we used after each presentation to rate the resources. And so they were individually rated by each member and then those ratings were compiled um to to see which ones were viable to move forward. So it was on a rating scale of one to four for each of those components. I do want to go back just a sec. It's hard to see up there, but that first one is um instruct the instructional design. Thank you. Um the reason I wanted to really draw in on that

027one, they're all important, but that one especially because that's where we were looking for that clear scope and sequence. um looking for unit support. So if you remember in reading after our board workshop that evening how um we left with the charge of creating those unit maps and so we wanted something that already had that built in and then also the lesson plan support. So because that's something that we had heard a lot from teachers um so I just wanted to draw attention to that one. So that was a a an area that was looked upon heavily. So once um all um all resources were rated and all comments were discussed um we compiled all of that and came up with the things that were in support of a resource or some of the things

028that eliminated some of our resources. So factors that supported a resource um to move forward was um looking at if it had strong alignment with standards um clear and structured lesson design that supports tier one instruction, high quality print and digital resources for teachers and students. It needed a um English and Spanish um version support for elementary and I'll talk about that a little bit more here in a little bit. Embedded supports for conceptual understanding and problem solving. So those supports to push our um kids to higher level thinking and then a user friendly platform. Um that's also something that we heard when we were talking about some of of our current um resources is that you know teachers might be clicking and doing different things like that and for some teachers that was maybe

029problematic. Um challenges that could have led to elimination was or were that they required significant supplement supplementation. So, it was a resource, but it didn't fully meet all the criteria. So, we were still going to have to supplement. Or, as I said a minute ago, that maybe they wasn't fully approved. Parts were approved, but not all were um approved. Weak or inconsistent alignment with best practices in math, limited teacher supports um and for content knowledge and pedigogy. Um complex or non-intuitive digital platform, so just hard to maneuver. Um lack of balance between procedural fluency and conceptual. So could have been too procedural, right? It didn't push our students to where they needed to be and then Spanish translate translation was not effective. So that's where I want to talk about talk about that for a

030sec. So when we were over here, the following resources were initially considered. So Agile Mind for 6 through 12 um Great Minds, which is the the partner with the Blue Bonnet um on the elementary side, and then Carnegie, which is the partner for the Blue Bonnet Texas Resource um on the secondary side. I Ready classroom mathematics was this a K through eight and then Kdum you know that we've heard a lot about I Ready. We have I Ready testing we have I Ready intervention. Some people have a lovehate relationship with I Ready. Um so I bring that up because as we were reviewing that resource, one of the things that came up from actually Mrs. Benson, who's our director of um our English learners department, is um in the Spanish version, she was noticing that

031the translation um in the the Spanish like student book, some of the things were actually at a lower level than what the English version was. And um she said, you know, and I wouldn't have known that necessarily that it didn't um push the students to where they needed to go. And then also it wasn't fully approved in in all areas. Um, so considered then after we looked at all of the comments and the viable resources. So for elementary, great minds and I I focus on the great minds piece because great minds is a company that partnered with Texas to make the blue bonnet portion. Great minds is a company all on its own and so as we're looking at it um for this we are looking at the blue bonnet supports but buying or per

032you know adopting the whole blue bonnet or not blue bonnet but great platform. So we're looking at the whole program versus that slice because you can just look at that little piece. And then KDUM um Texas math also a viable resource. And then secondary agile mine and then also you may have heard of Carnegie before. Carne Carnegie has been around for a while. So if this um you know we're something that um goes forward we're looking at buying the whole Carnegie platform and their piece with the you know the blue bonnet um student editions. So how did that rating at the district level come out? So Agile Mine there were 20 all everybody could earn 24 points and so we had 18 and a half out of 24 for Agile Mine. Carnegie Blue Bonnet 21

033of 24 Great Mines 21 of 24 I Ready 15 and a half of 24 and KDUm um Texas 16 and a half out of 24. So the resources that went forward to campus committees were Agile Mind and Carnegie for the secondary resource and then Great Minds and KDUm for the elementary resource. So at the campus level um vetting um this is how the process went and I'm going to invite the teachers up here in a little bit to talk about this a little bit more because they're the ones that experienced that um on their campus. So the role of that was to gather feedback from teachers. So the expectation is that all teachers who teach math got to give input on this and so ensure materials they were looking at are they in line with

034their instructional needs. Um they were able to um look at the materials use them um and explore them reviewed um textbooks, digital platforms, lesson plans and explored sample lesson activities. So there was a training at the district level for campus reps who then took the process back to their campus and helped lead the process on their campus along with their administrators. So their responsibilities were to help um review and evaluate the resources on their campus. Um they used the provided rubrics, the same ones that we used at the district level back on campus. Um and they were given guidelines for that for consistency. They documented feedback that came from their committee so that when we got the feedback back, we could look at um people, you know, what folks thought were strengths and what um

035folks thought were areas for growth. There were um scheduled campus um level review sessions. They supported the reps supported their teachers in engaging with the materials and then submitted feedback by the designated date to the district level um facilitators. So, as you see, they were given the exact um same rubric, but there was a part added. They were asked to give overall comments about each resource, any questions that they had about each resource, and any concerns that they had about each resource. Um I sent out um actually to all of Waco ISD, so not just the math teachers, but to everyone in Waco. They received this um digital login information. So the digital demo accounts provided hands-on access to explore instructional materials um more in depth at another another level. And then um they were

036also so on the rubric, let me go back for just a second. On this rubric, the camp the campus reps were trained on what this was, but our um campus level coordinators also designed a look for sheet to really go more in depth with each of those categories so that they if they were like, well, what does this mean exactly? They have a look for page that they could use to help them reference. So, do you want to open that? Just a second. There we go. Can you make it just a little bigger? So, I won't read all of these, but it just I just wanted you to get a clearer picture of like what when we say look fors, what did that mean within each category and how it described those things. So, when

037we were talking about in um intentional design, so clear course level scope and sequence um pacing guidelines. So, you know, did it have a suggested pacing, the rationale for the unit, um did it describe what this is about? Um unit and lesson internalization protocols. So, if we are looking at um having our teachers not spend as much time lesson planning, is there a process built into the resource that helps them go through the lesson that they're going to teach to internalize what they're going to then turn around in their classroom? So these these areas provided more specific look fors within each category for them to um consider if they were like I'm not sure what that means. Okay. Thank you Mr. Allen. Oops. And then um so that all went out. I believe that was

038on the 3rd. And then on the fourth there was um up up on our curriculum floor um our curriculum coordinators had kind of a reception a come and go where folks could also come here and look at other samples that were here and ask specific questions about them if they had other questions other you know maybe their campus rep um you know maybe didn't have the answer or they just wanted to come and ask specific questions of our coordinators. So that was here that was come and go. I think we said we had what 45 about 46 for elementary. Do you about 25 for secondary who came? Is that teachers or teachers? So So I am now going to invite um our teachers up just to talk to you about their process on campus and

039you know as they were vetting um how that process went for them. So we have Anna McDair from Parkdale Elementary, Christina Munoz from Kendrick, Stephanie Marstellar from GW Carver, and Milton Hulcom from University High School. Hi, good evening. So I'm Christina Munoz from Kendrick Elementary and I was the campus rep. Um, so I just wanted to kind of give you like a little sneak peek of what it was like on our campus when we were doing this process. Um, so like Dr. Dr. Cornbloom said she sent out the uh digital platforms for us to get access to and my principal uh Isabelle Lozano sent that out as like our pre-work. So we teachers got to like I don't know for lack of a better word like play around with the platforms to see um kind

040of get an idea of what both uh resources had to offer. Um and then after speaking with Miss McNair we had a very similar process on the campus. So on the campus level, what we did is we all met in the library, all the um teachers, and we kind of grounded ourselves back with those core beliefs for um and just kind of aligned ourselves to what the expectations were from a good resource. And then I went through the uh the rubric to kind of clarify anything that was needed um as well. And we had the look for page that made it very easy for us to follow. Um and then we sat in like grade level uh oh I'm sorry grade level um yeah small groups and you might see so like a group of

041second grade teachers looking through Kdum for example we had the physical resources we had some samples and then we also had some teachers every teacher every group had like a laptop with the platform open and available while we were going through the rubrics. So every grade level was responsible for going through each one individually. So we sat you might see like a group of fourth grade teachers looking through you know the blue bonnet curriculum and seeing what they had as far as you know the digital platforms what was available and those physical um resources as well. And then we went through those look fors and we really were just I mean the teachers were very meticulous and on those look fors like even giving like text evidence where they found hey look this is where

042I found uh that it was supporting collaboration and we really were um like I said just very like thorough going through the things and then Miss Mcnar she's going to speak to um some things that she did special on her campus as well. So our campus did the same thing pretty much. We met in the library. K through five math teachers got together and we talked about all the components. We looked at KDUm, we looked at great minds and um we we did basically the same thing she did where we sat and we wrote out what we thought were the strengths and weaknesses and you know pieces that might be missing or if we had questions. In addition, I brought it back to my class and I passed out some of the workbooks and I

043let the kids look through it. Um, and they were able to give me feedback on what they liked and what they didn't like. So, that was interesting just to get it from a kids perspective as well. Um, at university our process was very similar. Um, so I took the paper materials back after the district training and then I distributed them to the different PLC's so that teachers could independently look through them and then we could get together in our PLC's kind of as our own specialties. Then we did come together as a department later on and um I sent out the rubric that you guys saw back in I believe the first week of April sometime so they knew exactly what to look for when they were looking through all the resources and we met

044just kind of informally off and on to see oh did you see in this and if someone hadn't taught or had taught something before you know do you like this that and the other thing so we had some informal and some more. All right. And at Carver, our process was slightly different. Uh we did not have any PLC's planned during this time. And so we gave the online resources out to all of our teachers. And then after we had met as reps for the campus, I was able to bring the um hard copy books back. And so each grade level received the appropriate book for their grade level. And each teacher received a copy of the rubric. And then they had about a week to go through resources, fill out the rubric, and then I

045met with each of them to make sure I understood where their concerns and questions were and what they liked about it. And then just um averaged out those rubrics to submit for our campus. All right. Thank you all. So when um when that scoring came back after that process happened um this was due back to the district I think on April 23rd 25th. So it came back on the 25th and the scores were tabulated and so where you see the campuses um the green means that that campus um scored a higher for you know whichever one. So, Grapevines or or KDUm, the area where you see that they have two. So, Dean Highland um is the only one that had two, that campus was split. Um so, half of the campus liked one resource and

046half of the campus liked the other. And so, at the elementary level, 11 and a half of our campuses um sent back feedback that they preferred Grape Mines um over KDUm. And that left three and a half campuses that preferred KDUm. So this is a generalization the numbers that I'm getting ready to give you um because obviously you know on a campus when the generalization is if we're saying that a campus voted more heavily for the resource then we average those teachers into the the yes column right I mean the 11 and a half that that's the actual but here's a generalization so for great minds blue bonnet out of 280 teachers um math teachers there were 218. So 11 and a half campuses, that would be 218 math teachers or 78% of math teachers

047felt that the Great Minds Blue Bonnet um resource was more appropriate for them to deliver lessons to teach their children and to get them to where they needed to be. and 62 out of 280, which was 22% felt that KDUm was the resource that they would have preferred at the high school level. Well, let's let's pause here. I'm going to actually invite our elementary guys back because I want them to talk to you because I could look at the resources all day from my standpoint, but I'm not the one in the classroom using it, right? So, I'm going to invite our elementary teachers back up and so they're going to share with you a little bit about what they thought their strengths and areas of growth were for great minds and then same for Kdum.

048Okay. Um you can read the strengths and weaknesses. I just wanted to share that personally what I really liked is that this particular book uses CRA. It's a way of teaching math that um there's a lot of research behind it. There's training at region 12 and it uses concrete items first and then it goes into using those items to uh create a picture and in that picture you can use tallies or you can use dots and then it goes into building the equation. And this is a very fluid system so that if somebody is having trouble understanding the abstractness of an equation, you can always move them back to uh concrete or to the pictorial model. So at any point in time, my kids are using this. This is research that that has been done.

049And so I have I've been using this, but it's not streamlined in the way that it is in blue bonnet because our envision is outdated. I've been using about seven or eight different resources to plug and create the lesson plan that our district uses the framework that it uses. So, because it is aligned to our framework, because it uses CRA, um I I really enjoyed looking through all of the material. In addition, it had a bilingual component. More and more bilingual students are coming into my classroom. I've enjoyed working with three this year that came in only speaking Spanish. They were my greatest uh they achieved the greatest growth in my class. One girl grew 293%. And so I was really happy, but it was a struggle. Um we had iPads with Google Translate and

050there is no Spanish book or uh there's no book for the ESL. And so this particular um program had it has little side notes for some of the students who are a little further along, but it also has Spanish book that I was very happy to to see because we use that Google translate to mixed reviews. So um I don't know if you let her go on. Yeah. Okay. And like Miss VNER, you can uh see the strengths and uh areas of growth for KDUm as well. But honestly, what it it came down to the numbers when you're looking at these pre these programs. Um I mean this I'll start my 18th year next year and you just you learn that no resource is perfect. Obviously there's just there's always going to be something that

051um that's why there's areas of growth for both for both programs. But what it came down to is it's just the numbers. We went through the things and it wasn't like Kdum was like, "Oh, this is a horrible resource. Let's walk out." You know, we're not grandstanding against it. It was just that when you're putting these two side by side, like you can't argue with the fact that these had just better things that or it just had more of the things that we needed. Thus, the numbers that you saw, you know, on those rubrics, 21 out of 24, I think, versus like 16. And so, um, we no bias toward it. We just sat, looked at it, and, um, and that's why I, I, and I, I agree with everything she said with the the

052blue bonnet. Um, that it just meets our needs a little bit better. And you'll have time at the end if you want to ask them more specific questions about the resources in general because these will be your guides, as will our coordinators be over me. Okay, at the secondary level we were looking at Carnegie and Agile Mine. Um obviously fewer secondary campuses. So um on that one we had um four of our um six campuses um felt that Carnegie was the resource that they would rather have and two of our campuses um went for agile mind. So now I'm going to invite the secondary teachers back up to talk about those um resources. Hello again. All right. Uh, I'm going to talk to you all a little bit about Carnegie. As everybody else has already

053said, you can read the screen, but uh, I'm just going to point out a few of the strengths that were really important to me and my colleagues. Um, we really appreciate it. The TE's alignment and the pacing guides and lessons that were already um, provided in this resource. And then one really big one uh, was the vertical alignment. It vertically aligns K through 12. Uh and so if we selected this resource, it would be a lot easier easier for us in terms of vocabulary and things, the knowledge that kids are already coming to us with at a higher level uh because we can use that same vocabulary and and align it a lot easier for them. Sorry, excuse me. Um the agile minds the strengths that we found or that we discussed were the questioning.

054It is heavy on the conceptual less on just procedural. Um it did have a lot of suggested questions for teachers to ask and to kind of lead student thinking. Um, and then some of the or a big area of growth especially that I found is when we're getting a new resource, we want to make well might be selfish. I want to make my job easier. And um, the agile mind just didn't really have a lesson plan. It had a list of questions to ask, but we would still be making our own resources pretty much uh, coming up with our own materials. So that was a big area of concern for me. Not that it had bad ideas, just that we would have to fill a lot of gaps. All right. So, um, because of all

055of those reasons and just really taking into consideration the feedback that was sent back to us, because as I said before, both resources at both levels that were put out were considered viable resources, right? We went through that that vetting here and wouldn't have put those out to be looked at if not. And so, really, the decision came down to what came back from campuses. And so for elementary um the feedback came back as you already saw the great um great vines blue bonnet resource and then the Carnegie learning um blue bonnet resource. So um this this is just next that if um you know if we were to go in this direction um I wanted everyone to see that we've developed a professional development plan um starting in June with administrators and then phasing

056on through. Um, there's some optional training for teachers over the summer. If they were able to come over the summer, what that would mean for them is that when they came back to school that they would get one of their days back if they came to the training over the summer. So, they would have more time in their classroom. And then fall training um that says to be determined because it's going to be based on need, right? So, once we see implementation, what what are we seeing out there that they need more support with? So for those district professional development days, those topics will be decided based on what we see by our presence on campus, but then both companies um have developed a professional development plan to where they'll come and also provide on-site

057coaching um in the fall and spring to help us look at implementation as well. So, um, looking at our our year, that's how the professional development because I know we've talked about before, anytime you're rolling something out, whatever it is, you need a strong PD plan and a strong support plan so that that learns or that rolls out well. And this um, you know, it is kind of switching the way we look at things. So, kind of moving from your teacher planning that lesson to sort of the lesson being there and then going through this internalization process, which is a different process. So, now I'm going to open it up for questions and I'm just going to go ahead and ask you all to come back up because I think Great. Is there any questions?

