001this regular meeting of the Waco Independent School Board is hereby called to order all items which may discussed or voted upon this evening have been posted as required by state law I really want to extend a warm welcome to those present and to our television viewers the board's purpose is to set goals listen to reports of the superintendent approve budgets contracts and Personnel appointments and to make policy for the district we are not here to make management decisions or solve problems of individuals management is a respons ility of the superintendent and her staff and I would just ask right now if you could please turn your cell phones to silent if you have not already done so and we really do appreciate the time that you've taken to be here and for your interest in
002Waco uh Independent School District okay the Board of Trustees is held to a set of ethical standards and one of those ethical standards is equity and attitude so we as the Waco Independent School Board will be fair just and impartial in all of our decisions and actions we will Accord one anothers the respect we wish for ourselves we will encourage expressions of different opinions and listen with an open mind to others ideas has anyone moving on to item number two public comments on agenda no public comments okay we'll move on to item number three moment of silent and Pledge of Allegiance if you would please just pause with me right now as we take time for prayer contemplation reflection and or meditation thank you our Pledge of Allegiance tonight's pledge leaders are Valeria Delgado and
003Jaden Booker Harrison of the greater wo Advanced healthc Care Academy I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to a republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible in liberty and justice for all great with the board me meet in front of the de Das whatever thank you Valia and Jaden we appreciate our pledge leaders tonight and invite them to meet our trustees valer Delgado was one of our pledge leaders tonight and her favorite subject is pathopysiology she is a member of Health occupation students of America student government and the National Honor Society her favorite pastime is reading and her career plans are to become a labor and delivery nurse thank you ARA our other pledge leader tonight is Jaden Booker Harrison Jaden's favorite subjects are anatomy
004and physiology he is a member of the National Honor Society and Avid he enjoys reading and learning pharmacology Jaden plans to become a pharmer CO matrician which is a scientist who uses mathematical models to study how drugs affect humans and animals thank you to our guaca Dean Dr Dale mcll and coordinator Angie fesco for supporting the students and if you're not aware February is Career and Technical education month so thank you to our pledge leaders tonight we're now ready to begin our special recognitions this evening and we begin with our Middle School All State band and choir selections Waco ISD Middle School band students Advanced and were selected as musicians for the All Region band and All Region jazz band the region level is the highest level to which middle school students can advance in
005the state of Texas at Tennyson Middle School 19 students were selected and 15 are here with us tonight we begin with our eighth grade All Region band members you can go ahead and give them a round of applause that's definitely [Applause] worthy with us tonight is Neri Vega Angie tanoko denova Christian aular and now listen to this one Israel vaugh in addition to the All Region band was also selected as a first alternate in the Jazz All Region band so two bands for Israel vaugh [Applause] congratulations we now recognize our seventh grade Tennison band students who were selected for the All Region band please help us congratulate Kieran Barrett is it Kiren I heard you say kir so Kiron Barrett we also have tennis and middle school students who were selected to play in the
006Jazz All Region band including the following members eighth grader Keegan peacock are you Angelina no Giovani Giovani Perez Lura correct [Applause] okay and now our Jazz All Region band members eighth grader Omar Nava Sanchez Omar was also selected as a member of the All Region band so he was selected to play not just one but two region bands and eth grader Angelina Milan was also selected as a member of the All Region band so selected again to not play in just one but two region bands congratulations seventh grader Alan Lorenzo was also selected of the selected to participate in the All Region jazz band so not just one but two region bands we would like to introduce the band teachers from Carver Middle School who instruct these students Kimberly Tucker I'm sorry from Tennyson sorry
007we're we're bringing a Carver student up Kimberly Tucker and assistant band directors Amber Meeks and Jordan Mesa who also directs the students jazz band the school's jazz band congratulations to all of our tennis and middle school band students from GW Carver Middle School selected to play his base clarinet in the All Region band is eighth grader Juan Pedra and teacher Victor Boswell serves as the head band director as well as the Director of the jazz band at Carver Middle School we'd also like to recognize principal Denise wooden for her support of the fine arts program and Waco ISC is fortunate to have eight middle school students who qualified for the All Region choir two of them are here with us tonight several are on stage tonight in Tennison spring theater production of High School Musical
008this evening from Tennyson middle school with this evening he's a tener one David Strickland and also making the All Region choir from Tennyson Middle School Lena sorato a soprano one and these students are instructed by tennis and choir teacher Jacob Garcia and also Mr Bradford McMillan serves as a School's principal do we want to do a group picture with them all of the pictures that are being taken tonight will be up on the Wake o i SD flicker f l i c KR flicker her page tomorrow morning so you can have any of these photos you want we'd also like to give a shout out to Larry Carpenter who is our director of Fine Arts in wo ISD and always has his hands will they compete and participate and perform all year long so congratulations
009to Mr Carpenter as well we now move on to our Allstate athletic selections the Texas High School coaches association academic Allstate teams recognize high school athletes trainers and managers who excel in the classroom and Athletics to be nominated these students must be seniors have a minimum GPA of 92 be in good standing with the team and have high moral character you may remember that we honored several of our football players and athletic trainers at our December board meeting with this honor we're excited to share that we have a few more representing the University High School tennis program us tennis player UHS tennis player osar cazarez was selected not only for the All State academic team but the academic elite team and UHS tennis player Daisy Barco was selected not only to the All State academic
010team but to the thsca academic All State elite team you may also be aware that both of these students serve on the superintendent student advisory Council and will represent wo ISD next month at the Texas Association of school board student government governance Council on a team of five out of more than 2 million Texas high school [Applause] students we would also like to recognize University High tennis player Jasmine Tapia Jasmine was named to the Texas girls coaches association academic All State team congratulations to these incredible student athletes who will Role Models both in and outside the classroom congratulations we will now recognize our February Community partner of the month Douglas Subaru is honored with the Texas Association of school boards standup for public education award as a February woisd Community partner of the month Douglas
011Subaru maintains continued support of Waco ISD in a myriad of ways Douglas Subaru provided 120 brand new coats to wo isd's highly mobile students to ensure that they were warm this winter Douglas Subaru also awarded monetary gifts to Kendrick Elementary teachers to help purchase supplies for their students the team at Douglas Subaru is a consistent partner in supporting wo isd's mission to educate students and support staff accepting the award tonight for Douglas Subaru is general manager Jeff pain and love Encore delivery specialist Enrique l congratulations Douglas Subaru and thank you for your continued partnership with wo ISD and that's all we have Madam president it's always so great my favorite part of the board meeting is watching all these kids come through winning all these Awards and accolades it's always some of the best time
012um just wanted to let you know Jeremy Davis's grandfather had passed away so he was coming in from out of town so that is why he is missing uh the board meeting this evening but he would he was trying to make it back but I think it did didn't work out that way but anyway I know he would be here if he could um moving on to item number five superintendent report Dr Spicer yes maam Madam president our attendance boundaries committee came together for their fourth meeting on February 6th based on their work over the last four months we arrived at an initial recommended set of maps for new elementary middle and high school attendance zones for Waco ISD in support of the committee's initial recommendation and to continue engaging our community in this process
013we've since held two three two to three two of the three excuse me public hearings on community meetings to present the maps answer questions and collect feedback to be shared back with the committee on March 18th our final public hearing opportunity is next Tuesday March 4th at 6 PM we will be at GW Carver Middle School to provide a brief presentation and again speak with attendees to to collect their feedback we have both Spanish and sign language interpreters available at our events and thanks to our Communications team and the hard work of Mr Jesse Batello will also be sharing a video of the presentation online afterwards for anyone who was not able to attend in person does any trustee have any feedback they want to give at this time about our meetings had great representation
014and we appreciate uh the community and the families and teachers and uh staff that have come and shared uh their opinions and their questions and ideas and as you said uh Dr spiser this has been the fourth meeting so we've been doing this for four months and uh a lot of thoughtful conversations have occurred and that is really positive yes we appreciate it so thank you yes thank you all right at this time I'm going to proceed to the state of the district first let me Begin by thanking our Board of Trustees for selecting me to serve in this role as superintendent of schools for wo ISD it has truly been my pleasure to listen and learn about the wonderful work taking place here in our district as promised I have completed my initial listening
015and learning sess sessions which I outlined in my entry plan and Community engagement plan I've learned so much in just 77 business days and still have so much more to learn about our system and those I have the honor to support and serve so what did learn so much there's not enough time within this presentation to list everything I saw heard and experienced from our wo ISD team and Community but I want to provide some highlights and some themes that I found I've had the opportunity to visit every campus at least twice which consisted of 48 combined campus tours and structured visits when I toured campuses and Facilities it also included Transportation Food Services Maintenance and Facilities the wopi and so much more I was told I covered at least two million of the district's
0163 million square feet y'all I'm trying to train for another Marathon thank you Waco including walkthroughs of our latest completed 2021 Bond pro programs tennis and middle school and our upcoming new or renovated campuses South Waco Kendrick Elementary and Waco High School also had the opportunity to meet internal and external stakeholders of wo ISD and Waco Texas totaling over 90 Plus meetings since my arrival I have also had the opportunity to work on not only serving WD but our region and the Heart of Texas through various other organizations as we work to collectively invest in our students our district and our community as part of the structured visits I had the opportunity to host 625 focus group participants consisting of parents and Guardians staff members from each campus and our students my favorite groups during
017the focus group sessions they were request to host more meetings with more departments but time did not allow so we extended the thought exchange to the entire staff we had 1,144 participants 1,88 thoughts and 59,2 24 ratings the focus groups and the various meetings provided so much insight and context on the strength and the opportunities for Waco ISD to continue to excel however there the most relevant themes which came forth through the list sessions first through the focus groups and then through the districtwide thought exchange were behavior management and discipline communication and collaboration staff support and resources School environment safety academic performance in our resources community and family support what I found we have so much to be thankful for and so much to celebrate there is a beautiful deep sense of Pride here in
018Waco Texas for Waco ISD we have Generations ations of families who have graduated from our system and continue to give back and raise their children and their families within our district at the same time there's a sense of commitment from our faculty and staff that is unlike anything that I've ever seen so many people truly love Waco ISD they are willing to volunteer to give financially and to be a positive voice for our district their heart and passion to serve our students is unwavering and is truly seen on a daily basis these findings confirmed what I already knew and believe in my heart this will serve us well as we work to build on the opportunities we have before us several opportunities came forward for us to pursue one of the items that came from
019our students the most and was reemphasized by our families and the opportunity to prove our food services our Littles clearly shared their concern for the food I won't say exactly the words they said I won't repeat that publicly um but they love the people who serve the food but they had concerns about the food um our older students noted the portions that they were a little bit too small and they were very vocal so all the high schools and the middle schools food just continued to come up back and forth back and forth our parents echoed the same sentiment across the visits as well we have met with our vendor and are working now to remedy this concern as we close out this year but also work on the coming year curriculum was a concern
020that came up from our staff and our families this term is encompassing in that there were concerns raised about our curriculum at the elementary and secondary level as well as concerns about lesson plan design block scheduling and our course selection process as I listened we made notes and began working on this work in an effort to bring Solutions as we prepare for the coming year for 25 26 we have Co coordinators who are bringing back recommendations to review Uh current and prospective curriculum and we're also Gathering teacher recommendations to sure we meet the needs of our students and our staff as we go through this process I found that we also have opportunities to further enhance the district's recent transition to secondary schools operating on the Block schedule and we have been bringing folks together
021to take part in these discussions Behavior was another item that came up in all three Focus areas and in many of my one-on ones this is an item that we will diligently work on to assist our staff and their role with Behavior Support as well as tools for our students so we can create correct the behavior and teach the desired Behavior this is an opportunity to work on our processes with Fidelity as my belief is that our students behavior is also part of our learning process here in wo ISD lastly perception this is this one is a unique opportunity in that we as a system have the opportunity to improve our perception of ourselves and ensure those outside of our system know our story this is a great opportunity for us to work on telling
022our story and all the great things that are taking place with with our students with our staff and within our district this one also encompasses the other opportunities shared previously such as curriculum and our Behavior so what's next with all that we've learned we're using this data and feedback to inform our work we also in the process process of developing a strategic plan with the Board of Trustees this plan of action will assist in our execution of improving previously stated opportunities and the goals of the board we will also work to refine our programs and our processes we have the chance for process Improvement within every Department of our district continue Improvement is and should always be a part of our process we as a system will work from the lens of service to ensure
023that we are meeting the needs of our stakeholders at times those stakeholders are our principles at times there are teachers support staff parents community members and more but most importantly our process improvement in our programs will have to positively impact our students and their success this will also consist of us working on our structure within our organization this will assist in providing Clarity in our system as we' heard from Define our processes and lastly but just as importantly we will work to ensure that every staff member in WD is focused on creating academic learning environments that focus on meets and Masters we do not want our Scholars to just be students that approaches level we want to teach them the state standards we want to teach the te but we want to make sure they
024perform at the highest levels of meets and Masters that is a standard that we want for all of our students here in WD our students deserve no less although this concludes my initial IAL learning it does not mean I am done listening and learning what it does mean is we have a foundation of where we need to go and how we will get there to everyone within the sound of my voice we need you I cannot and will not do this work alone this is a collaborative effort that will take us all working together from our Board of Trustees our partners our community stakeholders who are Educators our students and our parents it will take us all moving in the same direction I am so excited and I'm so honored about the potential that exist
025for Waco ISD even in the midst of the current political climate we owe it to our students and our families and for generations to come to the students staff parents and Community Partners who invested time to meet with me I want to say personally thank you your heart your passion your vulnerability with me was and is truly appreciated I was truly able to see why and how wisdom truly does work wonders our standard is truly Excellence because wisdom truly works wonders thank you great thank you so much Dr Spicer is there are there any comments I just have one comment if we could can we go back to the last slide uh Dr Spicer did photob bomb winning team thank you Angelo s why would you clown me [Laughter] publicly the the last slide was
026uh the celebrity cook off and I we'll say the uh Board of Trustees won what was that called top top chef that's right Top Chef thank you okay great all right at this time I have the pleasure of making some introductions this month this month we announced the promotion of soon to be Dr Suzanne Hamilton to serve as Waco SD's assistant superintendent of student Support Services as a Waco native and proud wo graduate Suzanne's dedication to students and supportive staff campus staff is truly inspiring prior to working education Suzanne served our community as a social worker it was while working in our schools as part of communities and schools over 20 years ago that she was recruited and called to become a teacher at Lake air Middle School she served in campus leadership roles at
027Lake air intermediate University High School and Indian Spring Middle School she then served at Caesar Travis Middle School principal before advancing into District level administrative roles within pems special education and most recently student services in her previous role as executive director of student services Hamilton played a key role in supporting student well-being across the district she has overseen vital areas such as Safety and Security health services and student management ensuring students have the resources and support they need to thrive in a safe and nurturing learning environment Suzanne holds a bachelor's degree in social work psychology a masters of educational Administration and this summer we will celebrate her completing her doctoral degree from Baylor University of Education along with her mother Patty Hawkins her sister Amy Ross and her husband Mike Hamilton who are here with
028her tonight at this time it is truly my honor to introduce assistant superintendent Hamilton to say few words thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] yeah well we're gonna we're going to shake your hand uh soon to be Dr Hamilton so pause right there e e I'm trying but I'm not I'm not very Facebook [Applause] we planned it all for the next two superintendent report introductions I'm going to invite our board to stay standing in the front new to Waco SD in the greater Waco area it is my pleasure to introduce tonight our executive director of special education Mrs eni Washington Washington brings to Waco 15 years of extensive experience in the Greater Houston area and special education educational leadership program development and student centered support after earning a BS in Psychology and a minor in criminal