058I'd like for us to go back to any slides. Just Perfect. Yeah. Great. Just before we really start with the questions, uh can you explain a little bit about House Bill 1605 and what is meant by high quality instructional materials and also ask the coordinators if they want to explain a little bit more too. So the new process um so going back we used to adopt resources on a proclamation process and so the state developed because of this um a process that we called IM. You'll hear it referred to as EMRA, which is instructional instructional materials review adoption. And so they have come up with criteria that identifies high quality instructional materials according to them. And so as they are vetting all of these materials, the materials um have to meet that those standards that

059they've outlined. Um, another thing in HB16005 is it's not the teachers can't lesson plan, but it's looking at the time spent on that and the amount of time that we um can ask teachers to spend on that. And so they put in there that um I forget how it's worded, but it so much time cannot be spent on actual planning of lessons versus internalization of lessons. And so that all came out of that bill. So, I mean, I'm just going to keep asking. Yep, that's great. Jump in. Uh, so this is kind of new to me. I apologize. The curriculum based on on what their definition of high quality instructional materials is. Would you say the current our current math curriculum, would you consider that high quality? So progress monitoring, support for learners, depth and

060coherence, key concepts. So our curriculum, okay, so let's go back. The difference between a curriculum and a resource. So we're calling this curriculum, right? Because we would be we would be using this resource. The curriculum that we've been talking about now for years is the curriculum that we've written, right? The the units similar to what you all saw um at the board workshop for reading. And I'm sorry, Mr. blood so you weren't there but they're the units that we've built right those units yes it's the resource that's attached to the units so what I call our curriculum currently is are those documents similar to the ones that you have in reading and then the the resources embedded in there and it's how we teach it because that resource was adopted in 2014 that's where the

061snag is we keeping that document. Um, you know, that's okay. But no matter what, we need a new resource because that one it's just time. I mean, it's been 11 years. So, it's the resource within that document that's not working now. So, as a teacher, from a teacher's perspective, when I go to um lesson plan, I go to those curriculum documents that have been created and everything's there that I need. Everything's aligned to what we're supposed to teach for um the the tees, right? It it's all there. But when it's time for me to do that now, I go to my envision resource and then that's where the holes are, the my actual resource. So, the state of Texas says,"I need to teach this and I have all these things." And that's where I find

062that on that curriculum document. But then when I go to actually teach it in front of my class, well, this is the resource I have and it's just not meeting those needs because sometimes it's like common core and so some of those things aren't aligned and that's where the misstep is. So, I'm like, "Okay, I need to teach fractions to uh second graders here. Here I'm supposed to teach um halves, fourths, and eighths." And then I go to my resource and my resource is off, you know, it's gone off the rails and it's teaching all kinds of things that the state of Texas says, you know, this is what your focus is. So when I'm looking at this then, okay, envision doesn't meet my needs. Now I have to spend more time. Okay, let's find

063stuff. Let's create. Oh, we're creating all the time. Teachers are spending hours creating things to meet exactly what is um under that alignment. How long has it been that way for you? I I mean 18 years to what 14 that we've had in vision 11. Okay. 11. So you've had schools in your lessons. Why haven't we provided you with any support? Just the Well, we have support. So there are supports under there, but again, if we're looking at just wanting a resource, the resource, we want it more all-incclusive. So what we have right now just doesn't meet that. So we do have other things that we have engaging mathematics. The the problem is is that they're finding other resources to fill those gaps. They do that for us. However, now instead of just going to

064one place, now I have four or five places that so okay, I'm going to this book for this and this one for this and then that's where it kind of becomes that kind of jumbled mess. And so we're hoping to find something that has everything, you know, more of what we need all at once. Before you step away, ma'am. Um, what grade do you teach? Currently, second grade. Have you ever taught from a scripted um program? Yes, sir. Mhm. Do you find that that is because I've looked at both of these programs for elementary and one of those is highly highly scripted. Teacher, you say this. Students, you say this. teacher, you say this. I thumb through that. As a former math teacher, I will be so bored out of my mind teaching from a

065program that is so highly scripted. And I think with my boredom from an educator standpoint, therefore, I would not be able to engage my students as I'm sorry, I've got candy in my mouth. as successfully as if I was following this rigidly, I would say, scripted program that is found within Blue Bonnet. Okay. Um, so what I think you're speaking to is the difference in the science of teaching and the art of teaching. And so you're what I feel like you're coming from like years of experience. So that would be where if I'm a brand new baby teacher, I don't have the art of teaching down yet. I need that script to help me through because I don't even know what I don't know. But as a veteran or a seasoned teacher, that's your art

066of teaching that you're going to make that come alive in the classroom. So yes, you have a script there. No one's telling us that we have to follow you this. It's not robotic. It's not meant to be that, but it's supposed to be that support for I'm also a coach. I coach teachers who are, you know, some that aren't even certified yet that we're working on their c certification currently. And so for them to see that planned out, but that's where we support each other in our PLC's and we we do practice teaches and we come together so that if you're bored to tears doing it, well, guess what? Mr. Davis, he's over here. He's going to model a lesson. This is how I'm going to turn it around. You know, then we Mr. Roto

067is going to come over here and this is how I would teach it and use the script as a guide, not necessarily as um like a hard and fast. This is what I have to do. Can do you mind if I if I chime in? Um when I did look at those those scripted pieces, I thought there's no way the student is going to say what is on there. Um and I did talk to Miss Sanders a little bit about it. And so I just felt like as I read through the whole script though, it was a great way to remember where misconceptions happen and what misconceptions might be going on. As a seasoned teacher, I already know where they're going to stumble, but it's better to plan out how you're going to handle those

068misconceptions. And so to me, I just read it. Um, new teachers can go ahead and try and use some of those questions in order to get at some of those misconceptions. But for me it was just a great way to remember what am I teaching, what kind of content am I trying to get through this, you know, out of this lesson and where might misconceptions be happening and you can see that as they are going through those questions. They are specifically targeting misconceptions. So I just saw it as a as a way to internalize the lesson plan. Madam President, yes, Mr. Davis. Um, sorry. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Uh I just we were talking about that at one point and something for me was as a seasoned teacher like having the

069questions and the misconceptions there like they have all said it helps those newer teachers who aren't quite sure where the misconceptions are or what kinds of questions to ask because that is something that we're often asked like in our lesson plans have you pre-thought your questions right and so this gives us a starting point but additionally I think that I might think something is a misconception And this helps us see what other areas are misconceptions or maybe why it's a misconception in a way that I may not have thought of. So, I appreciate all the work you guys did on this. I think my question is what are we planning to do to make sure it's not another 11 years and we're suffering for long periods? What what are we doing to regularly review this

070and pivot when we need to? Yeah. So, so with the current adoption it well it was 11 years so I've been here six so right it it was here predated me and so as they said we were reviewing and and getting the supplemental things to plug but as you'll see a math resource adoption is pretty expensive right and so it's not something that you can just you know so the thing with these the way they're doing to your point about the high quality materials and the IMR process is um they're doing them now more on a yearly so that if you get into something um that doesn't pan out that it is a little bit easier to pivot out of it. Um though with that said you would have to start training and all of

071that other stuff over again. Um, I think that's why or not why we would have gone through we we have a textbook adoption process no matter what. But this one was really diligent because we wanted to get it right. Um, and so I think that's just listening right to to what they're saying. And so, um, as they said, you you know, they were telling us where things were missing and we were buying things to plug those, but it's just like with reading, you know, having to go to more than one place and so that just makes things more time consuming for them. Yes, Mr. Bitzo, is there any data that you can give me that says, "Hey, school district X went to these curriculums and test scores went from A to B." Yes. So, I'm

072going to let the coordinators talk about that because we asked um our vendors to tell us the districts so that they could, you know, give us the data and so they did that. So, I'll let them share that. Hi. Okay. So, I have I'm sorry. I'm Tiffany Flores. I'm the secondary math coordinator. Um, and I got to speak with two school districts. Um, the first one, well, the first one, um, so both of them did NAP testing and so this is current right now. So, this year, um, because this the district I'm about to tell you now, they just started it. So, if you were to look at the taper, you can't really tell because they just started it because this will be their first year taking STAR. But as far as their MAP testing,

073um, out of 500 students, 340 students met growth. So, 68% of their students grew. What district was that? Conley ISD. When you talk about I'm sorry, Miss Flores. When you talk about growth, what does that mean? Set their growth goals. So meaning they're at target or what what does that mean? It was on map so I'm not sure exactly how it targets but so we don't know what the kind of breath of that growth she just told me um out of 500 340 um met growth. How long have they been using it? I can't this was they started this this was their first year using it. So they don't have their star data yet. Yeah. To show that. Okay. Okay. So just growth. Okay. Great. Thank you. Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt you. Oh, no,

074it's okay. Um, the second district is East Central High. Um, they said that, and this is for teachers for their MAP test, that 60% I mean 40% exceeded student growth. 40% of teachers exceeded their growth for their students. And so that means that 60% or more um met growth for their students. And that one's for what was the district about East Central? It East Central High and it's is it East Central ISTD or East Yeah, it's in it's San Antonio. That district I went and pulled taper reports on them because that that's a you know the number that they gave. I just wanted to see because that's their star scores. They've been using it a little bit longer. And so what I would say about them is they had incremental growth. it. Now, I mean,

075to be honest, it wasn't like you were going to see like 20 percentage points, you know, but they had incremental growth. Um, but overall, just kind of on average, they were at least 10 percentage points higher in most areas than what we're um scoring right now. Their demographics a little bit different um than ours, but um so they could have been a little higher anyway, right? But I mean based on where their their scores already were. But I looked from it was 2022 through and it was kind of steady incremental gains with them. How long have they used that program? Dr. Cornbloom. Um I think they said four years East Central did you uh Dr. Cornblum or Miss Flores? Uh did you find data from Temple as I had asked? I did. I did look

076at Temple. Temple it it was almost identical to theirs. They're incremental. No, I mean nothing that was just like you know um they're higher sitting higher than us um just like East Central was um to begin with and so but they're not going backwards and so it's you know like I said incremental gains. Do you happen to know what Temple was using before they went? I don't know what before, but they went they actually have the other version. So, they're using um is it Eureka? Eureka. So, when it first came out before it switched to grape vines and and this blue bonnet version they started with Eureka. So, they've used it for what two years then? Because switched over, didn't I think this past year for them? I think it may have been three for

077them. Okay. Because they they jumped on, right? I mean early when it came out. I mean they they were some of the first around here to move that direction. Is our is our current uh program that we're using? It is uh state approved. Correct. It is. Is it fall within NCTM lines, national math standards? It's not they don't it's not like aligned to those standards. Are either of these programs, KDUm or Blue Bonnet, aligned to NCTM uh standards? Yes, both are. Okay, thank you. Uh I just want to take a moment and thank um Miss McNair, Miss Moz, Miss Marstellar, and Mr. Hulcom for being here. I appreciate you speaking, and I know you guys have a wealth of experience. Um I also wanted to thank you, Dr. corn bloom for putting very um both

078the strengths and the areas of growth. I think those were very significant for being um transparent in that. That was very clear that you're kind of just laying it all out for the board to see. And so I really do appreciate you doing that. Um the as I look through here, I have in over my years um started to look for subtleties and notice that small subtleties that start from the top actually grow and kind of create either a bigger um uh impact or bigger chasm um as they kind of trickle down through um the schools into the schools. You know, I um I when I see the Blue Bonnet curriculum specifically for the elementary and I see few areas of growth through ready to go stations, limited small group and extension activities, um engagement

079strategies are limited but not enough opportunities for creative exploration. Many teaks packed in short modules. Heavy workbook reliance. Um number of students may be work o workbooks for young kids may be overwhelming. Not enough built-in student exploration, student voice and choice is limited. I really do. I appreciate you writing that there. And that to me gives me a little bit of a pause because I'll I'll let you address it. Um it just gives me a little bit of a pause because I know that a lot of our you know little um elementary kids are they go from concrete to abstract and it usually isn't until third fourth fifth grade that they're starting to get into more the abstract and that hu really really strong concrete foundation is imperative for number sense later on. And so

080when I look I'm looking at this again through kind of a teaching eye. Um and so when I look for Kiddom and I see strong digital platform with real- time data tools I'm like whatever that is I want it because that it it means flexibility within the classroom. It ensures uh real- time data. You can do interventions a lot quicker and that is what you need when you are teaching elementary. And I would assume I've never taught secondary, but I would assume secondary you need that quick feedback for interventions and moving kids around and grouping and uh so so those those really kind of give me a little bit of a pause to be like hip hip hooray. Um but I will let you address those. Actually um I want Miss Sanders to address. So

081um specifically when you're talking about the intervention and those parts, there is another part to the great minds platform that we didn't receive in our materials um because it's being developed. I think that so I want her to talk a little bit about that because we'll get that but it wasn't in the review and I know less about that than Miss Sanders does. So I want her to speak to that. Great. Thank you, Miss Sanders. Good evening. Okay. So when it comes to I know like as far as like workbooks heavy workbooks. So um at the time when teachers got to review these resources um they did not have access to great mind's digital platform because that is a piece that we have to purchase and so it wasn't like open for teachers to kind

082of get in and play with. So all they had was the padlet which had the PDFs of like the teacher editions, student editions and then they had also had the hard copies. um the only thing that they could see is kind of like a video of what the digital platform could offer. And so within that digital platform, yes, they have the option to use the student workbooks, but through the digital platform, they can be able to assign those same assignments to students. So it's not all workbooks. They will have access to technology and all of those things. Um when it comes to small groups, so how the uh resource is structured, it allows for like 60 minute. Um our math block allows for 90 minutes. And so they also have an addition um to that

083called Catalyst. And with Catalyst, that's where teachers will be able to kind of supplement with many lessons that they can use at the teacher table. It also has a practice and application activities where students can do during learning sessions. Um while the teacher is pulling small group, um they also have a succeed book which is kind of like um a workbook with like they say like homework problems, but teachers also could utilize that um for a small group as well. We also have I ready already which we use for small group instru instruction but catalyst is going to be a plus because those activities are actually going to be aligned to what they are teaching for that day. Yeah the thank you so much Miss Sanders I appreciate that. I I think the uh uh

084I appreciate technology and I think it has its place in the classroom and it can be utilized to really capture imaginations and capture kind of creative um u can help um in the learning process. I think um when I see I mean I I I hear you when you say you know something is scripted you know we've got this digital thing that's going to be developed we haven't really seen it yet it kind of makes me pause a little bit we just don't have access to you don't which als yeah yeah which also kind of makes me pause a little bit and and it's mainly just because it's like oh here's this nice car yeah I'm not going to let you test drive it but here it is kind of thing so that's that's My

085only pause not with you guys but maybe with the company itself saying hey you should have probably let us see this and given access again not with you all and I did do my due diligence. Yes like it was just within the time frame I wasn't able to but yeah it is very evident through the rubric and all that you guys have done a fantastic job at setting this up. So, I want you to hear that you've done a great job setting this up, but it's more of these are these are just question and it's not a knock on you all. It's more a knock on the company and really trying to see what is going to meet the needs of our students. And I understand um you know the um you we we can

086I ask another question kind of totally unrelated to this? Yes. also cuz there you said me you mentioned about like student choice and that kind of thing and I didn't get to talk about that um but the structure of how the lessons flow um there is a con like a application problem and so that kind of provides opportunities for students to choose how they're going to solve they can choose the strategy they can choose um the type of model that they want to use so that kind of honors students choice there and then also when you go into application practice is that is where tier uh the concept development sorry that's where the core instruction is coming in for the day and so you it's kind of outlined with a mustd do should do could

087do framework and so with that um teachers have the tonomy okay so like I would say a must do is going to be your exit ticket because that's aligned to like the lesson and how students are going to show mastery but then you have your um should do which is going to be like additional practice and reinforcement and then your could do is for those babies that already have it and um they just kind of need more complex thinking and extension and so that also honors student choice as well. Okay. So the you're telling me some of the differentiation that we're looking for is yeah I can speak to everything throughout from fluency down to student debrief and then also CRA is heavily embedded in each lesson. And so if I have a lesson that

088calls for more abstract as a teacher, then I can differentiate and provide students with manipulatives or I could have them draw me a picture. And so there's multiple ways that teachers can differentiate throughout. And if I'm not mistaken, that's correct in both programs. The differentiation opport Yes, ma'am. Yes. Yes. I'm I'm Stephanie. Did you Did I you off? I'm so sorry. Sorry. I just have two questions because I'm trying to get it uh I'm trying to get my mind kind of around it. Tier one about what is tier one instruction? I know I think I know what it is, but I want to hear it. Your first teach, what's going to get us there in the first time and I have to supplement with different resources. So, it's aligned to grade level. So, we're not

089This is not our intervention tiers that we're doing. Tier one student. Tier one is like your first teach core instruction. And then when I need to scaffold, then that's where I'm going into tier two. Tier three when you're doing your that. Okay. Okay. So, so when you say tier, you mean just a direct teach everyone. Whole class. Yes, ma'am. Gotcha. Thank you. I was getting confused with the tier. I'm thinking of interventions and then we have behavior tiers. And there's lots of tiers around here. Um and then the second question I had maybe for Dr. Spicer and then we'll go to Mr. Bledo and uh Mr. Benton. Uh Dr. Spicer, approximately how many first year teachers do we have in our district? I have no idea. Thank you. How many no sorry first year first

090year teachers HR do you know Dr. Kadine about how many first year even a percentage if it's not a 30% 20% first year 22 there you go okay so it's and when you say that I just want to say like just looking at this resource I always try to keep it center what's going to give us the best of both worlds we have campuses that have had vacancies all school year um you might have a long-term sub or you might have someone that's coming in and out um but then you also have your veteran teacher so what resource is going to meet the needs of both and provide an equitable opportunity for all of our students. Okay. Thank you. I have uh two questions kind of as it relates to buyin. Um as a parent,

091did y'all give any consideration uh to allowing parents to speak into this? We actually have um we had someone on the committee that is a parent. Um his kid actually goes to Hillrest Elementary. Okay. Um, so he was a part of all of our meetings. Um, but then also some of our teacher leaders have kids in the district as well. And was was there any consideration to providing like an open forum for parents to come and view the material to speak into it? No. No. Okay. And then secondly, um, there are schools that that obviously did not like Blue Bonnet. Um, what would you tell them? What did they miss? What are they missing? Um I have spoke to a couple districts that um as far as not liking it or it not going well.