029justice from prayview University and CI earned her emergency medical technician license and served her community in the capacity for nearly 4 years before answering the call to become an educator specifically serving in special education over the years she had the privilege of teaching students from Early Childhood to high school each with their own unique cognitive emotional and intellectual needs but all deserv deserving quality education most recently she served as a division instructional coach for the Harris County Department of Education supporting students from 57 school districts and the third largest county in the nation in this role she oversaw special education programs ensuring proper funding resource allocation and accurate assessments of students ability to support academic growth in addition to being active and leading in the Texas alliance of black school Educators and catchi is currently
030a doctoral student at abalene Christian University studying positive organizational leadership through her work she remains committed to ensuring that all students regardless of their challenges receive the support they need to Thrive academically and Beyond and I'm excited to have her here tonight joined by her mother Verna Heder I got it here to say a few words in Cy [Applause] Washington I'm beckoning for my family they're the source of my support so first I just want to say thank you so much good evening uh president Madame President board trustees and superintendent spiser um I just want to begin by expressing my gratitude um for this address and that I'm honored to join the Waco ISD family I'm excited to be a part of this district with such a r Rich history and a strong sense of
031tradition and deep commitment to Student Success as I step into this role I do I do so with a heart full of enthusiasm and a strong sense of purpose I look forward to collaborating with all of the staff members students and teachers dedicated families and the passionate community members all who share a common goal to ensure that every student in wo ISD accesses high quality education and preparing them for the future thank you so much and I appreciate this honor thank [Applause] you yes come on we gonna go take a picture come on yes [Applause] my final final item for tonight may may have been better worded as a formal welcome or welcome back for our new Waco High School head football coach [Applause] coach ezam Martinez brings nearly a decade of of experience within
032Waco ISD and over 15 years in education to his role as head coach and athletic coordinator for Waco High School dedicated to developing student athletes both on and off the field he emphasizes discipline teamwork and Excellence as the cornerstones of a successful Athletic program before joining wake oh high coach Martinez served as an assistant head coach at Midway Connelly and University contributing to the growth and success of each program his football Journey began as a linebacker for the University of Arkansas and Midwestern State University coach Martinez earned all conference and All-American honors as a linebacker at Midwestern State beyond the game coach Martinez is a proud father and enjoys spending quality time with his fiance Sarah who is also an educator and here with us tonight his deep roots in the Waco Community combined with
033his passion for mentoring young athletes make him a valuable leader for the Lions and an addition to our Waco ISD team I am excited to see how he enhances our Waco High athletic programs and builds a strong competitive and values-driven culture coach Martinez well exciting I mean let's go that's what I want to say let's go she's got me pumped up up here first of all I want to thank God first because without God I wouldn't be in this situation and my fiance is my backbone she's been through a lot and it's it's just it's awesome day so thank you School Board Dr Spicer coach love everybody involved in this journey I'm excited I've been hitting the ground already uh so sometime I get that coach mode I'm just ready to go but again I'm
034I'm thankful to be here I want to be here I told the kids at first that guys didn't nobody call me I call Waco because I want to be at Waco I'm glad to be back home thank you guys [Applause] help appr [Applause] it's exciting welcoming people here some new some familiar some have been here for for the longevity so it's always a fun time to see people moving into these positions to help impact our kids and I think Dr Spicer's um uh report said it you know it's the passion right it's passion and that's what keeps people here and keeps people making the difference for our kids and so we're so thankful um we're going to move on to item number six information items and reports uh Mr Grant did you have any questions
035no uh Mr Vidia no Mr Giller no Mr AOA nope and Mr Patton no okay har now we'll move on to item seven consent agenda considering take appropriate action is there anything that you would like pulled Mr Grant no anything pulled Mr Vidia no anything pulled Mr gillery no anything pulled Mr Ooa nope and 7B Mr yes ma'am 7B um okay great so I will entertain a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented except for item 7B I move thank you Mr Patton do I have a second second okay is there any discussion Mr Grant no any discussion Mr vdia any discussion Mr Gill no any discussion Mr Ooa nope any discussion Mr padon no okay all in favor say I I any opposed passes unanimously moving on to 7B amendments to the 202
036425 budget uh Mr Patton I have a question um that I would like some uh information on please in regards to the $350,000 uh new Waco High School waight room uh can someone talk to me about that Amendment yes so I was talking to our team just to follow up on that one so what we have done in the past is um whenever we have the opportunity to use bond funds to get new equipment we get it for the new facility and then we take the old equipment and we dispersed across the district so that's the plan to do the same thing that we've done in the past so this $350,000 for the uh weight room is from the bond Bond yes and we already have weight rooms in the middle schools where are these
037weights going to go but sometimes there's weights that are old and outdated past some of us if you will and so any where that there's a need they have those um we have some systems like I'll say our Police Department they've been asking for some things like that we're not going to be able to spend the funds so we're able to say hey we can furnish you a a mini weight room to work out right or we have some mental health and some health needs of our staff um our um nurse is working um our head nurse is working on rating I'll say a a Health and Wellness Center so we can take care of our people so there's some needs within our organization but this is the way to do it without having to
038go in and ask for money General funds to take care of the needs across our system okay yes sir thank you yes sir okay uh I will entertain a motion to accept item 7B as presented I move thank you Mr Giller do I have a second second thank you Mr Grant is there any discussion Mr Grant no any discussion Mr Vidia no any discussion Mr yill no any discussion Mr Ooa nope any discussion Mr Patton no okay uh all in favor say I I any opposed passes unanimously wake oh high is getting some new wait room okay moving on to item eight review and discuss report 2024 2025 uh middle of the Year reading data this is a um board update there are four items which the board typically ask for updates this is our
039kind of quarterly update on reading scores um that the board has asked for so thank you Dr cornblum good evening Madam president I'm Dr Spicer and trustee members you see I brought my computer that's so that I can see the numbers on the presentation all right so oh hold on let me get here we go so before I begin um I I want to ask you what would help you most as I present this data so each um campus has a slide and you have data from boy toi for first second and third grades and it shows where they started of course and where they are now so on the side let me explain what the the little bubbles mean on the side and then what I would like to know is if it would
040help you if I gave you the grade bands now there is a chart at the end but if that would help you understand where the students are are on the screen I think when we did Renaissance that was a little bit easier to understand because we had GES so like first grade was 1.5 that was easy to understand but these grade bands are a little bit harder to kind of wrap your head around so let me talk about the um the bubbles on the side so where it says percent of students with improved placement so what that means is is if a student started and they were say three years behind it means that now at the middle of the year they may have moved to two years behind or better so um that's what
041that percentage is the typical growth is an end of the year so based on where the students started at the beginning of the year the I ready assessment projects their typical growth by the end of the year and so 19% if we're looking at altta Vista first graders middle of year have already met their end of the year typical growth goal if we're looking at the stretch growth that means that even um farther past the typical growth that would be their stretch and that's also an endof thee goal so that means right now 4% of first graders at alav Vista have already met that end of the year stretch goal yes sir Dr corn blo so when we're looking at the yellow bubble which uh students meant typical growth is that grade level so when
042we say 19% of alter Vista first grade for example are we saying that 19% of the kids are already projected to be at grade level at the end of the year or they've made one one year's growth doesn't necessarily mean one year's growth it means whatever growth that was projected for them so let's say that let me give you another grade level or kind of an extreme example let's say I was a fifth grader who started the year on a first grade level right when I took the test I ready is going to say by the end of the year this is where I should be whatever that scill score is that they give us and so from wherever they started it projects what their typical growth trajectory should be and is typical growth one
043year or nine months what is typical growth for it depends on where they are I think let me get that clarified is that the chart on the very in the very back question that's what we're looking at but we're trying to figure out what typical growth I guess going back to a grade equivalent are we looking at a one year's growth or looking appropriate if second grade one year okay so it's not necessarily indicating that they are on correct correct okay okay but one year from where they are right yes ma'am okay thank you now this is my next question as I oh can before you move on can you review these that's what I was going to ask so I have the numbers for you for the banss if you have a place to
044write notes so that can kind of tell you where this is so if I or where they should be so in kindergarten the grade band for kindergarten is 462 to 479 so 462 in the green area to 479 at the end that's okay yes okay if I'm in first grade you'll see in the light green there where it goes over to First it says 434 to 536 that's end of year yes second grade 489 to 56 okay and third grade 511 to 602 so what are the other two green say look at second grade look up at the top right let me go there to mine you have light green then you have two dark green in the same is that like beginning middle end of the year yes let me go to so what