092It's the districts that are not doing it with 100% fidelity. Um but I guess I mean specifically like schools in Waco eyes like schools that reviewed this material did not like it. Who did not like what what what are they missing? Wake High Hill Hillrest. Um, and was there any consideration to like bringing people from there to speak on what they didn't like? um trying to think because the strengths and weak the pros and cons for both but I think um I think what really drove I don't know you could probably speak on I think what trustee Bledo is trying to get at is we've heard from teachers who support this one selection but we know that Hillrest Lake Air Dean Highland uh Provident Heights half a Dean Highland uh Tennyson and Waco High do

093not did not vote for this curriculum. We've heard from uh Mr. Hulcom. We've heard from you guys who supported one program over the other. We didn't we've not heard from those schools who chose not to to select it that way. And before they answer, I'll answer that. Usually what happens is we say we do our homework as a system. So district level, campus level, everyone, we will bring you a recommendation. And so tonight, we're bringing you the recommendation. So since this was the recommendation from our entire district, that's the only one you're going to be hearing about tonight because that's the recommendation from administration to the board. And so that's why you're hearing from us about this particular set of curriculums for elementary and secondary. I'm well aware of that. Yes, sir. And my not

094to be not to be dismissive, but when we're being asked to select a curriculum, we we are making this choice and we want to be able to hear both sides. Uh and knowing that looking at the rubric and knowing that one high school out of our two high schools did not vote for a curriculum that we will be sitting here in a few minutes and casting a vote for greatly concerns me. So therefore, I would want to hear from those other folks why why did they not go with uh Carnegie Blue Bonnet and why did some do it? We're hearing from the people who said yes. But I'm also wanting to make a good vote. I want to hear from those people who looked at both and went this wasn't for for our campus. And

095I think that Dr. Spicer is and Dr. Cornbloom is where I'm coming from hearing one side but needing to hear what those others folks said. We're we're going to make a selection and Waco High has said they don't want it. Is this is the areas of growth is that the feedback from the schools where Waco High and Tennyson and any other school that might have not voted for this their feedback is in this areas of growth. Correct. All this feedback is Yes. Yes. So the strength and weaknesses are all this is from campuses what the teachers provided like all this information was compiled from all the campus feedback we received and this is what's being presented. So what's up there for great minds didn't just come from the rubrics of the campus campuses who voted

096for great minds. That's collectively all the rubrics put together. The these are their comments about this whether they they voted for it or they didn't vote for it. This is how they felt and same for Kdum and so whether they wanted it or not these are the things they said and same for Agile Mine and um Carnegie. Yeah, I think the administration, you know, chose this and they have these teachers here telling us why. But I wanted to talk to the um 18 year veteran teacher Yeah. back here. Hello. Sure. So, my my question um have you been a part of a a process like this before as far as choosing curriculum and being involved at this level? Have you have you done this before? So this is my first time being involved in this.

097Well, like we said, we've had this for what 11 years. So this is it's about time for it to come up for adoption. So I've was um I'm actually part of the math cohort that we have. So I've been a part of that process building those you know what we what she presented as our core beliefs and our values and what we expect from math. I'm I'm part of that process and then I was also um you know as a campus rep uh going through that as well. So, no, I just I think it's awesome to have this type of input and even having students involved in this. I know because you usually don't get any like as long as I've been here and you're just given something and so we actually like hey this

098is part our opinion and not just mine. I mean it like I said it was the campus collective and so I believe the norm is for the administration to pick the curriculum and bringing teachers and students and all these um individuals in at a at a you know collabor you know collaborating like this I think this is huge. Yeah, it's I see the majority. I think we had 78% at the elementary school level. I think it's um I think the teachers in administration kind of is kind of speaking on this and I'm listening to you and I appreciate y'all being a part of the process and bless math teachers. So, thank you. Um I I do have a question. I I guess um the state might change every tomorrow, right? So tonight we might leave

099here and this changes. So, I'm trying to Are you guys considering like would this be a easy resource to pivot with if we're in a situation where we're stuck in this period where we can Well, we're we're looking at this um right now as a one-year recommendation. Um so, we're not we're not asking for a multi-year contract on this. So, a one year. Now, I will say, like I said, if we felt collectively that we needed to pivot, um, you know, that's retraining and all of those things, which we would do if if folks felt that way, but we're not locked into this for multiple years. But, so there's no there's no economic impact if one year from now we say we hate this. I have those numbers. Great. So with the new process, let

100me let me talk about funding just a little bit. And I I want you and then they can speak to this or just I guess vouch for it is that funding was never mentioned in terms of because we know with the new state with 1605 came out new funding recommendations, right? So used to like I said we were on a sorry a proclamation process and you got money um every two years so bianium and you got a per a per pupil aotment and you had that and you used it to buy your textbooks and such or instructional technology so we have funding left we're at the end of that bienium but we're moving away from that the state is but we have um funding left in our old IMA account right now um for state

101board approved resources, your high-quality instructional materials that you referred to. Now, your standard kind of aotment per student is $40 per student. Buying what they're calling open educational resources, which is this the the blue bonnet, but this was not a consideration, but that's where you get the $20 extra. So, giving $60 per student um if you did that. So right now in IMA we have around and then that whole pot in those three buckets um 1,800 almost $42,000 in there. So and this you have this in your um on your memo as well. So this adoption is 1 million24,000 aroundish rounded. So that would leave us with about 817,000. A million dollars for an adoption is pretty standard. Like when we when we bought our um prek adoption, it was over a million because of

102all the resources it had. What we would be on for is um with Blue Bonnet um Great Minds at the elementary. We would not have to pay for the digital platform again or the if if we went on with it, right? if we continued or the um teacher editions, we would only we would only repurchase the workbooks for the student workbooks. So for um for the let me go back. So for the elementary that would be around 2003,000. Um for Carnegie we would repurchase um part of the digital access again and student workbooks which would be 263,000. So that would be the repurchase amount. How many workbooks Dr. Cornbloom uh for each student in elementary with it? Three. Three. We would be purchasing three workbooks every year or are those that is the total price

103I gave you for so that for if we went with this and then we come back next year we're going to purchase three workbooks for every student in elementary correct yes or no not separate you're not being separate for three student bundle it's a bundle but it's a bundle but yes we'll be buying every year three more workbooks that is correct okay thank you and with the current like adoptions ions old adoptions that were multi-year eight-year adoptions a you well five you always had to add on more because it didn't get you there. Um you had to do workbooks every year too. Now sometimes depending on how your contract was negotiated your workbooks might be free for a certain amount of time but there's always a point to where they're not free anymore and you

104have to buy them again too. So it might be free for the first three years and then you have to purchase again. Now, we always do that at the district level. That's not a a cost that the campuses ever have to incur. Mrs. Cornboom or Dr. Cornbloom, I'm so sorry. Thank you so much for uh it's evident that you have done a great job at you and your team have done a great job at kind of setting all of this up and getting this. Uh my question is had you considered you know I look at this and I I have um I wasn't aware of the other two districts that you Miss Flores you were talking about. So thank you so much for that information. Um, I was aware of a couple of districts in

105and around the state of Texas that I think had used this and I was kind of looking at their numbers and there it's kind of a wash if not um so I so I feel a little uncertain as to kind of the data on some of this and I know that there's you know checks I will say of Waco ISD we are one of the most unique districts in the state of Texas, there are very few districts that are the size of ours with the opportunities that we also have and the demographics that we have. So, if you try to find an apples to apples comparison throughout the state of Texas, we're almost at an anomaly. And so, um, it is kind of hard to kind of find kind of comparable districts. But I think,

106you know, when I'm looking at this, um, I know STAR is potentially going away. The legislature might give us money, won't give us money. There's so many things up in the air right now that I and quite frankly I I don't even know how to say this kindly so I won't say anything at all but um I just I just wonder if right now would be a test pilot. So were there are there some campuses that are gungho for this and have we considered doing like a a pilot study of curriculum maybe with those couple of campuses that are like we are this is it ride or die right um have we just consider just to see the data so I'll be honest no um and the reason being um is you know I think

107if we were sitting in a different place it that we it hadn't been so long since we'd had a math adoption to where we because okay no matter what the state does I mean whether we go to the BME testing you know beginning middle of the year whatever they're going to do no matter what they do what's not going to change right now are our standards so our standards were adopted not too long ago a couple years ago we knew three 15 it was more than a couple of years ago seems like a couple of years ago it really does but they're not they're not due for you know they're not going to change right now. So there's that. And so to look for something that's aligned to standards, no matter what we whatever direction

108they go, one would hope that whatever direction they go would also be aligned to our standards. So there's that. Yeah. Um and then thinking about um would we offer a pilot here? Here's where I sit with this. I I know I know we need a new resource, right? To Mr. Otoa's point about the curriculum in general. I mean, we built that. These ladies have spent hours building that. So, I know that the framework of that is something that they've put their heart and soul into and believe in as well. So, it is though what we're using to teach with that is the outdated the outdated piece, right? That that we need to help teachers with. It would be hard for me to only choose a few campuses to do a pilot when 11 and a

109half of our campuses said that they want this. So, how do I choose from my 11 and a half to pick? Well, some of you are going to get this, but the rest of you are going to keep that. That would be hard for me, right? To to determine that. Um, and just knowing that, you know, the resource is we need a new resource in general. So, that's kind of where I sit with that. So, no, I haven't considered it. I mean, just to be honest, I haven't um because um just the fact that our resource is is in need of a revamp. And one thing I will add to that is um since I've got here in October, we have been listening to teachers give us feedback. And the feedback is our lesson plan

110template. It's too much, it's too long. Um if you look at our curriculum, whether specifically with math and English, um we have to go here, here, here, here, here, here, here just to get everything done. I have had lesson plans given to me from even some of you and some of our staff that says, "Hey, Dr. Spicer, this is what I do just to teach one lesson." And so the ask is to give us something approve what we're asking to make sure number one we can reach our students. We're not making the gains um that we need, but we know that we're not able to internalize. So, if we're going back to just the basics of this conversation, we're trying to get to a point to where our teachers are not overburdened, overwhelmed with all

111the work that they're doing just to try to teach a lesson. Right? Um we know that there's a shortage on teachers across our nation. And right now, I'm going to be stingy. We're focusing on trying to keep retain attract people to Waco ISD. If this is going to support and meet the needs of our teachers as they meet the needs of our students, that's why I'm making the recommendation. And that's why our principles are making this recommendation. That's why our staff is making the recommendation because we know there's a need and right now we're not meeting it. And this is our our our ask. This is our hope. I want to make sure we can open the door for our students and give them what we have not been given the last few years. Okay.

112And I'll just speak just because we've talked so much about reading and this isn't about a reading adoption, but looking at that to also meet the need on the other side too. We're looking at using H.M.H through um they've made some changes in their curriculum to move to kind of a internalization process to where um and they they now have the unit maps that we built. They now have those and then with a kind of a weekly plan built in as well. So moving to a similar process but using that resource with it because that resource isn't outdated. So, see that's the thing. If we had a resource that wasn't um behind, then we could do some of the similar things in math, right, with what we had. But it's just that the resource that

113we have right now, we've had to supplement to plug the holes that we know we have so that they are teaching the students what they need to learn. Um but then that produces the things, you know, that that y'all have all talked about and heard about um with with the planning and teachers having to go to multiple places. So, we're trying to fix it on the other as well. It's just that that resource is more up todate and responding to House Bill 1605 and then this one is behind. I appreciate the teachers being able to have input like teachers that I see in classrooms when I go around. So, I appreciate that. I just want them to continue to be a part of the process. So, as we're evaluating, I want their voices to stay

114at the table um and not be silenced because we think we might need to pivot. if if they think we need to pivot, I want to know that as a board member. So, I just wanted to say after this process was over, I wrote Britney Sanders and I said, "Thank you so much for allowing us to be involved in this process." The first time I was able to be involved in a process like this and I I felt heard. I felt like somebody was listening to me. Somebody wanted to know what I thought. somebody wanted to see what the strengths and weaknesses were that you know that I personally was involved in this process was a was a really big thing for me and it we had multiple sessions where we were able to come

115we came we looked at all the things Kdum had a a video set up and so we could look at it we played with it and on the other side they had great minds and we went ahead and we played with that and so I just I I'm very appreciative of them allowing us to come and talk have some more questions. Mr. You um you mentioned that that uh Blue Bonnet has a very clear scope and sequence. Um our teachers have spent years developing our current scope and sequence. Does if if we adopt this, does that just go away? We just throwing that in the trash. That hurts. But yes, I mean to say that because there's been a lot of hard work put into that, you know, it has um but it it it

116follows a different sequence. It it follows a different pacing, a different sequence, and so we would have to switch to follow this pacing and sequence. Um we'll still have our curriculum site. It'll just look different. Can you talk more about the pacing? What is the pacing like? Does it allow for in this in this Right. Does it allow plenty of room for retaching or is it Yes, it's it's built in. But I I will I want these folks to talk about it because they dug into it more. So I can say yes, but I want them to talk to you about how and when if that's okay. Okay. So for the elementary side, so we have what 168 days. Um the curriculum allows for 165 days. So K2, they'll be fine because they're going to

117they're teaching up till May. Um what I'm going to have to do if approved, I'll have to sit down um with the vendor and kind of map out what that's going to look like for 345 because we have to be done well depending on what happens with STAR testing and that kind of thing. But as of right now um we have to be done teaching content like early April to prepare for STAR. Um and so those dates would have to be adjusted. But um so we'd already have to tweak it those higher levels. Well, we will have to tweak as far as like take it and like which lessons are like high leverage that we really need to get versus these, you know, I can kind of pull that out. Um, and so yes, that

118will all be done with teach that will all be done for teachers. So they wouldn't have to worry about that. Um, again, as far as like lesson plans, lesson plans are already provided. So again, teachers would just have to internalize. So yeah, I have sorry I have two pages worth of questions, but you mentioned lesson plans, correct? So if this was adopted, an elementary school teacher would not could copy and paste lesson plans. So what would happen? So and I have an example here if you would like to see it. I just want to make sure I I feel like if we when we grant more freedom we sort of find a way to fill that space and that's my concern is that a teacher won't just be able to copy and paste lesson plans

119from week to week. Does that make sense? if the lesson plans are provided, if we have scripts for new teachers, but then there will be processes in place at the district level as far as like what internalization is going to look like in PLC's and that kind of thing. So the expectation comes from more internalization at that point. Okay. But I'm I'm saying if a teacher spending three additional hours outside of school on lesson planning, correct? Okay. And an hour and a half of that is for math. Okay. Right. Are we saying that that hour and a half is now free for them? you're so right now our teachers are spending so much time writing a lesson plan and that's my other question too why I don't understand that so we we've already discussed that

120we're we're going to be providing some sort of lesson plan for reading next year right why can't we do that for Matt it comes with that they're not going when they say internalization process it comes with your plan so what they have to do is they read the plan and you're talking about Okay, we're teaching this standard for this activity. What does that mean? How does that look? When I stand in front of the kids, um, how am I introducing that? Right? They talked about misconceptions. So, what might a misconception be? How do we address that? Well, I know that my kids are going to struggle with this, so I might do I know. And so, they talk through the plans. But that's just done during PLC's or is it done? When is that done?

121Some of all of it is not done during PLC's because on at the elementary level PLC is usually one time a week for 45 minutes. So depend on each campus does it differently. Um it kind of depends on what they have planned for teachers that day. Um but I can say now with our math framework, the reason why it's taking so long is because we do they do have to supplement with so many resources. Um so our framework starts with fluency and so right now teachers are having to go find a resource. Okay. So, that's that's my where my confusion is. We've had this curriculum since 14, right? Why have we not provided that to teachers already? If we know where the weak spots are, why do they still have to go look for it?

122Like, why can't we why can't we just tell them where to look? Why can't we give it to them? Give them the book. Yeah. I mean, so that's what I had to do when I came into this role. I did identify the gaps and from there I went and found supplemental resources for where those gaps were. I think let me let me clarify and see y'all are basically just saying the resources will be in one place. Now with this when she says go and look they have them like they've provided a resource but I don't open envision which is the current resource and have it all in there. We may have provided a fluency piece over here. We have problem of the day or um target the problem. Yeah. which is digital that goes that's

123posted up here. So that would get projected. That's not an envision. That's another piece. Right? So we do know where the gaps have been. And when she says go and find, I'm gonna have to go in this resource that we've gotten and pull my fluency from here. I'm going to go, you know, to my warm-up and pull it from here. So it's not just, oh, here's this Envision math resource. We know it doesn't have anything, you know, too bad, so sad. we've bought them um so that other things so they don't have to go find on their own but it's still going to more than one place to your point and I guess that's you know I'm thinking about my own job and there are lots of different processes for lots of different things but

124we wrote them down you know so if a new person came in I could just hand them a sheet of paper and say start at one and go to the end and Miss Flores mentioned that Um, a lot of the districts uh who weren't successful using Blue Bonnet, it it was because they didn't use it with 100% fidelity. Do we have a history in this district of teaching curriculum with 100% fidelity? I think that that has been an issue sometimes. Um, I think there are many reasons for that. Um I think when you have um we have a lot of turnover, you know, we've have a um we we talked about what they say 22% new teachers um around that and so that it it looks different um when you when you have those things.