045we're asking there's a light green then I do that's just at the very end of the presentation so I'm trying those oh he made it bigger there you go yes exactly so do you see there at first grade if you travel over to the right and then where it's dark dark green you hit four or 537 that's beginning of the second grade level so first grade end of year ends at 536 if I jump into 537 I've jumped into that beginning of year second grade Lev you're above grade level so uh Dr corn Blom looking at first grade 434 through is that Boi expected number and then the middle one at 458 to 479 isi and then the 480 to 536i not you could look at it that way but not all kids just right
046right oh I totally get that I'm just trying to understand within that one cell there are three you could look at it that way there's there's a light green then two dark greens trying to figure out where what yeah that is so if you had a moment to write those numbers down then as we go through the presentation and you look at the where they are now that can kind of give you an idea of where they are so if I'm a kindergartener headed into first grade then where am I in that trajectory so like I said Renaissance was a little bit easier because we had GES and that was easy to wrap your head around because it gave you a grade level in month bands are a little bit harder to put a grade
047level too could you go back to I'm asking just me I apologize thir [Music] grade 561 to 602 for grade three the third part of that cell mhm when being yes so if you were if you were putting a GE on that that would be like 3. six S8 n around past past 3.5 right well if you look in the fourth grade one middle of the year it's at the low grade like so grade three the very bottom tier 561 602 is the second tier in fourth grade so it it's showing kind of there's overlap yeah there overlap in them yes that's correct thank you are we good to to go to the slide okay yes thank you okay so as we go through would I don't want to just read the slides to you
048so we can look at the slides and just kind of point out where that grade band would be if that would be helpful to kind of understand where they are so first grade Alta Vista you have um they are at 394 there and so when you look at the first grade band at the bottom it shows Kinder so 394 Falls within the kindergarten band but first grade starts at 434 makes sense 39 they're 394 right now and it starts at 434 remember though when you're a first grader you come into Kinder or come into first at a Kinder level end of Kinder level and then so right now you would if we gave it a GE you would be at like a0 five right you're not totally at the end of first grade and there's
049and there's tons of educational research that shows reading among kids up to grade two kids block aw at different levels of reading yeah so that's understandable to a certain extent okay ready okay so when we go to second grade at the bottom you see that it shows that the second graders at alav Vista are at 434 the second grade band is 489 to 560 so if the beginning of the band is um 489 and right now they're at 434 they're 50ish points below the beginning of that third grade band so I won't do this for every slide I'm just going to do it for a couple to kind of help you acquaint yourself and then along the way then you can kind of find those anomalies your yourselves as we go so when we're looking
050at second grade 35% of the kids at alav Vista have improved placement 19% met their um typical growth and 4% have met their stretch growth at this time so let me go back slide are you looking at the yellow the bubble on the side so what that means is is whatever their goal was at the beginning based on where they started by the end of the year the typical growth that they were supposed to have made whatever that was 19% of them have already made that growth that doesn't necessarily mean that that's that they're exactly where they're supposed to be right now though right is that 434 the average of a certain number of kids yes of all the kids yes yes that second grade number is what the inry so it looks it looks
051based that's exactly right the placement table that they're a grade level behind that's right well yes but keep in mind we're not end of second grade yet so they're not supposed to be to the end so they're first grade starts at 4:3 at the beginning they're about if they're at the beginning so it's 4:34 first grade starts at 434 yes they are yeah so apparently based off this table correct they're a grade level be second grade is a grade level behind yes that is correct okay next third grade at 486 and so the band for third grade is 511 to 602 second grade started at 489 so they're sitting right at the be again the same the same that's exactly right what is promising though is if you look in blue that 50% of them
052have closed a level and then that 48% have met the expected growth at the end so over half of them have already met to where the placement test in any event said that they should be by the end question Dena uh so I rate it I ready you had told us uh back whenever we did our Workshop I believe um that already is a better tool for diagnostically uh test more things and at a deeper level right so do we know that there is reliability to this table to State assessment is there a correlation there is is there a high correlation yes we they um it's a whole another piece of this but there is a correlation chart that shows I already has that will show if a student what their placement will likely be
053on Star if they are continuing if they are to continue on the path that they're on do we and do you is there is there a large standard uh sem standard error of measurement or is it pretty tight let ask Courtney on that one she's my expert on the data where that's concerned this that that piece is a new piece for I ready they just came out with that this is nationally normed right I already it's a state proficiency projection based on Texas data right so it's not nationally normed it's based on Texas State oh I ready is not nationally normed ready or the star projected no I'm just talking about one well I'm talking about two things I ready being I ready being nationally normed already is nationally normed and then for the comparison
054for the coration it is correlated to Texas assessment it is and is the sem is there a large sem I don't the specifically but I can give you the stats as far as the numbers I'm just trying to know if if this is like in the ballp park or or if there is a large standard error of measurement in relation sorry corelation chart from Spring 2024 could you yeah send that to me thank you I'm not trying to ask questions off out of the ballpark but that is a concern if there is a large gap in that just know that it's one piece of data one time we talked about that right right yes sir I'm sorry I need help the blue uh Circle rectangle is representative of 58% of the students correct 58% of
055the students and they have made uh they have each made a step up yes that step up is means that they have an those 58% have an average of 460 is that right no it means that that that's a measure within the measure so to speak so of all of the kids who were tested right let's say if we looked at all of you on the board maybe you were three years behind maybe Mr V was two you were one you know sorry I didn't probably right right [Laughter] one year two year whatnot right and so you jumped at least one level from beginning of the year so now you're two years behind Mr VD is one and Mr Patton is now on level he was only one year behind so of all of the
056kids and where they were and whatever level they were at 58% of them have moved from one level to right right but does that have a correlation to the 460 box though it doesn't not their score I mean the O the 460 is the overall average of that whole group that's what I mean correct correct and so that overall group is at a 1.3 maybe is that right so 434 to 536 is the band and they're at that's two and three4 a year and three quarters behind yeah okay and then the 50% are on average at 486 six correct is that right you're looking over on the yellow yes so the yellow oval does not necessarily correlate to the yellow okay bar if that's I just I'm just click I'm just channeling into the color
057correlation is that what you were getting at yes no no no yes I thought that those was visually pleasing to put on the chart okay okay that's very helpful didn't make math sense to me okay I see I do see that would make sense right yes it it color coordinated okay would be the the blue oval means that they are that approved these are independent the yellow oval means that they are showing typical growth for where they from where they started right but the blue oval and the blue rectangle have no correlation no that's all I wanted to know and the stretch growth means that they're doing better than what's anticipated right the right no you're great but actually that's a great question I mean I could I could see that but we maybe should
058have thought of that but we didn't okay so moving into Bells Hill um the first grade of beginning of the year was 370 is that six and now at 401 so just to bring you back first grade is 434 to 536 and you can see on the on the side 38% have moved up 17% have met end ofe typical and 4% have met their stretch second grade they're at 439 now second grade's 489 to 560 is that is the band for all of [Music] second would you like for me is this good the way that okay all right third grade 477 now middle of the year that band is 511 to 602 and to put it in perspective the second grade band is 489 to 560 so there's you see the there's overlap there because
059third grade starts at 5'11 see that at the end but second grade can go all the way up to 560 Brook Avenue 595 I'm sorry 395 for first grade second grade 438 that's 489 to 560 is the grade band third grade 460 which is 511 to 602 511 would be the beginning of third end of seconds 560 489 is the beginning of second yes it might be more helpful if on that on the grade level slide if I actually gave you what the grade before as band was so that you can kind of see where they are right now yeah okay Cedar Ridge so there at is that an 8 378 right now for first grade so Kinder is 462 to 479 so they're that's significantly below right there however I mean they're making some
060progress over here but they started significantly lower second grade they're at 422 right now the first grade band was 434 to 53 3 6 and the second grade band actually starts at 489 third grade 457 so second grade is 489 to 560 and third grade starts at [Music] 5'11 so they're what little over 50 points below I have a I have a question this just occurred to me we're looking from grade level to grade level and so are the the are the tests comparative grade level tests so are we able to look at say um you you just hit uh Cedar Ridge third grade 457 and we look and we find that under uh second grade uh 457 for for third grade it falls back under grade one so are we really looking at a
061year and a half behind or are the test significantly harder so therefore we're not able to compare is that depends on where the student is I mean each area has a set of skills that it tests and it's as it goes through it's going to look at you diagnostically and are you say Blends and vocabulary or you know different things like that like can you do that like typical kindergartener should be able to do XYZ and if you aren't unable to do that that's going to affect the score so it's not a how to describe it they're comparative in that by grade level you're expected to be able to do certain things certain skills and if you can't do those things and you can do the skills of what the first grade would be or
062whatever it is you're behind and they're adding on so we are able to look find that skill score whatever this is and find it where it falls chart and it's a year and a half behind so it is accurate showing a year and a half yes but more than that what's accurate is that you can go to the actual data and pinpoint exactly what it is that the student is or can cannot do and we're not seeing that we're just seeing the overall average and from that what happens is so what we do in interventions is it designs a pathway for the student So based on on where you are and and what your diagnostic assessment is showing this is what you're ready to learn next to help close the gap for you or push
063you forward depending on where you are and so and does that fall in small small group instruction yes yes tier two and three tier two and tier three okay thank you okay the pathways so that's the computer program we have face to face as well tool we to so the toolbox is used in tier two but they can put them on the computer in the classroom as well when they go to tier three you have the pathway but then we also have other things in tier three as well right right and so the toolbox is is it that's individualized for the student face to face lessons the toolbox is the lessons the teacher pulls based on the skills that deficit that teacher needs to R for that comp but if I know the pathway though
064I can look at those skills and I can isolate things and I can use that in my teaching as a small group right right during your rotation that's right but then also understand that when they get to tier three it's not just a computer-based intervention once they get to three that's a piece of what they do one piece of what they do and they get tier three every day okay thanks okay um second grade is at 411 so first grade ends at 536 and second grade starts at [Music] 489 and third grade at cres 463 second grade ends at 560 and third starts at 511 Dr corn Bloom can I interrupt you very quickly so I going through kind of some of these numbers you know I know that having been an elementary teacher the
065only way that not the only way one of the ways that kids get better at reading is by reading um that's kind of one of the Long Haul kind of um subjects that just takes practice like consistent practice you know so I am noticing that a lot of the kids coming in on first grade are at a kinder Garten level and I wouldn't even say kindergarten like beginning kindergarten level um and you know I do like even looking at um some of these campuses I've noticed you know the average it seems to be is like a 20 point gap you know teachers are obviously teaching kids are growing and then I've noticed a couple of campuses have like a 30 point gap so you can kind of tell there's little uh spots where it seems
066like maybe that group of teachers is really strong on that particular campus um you know just wondering are we you know is is are and I would assume you guys are the administration kind of taking a look at that and kind of digging deeper in that to the teachers who have those scores yeah and to the teachers that have the scores yes so I I'm going to go to the end of the year last year actually so um and brag is my Logan here oh there she is so her she daughter-in-law yet at the time or her son's friend um fairly new teacher but we noticed that she made tremendous growth I mean like huge and so we ask what are you doing like what you know and basically what she was doing and we've
067talked about this so many times is she was implementing everything with Fidelity and you know doing doing all that she was asked to do as well as um being on a campus to where and we've talked about this a lot too we've talked about we have systems and processes in place for looking at data for reviewing data for um using that data then to and I'm beyond this kind of data we're talking about week to week data from students and their work and using that to make instructional decisions for for kids and how does that impact my lessons next week why do I change my small group and all of that and that's what we find on campuses to where um you're seeing those strong gains their systems and processes in place are really strong
068um they're implementing things with Fidelity and there's there's a um a lot of collaboration and feedback around student learning yeah and you know so I'm I'm looking at I'm not as familiar with I ready is is just a simply simply like a fluency vocabulary comprehension test or what what in what components are entailed in this data so I had that on here last time so there so there is vocabulary there's fluency there's comprehension um I guess you would call it phonemic awareness yeah all of those things am I missing anything did I miss and is that sorry I have I need an army up here you you do yeah um all the things we said high frequency words high frequency vocabulary and is this the one thing that it does though that's that is good
069and I didn't I failed to mention that I had it on our first presentation is it does does dig into informational text and literary text both and looks looks into both of those and the um can teachers you know I know it's so important for our teachers to be able to get this type of data on their specific student and kind of know where to target their interventions is this kind of computer program does it just kind of spit out not spit out does it give the teachers like an objective to work on like so you know um little Susie is is having a little bit of trouble with vocabulary um this particular student is we can tell the fluency is really you can group kids according to like a report it it really does
070a lot of phenomenal things to help the teacher to make their life easier so yeah great great yeah yeah I think that's that was my question because I know the quicker the feedback that we give teachers the kind of more robust their interventions can be and so that was my question I think the part that you know and I think this is not just here any place it's teachers having the time to dig into their to dig into that too right and so we have our instructional Specialists and those folks on campus to try to help them with that M PS yeah during their plcs yes to to look at their it's okay we have pcls too with them off we did it also it names the skill and then you click on a link
071and it gives you the exact lesson that prints it all for the teacher and it gives you the teacher script and it gives you the student script nice so it gives you the prerequisite skill the grade level actually enement so besides the fact that it gives a skill we're also seven our providing resources and and the rigor there at the level hey Courtney when were the teachers trained on IR so we trained them last year but then this year we have coming to each campus three times a year um instead of doing the zoom they came the beginning of the year went for the and then they came mid and went over the mid data and show each teer Inc they met with them in their PLC and also whenever um again reports and then
072they'll come into the year to go over their progress and they just came to us last week well they've been at the campus the past two weeks but no our data presentation was last week yeah so they not came but it was via Zoom so do you ladies believe that our teachers are proficient in utilizing our ready I can tell you we're as a district we are proficient in using the pathways we will continue to work with our teachers to help them understand that they need to pull small groups direct teach we just put our students on a computer and expect right so again I'm I'm proud of the district that we have accomplished the pathways they're learning to use the program and they're learning to use the data to make sure the students are
073growing on the pathways we will continue to approve on improve on teachers and tier two pulling those direct lessons for sponsors I will also appw all of the elementaries because all those principles have built in an additional intervention time in their blw to Target these skills specifically and work on this is that to win well that's secondary we call it the elementaries call it different at campus so that's where we really need to we'll continue to work with them and we've really started that push back in October with them you know you have the pathways you have that accomplished so let's start working on that direct small groups uh every Elementary class and this may be a department or Daniel um is there in going back to Stephanie's question about reading does every classroom have
074like what we drop everything and read whatever we used to call it so the way the is there sustained silent reading for every classroom they can do that but the way that Ela block goes El block goes is I'm teaching my direct lesson whatever that is and once I teach that then I as a teacher go back and I start pulling small groups during that time the kids go out to stations one of their stations may be a reading rotation now in the older grades it it kind of it can vary you may have independent works and reading and then stations because what you're trying to do is really increase their stamina for reading but so yes it's built in but not maybe the way we are accustomed to it like back in the day
075where we yeah stop everything and read but you could do that but it's it's more built into the framework that we use I I remember as a teacher doing that you know you did your whole group and then there little kind of breakouts um I I think that um growth in Reading specifically is very difficult and I think that it this is showing that our teachers our principles everyone is really trying um trying their best to try to to move it and I think you know I would think the administration I would just hope you know we continue to make it easy for them you know like the I ready giving them the lessons that type thing helping um helping them have engaging lessons and really one of the biggest ways to improve reading is
076to read so maybe you know I think this is where Dr Spicer her has an ability to kind of rally the community because I've noticed also in some of this data that there's a summer slide you know kids who are going in second grade are coming back lower after the summer so maybe you know we can just the administration can kind of really focus in the community effort to try to help promote reading at at some of these schools that I'm seeing are that and you know we've partnered with our libraries before like our public libraries we partnered with them before for summer reading programs and then of course Miss Parnell does um Camp read a lot which is actually sending books home with kids great to read and they log that and you know