125Um this does come with a protocol written out. Now to your point though, I mean with the current curriculum, that lesson planning protocol is the way to go through and lesson plan, right? Um now people take that to varying extremes but um that is the that is the process we do have best practices in place for when we le plan how do you go through that um do we all do that with fidelity we we we've all talked about right that that that doesn't always happen and there like I said there are reasons for that um that is where though I think our principles principal supervisors us them being in classrooms our instructional specialist Um, you know, we're just all going to have to be diligent about if we say this is what we're going

126to do, that those are non-negotiables. Um, you know, Mr. Allen was looking at different programs that are being used across the district, purchased or not purchased, and teachers pay teachers have a has a really high hit level of people getting in and pulling lessons off of teachers pay teachers. Well, I can assure you that those lessons are no place in our curriculum. So just ensuring that everyone, you know, really that if this is what we say and that would be with anything. I mean, you're going to have to because we to your point too, to know if something's working or not working, you can't know that if we're not using it with fidelity. Is it that we're not using it with fidelity or is it not working because it's not working? And so that that

127has to be I mean, we all have to, you know, agree to get on board with that and it has to happen. Yeah. And that's the issue that I have because it seems to me that when the state approves a curriculum, it in my mind it tells me if you do this A to Z, your kids will be successful, right? I mean, granted, there are some outliers, right? But that's not the case like anywhere in the state. That's right. I don't I don't Okay, let me let me move on. Um, what happens if we do nothing? like do we have to adopt a new curriculum today and if we don't what happens? So if if if we do nothing then we continue on our current path with our current resource um teachers will continue lesson

128planning the way that they currently are because um the internalization and such is not with this curriculum the way it is like we're able to pivot with HMH a bit to take a little bit of that planning load off of our teachers. um you know we'll we'll we'll continue doing DDI looking at our data um reteing and doing the things we're doing but you know the resource will continue to be 11 years old and so that that's the main you know thing is just that that it's it it's outdated at this point which is why teachers are having to go to multiple places. Can we ask the teacher from Kendrick that question or from Carver that question? Yeah, please. I I mean, I think I speak for at least my campus. We are ready for

129something different. It's not um I I think that just being blunt, sticking with what we have is not the answer. So, that's just my thought. I will say this though, just so you were asking a different question. I'm like, what would what would happen with our current curriculum? What will we do? We would keep following it. we would, you know, um, constantly every year they look and get feedback to see if there are places that still need to be refined, you know, yet more to where something didn't quite work, the order of something or something along those lines, we would continue doing that. Um, what though, and that's if we just if we just chose to do nothing, right? Um, it was also asked at another time, well, what would happen if we went this

130way and not that way? Like if we voted for one reason like there were three and a half campuses that wanted KDUm. So what if we didn't approve this one would we just go with Kdum and the answer is no we wouldn't because that would not be honoring the voices from our 11 and a half campuses and what did I say 218 out of 280 teachers. So what we would do is we would put it on hold for another year and go through this process again next year. If if if we don't make a determination tonight we would wait which would be roughly Dr. corn bloom. The same thing if we went for blue bonnet and it didn't work, we would pivot and change. So, we really are looking at either going with Blue Bonnet

131or staying with our same same curriculum with curriculum and instruction helping meet those holes for another year which would then bring us back to looking at these curriculum or or other curriculums that would be coming forward. Am I correct on that? If we stayed. Yes, ma'am. Either way, right? Yes. If we stay, that's what would happen. We won't be penalized. We're not The money is still going to be It's We will be out. Yeah. Okay. No, no, no. Not Not fully. The 20 we lose. So, the $40 per student rolls over. The 20 although, but we would lose that. You have to spend that by August 31st to be able to to use it this year or to keep it rather, you know, to Can I ask I apologize. I'm I'm the new guy and

132I've never done anything like this. Um, is this the typical time frame that we do this in? Like this it feels hurried to me and and maybe this is a unique scenario. Dr. Spicer has just gotten here. Um, like we're talking about spending a million dollars, which is nothing for a million. Um, and it just feels hurried. Um, it feels to me like we could have started this process sooner. Um, I don't know that I feel fully equipped to like make a great decision on this. Um, I don't know that there's really great data that tells me like, hey, if we spend this money, then our our test scores are going to they're going to improve. But we do have data that what we're using right now is not working. Yeah, I know. I know.

133Um, but to spend a million dollars, I would want to know that like it's gonna get better. And and so like I guess my question is like is this the timeline that we've always done this in the past like when we've adopted a different curriculum? Have we started the process sooner? Have we It depends when they roll out. So let me tell you right now. So things that have been looking at for next year aren't even approved yet. So like they're out there, they're sitting out there, but will they be approved? We don't know if they're going to be approved. And they're not. There's also you got to look things that are being that are in consideration are there's some full some of these same things um and some are just supplemental pro approved for

134you to use them in supplemental ways. So we those aren't even viable right now, right? Usually when we adopt um a textbook it the length of the process is the about the same right so the amount of time when we started this viewing in February going through it bringing it to you is that wasn't hurried usually to my liking this would have been brought to you at least a month earlier right so in terms of that but it didn't hurry us up on the amount of time we spent looking at it but then walk me through the implementation of it because now we're a month behind that. Well, it just when we so they'll have their resources for planning um the digital platform will open the workbooks and all will be delivered over summer. The

135I mean like all the student workbooks and all of those things will be delivered over summer. So if if we were to approve the process is there's another thing in your consent agenda tonight to approve um the TEIK certification. you have to do that every year before you can draw money down from your instructional materials aotment. Um, usually we would have done that last month, but we couldn't do that. You're right. I mean, we needed to wait to see the direction we wanted to go here. So, usually you do that. Um, the ordering system where you order has been closed until today. So, we couldn't have ordered materials for next year until tomorrow because it's closed through the 15th. So, we couldn't have ordered sooner or that's concerned anyway. So, when you consider it within

136that time frame, it's it wasn't even open. But typically, you it would have been sitting there waiting. Oh, it opens tomorrow. So, now we can order, right? So, here we are today. It'll open tomorrow. We turn our stuff in and we'll get to order. I think too we're not picking a curriculum as a board. We're hearing a recommendation from teachers in the administration. So I think we're not in the classrooms every day. So to hear from but we've heard the issues with lesson planning. We've heard the issues around curriculum. So I think if they're telling us this is what we need to solve those issues, um I think we have to support. And I also want to be clear that in my mind the the mark of achievement doesn't change irregardless of what what curriculum

137we adopt. So we expect growth. We expect student achievement no matter what. I think you guys are just telling us this would help us get there in a more efficient way. I I want to can I can I address Mr. Bledo one more time because Britney was reminding and I said this earlier but I don't know if y'all caught it. So the showcase at region 12 was February 18th. So that's the first time we were able to see the resources. So the IMRA, this is the part I didn't tell you. The EMRA resources were approved in November by the state. They were available for review from us in February and that was the symposium at region 12 which we went to and so we brought it back and then started the process after that. But

138developed the but we could if we If we were to wait a year, we we would have another year of data. We would have more time to look at it, evaluate it, possibly make a more educated decision. See the so my my uh partner here and I hope you know I hope y'all know how grateful I am. I know you guys have put I know you guys have put a ton of work into this. don't hear any of my questions is like in any way feeling like you guys haven't done a great job is any in any way personal. Um she was saying that on the new list that's being reviewed there are no new resources on there. What supplemental supplemental and then some of the programs like I for instance that um didn't pass

139our review um many reasons why it didn't pass but one of the reasons um one because your kids didn't like it. complain. Amen. I'm playing. Um, tell my daughter you said that. Another reason, um, is because, um, part of that program wasn't. So, I I can't remember. I think it was like, um, K2 was approved and 35 wasn't. So, it's going through review, but so it's the same I Ready, but 3 through five would possibly be bad added in, but there were other parts of that program besides that that caused us not to go with it. So, we we would not want to probably go with that regardless because of what we know. Um, the testing platform, the re the intervention platform that we use, whole different scenario than what the curriculum that they're putting

140forward is right now. They they need to do some revisions in our opinion. That's great. Mr. wait another year, we'd still be bringing back the same results. I mean, yeah, Mr. Bana, I just uh want to support what Mr. Davis is saying. I visit a lot of campuses, school events. Um, one of the things we always ask is what what what do we need to do to help y'all? And y'all are telling us what we need to do to help y'all. And, you know, we I think we should give y'all the help y'all need when y'all asking for it. And, you know, that's what what y'all want right here on this percentages. So I thank you so much, Mr. Vidona. I I'm I'm wondering just because I see this and I see some split campuses

141and it feels like we already have an issue with fidelity um that I'm wondering if um some campuses that have buyin, you know, the teachers have seen it and they love it and they're saying to all of their teachers, we want to do this. if there is a consideration for the campuses that already have some sort of buyin with it to go ahead and pilot it so that when those campuses are showing their incremental gains then they can talk to those principles can talk to the other principles who can talk to their teachers. I just I just think that um the buyin piece and the fidelity piece stick out to me. Some of the differentiation pieces also I'm a little hesitant on that because of the scriptedness and the rigidness rigidity of it, the lack

142of um a small group. I there's there's a couple of hindrances and then the fact that I know that we have 22% are first year teachers but we're talking about almost 78% are not. So I I think I'm looking at this and I want to my natural inclination is pilot it and test it and see what kind of outcomes you get, what kind of fidelity you get to the program. um and see what kind of data comes forth. And then from that point, that natural if there is an increase in data, that natural increase in incremental grains will then probably trickle into the rest of our district. And I think our our principles talk to each other and if something's working for some principal, they're going to say, "This is working for me." And then

143another principal is going to say, "Show me what that is." Um, so that that that that is my one, you know, we're dropping a million3, a million4 on blue bonnet curriculum. And I would hope I would hope that we are not just buying into curriculum because we get extra money from the state at the expense of our kids. We we have we have the funding to purchase it without the 20 and have some money left over. And these guys can tell you that never one time and never even our district discussions was the money even out there. And quite honestly, when we started reviewing it other than yeah, I knew the 20, I hadn't really paid much attention really to exactly how. Not to be irresponsible because I was more interested in getting a good

144resource. And so I hadn't really paid attention until okay, once we narrowed it down, okay, what would this mean in dollars, right? Because we wanted the resource that that they felt was the best. And so whatever, you know, that was up there and put out there um really didn't run the dollars on it till after. Okay. Um can can you clarify just one thing for me because so I know how to respond. Um, when you were saying pilot, were you were you suggesting that we pilot Blue Bonnet with the campuses who wanted that and Kdum with the campuses who wanted that or keep what we have and use this because I have I have thoughts and the struggle there. But I want I want you to tell me what you meant, please. Yeah. No, no,

145no. Thank you so much for asking that question. I think um I in my mind was thinking, okay, if some campuses are completely comfortable with a current uh math curriculum and the hodge podge um patchwork of it, then they can continue with that. I'm not thinking of buying a different curriculum and starting two different curriculums because then you would not have a control. but to go through and say, "Okay, if there are campuses that really are excited about this blue bonnet curriculum, letting them pilot that." And I'm and I'd love to hear your thoughts. And I also want to say I'm so glad that this administration is not just looking um for the extra money from the state because I think that is not putting kids first. And in my mind, it has to be

146what is going to meet the needs of our kids, what's going to help our educators. And any way that we can kind of undergard that, um I think is at least from my perspective is what I would want to do. And I don't want to um I don't want to just fold at the whims of of our governor. Let me speak to what you talked about and just tell you my concerns with that. So, on one hand, I get what you're saying to let some campuses try and pilot and and those who I won't I don't ever use the word buy in, not to say that because you're never going to have it. What what we hope for is to get commitment to whatever it is that we're we're using, right? Or whatever it is

147you're trying to do. But in our district, um, now this might be different for a couple of our campuses, um, because of the way those campuses, um, how the enrollment works on those campuses, but for the most part, um, we have pretty mobile campuses, right? We have kids who are moving between in a lot of instances. And so the Blue Bonnet curriculum is on a different scope and sequence and pacing than our current curriculum. So for kids who move and and we are a highly mobile district, we could be inadvertently creating gaps ourselves for our kids because if I've been on this campus not piloting and this campus who is and I move and things are taught at different times then we could have created a gap and then it's also continuing to support the

148campuses in two different ways and I have one elementary person and one secondary person. So we continue to do math PD on the current curriculum we have right around pedigogy best practices and all of those things so that we can get better at our teaching in general. So we would be supporting those guys on our current curriculum or we would have to right support them in one way and then support the folks that moved to the pilot stage in another way. So a couple of concerns there. Um, I, you know, choice is great, but when we're looking at ensuring that we're providing consistency in the same educational experience for all of our kids across our district, then it scares me to to do two different things. That makes some that makes perfect sense. Yeah, thank

149you for sharing that. Um, teachers, you can have a seat and we can call you back up if you need to. You've been on your feet all day. So, I do have a question for the teachers. This is kind of a dumb question. Um, but I'm thinking, never mind, sir. I'm thinking of the of the toss test and the team's test and the tax test and the star test. Has the math changed since I was in elementary school? I mean, are we still adding cantalopes and subtracting watermelons? And I mean, yeah, the taks have changed. The taks have changed. Has the math changed? The math hasn't changed, but there's expectations in different levels. So, think of it this way. um back in the day, third grade math is now, let me rephrase, eighth grade math

150is now a fifth grade math, right? And so there are some different things that they're expecting from us in our classrooms. And right now, the resource that we have, it's not giving it to us and we're not getting results. And so that's why our kids aren't able to produce like they need to. Um whether it's a state test or a national test, in my mind, our goal is always like what is SAT, ACT, what does that world look like? And we need to prepare be preparing our kiddos for that. But it's going to start in the classroom, right? And of course, star will take care of itself, but we have to do some things different because we're not getting those results that we say we we want our kids to get and and they deserve.

151I think division is division. Multiplication is multiplication. Yeah. The questions they're putting in front of our kids now, the multilevel layers, two-step, three-step, you know, all these and at what level is very different. It it's it's um escalated. it, you know, just like reading, right? I used to, you know, kindergarten was more of that socialization type um year. Now that's not even prek really. But now you read when you leave kindergarten and you do math when you leave. So everything has just been pushed down um in general. But even within that, even if it weren't kind of pushed, our kids are just being asked to process um at a higher level than what we may have been um or at least at what we were tested at that at that level. It just look that's

152what looks different. And if if we were we have 90 days till the first day of school. So if we were or to order this tomorrow, would we have time train and have everything we need? We already have um so yes to order and then um we already have the PD plan because that's the pre-work we do to be prepared, right? In the event that it's approved um we were already looking at those things. So the PD plan's already rolled out um and dates are secured so that we have the vendors on hand to roll out the training and then these guys will be working over the summer and with our teachers as well on ensuring that the internalization process, what you might call the planning process but not lesson planning different from um is

153in place and solid. Um and that's some of the things that they'll be working on over the summer. And you mentioned that it's easy to pivot from this if it doesn't work. Easy in that we're not locked into it, right? Well, that's my concern. I mean, we're not locked into it, but if you switch just like I mean, just like if we're switching from our resource now to a new one, it's the new training and all of that that's going to come on board. So, if at the end of this year um you know, we were everybody hated it. They're like, "Oh, this was the worst thing we ever, you know, we thought it was going to be great, but no." And we had to switch. Then we go through this process again. Um, and

154you know, like I said, the resources out there may not be not be a lot of options, but we would look at those things. And so, whatever was decided at that time, it would go through this again. And then we would develop a new training plan and a new implement implementation plan. Do we know where we're weak now based on our test scores? Yes. You want to talk to that? Do we know where we're where blue bonnet weak is potentially weak? You know where blue bonnet's potentially weak? Like if we My concern is like right now we know what we need to improve, right? Whatever that is, we know what it is. Hopefully after 10 years, 11 years. My concern is that we get to the end of next year and we say, "Well, turns

155out this one has some similar issues compared to what we were already doing and and the only difference is we've lost a year and a million dollars." Does that make sense? It does. So, the question was our data. So, we know what our star data tells. Well, any data really, right? I read any data, but what our data tells us if where we're weak, we know in our current curriculum where it's weak, so we've supplemented. Do we know where blue bonnet might be weak and how that connects to our data? Like would we find ourselves in the same place? Have you researched it to that level? I can say right now our current research resource, sorry, is very procedural. Um and so it's lacking in that conceptual foundation. And so what Blue Bonnet offers is

156that CRA where we're start like building conceptual understanding. Um so the why behind something and versus the procedural is more like how how you're solving something, right? Um so it's it's embedded. So the CRA is embedded. So you're starting with the uh concrete and then we're going to representational versus abstract versus now with our resource. It's just procedural. So we're going right to word problems and um we're not building that foundational understanding. So students are not retaining that information. Um so that's like a big area where we're lacking. Um also with rigor uh with our current resource u when you look at star and things like that the questioning in our current resource is not aligned to the level of rigor that students would see on star. Um, so I would say like that's a

157gap, but I feel like with any new resource, you're not going to know until you implement and like you go through it, right? Um, regardless like that's how we were able to find the gaps that we have now. Um, by implementing and then going from there, historically there's a gap when you implement new I mean not a gap but a diple a dip when you implement new curriculum, right? Anywhere. Yeah. You're talking about gap within the resource like you find something. No, I mean I'm more concerned with the student achievement goes down next year to look at star scores and see that they're stagnant or god forbid negative and and us use this well it's a new curriculum and that's you know first year and I I'm just kind of a little tired of reasons

158why we aren't doing something. So I guess my question would be if I could go off Mr. Cho is is um with our schools where they're at right now. You're saying our curriculum has been deficient. Thus the resource is the resource has been deficient. So sorry. Resource has been deficient. There's a lot of hot patchwork that needs to be done. Our kids aren't making the gains. Uh we don't have star scores yet. Correct. To know uh and we do to know. So those won't come back till the summer. Then we have um we've got a year we b we if we were to approve this curriculum now we do all the training we have everything we're doing into a year and then we already know that there is going to be a dip in achievement.

159I think my question is can we afford that dip in achievement? Are our students do have our students made enough gains that we can our campuses can take a dip in math? I mean it's unknown. I mean you know I I so to say a lot of times when you implement something there's a dip. Yeah. Sometimes that happens. Um will it happen? I don't know. You know I mean the I think your hope is we're implementing with fidelity. We don't see the gap. Um we don't know what our scores look like this year. So that that's a timing thing you know in terms of understanding that. um if we wait until star until we get star scores and analyze that then we'll be too late um to to try to do this for this upcoming

160year where that's concerned. So I I think any any year whatever year it is when we look at implementing something new those questions are still going to be there. Will we take a dip? Will we not? You know and then to say well I don't know I I you know I I can't answer that with 100% certainty that we will or we won't. Yeah. Can I ask a question and anybody can clarify this? You guys are saying we know what we're doing now is not working and we will not see the growth that we need with the current curriculum and the issues that we saw with that one. We feel this new one is solving those issues. I think we're all clear irregardless of the decision we make, we want to see student achievement. So

161even if there's a dip at the end of the year, I wouldn't want to hear it's because of this change. I would want us to adjust. But that raises a bigger question, right? If we can say we know what we're doing, right? Isn't working. Why didn't we change it eight nine years ago? You know, I mean, that's what I that's what I'm trying. They actually did. There was a curriculum bought before this curriculum, actually. I forget what it was. and they kept it for just a small amount of time and then um switched to this which then has and I say because I wasn't here that's why I said they um switched to this which they've now had for 11 years um the way we pivoted because we were looking at a math adoption following

162kind of that cycle the way we pivoted was buying you know the things as to to not just star but also knowing where our kids were struggling right like if we know that our kids we need more support like the the problem of the day. We knew we know that our kids need more support in problem solving and higher level thinking. And so that's where that came in and it also fits with our new model. But switching the model in general came from the fact of we needed to change the way our kids think about math. And so those were our um reactions or pivots to work within what we had to try to change what we had as the state was working through its thing to adopt new resources. I guess my the ending

163of what I was trying to say is that but we will here if we don't adopt this and we don't see the scores that we want to you guys will say well we needed a new resource and we I think we have to look at why right I'm just cuz I think all of us want to avoid an excuse as to what we're feeling like we've been hearing but I'm I'm saying that I don't think us adopting this curriculum is us saying that we're okay with students not having achievement And I don't want any any confusion here. I'm not saying that it's okay for our students not to achieve if we adopt this curriculum, right? But what I am hearing is they're telling us that they need this to do their job. And I I

164would be worried if we didn't do this and then we complain about the results when we didn't give them the resources that they asked for. I just want to point that out. Would you like I may be asked to leave after this but um so lots has been you know brought before us here. Um a couple of points um about the copy and paste lesson plans. I think the misconception is like oh well if I have the plans all set for me that I can be on the beach sipping my ties. That's not the case. Even as a veteran teacher I have to go through this. It's time. It's heart. It's effort regardless of how many years you have under your belt. I would have to go through I'm actually switching grade levels. I I

165taught fourth grade before like sevenish years ago. Yeah, it runs together. Um I've been in second. Part of the reason why I left fourth grade or asked to move down was because how daunting it is to teach a star grade when you have to understand that kids coming in my classroom, most of them are not tier one, they're two and three. And so what's frustrating as a teacher is when I'm trying to get that first teach to the whole class. This is the state of Texas. This is that achievement that we are trying to reach. We're we're we're shooting for up here. That's what we're always shooting for because that's what we want. But the reality is that's not what we have in front of us. So when I'm trying to get to that tier

166one, what we're saying is the current resource that we have doesn't get us there. Already we're behind from the jump. And we can go back and say, "Well, why didn't we change it?" But the fact is, we didn't. And here we are now. And so, I'm ready to move on. And even moving up now, I'm having to go back. I'm fourth grade again. Um, and I'm having to reprocess everything. I'm having to look at it all again. And if we keep what we have, it's now, okay, let's go back. How does STAR test this? You said, "Well, has the math changed? The TEACs have changed?" Yes, I know there's some some seventh grade standards that are now fourth grade standards. I'm having to look at, okay, well, how is it tested? What do I have?