077such over the summer to try to get their reading up and so lots of different you know incentives to do that but right I mean research says the greatest indicator of reading success and you said it when we started as time spit reading or when you're little little being being read to being to yep right and so that is happening in Elementary classrooms yes reading yeah reading exposure yes reading no I'm asking about independent reading or or you know sustained reading yes they have to practice and then also they have to build up their stamina it's very difficult to go sit down and take a St we we want see to read let's go would you like to see the other campuses well yeah are there does anyone else have any questions on the rest
078of the data is there I I do okay yeah Mr a is it okay yeah um so if I'm just looking at third grade reading scores yes um there's some obvious outliers um in campuses you mean correct okay um Hill Crest and J chines have you would you like for me to skip ahead to those if it makes it easier it's fine um I have it here I don't know it's not moving now they probably went to sleep uh in third grade they have 30 point growth um versus uh a campus like South Waco that only has a two-point growth is this how many years have we had I ready this is going into the second but the first year that we've had the full diagnostic so last year um our intervention teachers were asked
079to do it but not all teachers did it so last year was the year when we had that but we also had Renaissance and that's when we sent the survey to folks and asked what they would prefer because we were using I ready interventions and so when they came out with a diagnostic and the pathway that matched it just made sense and people started wanting to use it so this is the first year that we've moved to it across the district so I guess my issue is we don't have any consistent data to really attack the problem um do we I mean if we have some campuses like you said some teachers are teaching with Fidelity and that's the reason why um that that's a hypothesis that's what that's exactly what I mean right there
080yeah um but I mean if you if you look at that and you also can compare because we' talked about like not one piece of data tells the story for everything but if you took that and you looked at the IR ready scores you looked at their star scores taught curriculum assessment you know you looked at their data across the board you would see those high points with certain teachers but to to your question on consistent data you if you remember at the very first presentation it was hard because we were moving from Renaissance to this but at the beginning of this year when we first gave you data we showed you both we showed you the Renaissance and then how that correlated to I ready I mean you we have Renaissance scores from last
081year but at some point that it starts getting confusing to look at because the the numbers are different they mean different things with the Renaissance scores with those low campuses was that consistent with these low campuses I mean it's I mean the camp yeah I mean when you when you brought up a South Waco I mean they've been struggling for a bit but but that but they are making gains right yeah so I guess my question is so do we are we actively talking to those principles oh yes at high schools and at the low schools and seeing what the difference is and here's the thing well yes but like if you take South Waco she's one of our best principls she is phenomenal and so everything that you could ask her to do she's
082she's doing right and so it's just you just you just got to keep at it and you know sometimes some of our students have larger gaps to to fill than others so and can I speak through that too um one of the things that I talked about in the state of the district was um our organizational structure and support and so one of the things um I'll say feedback I received from our principles was we need more support right whether it's leading the work or how do they support their teachers or for using our is's certain ways different things like that that we're learning and so I think the structures that we're putting in place to provide that support to the leadership on campus but then for them to get that support that they need
083to support their teachers it has to trickle down right and so that's we're working on right now to ensure that we're getting the results we want what gets monitored or what gets measured gets monitored right that's stuff grows if you don't monitor it you don't measure it it doesn't matter it's not important and so we're trying to clean up those I'll say expectations parameters expectations to make sure that we're getting what we need and so um that's a journey itself but we've already started that and I can guarantee you on some of those campuses that we're looking at where you're seeing those growth you can see that those principles just like okay let's go let's go let's Circle back let's go let's go wait a minute we didn't hit it right there it's okay let's
084reset so we have I'll say hot pockets of growth if you will but once we tighten up our structures and our teams and the processes we're going to be able to say everybody we're all going to grow and we'll see that data and are we going to see those results in May come June for third grade the goal is but we've been in a system that's been doing I'll say the way we've been doing it in the past right and so I don't say I can promise that we're going to do that what I'm going to say is we're working since I've gotten here in October we're working the best we can with what we have to ensure that we give the kids the best they have this year but we're also making sure we're
085working on 25 26 so that's the answer that I would say to you like good if you look at a Dean hun Island right here for instance so I just skip to her because her star scores I just know where where she was last year so if you look at her she right nowy they're at 474 in third grade third grade starts at 511 second grade ends at 560 but what I know about that campus is that on that campus they're doing some great things you can see it what I know about this campus from the end of the year is that they made comprehensive product press so what that means is if they make one more year she's she's out she grew almost 10 percentage points almost she was nine something but almost 10
086percentage points in her overall rating so this number right here may not necessarily be able to tell you that story right but to understand what's really happening and the work that these folks are putting in principls and teachers alike I instructional Specialists all the folks to see what's happening on campuses you know there there are some great things happening and to U Miss cwi's question earlier some really great pockets of Excellence um you know at different you know at all of our campuses across the district so so yes to Dr Spicer's point you can't say for sure but we would definitely hope and and and expect that hope hope I don't like the word hope we would expect that yeah that you know I definitely have noticed I put on here Dean Highland that was
087one of the ones I thought wow they're doing like a 30o game you can tell that there the a lot of the kids um that seem to a lot of the campus that seem to be on grade level like when you look at Lake care you look at Hillcrest some of these other campuses they come into first grade almost at a first grade level so they're coming in kind of at grade level and then sustaining that you know and I think some of our other campuses if we look at it they're not in quite at grade level and so it looks like again this is such backbreaking work to do this with kids but it looks like there's significant growth so I just I would say kind of to Mr aoa's point just as the
088administration is going through really find these bright spots figure out what they're doing drill down you know not just um uh look at these campuses that are make the the 30 point gains and kind of and and really go in kind of with a um kind of a learner um perspective and see what you know which I know you guys are doing but just I I'm not saying that to say you're not but to go in with a learning perspective and figure out what are the nuts and bolts what are the is there a common themes um in in maybe this reading how they're teaching reading or or or whatever how they've motivated their students and and I would say that um and whatever we need to do to support them so when I look
089at like South Waco I'm like they need extra help lots of extra help so what do we need part of me is looking at it and I'm like I probably need to go tutor there at a lot you know I mean Miss Parnell one of the things looking at our federal funding and our formula for that and giving our campuses that are more struggling you know more resources where that's concerned yeah and then I think also to your point about bright spots looking yes of course we're you know wanting to look at that but um trying to see what those are Dr Spicer mentioned we're reviewing curriculum right now and looking at at different you know things math really um is is up next for an adoption so what are we going to do with
090that are we going to stay the course we've got to decide and we have a great math framework what do we put with that but I Know lesson plannings come up a lot and so per our discussion at the board Workshop they already have the unit Maps done and in their attached to their curriculum units so those are there for them um thank you for that by the way well the coordinator did the work we provided the time so they're they're awesome um but yeah so we we let them stay back a little bit they had to keep commitments um that they already had but let pulled them back a little bit so that they could get those finished um I know where you guys have brought up lesson plans a lot um you know
091looking at that and seeing mrto you brought up like well could we just give them lesson plans and again that is take El one coordinator kinder Garden through fifth right but you mentioned could we use those teachers could we use them to help us come in and do that certainly that's something we could look at um and then possibly go a step further than the unit maps and start working toward providing that for them you know I would say El would probably be the the if we were going to go that direction the place to start but we're also reviewing curriculum in general and resources so not to say that that's the direction we're going if we if we make a change I don't know you know but just all of those things are in
092our mind and doing what we need to do to make the job of teachers easier yeah so that that's for sure on our minds and out there I can um um let's see how do I want to say so for me this is kind of an emergency um and we're trying to uh fix holes in the boat while the water's coming in yes and uh there's that line that says the only way to treat everybody the same is to treat everybody different and so to me something like the um luston plan thing that's a one-time cost I would think uh to get all that done uh and obviously there's some campuses that that need more help than others so if it may hurt some feelings but if we've got to put more resources on those