167Where do I have to reach that? And then again, I'm reaching those tier one kids, and that's oftentimes a small, sadly, oftentimes a small percentage of what's in my classroom. And then now I'm going back and I'm having to do all this other um like gap filling for my tier 2s to get them all because we want them all to achieve. You talk about students first. call it being naive, but this was my first time doing this process. I had zero concept of we got money for kids and what like that was never ever ever brought to the table. I didn't know that till way after the fact. And like you said, I mean maybe it was just me being naive, but that was not a consideration. We were just looking at look at what

168we have now. It's not working. You asked for teacher voice. I mean, I think it was pretty clear. We gave you teacher voice. We said this is this is better than what we have now. Money, that's y'all's that's your thing and you know, we're going to live there. But if you're let you're asking teachers, okay, that I thought I thought that vote was pretty clear um to relate it to I mean, I'm not trying to be political, but we we voted for a president. We're not going back and saying, "Okay, this is all the reasons why we've picked a curriculum. that's what we're presenting to you. That this resource is what we said, hey, this is what we think is best. We're presenting it to you. And if not, then this is what we're left

169with. I'm having to go back even as you know, and I've done this before. And we keep talking about the the new teachers, but even a veteran teacher, I'm veteran, but I'm going to be brand new all over again. So, it's still going to be that same time. And now I'm having to go through, okay, well, what does Envision, where are the holes in it again? because I haven't been in fourth grade in a minute. So, it doesn't m like across the board, you're going to have to do that um with whatever it is. And so, I don't know. I just you you want to teach your voice, we gave it to you. I mean, it's our heart and our soul. Um we talk about teaching with fidelity. I I don't know who you're talking

170to or looking at when you're saying that because by golly, it's I mean, the blood, sweat, and tears getting emotional in these classrooms. like we're doing what we can and we're just asking to maybe do something where the load is not so much because now I'm having to and then all the other factors that we're just talking academics. I mean hello we have behaviors and you know trauma-filled students that you're still having to you know do I mean you think it's just oh it's easy as sitting down but oh my my daddy went to jail. I mean, you know, there's so many things going on and I'm not making excuses for that. I'm just saying that there's so many factors and components and things to think about and like I said, if you need me

171to leave, I would be that's Thank you so much, Miss Moz. I definitely empathize and I think every single person on this board would empathize with you and with teachers and I think that is why um we are very concerned in terms of lesson the the workload that is on the teachers and our staff and that is why um we um yes so I just want to say thank you and to each one of you thank you. you. I know you've been on your feet all day and you're still on your feet. So, you can take a seat if you would like. Please just sit down and but stay here and listen. Um the uh my my question I'm going back again to uh kind of what uh Mr. AOA had said when he said,

172"Okay, we've we've adopted this curriculum in and teachers have been asking for something different and somehow we've kind of stayed on the same path and so but then I hear you saying, "Oh, we're going to we could do this curriculum, but then we could switch in a year." and and and I guess I am I'm pausing to ponder how we went through something for 10 years and didn't switch and how we're going to pivot for one year and what systems are in place to really capture teacher voice, principal voice, staff voice. I know that we have a feedback button on our current lessons, but just if this is not working, how well we can more directly ask for feedback. I mean, our principal meetings, they have their cohort meetings, surveys, you know, there's multiple ways

173that we can Going back to the adoption though, the old process just worked differently. I mean, the the the way the state adopted textbooks, the way you did your contracts, all of that. So, like I said, typically when you went into a contract, it was a five to eight year contract. Um and these um I mean you could go into multiple year contract now but they're not recommending it um kind of for that reason. And so and the how often things were reviewed um was not the same as they're doing it now. And so with the old process once that whole big textbook adoption process happened it didn't happen again for a number of years. And so it's just that with with House Bill 1605 and all of that legislation, it just all changed. And

174so, um, I think you can more easily pivot. So I, like I said, I wasn't here when they had the resource they had and then they did change, um, which you could have at that time bought adopted a resource and then and like Waco did and then bought a new resource. Um it's just the funding that you got. You know, you have that money every bienium every two years. And so whatever they spent would be pushing that all aside and ensuring they had enough funding to be able to fund a new adoption to go into that. And I know this one I think was this current adoption 56. What was this adoption? And when we when we renewed, there wasn't a new um a a new set of textbooks out there to adopt. Does that

175make sense? Like they hadn't gone through a new request from vendors for new textbooks. So there wasn't a new crop of materials to adopt from back when we extended ours um for the next little bit. So we extended and plugged. So I guess what I'm hearing from you is from this you're going to build in like like the current uh system that we did the workshop on. I love that you had feedback on every lesson like what worked, what didn't. I think that is feedback is always a great tool to use specifically for in teaching. So I I I guess I'm just and and I think we'll need to as well to learn you know as you said when you were talking Mr. Otoa about usually with any resource you're going to find some things

176that you don't like perfectly, right? And I think we're going to have to ask for frequent feedback along the way for people to identify anything that you might be realized. You know, they did a very thorough review, but it it's not as if you sit there and go through every single page, you know, every lesson start to finish like you would as if you were teaching it. And so I think getting frequent feedback to understand um if at the end of the year you don't we don't see the data that or we need to pivot whatever it is that we have some really solid evidence as to why you know and that's also ensuring that implementation was was good to also be able to know that that wasn't a reason why that it if we

177if we stay with our current curriculum What is the what is our total buy? What's the dollars? If we stay with the current curriculum now, is there any outlay that we have to none? So, we're kind of taking a million dollar gamble any Yeah. I mean, with any new adoption, you would. But yeah, I guess it I guess that's where I'm confused is I don't know. Do we have to buy work this year? It just feels to me like are we in a position to to make a million-dollar gamble and get it wrong? Are y'all okay with calling it a million-dollar gamble? I want to hear from you guys cuz it sounds like y'all did research. Anybody? It sounds like y'all did research and y'all went through a process and we're calling it a gamble.

178Is it a gamble or did we do our research and we think this is our best bet? That's a difference between a gamble and something that we did research on and went through. I feel like we did our due diligence and looked at all the products that are available to us thoroughly. Only the data only the data would say this is the solution based on data, right? I mean that to me that's what the data we're receiving or the data we have. If if I'm looking at at a curriculum and I say, "Look, district Y implemented this district. They look very similar to our district and it worked." And that is the only difference is that they implemented this new curriculum then I would have a lot more confidence but our data currently that we

179have in our district. Okay, hold on we're filling. Hold on guys. you want to address um from the deis if you would just ask me so I can kind of help facilitate the conversation because we're kind of piping up and not allowing everyone to kind of finish. Madam President, can I ask? Hold on one second. Mr. Bledsoe, I think was the one who had said you you had asked about the million-doll. Do you feel like your answer was completely Do you feel like your question was answered? I maybe maybe maybe to Mr. Davis's point, maybe gamble is not the maybe that's not the right way to say it. Um, but I think what Mr. Roacho has said like if I'm going to go for my business, if I'm going to go make a million dollar

180investment on a machine, um I want to have data from from other customers that have used that that have said, "Hey, we we were using this machine before and we went to this machine and our pro and our productivity went up X." And I want to see that multiple times where I feel very confident that if I make that million-doll investment, then I can with with not a 100% certainty because every school district's different and circumstances are different, but I can feel with high confidence that that's that's a good buy. And I'm not sure we have that here. I think what we're all saying is like what we're not what we're doing isn't working. Okay. But if we go to this, do we have any like meaningful data that says it's gonna fix it? Because

181if I've got a machine that I say is not working and I go, well, it's not working. We got to do something different. Let's just go spend a million dollars on on this one and that doesn't work. Well, now I haven't fixed my problem and I'm out a million dollars. Um, so I'll say this. KDUM has no data because it's brand new. So there's zero data on it to know if it works or not. Um this whole process that they're going through is new. So a lot of these programs or resources as they are now maybe companies that have been around um because Carne has been around but it but all of this is fairly new, right? So just years and years of data to show success like across the board. It's just not there

182yet. Now, we do have right here um a list of districts and their their star scores at meets level. This is a whole list, but I mean percentage average percent change of students at meets level and I can't tell you right now with all of I mean there's a list here of how similar or different they are from us but at meets level there are different they're showing percent increases of 20% over time 20% 14% 7% 5% um you know all the way down to one and a half% And this is over two years. So I mean there's a a list of schools on here. So it's, you know, it's it's different levels across the board, but this is um this is achievement at the meets level. So the percent increase at meets. Thank you,

183Mr. Davis. Thank you. Yeah. I think for me there is no machine in public education or education in if there were, we would have bought the machine. What are we I mean I I think it's just going to be nothing that we can guarantee. There's never going to be a district that's exactly like ours that we can look at five years of data and say if we do exactly what they did, we're going to guarantee results. What I hear you guys saying is irregardless of what we choose, there will be gaps that we have to fill. This is our best bet to have the least modifications possible at this point. And I don't I'm I'm confused on the level that we're judging it off. I just think there there won't be another district that we

184can look at that looks just like Waco ID. I think President Cordawig stated that at the beginning and we do see the data from other districts that it is working and what we do know is what we have isn't working. So I don't I don't think that is an option. So I guess if if we're exploring other options besid if we don't adopt this for whatever reason we have to do something different right we wouldn't just keep doing what we know doesn't work so what would that other option look like it would be it would be continuing to refine what we have looking at what our data says this year from STAR and seeing if any of those areas that you know were low or or didn't achieve where we should have achieved D is

185that an area that you know for some reason there wasn't alignment or whatever it it's it's doing all the things you all want us to do right it's responding to data making adjustments because of the data um and and changing our curriculum within what we have because of that. So that's what we would do. Um we would look at our interventions. We will still look at our interventions because this is for tier one instruction right this is for our first teach. We still analyze interventions and see if we need to do something different there. So we be doing all of those things but with a resource that's still outdated. If the and you're saying outdated so it's not useful for what you guys needed for because if it might be at a third grade level

186but that third grade level is now a kindergarten level but we don't have new it just doesn't do it all you know. Yeah. I mean it we're just having to provide other places. So, it's not to say that we're putting third grade math in front of fifth graders. It's saying that we're having to find other resources to accompany that current resource to ensure that if there is a place where it doesn't meet the mark, we have a supplemental resource that does. And to my understanding, if I may interrupt Okay, Mr. Mr. Vadon, hold on. Let can I just hear her example? She was giving me example. So, um two things. So, like I'll give you an example of that. So, um, in our current resource lesson, the standard calls for students to be able to

187do expanded notation. Our resource does not hit on expanded notation. So, I had to go find a supplemental resource that does. Um, another example, kindergarten, the standard calls for students just to be able to identify coins, but the the the workbook has students actually counting coins. And so, it's not aligned in some places. So where it's not aligned, we have to go and supplement um and find resources that hits the rigor of the standard. Um also we revised our math framework two years ago for the elementary first year for secondary. Um and it's aligned to NCTM's best effective math teaching practices. But right now our resource is not aligned to that because our resource follows very traditional I do, we do, you do versus our math framework is flipped to um where students are doing

188the thinking and the talking and teachers are more the facilitators. And so it's just not a line. Mr. Vidonia, I I just want to say the same thing. We sit here and ask the teachers, "What do you need to do your job?" and they're telling us what they need to do their job and we're sitting up here arguing with them. I mean, I don't understand why we're arguing with them when they're telling us what they need to do their job and get the results for our students that we constantly ask for. So, I mean, I don't understand. Mr. Patton, thank you. Um, so I listening to Trustee uh Davis and Vidona and I appreciate what you guys are saying. Uh, Keith, I appreciate what you're saying as well. Um, we redid the framework, the math

189framework two years ago for elementary. We did the framework for secondary last year. Correct. So you guys are putting your hands on the curriculum we're using now. Am I correct? So we have data that is showing where we from you've been here Dina 6 years. So we have data that we have been using this curriculum and we know where the holes are. We know that you guys are working to fix it. We don't know where the holes are in this new curriculum. We don't have the data for our district with this new curriculum, but we do have that data with what we're using right now that you guys are putting your hands on to make it work. Am I correct? Correct. But when you look at historically, like our data is not we're not improving.

190We're not where we need to be. Um and and I would say with regardless of whether we go with a new resource or not, like we were locked into a four-year contract now. That contract is ending. And so regardless, we're going to have to get a new resource. And so my comment is so the same questions would arise. My my comment is we have curriculum and instruction department that is leading the instruction and the curriculum for Waco ISD and you guys know where the holes are in this uh current curriculum and I have trust and faith that when there's a problem and when we see data y'all are using using active active intervention to fix that. We have all our teachers have been using all our math teachers have been using this curriculum and know

191it. We have one high school that did not vote for this. I will come back to that over and over for you, Jeremy, for you, Jose, Keith, whoever. uh Bledo over there, whoever. We have one high school that absolutely did not go for this curriculum. We're talking we teachers know best. Yes, they do. We have a high school that said this is not the best thing for our kids. The overwhelmingly majority voted for it. I just want to say Miss Sanders just told us that we irregardless will have to adopt a new resource because our contract is ending. So even if we keep the same resource, we will have to readapt it and so we have an option to get a better resource and that is what they're bringing to us right now. And also

192I would say like even to go through this process again you're not going to get 100% of teachers on board with one resource. So again, these the questions would arise again like there's never going to be 100%. And I I would venture to say um that the the process that was put in place when Envision was adopted was probably not as thorough and as um teacher represented as this one. I mean, because you're having people who said that they've been here for a while and that they've never been given this level of voice before and I can say that's something teachers really valued in this process. So again, like our vote is not in this, our account is not in this is what our teachers want and I'm here to advocate for them. What about

193our principles? Were our principles part of it? You guys are on board. Okay, I just want to make sure. So, so yeah. So, thank you so much for that. I remember back 20 years ago, I was also involved in an adoption process where we got to look at all of our reading and our print teachers got voice in it. So, I think that has been um and we got to vote and we got to look at it and hold the materials and talk about it and get in our small groups and look at the horizontal and vertical alignment and all of that. So, I'm I I do think if that has not been happening, that is a tragedy that I was not aware of. I think we added a layer on this one because we

194added an extra process that typically isn't, which is that district level to where um everything was just thoroughly looked at, vendors came in. A lot of times in the old like textbook companies would call you, they would send you boxes of of things. You would send them out to campuses, people would look at, you know, and that kind of thing. But you um going through that just heavy process here with the different representations, using the rubrics, and then pushing that out. Um and just I don't know. I think it was more hands-on this this this time than um what I've I don't know, just maybe typically experienced. That district level though, that first level is something that sometimes it's not a requirement. And so it's just something extra that we put in there so that

195we could also get into it and really look at it um and then push out. And Madame President, yes, Mr. B. May I call the motion for a vote? I would like to I have one more thing like it it so on this one it's a little bit different. Um usually the um purchase part goes down in consent but on this one it is asking you to approve um the recommendation is to approve the selection of and purchase. So also asking to approve the purchase of the resource. If if has a comment or a question I will yield to that afterwards. I would like to call the motion for a vote. Um well, first I would like to say to Miss Munoz and the other teachers who have joined us that um thank you. First

196of all, I can't imagine a worse way to spend your free time than pouring over not just one curriculum but lots of curriculum. Um, I do want to add too, um, that I can I can honestly say I don't know that we've ever had a board that has fought more for teacher for teachers um, being allowed more time, right, for for a shortening of lesson plans. Um, Keith thinks I'm getting political, so I am going to make a political statement. Um, the state is pushing this curriculum really hard. It seems like so much where they're paying an additional $20 per student. Uh in my opinion, you you can look back through history and states, especially southern states, don't always tend to have our kids' best interests in mind. Um my opinion, every year we send

197them with an opportunity to Austin to do something that's going to benefit our kids. Right? Here's an opportunity to fully fund public schools. Nope. Not going to do it. Right. Here's an opportunity to make it a little more difficult for a kid to get his hands on a assault rifle. Nope. Can't do that. People have rights. Um, here's an opportunity to expand Medicaid. Nope. Not going to do that. Uh, and by the way, you're a socialist. Um, I mean, I think like how many kids did we kick off the the child health insurance program last year? Like two million kids, right? I mean, so and now we have this modern- day form of segregation in the form of school vouchers that's just kind of gotten shoved down our throat. So for me, when a state

198lawmaker tells me that they've got the best interest of our students in mind, it's subject to proof, right? I mean, you have to show me uh because I'm not seeing it. Um that's the end of my rant, Keith. But, um, I do want to say if you if my wife was here at the podium, she would tell you it takes me 6 months to pick out a pair of shoes that I like. And the reason is is because I'm going to look up every pair of shoes in my size, what looks good, what doesn't look good. Um, because I like to make an informed decision. And I know I I really appreciate the amount of work that has gone into this, but and I know it's not your fault because it rolled out so late.

199I feel like it would have been better for all of us if we had more time and you know the next one will be just the same. I know that. But but to me that and I know it's just we just see things from two different points of view. I I feel more confident knowing what the problem is than than purchasing something that no one can tell me is the solution, right? only to find out later that we might have the same problems. If if you could tell me this will fix everything that we are concerned with, it would not be an issue for me. So, this is what I'm going to say. I I will never ever ever ever sit up here and say that any one thing is going to fix all problems

200because you you know that I'm just saying we don't have enough. There's been what over 300 districts that have adopted this curriculum right throughout the state and we've heard from Connley and East Central High School and those aren't even official numbers. I mean really right that that's my concern that what Miss Sanders has which I if you want to send that to me I can send it to Dr. Spicer but that is a larger list now that's at the um the one you were looking at for M or that Mrs. Um, Flores shared that was secondary. The list that Miss Sanders has for elementary is a little bit more extensive. Okay. But I mean that's also Don't you feel like that should have been in the board packet? Like I mean I would have liked

201to have looked at this on on Monday and and just provided this with this yesterday. Yesterday they had to was it get permission? They had to talk to their legal system because it's dealing with other districts and their data. So it had to go through and get approved. They shared overall like stats with us that they couldn't give us district names and all of those things until they got we would have had assuming it got sent out yesterday we'd had less than 24 hours we had you all would have I mean we had their stats that they had provided but this is a list of district by district by district and that's what at first that they had to get permission to share and let me also I think um hopefully try to answer some

202of your questions too Mr. Toa, one of the things I think I heard our staff say was, um, this would help with lesson planning. Um, this would help with having one source to go to get what they need and not having to go and supplement, supplement, supplement, supplement. Um, so a lot of the things that we've heard, I'll say since I've arrived and some things that y'all brought forth to my attention and Dr. Cornbble's attention, um, and just to leadership's attention, um, this is our effort to solve those things. Um, my belief is this. Um because you have I'll say again we don't have 100% buyin and you never will right but we have a high majority of our teachers saying hey this is what we need and so my belief is this if this

203is what our staff our teachers our principles saying this is what we need it's our job as leadership to say okay you said you wanted it it's game time this is the work we know we have the last I don't know how many years been unsuccessful math and not making gains and sometimes regressing we have to use this to make sure we meet the needs and the goals and the standards that we set for our team and then just keep working that system. But right now, what we currently have, it's not working. But this is a response to some of the needs that our teachers have said they've had in the classroom with the current model that we have now. And I think we see with with the change to accountability, that recent change, too.

204Um, that's that's even exasperated the problems. Thank you so much, Miss Dr. Cornbloom. Sorry, I have one question because now I'm I feel like I'm hearing two different things. I at first the question was asked um to you um what would the cost be if nothing was done and I heard um there would be no cost. We'd keep going as is. So zero cost on that. And then when I heard from Miss Sanders, am I saying it right? Last name. Okay. She is saying that we're on a four-year renewal. So we'll have to renew. So that to me seems cost. So what what are what are we talking about? I feel a little confused. There's we have at the end of this year there's one more year of free workbooks with them. Okay. Okay. Thank

205you. That is clarification because I was like 526 next year. Yeah. Yeah. We would we would finish if if y'all did not approve this recommendation. We would have to stay with them one more year. We have to change next year regardless. We did not want to wait and hold kids behind one more year just because the adoption is next year, right? We were trying to get ahead of it now and get to work now because we know our kids and our teachers, our principles were saying, "We need help now." And this was our response to that. But wouldn't it be better to make a a decision with a year's an extra year's worth of data? Well, talking to the principles, they're saying that we've had all these years and we're still not making gains. But

206we're talking to specific principles. And I all the principles. No, today's point. I'm I'm not trying to argue with the teachers. I God knows the script thing. I had five preps my first year teaching and we used National Academy Foundation curriculum and it saved my life. I mean, I get that. I think that's important. And if that's important to you, then then my thinking is if we have been using the same curriculum for 11 years, then why can't we provide scripts to our teachers? We have 11 years of using the same curriculum and I just don't understand why we can't do that. If we have a master teacher in first grade who teaches a great lesson, can we record her and then just so let hit print and do a transcript. Okay. So I want

207I'm going to tell you this. We So we've had this discussion before on the reading side. We might and we were going to work toward this, right? Looking at um pro trying to provide lesson plans. Remember how we talked about get our good teachers provide the lesson plans. Okay. said that that was something we were going to work on before we went into this. That still doesn't provide though the pedigogy support and all of the other things that this does. And there's we we don't have the manpower to even begin to get that done. K12 and we you're talking about writing every word that someone's going to say, how it rolls out, every piece of the lesson. We I mean we're a midsize district with an elementary math person and a secondary math person. We

208just don't have the capacity to to script lessons at that level. Providing lesson plans um you know was something we were going to try to work toward. But that I I don't even know how we would accomplish that. I've got some ideas. Huh? I've got some good ideas. Okay. Okay. Uh Mr. Patton called a vote. So he he first uh can you to read the motion that you are wanting? We we make our vote whether we approve we go with the admin uh presentation for accepting uh blue bonnet curriculum both elementary and secondary. That's Can we read it? Can we read it out of the board back? Yeah. So, uh, I'll entertain a motion recommendation for the board approve the adoption and purchase of the Great Minds Blue Bonnet for grades K through 5 and

209Carnegie for grades 6 through 8, algebra 1 and two, geometry as a primary math instruction resource for the district. Second. Great. So, Mr. Patton, did you vote for one? Did you make a motion? Okay. So, Mr. Davis, uh, thank you. Do I have a second? I second. Thank you, Mr. Gillery. Is there any further discussion, Mr. Bledo? No. Any further discussion, Mr. Davis? No. Any further discussion, Mr. Vana? Uh, just the same thing. We got to give the teachers what they're requesting. Any further discussion, Mr. Gillery? Yes, I request a roll call vote. Great. Thank you. Uh, any further discussion, Mr. Ooa? No. Any further discussion, Mr. Pat. No, ma'am. Great. Uh, we will do roll call. Renee, I think you'll count us out. No. Yes. Uh, no. Yes. No. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank

210you so much. Okay, moving on to consent agenda item number nine. Uh, consider take appropriate action. I have a request for item Oh, I wrote it somewhere here. Uh, 9G. Thank you so much, uh, teachers and everyone. Thank you. Uh, I have a request uh for item 9G. So, I will entertain a motion to accept consent agenda as presented except for 9G. Uh, I move. Thank you, Mr. Patton. Do I have a second? Thank you, Mr. Vana. Is there any questions, Mr. Bledo? No. Any questions, Mr. Davis? No. Any questions, Mr. Vana? Any questions, Mr. Giller? No. Any questions, Mr. Ooa? Nope. Any questions, Mr. Patton? No, ma'am. Okay. Uh, wait. Did I call the motion in a second? Uh, shoot. Did I call the motion? Yes. Second. Thank you. All in favor say I.

211I. Any opposed? Okay. Passes. With item uh 9G, resolution regarding Edward uh Brian Memorial Justice uh assistance grant program. I will entertain a motion to accept it. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Do I have a second? I'll second. Thank you, Mr. Ooa. Is there any discussion on that item? Uh, Mr. Bledo? No. Any discussion, Mr. Davis? Any discussion, Mr. Vidia? No. Uh, Mr. Gillery is recusing himself. Looking at Renee. Any questions, Mr. Ooa? No. Any questions, Mr. Patton? No, ma'am. Okay. All in favor say I. I I except for Mr. Gillery who is recusing passes unanimous not unanimously. Six. Thank you. Sorry about that. Okay. What we have all been waiting for. With baited breath review and discuss budget update. Cheryl Davis give us all the flowery news we want to hear. Okay. You all don't

212blame me for the bad news. Okay. It's not me. Okay, we're going to start out tonight. I just want to update the current year projections just a little bit because we have the fifth six weeks numbers in here and uh it looks pretty much like it did last time. Uh again, we are looking at about a 7.5 million deficit in the current year. The adopted budget was $8 million deficit, but we have um amended in a number of things that we've talked about before. We had some rollover of some purchases um some projects that hadn't completed like buses and things like that. So, we really have um as you can see, our revised budget is $14.8 million deficit. We're under spending that by about half. So, in pretty good shape as far as that goes.

213Um, again, our last time I think we talked at the end of four, six weeks, our ADA was up two. It's now up 28. So, we did pick up a few students there. Um, we talked a little bit, one of the things I wanted to talk about right there, our property value study, uh, we do have an appeal out on that. We talked about that last time as well that we got notice that the there was an error in the reporting from the um appraisal district again. So we filed an appeal. We have not heard information that has to do with that freeze and the compression of the over 65 homesteads. When we look actually at the revenue um on where we have generated additional revenues, you see that we had just uh generated an

214extra 1.6 six million in the foundation school program. A lot of that is in that homestead exemption because they really didn't know what that was going to be when we were calculating our revenues last year. We didn't know what the impact of that was going to be. So, a lot of that is in the hold harmless for the homestead exemption. And then the other big chunk of revenue that we generated was $2 million in investment income. Um, again, we were being told that the interest rates were going to be going down significantly. They have not as of this point. I think we are running about 4.4% on CDs at the beginning of the year and it's like 4.25 right now. So, really not a big change in the interest rates. I did want to show

215you this though because this is our foundation school program, our tier one revenues. So there is a bit of a a concern here because you see our revenues as far as our um regular edotment are down. We're down about a million3 in regular ed. We are up 2 million 2.1 million in special ed because we do have more identified students in special ed. Compensatory education. This is a change with our new tiers that we got. The district's a little richer as far as the tiers are concerned. So, we're losing about $484,000 there. Um, our career and technology is up about half a million dollars. Uh, and then our early education, we had we do have fewer kids in ADA in those first early education has been kinder through third grade. So we have fewer kids

216in there. So we've lost about 137,000 there. And then our other programs which is partially that hold harmless I was talking about is up a million8. But because special ed is up, the counts are up and that we're getting that additional revenue, we will have to commit probably another million dollars worth of resources to special ed um in this coming year. So, even if we're not getting new money overall, we'll have to make a commitment probably to special ed. And there is, as we talk through some of the bills, there is some funding for special ed. Not that we know what that is yet, but there is going to be some funding for special education. Isn't that being discussed today at the Senate Public Ed? We know the first year is like a $1,000 worth

217for each evaluation. Yeah. And then they're they're going to block I mean these intensity it's going to be funded based on intensity of program which it's different amounts for different right different amounts for different children okay which we have now we actually have instructional arrangements get different weights for funding right now but this is an intensity model which I don't really know what that looks like yet and they're going to take a year I think to develop that okay so one of the reasons. Um, we again this is our preliminary estimates of our ADA. We talked about that last time. I have not changed the enrollment projection. It's consistent with what the demographer was projecting, but I'm looking at an enrollment of 11,526 compared to 11,673 in the current year. So, that's kind of what

218I'm basing our um budget on for next year. local property values and projected tax rates. One of the reasons we have to have this meeting because under the law I have to we get our preliminary values on April 30th for our local values and we do need to have a discussion with you all about those local values within 120 days of adopting the budget. Um, the actual reason for that has is is has gone away because the reason we originally had to have this was because there was a year lag in the values that were used for the for calculating your state revenue. That's no longer the case, but this is still in the law. So, we have to do this. Um, we h we will have to estimate those CPTD values that we just

219talked about. This is what it looks like right now. Our net taxable values that we received as our preliminary values are $10.2 billion. That is up from 9.8 billion for preliminary values last year using and you'll see a little bit different pattern because that those preliminary values turned into 9.2 for certified values. Um last year I'm making them 9.4 four and bringing them down a little bit more this year because there is going to be an increase in the homestead exemption. So, I used the percentage the 9.01% that you saw in 20123 when they increase the homestead exemption that year. Um, we know the last few years this has been problematical for us and trying to estimate because we're not getting good numbers when they're making adjustments this late in the year. our tax offices,

220our appraisal districts are not really able to reprogram to that. You think maybe by this time they'd be able to, but I am right now using that 9.01% for what I'm I'm projecting for our certified values. Homestead exemption, I have questions there. I think it's 40,000. It's going to increase from a 100,000 to 140,000. That's what's in the bills right now that I think will most likely go forward. I did want to make one comment on that um on the certified values. As you can see down there, I had when we did the five-year projection last year um for our uh strategic planning that we were doing. I thought we would go into recapture this coming year. Earlier when I presented in February, I did not think we were going to go into recapture because

221the appraisal disc district was telling me that the values were going to be very flat. As you can see, they were not flat. So they did go up. I do think we it's very possible with our student population going down and our values going up, we will be in recapture next year. And at this point in time, early calculations, I don't have a template. I can't really calculate everything. It looks like about $272,000 we'll have to send back to the state. So looking at this again, we still bec because we don't have a bill yet for state funding. Some of these I'm having to use last year's rates on just to give you what it looks like the tax rates could be at this point. But using those values and using the same um compressed

222tax rate that we had last year that will change based on the bill um it would take us down to a total M rate of 75.92 cents. We would need a INS rate on those values of 24.35%. I got a note here on that as well. One of the other things that's changing in the bills is the hold harmless. if they do away with a hold harmless for debt service that they have had. Now, there's been several versions of that. Some of the original versions were very hurtful. They put some back in. So, I don't know exactly where that's going to be yet. If they do away with a hold harmless, we'd have to increase that by 2.8 cents um because of what we're getting right now. But if they don't, if we get a

223hold harmless of similar amount, we would be the our total tax rate would be right at a dollar. I have that comparison on this following page of what that looks like compared to the current year. This current year where the total tax rate is $14894. So we would be just over a dollar for next year. Again, this is very preliminary. A lot of it depends on what gets passed in the legislature. and what our final certified values end up to be. So, we talked about cost increases. I'm continuing to de um work on those. I finished up with utilities and uh substitute cost and all this week. So, we're still looking at that and seeing where we can um cut some things, where we can save some money on those things. But we do know

224that we've got of course some increases. I think the good news is that um with our tax collection fees and some of those I don't think we're going to have to have an increase in the budget for next year from what we're looking at right now. Okay, let's talk a little bit about what's in the session. I kind of have a have cleaned this up from what I had last time um or what was in your packets, your board packets. I took out some of the bills because we're going to talk about House Bill Two and these bills associated with that in a minute. Um, some of this is updated a little bit as far as I could get. Um, it's kind of hard to know where we are in some of these things. Safety

225allotment. It does look like we should double our safety aotment with the legislation. Um, I think they're going with Senate Bill 260, although I heard something the opposite earlier today, so I'm not quite sure. Um, but we should get about another half million dollars in the safety aotment. One of the things that was said in the hearings today was that that money could be used for districts. We did when we got the increase in the state a lotment before of a half million dollars, we spent over a million dollars. So we don't have we're already spending what we need to spend for safety aotment. So this money some of this could be used for safety, but some of it could also be used to reimburse us for what we've been spending already on the um

226SB2 has already passed and been signed by the governor. That's the vouchers. And then we have the virtual education bill has already been signed by the governor. And then the teacher scholarship incentives that's still outstanding as well as the property tax legislation hasn't gone through yet. So we're still watching that. But we kind of know basically what they're probably going to be doing with that. Like I said, there's going to more than likely be an increase in the homestead exemption. We are also watching some of the bills that are related to debt service. Um there is some language. We think that Senate Bill 19 that was House Bill 19 was um going to be very restrictive to us on debt service because one of the things that it was going to do was uh limit

227our tax rate for debt to 20% of the total tax rate. We're already at 26%. So we would already be in violation of that bill. only two districts in the state are not. So anyway, and I think that's Houston and maybe Dallas, two of the really big ones. Okay, so let's look a little bit real quick at at the uh committee substitute for House Bill Two and what it looks like at this point in time. Article one deals with teacher compensation. This is $4.2 billion is being put into this. It provides what they keep calling a permanent acrosstheboard pay increase for teachers with at least three years of experience. Teachers below three years, we're not going to get funding for. And so teachers, we are in an enrollment of course of over 5,000. So teachers

228with three or four years of experience would get $2,500. And then teachers with five or more years of experience would get $5,500. Um, again, this should generate I ran from our PES in the fall, this would generate about $4,87,000 for the district. We would have about $200,000. Maybe in a if we did a smaller pay raise of say 1,500 for our teachers from zero through two years, that could cost about a couple hundred thousand. I think it's about 206,000. But this does not cover benefits. So the benefits on this salary increase would be 750,000 that the district will have to cover that we have to absorb. That's the TRS and workers comp and unemployment and um Medicare med for us and right now there's nothing attached to that u house bill that will this has

229to go into salary. their salaries have to be this much higher than they were in the current year. Right. So I was hoping you had a different answer than what I thought that I had studied on. Yeah. So um in 2019 HP3 that year we were able to it was for compensation and we were able to use part of that money to also cover the benefits this TRS that we cannot. So um that is you know one of the issues that we have with that. Um it also provides for an increase in the teacher incentive aotment adds a fourth designation and increases the floor and ceiling on those payraises because free prek for teachers. Um liability insurance for teachers is in there. So some of the questions that we did have was again stipen there's

230because it says it's a permanent increase for salaries but it also has to be reappropriated every two years. It's not ongoing appropriation like if you have an increase in basic aotment. So there's a lot of districts concerned about giving this as a increase on the salary schedule and some are talking about maybe it as a stipen because if the legislature decides not to appropriate that money you know it wouldn't be built into the south. Um, so when we do a stipen, do are we giving TRS benefits to that that stipens? Um, unless they're a retention bonus, which I don't think in this case because of the way it's worded, it would be called even though this is actually referred to as a retention allotment, right, by the state. Um, I think if it's going, they