093campuses um I mean I hope we hope we do it yeah because I I want to go ahead and want to tail the end of that we've been hearing pockets of success for some years now and so when I hear pockets of success or spots of success here and there that that that really Rose me the wrong way and so my question is when you um when you all started this and you were looking um and you forecast it did the students make enough gains in your in your all's opinion when you saw it were you surprised by what you saw just pretty much what you thought you would see or I'm not surprised by what I saw I don't think until they're on grade level exactly where they need to be is it enough
094gains right I mean that would be our expectation and I want to go back and because I hear what you're saying to say that when I say pockets of Excellence that I'm not saying oh it's okay for this campus to have this what I'm saying is we know that we do have a lot of of new folks right new teachers teachers with less experience and so those teachers need more support and then we have teachers who have been teaching a while and so they're going to have a little bit more under their belt and so just looking at that how can we use those good strong veteran teachers our good strong is's to and we are but what additional support do these guys need you know that where we can help them because teaching is
095hard I mean teaching is hard in any District any place you are these days it doesn't matter um whether you know your students have gaps to close or not it's a hard business and so what can we do to help them because and I don't when I say Pockets I'm not even talking like oh just this campus on every single campus we have teachers yeah so how can we use them teacher leaders all of those things more effectively to give folks support to help improve their craft yeah and that's where I was going with the systems and processes and you talked about the core processes and things like that y'all identified know the new soup y'all y'all identified you know the direction we want to go and and things like that so I but I
096just wanted I wanted to address the pockets of success we've heard that like many times over I'll change my terminology and one thing let me just speak that too um one of the things that um I noticed when I arrived um we were talking about funding and we were talking about um our title funds and um State comped and um I'll say in the past we've been like everybody gets $10 right but if Mr Patton he needs more assistance he might have to get 15 but Mr Giller you might need to get five talking about Equity now right and equity and so we already worked on what it's going to look like next year because we know that there are some campuses students whatever you want to call it they need more and you might
097need less because we still want to make sure everybody gets the same Finish Line at the same time right and so we're already we're having those conversation with principles about their budgets for next year this is what it's going to look like not because we're trying to pick favorites but we're trying to make sure that everybody has access and opportunity and so um we are you know working on that already y on it let's go well and I I I would say not everyone just gets to the finish line so those kids who are already doing well like they up their pace so you know I just yeah but I do agree if we need the other thing and you don't see prek data up here but even when we look at our prek data
098prek classrooms are some of the strongest like you know and even the the beginning of your data on our prees is coming in at the beginning of the year a bit lower than what it was so but now keep in mind prek is the intervention right that it is the intervention but but still I mean that you know we're we're seeing that and so you mentioned like going into Kinder and coming into Kinder below and such so um it's a real benefit when our kids come to prek because we can help close that before they get there that's great would you okay we kind of like circled the train here or wagon whatever the say is would you do you want me to go through each one or do you want to just read it
099on your own you know I think I think we've got a good understanding SE the data yeah we've looked at the data and have had an opportunity to go through it and so thank you so much for answering our questions because we just bombarded you with a million questions and I have one last question oh yeah always that's going to be my new nickname last question um when is Star Elementary STAR testing it's there's a trajectory of them so we start in April we start in April and we go all the way through May what's the exact date do we have it April 9th it's [Music] quick and you all do have access if you remember how to get to the you because with your your login the district curriculum website that we took you
100to during training that night when you get on that main curriculum site you open up where the curriculum is there's a little link down there that says assessment calendars and the assessment calendars for State assessments I ready tell pass um even District assessments are on are down there I mean we could send that to you as well but it you always have access to that and now you know how to get into the curriculum as well great hey thank you Dr corn blo I appreciate it yeah thank you Dr corn blo all right appreciate it thank you okay um moving on to item uh what number is this so sorry budget item nine what we have all been waiting for Miss Cheryl Davis the one the only the legend okay so this is just GNA
101be a short presentation tonight um it's real early I usually this time of year I like to sort of go over what how we ended up up last year talk a little bit about that and then um look at kind of where we're looking early projections for the current year and right now we don't know too much there's a few bills out there but we'll talk briefly about some of that and what what some of our challenges are going to be for next year so looking at how we ended up last year we really can't had we not had all the SR funds left that we moved stuff to we would have ended up pretty close to what we were projecting if you look um the uh final budget we have the original budget final
102budget for revenues and expenditures I want to point out one thing between original and final budget most of what you see in those Revenue increases um was the Tia because we don't put that in the original budget until we know what those numbers are going to be that was $2.5 Million last year so that is most of that increase that you see from the original budget to the final budget and again it'll be in the expenditures because as we get that money we're going to spend that so that was a big chunk of the increase also in the expenditures in August when we were projecting the budget we were projecting that our revenues would end up right at 160 million and our expenditures would end up about 1607 million for a deficit there of $697,000
103um other resources at $53,000 and our other uses um other resources and other uses um those the other uses is mostly what we transfer to guag guaca and the day school for the de to cover our um any deficits that those budgets may have and our other resources is really an accounting treat for leases and sub subscription based software so those are sort of in and out um in there up in the expenditures as well so anyway we had thought we end up in the red about $536,000 um we ended up in the black 7.1 million now that is a wait a second Moodle so that's basically four things and we're going to talk about those four things um some of them we sorted knew and others were a bit of a surprise um looking
104at our revenues here the biggest difference there that was a million 864 and of that that variance $1.6 million of that variance was we appealed our values our um I think we were the 2023 values last year we had not heard we had two appeals last year if you remember they misreported our two uh values and we had appealed that I was using that number because we were pretty sure we were going to get that that was like three and A5 million dollar so that was in my projections of revenues this number because we didn't know what this number was going to be was not in our Revenue projections during budget development we didn't hear about this until the very end of September so it was too late to get it in the budget so
105most of that million eight that we were off in our Revenue projection was from that property value appeal we have a currently have another appeal out for the 2021 values which I think this is the second time we've actually appealed those maybe the third time I'm not sure because we keep getting um adjustments on those but anyway so that's the main difference there with our um with our revenues was that million 8 on the um expenditure side there was really three big things the biggest was the undere expenditure of the Esser funds because we didn't want to send a dime of that those federal funds back so when those funds ended in September we had um about five and a half million dollars left over so what we did was we actually did journal entries
106out of several funds mostly the general fund but we did about a million dollars out of title one and about 430 ,000 out of idea special ed to use up those Esser funds because those Federal programs like Title One and Ida we can actually roll forward and we could keep those so we move some of that out and into those Esser funds to spend all the erer funds now the undere expenditure of Esser funds some of that was related to a lot of retention bonuses were paid in that last month and we didn't know know exactly how much was going to get paid out who would still be in the district to pay out so that was a big difference there was some salary savings one of the items that um was left over was
107a million dollars for some maintenance projects some hbfc projects that just didn't ever get allocated which is part of why we came and did an amendment in the fall to put into maintenance because they never did get access to the money now there's a plus and minus on this because when we moved transferred all the or did journal entries to move all these funds to Esser and we spent all that money well then when we moved what we did was we freed up General funds to the tune of $4.2 million which then became we can spend them on whatever we need to so that was a little bit of a plus in having those funds um excess that now they're just in our general fund fund balance and helps us out with whatever we need
108to for the current year because the current year is still not looking good so um that was the biggest item and then as we talked um two of the things we moved forward or rolled re-budget in the current year was that million dollars that we had in buses because we had some purchase orders that did not come in before the end of the year and then we had Roofing repairs from the um hail damage that was about a million doll of debt we also have re-budget we have now received all we received um I think probably we were supposed to get the special ed buses first but we actually got the regular Ed buses or the micro buses back in September and just this week we received the special ed buses so those have all