231are expecting it to be eligible for TRS. If that's the case, we would give it just as a um supplemental salary supplemental salary because most of our stipens that we give are eligible for TRS. Okay. Thank you, Miss Davis. Are there strings attached to this money? Wasn't there a house bill that eliminated non-certified teachers from campuses? Eventually, yes. And it may be actually in this educator prep one that it uh there's a couple of other ones that will let me see there's one other one. No, it might be in that one that it does I think you have till 2030 I believe before you have to have all your teachers certified. Yeah. It's a lot. Okay. So the second one is educator prep program. It and so this is part of what they're saying that

232they're putting a lot of money into. They're putting three billion dollars into this program. So and these are very helpful and and I don't in any way want to say that, you know, getting $4 million for teacher salaries is a bad thing because it's fantastic. We desperately need to increase our teacher salaries to be competitive. So, you know, I don't want to say that at all. That is I I'm just happy they put that four million in for us into that. Um, but from 2019 till now, we talked about it in February, we've had a 22 and a half% inflation. So, that would be 15 million for us, not four million. And something that was said in the hearings today, it they don't really need to fund inflation. Something was said about because we because

233the richer districts and districts that have good prop because you know the rural districts can't generate revenues because they have low property values. They can't get the tax collections. But how many times have I shown you guys that chart that says, what does it say with a little seessaw? When local revenues go up, state revenues go down, right? So, we don't keep that money. So, it's one thing to say, you know, you've got all we've got higher values, so we'll get more tax revenue, but that benefits the state, not us, because they keep that money then. So, as I told you, I was listening to the hearings today and I had to shut the door to my office. Um, because I didn't want my staff to hear my comments. Miss Davis, I wish you would

234have told me that last week because I intentionally didn't protest my property taxes this year just so that Waco SD would get a little bit more in revenue, but apparently that's not the case. Yeah, we don't get to keep it. The state will keep that. Um, okay. So anyway, the educated the educator prep program, it it is the one that phases out uncertified teachers and under because we had those district of innovation waiverss and those will um go away. There will be some that will allow them to and it yes it will end by 2030 is the expectation and then districts can't wave duty to we'll have to notify um parents if the teacher is not appropriately certified and then there will be available 3,000 per new teacher uh for job men on the job

235mentorship. The third 2B is the educator bill of rights. So, there are going to be grants for rehire retired teachers. Um, if you don't realize it, we pay a very hefty premium to TRS when we hire retired teachers. It's actually our regular TRS is about 7 and a half%. We have to pay both sides of it for retired teachers. we have about a 13% um penalty, if you will, for TRS if we when we hire retired teachers. So, there's supposed to be a grant that may help us with that. And then there's some other things about exam fees um that will help us in getting some of our like bilingual teachers and special ed teachers that are very hard to get um having those fees waved. Special education, this is one we're talking about, 1.3

236billion in special ed. There's a new model for special education funding, changes to innovative intensity of services model. It'll be in the second year of the bianium. We won't see that in this coming year, but we will see the evaluation reimbursement for $1,000 per evaluation of new state funding for special education um for the this bianium only. It won't continue. There will be an additional reimbursement if we do evaluations as requested by homeschool or private school students. Now, that's the law. Now, we actually do have to do those evaluations now for homeschool and private school teachers students. So, it's not really um we'll get funding for it, but we are actually currently doing it. on the early learning reforms. Um there are going to be uh targeted investment screeners requires fun in interventions and all

237for literacy and numeracy. They are going to invest in mathmies. I think the last time they did readingmies and now this time we're going to invest in mathmies. Career and technical education. Um not a lot of extra money here really. It's 0.2 2 billion. A lot of that is actually one of the things that they have changed is our new instructional facilities aotment which we are getting right now for Wake High and Kendrick for startup costs. They are actually going to include um re renovations and construction for uh CTE facilities that hasn't been included in that funding before. And then they're going to improve the um funding for the rural um pathways program. And we do have a PEK program. So we'll get a little bit of extra money there. It currently pays $25 a

238student. So doesn't really fund the program. Okay. So here is the additional school finance reforms. increases the basic aotment by $55, but it is not new money. It is existing money and it's going to be paid for through the golden penny yield reforms. So the without new law, the only new money ISD was getting this year was through the golden penny yield reforms. So, not all districts get golden penny yield. This is the the tier 2 funding, which is the golden copper pennies, is what is known as Robin Hood. It was put in place for property poor districts. So, not all districts get tier 2 funding. Not all districts went out and sold their voters on a tax ratification election to get those golden pennies increased. We went out in 2015. We sold a tax

239ratification election and we generated 13 cents of increased tax rate so we could leverage these funds. That is now the money they are going to use to fund the $55 basic aotment is that additional money we were getting on those golden pennies. So it's not money we have now. It was going to be new money for us, but with the when they take away it that money from this pot of districts that has it to fund the $55 for this pot of districts. Well, guess what happens? We get less than we had before. So, quick and dirty calculation. will lose $448,000 with this instead of gaining on the increase in the basic aotment. Again, I talked about the school safety aotment going up. Um there is a increase in the charter facilities funding by 255

240million. Of course, we don't get any of that. There's an increase in the small and midsize district aotment which we don't qualify for. lots 42 million for regional variations in insurance costs and even though we looked in February at how much our insurance costs had gone up um I think our property insurance went up about a million dollars last year not because of necessarily what's happening in Waco but what's happening throughout the state we don't qualify for this the um most of the districts that qualify are those along the coast and then it adds another 300 million. This we don't really know what this is yet, but it's um for miscellaneous adjustments and tier 2 impacts. So, um depending on what I think that's going to help fund the hold harmless that might be needed,

241but again, we don't I had hoped to be able to at least bring some kind of preliminary um calculation, but we don't have enough information as of today. I I kept this from going out till about four o'clock this afternoon hoping we'd get some information, but we didn't really get any more information on it. So, just Hey, um just going thinking back a couple of slides. um if the um payraises go in as as what the House bill is looking at right now. Have you calculated what the impact of that would be for our TRS that will be coming from us? Have you have you like broad broad brush that that 74850,000 that includes the TRS that Okay. pay out. Okay. Because that is all over state stat men because so the way TRS works

242the state pays TRS for our employees that are not subject to statutory minimum which would be custodians and people you know Paris non um certified people. Yes ma'am. So then we have to pay TRS on certified staff that are subject to stat men when they go above the statutory minimum amount. Well, all of this since we pay above statutory minimum, all of this salary increase will be above statutory minimum. So the state will not be picking up any of the and we will we'll have to pay all of it. I'm sorry. I I meant to ask that a few minutes ago and nature was calling. I've only gone through like five bottles of water. So, but anyway, so that's kind of that's that part of that 750. Okay. Most of that 750,000 is TRS. It

243will be TRS. All right. Thank you. Sorry for the interruption. Again, there's just lots of questions. We haven't seen the actual we see we have now seen the bill language. We got that sometime earlier today. Um but we don't really see how that's necessarily going to be run through formulas or anything yet. Uh we don't know about hold harmless adjustments because we have we have had up through this past year three levels of hold harmless in our general fund for each of those homestead exemptions that have occurred over the last few years. So they were talking about maybe there would be a fourth level, but I think they took it out and we're going to redo it. Um and then again the teacher increase is described as permanent but the funding is not really permanent.

244It has to be reappropriated every bienium. And then we already know the answer as of today. We can't cover the benefit impact. It's got to be an actual salary increase. We don't know what those miscellaneous adjustments include. And uh there's some specific changes that we don't exactly know the timelines on either. Um again, the Senate hearings were today. This is kind of the important dates that are left. Um it ends uh the session ends June 2nd. So we expect that we will know something definitive by June 2nd. because as they were talking about, there is really no um appetite for them to go into special session about school funding. So, they want a decision to be made by June 2nd. Um, whatever that might be, from what I have heard, what we're hearing from consultants

245is this is probably what it's going to be. So we're we don't we are not really getting anything to help with our deficit situation for that we are currently and again we're understanding that by quite a bit. Um you know we had some revenues there's still some question about uh Medicaid and the charge program. We had big cuts to charge last year but we still are generating a million six in charge this year. And if that gets cut at the federal level, we could lose that funding. Um, but and you know, Chairman Powell has said he's going to stay firm with uh interest rates, so maybe we'll have that for a little bit longer, but it's just just kind of really hard to know what we're where we're going to be at with revenues. I

246will say though going through and projecting expenditures this last week, projecting um ADA and enrollments. It was so nice to see some stability after the last four years to see actually some patterns stabilizing like they used to where you could actually do some projections. COVID just made it so difficult to do that. And uh I I do see a lot of stabilizing with our expenditures and our uh attendance and enrollments now. So even if they're still slightly going down, at least not quite the at the rate that they were for a while. Another question. Um knowing that all this Crap is up in the air right now. Are when you're making your budget, are you are you having to make two budgets for next year? No, I haven't made one yet. I mean, we talked

247about it and one of the things I told Dr. Spicer when she she came in to this situation that we have with a large deficit, not knowing programs, not knowing staff, not knowing necessarily what she wanted to do. And last year we thought we might have a deficit last year, but because of the way we were able to to utilize I started to say manipulate the way we were able to utilize those ESER funds at the end of the year, we did not end up with a deficit last year. We actually ended up putting $7 million into the fund balance at the end of last year. That's a $7 million we're going to be using probably in this year to cover this budget. So, we're kind of at a break even of where we were

248at the beginning of last year. We can do that for a year or so because we do have a very healthy fund balance. This bill though is for a bienium and maybe longer because one of the things that was said by the one of the consultants yesterday is they usually don't do this every bienium. They usually do it every other bianium on school funding. I would say that they didn't do what they were supposed to do last bianium. So, we should have two in a row. But, um, we I am cutting supplies and materials again. That will get us, you know, half a million dollars maybe because I don't want to cut campuses. Um, where they can't really still do some of the things they want to do. Um, I'm going to cut about half

249a million dollars out of that. We have closed Alta Vista, so we do know we're probably going to get about 600,000 in the fixed cost out of Alta Vista. Um, depending we talked about the transformation grant. If that goes away, that's another 700,000. So, we can easily I think I think we can easily get a couple million out of the budget. We talked about maybe freezing positions and looking at that for now, but um and we don't have this. It has leveled off because we did budget quite a bit last year because the inflation rate had been so high. So, we did budget a little bit higher and that's why I think we're not seeing that the need for the increases in this year for like tax collection fees and some of that. But we

250are going to again have to adopt a budget with a deficit and that we're going to have to put a plan together to start addressing that. We've kind of put that off. I think with ESR funds with some of the other things we've kind of put it off, but we're not going to have a choice. We're going to have to do something. I just want to say publicly how much I appreciate your wisdom and your frugality, I guess is the word. Uh I was speaking with someone today and u who knows you and we both joke that the first thing out of your mouth is no. And that makes you a good it makes you a great CFO. a great CFO. Come and ask for something, the first word is no. Cheryl, I'm going to

251say I didn't appreciate that at all when I was teaching, but at up here I can. See, I told I just said earlier tonight, I'm going to give a class on how to say no because uh we're going to have to be doing a lot more of that in the next. I remember coming to you as a principal and begging and first word out of your mouth was no. But you always found a way to help and your your ability and your expertise uh is going to help us get through these uh murky days ahead. Well, it helps if you have a plan. And that that's what people always say that they tell other when other administrators come on board, they'll tell them about me. Always have a plan. Don't ever go and ask her

252for money without having a plan. So, you have to have a plan. But right now, not even. And we just don't have a plan. So, we're going to have to to come up with one. We'll survive. It's going to be rough. And you know, I have, as you know, I have a daughter who's a fine arts teacher. I told her today, said, "Well, you're not going to be able to do that trip next year." And uh I said, "Well, if fine arts even exists next year." So, she didn't appreciate that. Well, Miss Davis, thank you so much for all the cheery news. [Laughter] But I do appreciate uh your what Jim said, your frugality and the way that you have led this district um with the finances and so many variables and unknowns. Thank you.

253Moving on to Oh, good. Moving on to item number 11. Review discuss Waco High School construction project and occupancy plan. This is exciting. Miss Betta. Good evening, Madame President, members of the board, and Dr. Spicer. You know, about three years ago, the board approved GMP number one for Waco High School, and we started on this adventure in September 2022 was GMP number two, and we really committed to the adventure. Um it's it's um we've got a lot of exciting stuff to show you today. And I wanted to just introduce real quick, you know, Andrew Fast, he's a regular around here. Um also, um of course, our project architect with Okonnell Robertson. Um Isaiah Enrew with Rogers O'Brien. He's our project manager on site. And John Eggling, uh also with Rogers O'Brien. So I'm going to

254without much Oh, I also wanted to just give a shout out to Hope. she was here for a while and she's been very um dedicated on the Waco OSD side to this project and Kevin Hayer as well. So um unfortunately they weren't able to be here tonight. So all right, Andrew, good evening everyone. Thank you so much again for having us here. Um hopefully we can bring a little uh lightness to the meeting here uh as we move forward. So uh we're here to present Waco High School. Um, as you likely know, we are on the brink of delivering this amazing building to y'all so you can use it here next fall. Um, so to start off, uh, wanted to Oh, I guess this slide got broken, but it was a time lapse taking us

255through from where we started, uh, with, you know, the old Waco High School and nothing on the site, you know, removing 42nd Street and taking over, uh, the lake, the Lake Air, Little League fields and then, you know, seeing the construction kind of progress through. Um, this end slide doesn't really show you much, but it does show you what uh will be taken over. So basically what is showing in the plan here um is the where the existing school is uh which we will then be taking over as y'all move into the new Waco High School. Um and then we'll be completing all the site buildout which includes the parent dropoff loop, the uh staff parking lot, the tennis courts and three practice field as well as other field events um and other uh kind

256of support spaces there. Uh so moving in here um basically we're just going to show you a bunch of really pretty pictures of the new school. So, we do encourage you all to come out and visit us if you do want to have a tour, but I'm sure we'll have a grand opening here soon as well. Uh, the first slide here shows the new front entry, uh, which I just actually really love this cuz if you saw two slides ago, uh, the rendering that you all have seen for the past few years, this is just kind of a exact replica of of that. So, it's really cool to see this design come to life and this new building uh, here taking shape. So uh on the upper right P picture you have the exterior courtyard

257which is all behind the secure perimeter. That middle picture on the right shows the student entry and the the grass uh band practice field and then you see a view of the twotory classroom right along New Road. So if you have driven by I'm sure you've seen all of that. Uh next we'll take you inside the building. Here's the front entrance as you walk in that front door. That large picture on the left uh shows you Lion's Way. Uh that's kind of that main street that cuts directly through the center of the campus. Uh you have your admin on the left and your two-story classrooming on the right there. And then the second or the upper right picture shows our coffee kiosk which is kind of situated right in the center of the campus. That's

258for students and staff. Whoever enjoys caffeinated beverages can, you know, stop on by and grab uh a treat there. And I mean it looks like a little mini Starbucks. So it's a really cool space. Uh, and then the lower right picture would be also right in that main dining commons is our uh monumental um cast inplace concrete stair. It's it the picture doesn't really do it justice if you go there in person. It's a really uh cool site to behold. Next, we're going to just take you through some of the different spaces that we're offering in the school. Here um is our library. As you can see, we're already starting to bring furniture in. You got your library stacks there ready for all the amazing books that they're going to offer here. Uh you have

259your circulation desk on the middle picture on the right. Uh on the upper right that's still in your dining commons. Uh it's called the library porch. So an area that's going to have some seating and area for uh students to bring books out and read and also do homework and also dine. On the lower right, if you go out those doors in the back of the library, you gain access to that amazing courtyard. So you can get sit out there, pick your favorite book, and and uh cozy up to a nice nice spot there. Uh, next up for all you athletic enthusiasts, um, our new gymnasium that has seating capacity for about 2,000. Um, beautiful floors, beautiful, um, new grandstands, everything is just amazing. So, is this the one we toured when we were there

260that they were just putting the floor in? I think so. Yeah. Yeah, they just put the flooring in. This is the the main gym. There is also an auxiliary gym uh, as well, but this is going to be your main competition gym. Uh, next up, we have our classroom neighborhoods. So the largest image is showing your teacher think tank uh which is where all the teachers would have their desks and would be have a space to collaborate. Also a little kitchenet inside. Uh the upper right picture shows you a view inside of one of those things tanks. As you can see the desks are already um there uh with chairs and and all the things the teachers are going to need. Uh the lower right kind of shows you one of the typical classrooms with

261some of the furniture starting to go in there. There will be more. Uh next up we have theater and blackbox. Um this is a view from standing on the stage out into our 600 seat auditorium. Uh you got that Lion Pride red seats um staring at you and then all the beautiful uh finishes in this space. It's it's really a sight to behold. Uh the upper right picture shows the blackbox theater which is another alternate um performance space that can be utilized for smaller venue performances. I think the the wood walls, one of my favorite things in in this auditorium. It's so striking. And it's actually just wood flooring that we just put on the walls and it just looks amazing. Y'all want to come replace my wood floors? For sure. Yeah, I'll talk to

262Isaiah. He's the He's the builder guy. I just dream the vision. So, um here's band choir and art with the lower left image. Here is your new band hall. A lot of space there for um lots of music to happen. Also includes a overhead door here to bring in large instruments and it has direct access to the band practice field adjacent to it. Uh you have your choir which is down the hall. Another great space. Both spaces have a lot of natural light coming in. Uh lower right shows you a visual arts lab. Um and those also have a lot of natural light coming in. You can see it's kind of a a studio themed space. So it kind of has the exposed structure and and just kind of um the cool concrete floors also

263with direct access to that main courtyard. So students can go out there paint, sculpt, you know, uh take in inspiration from from that surrounding. I have a question uh on the last slide. Where where is the uh practice field in relation the grass practice field is right along New Road. Um New Road and kind of uh tric basically behind there's a detention pond there and Okay. I was going to say because Yeah. What I remember is that detention pond there. But yes. So right behind that would be your grass field. Yep. I have a question. Looking at the the band hall with the sound muffling. Are we going to have those sound dampening things on the walls going down Lion's Way? Not down Lion's Way. Actually, Lion's Way offers um an acoustical deck product. So,

264um it has a lot of little holes in it that really helps with um the sound. The sound. Yep. Okay. Thanks. For sure. Uh next up is CTE. Um that large image is your uh culinary lab. So, that's the more commercial grade kitchen. Um you can see this also as you're walking through the quarters. uh you can't see off the right or sorry the left side of that image there's a large window so as you're walking down the corridor you can pop in or peek in and see all the um cooking that's going on there. Uh the lower right image is going to be your um culinary kitchen. So the more residential um grade kitchen. It's got six different workstations with all kind of a residential appliances there. Uh the upper right is an image

265of your auto tech uh classroom. So that's six bays. They're going to have lifts. It's full stuff now. Um, but we're we're getting ready to to turn that over as well. We're even talking through getting cars delivered into there and um other stuff for the the new students coming in next year. And with that, I will turn it over to Isaiah. Yeah. So, kind of as a summary of where we're at, um about 92% complete with the project overall. So, um, that's basically we've got till, uh, January, um, of next year to finish out this next phase. So, that's once school's out, mad dash to get all the stuff out of the old building, moved over or, you know, taking wherever it's going and then demolishing that, getting the additional practice fields and parking and

266other drive lanes out on that side. Um so um but basically at right at substantial completion for the building, we're just finishing touches right now. Um working through punch list, getting all those little uh final touches um wrapped up. Um so as you saw, furniture going in. Um been a lot of movement on that already and tracking well to finish by the end of May. Um on schedule. Um technology also is going in. We've been working with district technology on the stuff that they're doing as well as what we're installing. So, good progress there. There'll be a little bit of salvage on their end as well from the old building. Um, but plenty of time to get that up and running before the uh fall semester. Um, and speaking of coming out of the new

267building, that's uh the packing materials are delivered to the old campus. So, um, teachers are able to do that packing, get a head start on that so that when school's out that the movers will move over, um, ending on the 30th. Um, and so currently with permit wise, we've got a stocking TCO for the whole building, which means we can load the load the space and we're days away from TCO for occupancy of um, staff actually being able to move in there. plenty of time over the summer to move in, not scrambling to try to get there before the school year. So, great achievement by I have a question, Mr. Chair. Um, as it relates to to moving I was talking to some teachers at Waco High. Does everyone have adequate bins or whatever we're

268providing them to to move their classroom? There was some confusion from them on what was going to be supplied and and when it was going to be available. Okay. Okay, good deal. And then um can we go back to the slide with the staircase and the concrete um masterpiece? Oh, there we go. Um so my question, I guess this is for Dr. Spicer. Are we allowing um Mr. A and his staff to go in and and walk? My my thought is during a passing period going into a full cafeteria. It's just going to be a lot of chaos. And I think the more uh time we can provide them to walk that and and see any potential bottlenecks that the better off we'll be rather than doing it, you know, closer to the start of

269school. Yes, they have had they have been already going into the schools. We've been talking about labeling classrooms, who goes where, all that good stuff. So, they've been doing that. So I've opened a new school as a high school principal and so we do provide that time. We have some trainings as well about how to use a flexible space because sometimes you go into a new I'll say modern facility and you might um want to practice I'll say previous habits but we have a new system new opportunity. So we're going to have training for him and his staff to make sure they have access and opportunity to make sure we're successful for next year. Mhm. Just to add to that, um part there'll be a little less chaos there because part of the design includes

270the main kitchen area which is right there, but also includes two distributed serving uh within the classroom neighborhoods. So, it's really going to pull uh some of that population outside of that main area and offering dining areas in those other portions of the building as well. So, it'll decrease the chaos slightly um there in that main in that main circulation area. Was that that going to require additional staff to to main this? Well, it's it's a total of six serving lines, so four at the main kitchen and two distributed. Um, so then yeah, and each place would offer a different kind of food offering, I believe. Yeah, I'm thinking of those like coffee areas that are non-existent obviously right now in current school. Exciting. So, it's a big job this moving out of a school

271we've been living in for 50 something years almost, maybe more. Um, we've got a lot of things coming up and one of the things we learned from our last two occupancies was we wanted to do a better job of getting things out of the building so that we had a chance for more. I mean, we salvaged a lot, but there was just a lot left over. So, we're having an auction, an online auction for the contents of Waco High School once we have moved everything out that's going either to the new school or that uh is going to another place in Waco ISTD, another campus within Waco ISD. One example of this is the weight room at the existing high school. They're getting all new weights in the new school. So those weights are being

272taken from Waco High School to University High School predominantly with a small portion of them going to Waco DPD at the request of Chief Goodman for the officer fitness program I suppose. Um so we're really using everything and nothing's we're trying really hard to make sure we use everything that's reusable. Um, and the online auction is going to start 5:27 and run through 62 and then they have to have everything out by 66. People have to come get their stuff and get it out of the building. Um, another thing that's happening is the salvage of HVAC equipment and technology equipment. Um, just a couple years ago, we replaced rooftop units on that CTE wing and so we're taking those u rooftop units off and we're going to use them other places in Waco ISD. Those

273were provided with ESRE funds. They were failing. We had to replace them. They weren't working anymore, but we'll be able to salvage those. Um, auto tech equipment is also being reused and salvaged. And what we aren't using at the new Waco High School is going over to university and we'll be replacing their equipment because it's an upgrade for them. So, that um Miss um Saxinian has been critical in getting that done. We've got a bunch of historical items we're relocating, including the granite ram from the Richfield Rams and um the lion that's in the entryway there. And poor lion, he needs some he needs some attention. So, we're going to get him doctorred up and get his ears fixed and no more holes and try to get him looked a little better. Um and just

274there's just there's also a time capsule which is going to be pretty cool. We're having uh Rogers O'Brien's going to excavate that for us and we're going to hold it over at the maintenance office and not open it until the dedication I assume in the fall. That would be the time we would do that. People are real excited about opening that time capsule. It was placed there in 1986. So, um I think that'll a lot of people are very interested in that. And then the painting of the murals, that's a a really exciting thing that will start the week of June 2nd. And the mural artist are uh Mr. Will Suarez and also Mr. Vincent Thomas both local Waco artist. And they have been working with historical committee to develop these beautiful murals that will

275basically try to convey the richness of the heritage of the Waco High School, all of the high schools combined. So um anyway, that's that's where we are. Um, packing is ongoing and I think it probably will be till the till the last minute just because it's a big job and uh we've told everybody that it's going to be out of here by 5:23 or you know the auctioner the bulldozers are going to get it. So, so uh we're providing lots of support to the campus and and we have had lots of opportunities for the campus to visit and to walk through. We've scheduled many many walkthroughs, specific walkthroughs with user groups like the fine arts team or the CTE team or the culinary team. So, we've really tried to do that, but nothing's going to

276take the place of actually being there for them. And we know that. Another thing that we're working on, just one more quick thing with Okonnell Robertson is a teacher guide that is a document that will be provided to the teachers that will show them I mean it's it's going to be an electronic booklet. I'm not sure we're going to print them, but we might. And and it will basically tell them everything about how to use their new building. Kind of like an owner's manual for your new building, but for them specifically as teachers, like the science teacher, how do you what's the deal with this hood? Why is it doing this? you know, how all the things you need to know when you take over this these high-tech buildings. I mean, there's movable partitions. There's

277all kind of things that they don't have now. So, they will have them here. So, it's going to be very exciting. That's so exciting. I just I want to thank uh Gloria, your team. I want to thank Rogers O'Brien for all of the hard work that you've done to get us here and on time and in this amazing building. And I remember when Mitch was talking about this wall and this winding staircase and talking how it was just this like construction uh kind of anomaly and they'd never done it before and this was really kind of worked those details out and I I just kept thinking this is the like the art museums that you see in Europe. These are the type of staircases that you see when you go there. And anyway, just the

278attention to detail. Thank you uh Okonnell Robertson. Thank you for putting a coffee bar in for our high school. That is incredible. And I just think it's those little touches of the coffee bar for Waco High, the um when we look at the puppet theater for Kendrick. Um I I am just I I I think those type of details, they matter, right? Because they tell our kids and our staff that they matter. And so I'm just so thankful. um for this work. I just I look at it and I'm just so proud so proud of the work that Gloria, you and your team and our construction crew and our architects have put this kind of dream together and I could not be more proud um of this. It was a historic bond. Yeah. and and

279really being I told Gloria I saw her the other day and I thought on time and a thin budget are my two of my favorite words and that is in and of itself quite a feat. So I just want to thank you so much for being such great partners and really uh I'm sorry. No, that's okay. But I was going to say also how open you guys were have been to allowing folks to come in and take tours and how you stop things and walk folk around. Uh that was really an experience for me the first time that I went and I've been back I guess three times since. And you the the people doing that construction, you guys have just been so open and friendly uh for this old fella. I appreciated it. Yeah.

280So I look forward to seeing the inside in person and live. And I think those teachers are probably equally as excited to get inside and start setting up. So, thank you so much. Really, thank you for being great partners. Thank you for envisioning a beautiful campus that fosters 21st century learning environments, flexible classrooms, beautiful spaces, spaces that work. I mean, it's just Thank you for ticking all the boxes. We appreciate it. If there's some MC Hammer pants in that time capsule, one of you is going to have to wear them around for the Huh. That's That's awesome. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Um I'm moving on to item number 12, announcements. Oh, we get to see uh Dr. King Noles here. All right. Um good evening, President Cordawick, members of the board,

281Dr. Spicer. I am um I've been entrusted to serve in Chief Cox'sstead to share announcements. So, as Dr. Spicer shared in her superintendence report, we are just one week from graduation ceremonies and the excitement of the countdown to the end of a successful school year is in full effect. The graduation stage goes up tomorrow morning. Tuesday 20th we will May 20th we will host a breakfast honoring our 2023 I'm sorry 20 yeah 2024 2025 retirees at the AC hotel in town graduation rehearsals and senior lunchons take place the first part of next week and just as we heard in the updates for Waco High School um asking everybody send their positive well-wishes to Waco High um as they continuously sim simultaneously serve our students through the end of the year and continue packing in preparation

282for their move, which is really right around the corner at this point. And the campus, if you've been there at all, is a buzz with excitement right now. Um, I plan to be over there myself with a couple of our colleagues in tennies and jeans tomorrow to help them label and continue packing boxes. Um, Wednesday, May 21st and Thursday, May 22nd are our final days of school for this 2425 school year, both of which are early release days. We are excited to watch our Waco ISD seniors walk the stage. That takes place Thursday. I can't believe I'm saying this. Thursday, May 22nd is Waco High School's graduation and Friday is University High School's graduation at the Waco ISD Sports Complex Stadium. both of which are at 7:30. Monday, May 6th is a district holiday in

283observance of Memorial Day. And that concludes the May 25, 2025 board announcements. Thank you. Beautiful job. Wonderful. Thank you so much. That was very eloquently done. Um, okay. So, oh, Mr. Vana. Yes. I just wanted um a lot of people don't know Jesse Baut's retiring. And I just wanted to bring him out so people can see who's behind the camera. And the man the man behind the He's over. Jesse, are you there? Did he leave? There he is. Yay. Come out here, Jesse. Come on to the front. [Applause] He is often behind the camera. Thank you, Mr. Vana. Jose, I'm glad you said that because I was going to say that. Uh he's always he's always been here. He's always been here. And um a lot of you know Elaine who was here forever and

284I got to teach with uh with his daughter at Waco High and I know he's as excited as I am that his grandson will be attending Hillrest next year. So uh he's he won't be too far from us. Also I do want to say he's not here. Um Dr. Edison is retiring and I know there's lots of people retiring but he's been a friend of mine for a really long time and um a lot of people don't know that he grew up in South Waco and he's got a very very um inspiring story but he's been he's been wonderful and whenever I think of a Waco ID graduate I always think of someone like Dr. Edison um so I want to thank him for his years of service with us. Okay, great. We are um

285the board is going to go into close session at 10:15 pursuit of the Texas Open Meeting Act, Government Code 551, 071, 072, 074, 076, and 089. Um we will reconvene in um open session and move on to item 15 which is the reorg. Yes, we'll do that. Okay. We're going to meet upstairs real quick. Okay. The board has reconvened at 11:27. All right. Um and we will move on to item number 15. The item I have been waiting all evening to do. Um the reorg consider discuss and take appropriate action regarding the reorganization of the board of trustees. And I um am nominating Jose Vida for president, uh Jeremy Davis for vice president, and Jim Patton for secretary. Um make a motion to I move what we do one at a time. You can do

286slate or you can do it one at a time. Yeah. Okay. So, Mr. Gillery moves that we appoint It'll be you. Um, Jose Van, president, Jeremy Davis, vice president, Jim Patton, secretary. Wow. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Hillary. I have to move in deep for Jim Patton. Do I have a second? I'll second. Oh, Mr. Bledo coming in for the second. Okay. All in favor say I. I. I. Passes unanimously. Here you go, Mr. Vana. Welcome to the gabble. Uhoh. Uhoh. [Applause] He's going to need a bigger hammer like one of those ones. Yeah. So, yeah, just uh so thankful again to work with each of you and uh this is going to be my um last board meeting. I have served in and around Waco ISD for 25 years um and am so thankful that

287I had the opportunity. um to be on this board. I think um it was a hard decision, but I think it's one that was necessary at this time. And so I just really wanted to thank each of you really from the bottom of my heart for um working with me um and just have learned some great lessons along the way. And so I'm just so thankful for each of you. And Taylor, I've hardly known you very long, but I just uh we we had a conversation and I was just so um encouraged by having that conversation with you and hearing just kind of the wisdom that kind of poured from your mouth in terms of leadership and just um building bridges and um just your heart uh for this district. I just I really do

288feel like um we have seen tremendous accomplishments. I mean, I even think the bond, $355 million bond, um, for five new schools, I think it is a physical representation of what this board can accomplish and this district can accomplish. And it's what our kids need. And I think that is I'm just so excited because I know that this board is going to put kids first in every decision. And so, just I want to thank you guys. It was really such an honor. Uh, can I follow up on that? Yeah. Um, we've had a lot of conversations um since I've been on the board. A lot of them, some of them been more heated than others, I guess. Um, lots of disagreements, but I I I feel like every decision and every argument we've ever had

289has always been um with the kids' best interests in mind. And as a parent for Waco SD students, I really appreciate um the time you've given to this district. Angela, I want to say a few things. Oh, no. Stephanie. [Music] Stephanie. Long pregnant pause. I just wanted to see if I could make you sweat. No. Um, truly it has been You got Keith sweating though. But it has been an honor to serve with you. You have led this board with grace. You have led this board with honesty and you have led this board with forward thinking which being the only female on a on a board full of males with strong dominant personalities. You have been the glue that has kept this board cohesive and for your grace and for your generosity. I just want

290to say thank you and I feel that my life is better having known you and I have certainly learned so many things from your leadership. So, thank you from my heart. Thanks, Jim. I didn't make you cry. Yeah, I'm I'm kind of teary already. You know you know I'm not Thank you. I'm not going to be long. That's But I I feel like it's it's not fair that the boardroom is empty. because I've seen you send a lot of people out and you know with um some really kind words and thoughtful words and I feel like you deserve that and so I hate that the boardroom is empty right now but um kind of what um I think Angelo was saying that we've had some hard discussions um but we've always kept it cordial and

291we stay we stay close um throughout it and I can appreciate you for that and and I know why you're leaving. Um you've always put your family first and you and you're doing it now. Um you know, I tip my hat to your daughter and your and your husband. Um you know, getting you home and and you being there for them. That's just who you are. You've always been that person since I've known you when you had your kids over at Waco Charter School. And so um where did they wake Charter School? Yeah, I met you at I met I met you at Wake Charter School. you doing stars book clubs. You were doing stars. But um no, but I um again, I think my biggest regret right now is that um you deserve the

292applause. You deserve the the standing ovation for the time you put into this district. Keith, you're going to make me cry. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Thank you, Keith. I really I really appreciate those kind words. I want to also um we have a little something for you. um those roses that you moved in the Yes, they're beautiful back here. That's from administration. Um and then also we have a little something from the board and from administration to say we love you. We appreciate you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your heart and your passion and advocacy um for us um for our students, for the community. And we know your work is not done. We know that you'll still be cheering and even input and feedback. And so just thank you

293um just for everything you've done for me since I've been here, but just for your time on the board and in the classroom and just all the things you've done for Waco Texas. Thank you. Thank you. You got this. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Yeah. Well, I just uh just want to say thank you. Um I didn't, you know, I didn't think I'd be in this position this quick. No one ever does. But, uh, ever since I got on the board, you've always been supportive, helpful, um, always there to talk to, you know, like I text you the other day, do you have one last minute? I was like, it sounds like I'm dying. But just just thank you. Thank you for everything. Thank you for like Jim said too, serving with keeping all these guys

294in order. I don't think I'm gonna be able to do that. You can, Jose. You can. I believe in you. Uh, yeah. I I echo what everyone else said. It's been great uh serving with you. I appreciate you know the time you put in in the district. I also appreciate our conversations which I know sometime it goes from a 10 to a two to a seven and but um I feel like we always try to find some piece of common ground and that's something I appreciate it. Uh true common ground and cuz we say that a lot but we don't really practice that. So I appreciate you for um attempting. We always try to find that common ground. So, I appreciate that. And I didn't really know that you were the only woman in a

295group of guys because you're dominant and bold and you stand up and just, you know, shout out to you for holding it down. So, listen. What? Wild. Be the wild west. Oh lord. Uh Stephanie, it has been real um one board meeting, but uh just as someone who has been a fan of this school district and uh you have seen this district through a lot in your 10 years on the board, and I am um very very grateful as someone who's had kids, who's a fan of the district, who's a product of the district, who has kids in the district. Um very thankful for the grace and and that you've shown as a leader uh in some really turbulent times for our school district. So, thank you. We will miss you. Um, and very, very

296grateful for you. Oh, thank you, Taylor. [Applause] I was going to get up and clap. Melissa, [Applause] [Laughter] thank you guys. I Yeah, I'm so honored. Yes, let's do it. Our last picture. We're closed at 11:37.