109been received now all buses are in we have on order yes and then the um Roofing repairs are underway now and then we had an adjustment that's kind of in those other resources and uses in debt service so those were the major items that um caused the undere expenditure of our um from what we were bu projecting in budget development looking at our fund balance now um it ended up a little bit higher that than it was last year is at 32.9% um had we not been able to move all those expenditures to the Sr funds we would have actually been down about 1.3% instead of up 1.3% so we're again we're in good shape to moving forward that is the and as a percentage of this year's budget though it's 31.8% that 32 point
110um 9% is out of last year's expenditure but this year's budget is 31.8 we ALS also have in our fund balance we have inventories of 416,000 prepaid items of 880,000 um Capital Equipment that of about a million one and then purchase orders were outstanding at August 31st we have to commit those funds and of about $2.6 million so looking now going into current year looking at our uh enrollment and average daily attendance um still on the decline in The Last 5 Years our enrollment has declined 10.6% and our Ada has declined 13.4% now the good news is I actually we it's better than a while I paded the budget for once for the first time in four years I actually uh was less optimistic than what it turned out to be so this is kind
111of what this is looking like for Budget we had 13,293 was what I was projecting for enrollment that ended up as snapshot in the fall which is what I measure against it was 13,366 so we were up 72 students from budget and then our average daily attendance now this average daily attendance projection is in as the end of the third six weeks we just ended the fourth six weeks I haven't done projections from that fourth six weeks was not as good as the first three so that might come down some but again it's higher than what we had projected for budget development our comp controller's property value study as we've talked about before the values that we use to develop our Revenue estimates for this current year we found out what they are this January
112because we don't actually know until we're halfway through the year what those values actually are so um we you know we did a really good job on projecting that we were only off 0.36% on that so our values we came out real close right now it looks like our foundation school program revenue is up about a million six most of that is in special education and some CTE um revenues we down down in some other areas but most of that million 6 is special ed and then our maintenance and operations property tax collections this is a real concern it's going to be a real concern I think in the coming year too we've been having these huge value adjustments in our property values and I discussed it also in our um financial statements this month
113but we have had in the current year Levy we we've had a levy adjustment of over half aill almost $600,000 and we're still had we still had $600,000 of um Levy adjustment for prior year Levy because of the Frozen Homestead exemptions and so they're still going back and looking at that and I have a concern with the bills coming forward we're going to have another um compression and a a higher homestead exemption and I'm worried that you know we're going to have another two or three years of adjusting to that because it'll be done immediately but um anyway so right now it looks like we're down projected to be down about 3.8 million in our property tax Collections and local Revenue a little bit of that is also um investment income but the rates have
114not come down like they were talking about for interest rates so we are still generating pretty good revenues in our investment income I serve on the State Board of uh Texas Realtors board of directors and um we had our annual meeting uh two weeks ago they are proposing and legislating and sending all their pack money to increase the allotment to $140,000 and so that will affect us quite a bit talking about the attendance numbers and do we have an idea if we could increase our attendance by two 2% what that would mean budget-wise like what would 1% mean because I know two years ago Dr Edison was charged with that and then we had Transportation come up I'm just curious what kind of investment comes from strategically starting we have those kids it's not like
115they're not enrolled it what kind of I don't know I haven't calculated that in a while but I can get that number for that would be great because I I got a feeling if we could see 2% increase we would be amazed at how much money that would mean and so if it cost us 100 Grand to make that investment and but yet we recruit 500,000 that seems like a smart investment but um I just like to know that number per 1% what does that mean for us Revenue wise and I know she'll get you that number and we'll put it in a a district update but one of the things that we've been doing is as a leadership team we do uh talk about our attendance data um by campus right and so um
116with Mr Jerry and his leadership of that team um we're tracking that but we also we put it we put it out there to the principles this is where we stand and if you get your attendance up by this percentage and we even went so far to say hey this is your percentage that you need to get to I'll say 94 if that's a number these are the students this is their information so we have put that out there so that we can get that up two things we win with academically we win because it changes our all our 40 comparison groups and then to financially we win because we have attendance in Ada so um that's something that's on the radar we give them numbers and goals but do we give them strategies for
117increasing that number we're working on that and I had a meeting last week and I told Mr Jerry I said we have a um I'll say a vendor um who might be able to help us but I told him I want to free first and then I get results then I'll pay you on the back end so we're working on that right now because we do need that hope and Jonathan I think the house bill has been filed for the 140,000 Homestead um that's been filed I think this week yeah to raise the homestead exemption Senate bill went a couple of weeks ago was already filed too to um Jonathan's uh Point um I serve on a national board and serve with this one gentleman who works for the campaign for grade level reading and
118they go through and study kind of school districts and schools all throughout the nation and help them with kind of this reading and an academic standards and one of the big levers there's like four or five levers one of the big levers is getting kids in school getting kids in school and having them just be in school is one of the levers to help increase um grade level reading so yeah let us know if you need money for Popsicles or pizza parties I'm in was was Dr Edison's old position a grant funded position was funded through yes yes sir yeah okay so looking a little bit um 2526 as I said we're not there's bills been filed but let's talk a little bit about our our um appropriation side first just looking at you know
119we haven't had an increase in the basic allotment since 201920 school year so this is in that same time frame this is the kind of increases that we've been seeing vehicle fuel went up 49.5% utilities only 10.2% now we have bought electricity out to till 2031 2030 2031 33 we have actually bought our electricity out bought our rates and so that's the reason I was looking at Richardson's um and theirs was much higher as far as utilities we have utilities locked in till 2020 2033 so we don't are not seeing the kind of increase that some of the other districts are there health insurance 33.6% property insurance um 89.5% there's actually a bill out there that was talking about helping districts along the coast and everything with property insurance and we're going like wait second
120you know it's going up across the state is not just those districts that are on the coast but 89.5% Safety and Security because of the requirements that we've had has gone up 47% um and then just the cost of living it has gone up 22.5% wow time can I make a recommendation this to me is a we have probably lost the voucher battle but I think the battle now is on to get our funding Equitable to what the voucher monies are going to be if we could um find a way to have each one of these as a slide of what we have faced since the last allotment increase in our social media platforms and just say did you know that we have this this this and this but our allotment has stayed the same
121um how about you call your congressman and help us cover these costs this to me is as illustrative as anything I've seen for us to say give us more money right does Carl does Carl have a copy of this slide I me I think this is huge right here one of the yeah Miss Davis and I had met when we were talking about getting ready for this board meeting and so we had this conversation so thank you for making sure this made it to us um what we wanted to do was we're going to give it two Communications and we're going to just Pub it we're going to put it out there and just say these are the facts this is our reality because I really think people don't understand what we're facing like they're
122thinking now you got money we're like no we don't and this is there's no uh adjustments for inflation or anything so we are totally making sure that we're telling the right people and our Representatives um what's going on here in our in our house I was just going to say can we make sure that our State Rep and our state senator sees this slide absolutely turn into Elizabeth absolutely can we we send it to them with a little ribbon tied say thank you please how about we just deliver it to them when we get on there to yeah when we go visit yes sir U cuz I really do I I think our our State Rep and I I would hope our state senator as well would be appalled at this one slide and knowing
123that we've kept the same amount of money coming in since 2019 2.3% yeah that's what I'm saying I mean the people that vote for these Representatives need to see these numbers I mean you know I mean if you don't increase the allotment by what 20 20 33% you're not keeping up with our costs so as I said so our state Foundation school program on property tax revenues together in that same period of time have only increased 2.3% that is 88 those two funding sources make up 88.1% of our revenues for the general yeah and we've only had a 2.3% increase scream it from the mountain tops I don't know that he'd say it publicly but at breakfast at least our State Rep claimed that he was a champion for public schools um showing him showing
124him this might might open his eyes a little bit more I I think you know when I see this um these numbers and then I look at the cost of living I think what type of impact that has on our families and our kids in our district and just that cost of living um on already a district that at times has different opportunities and challenges I think that to me feels staggering and so I think it is um um needed for RS to understand the severity of this just the cost of living what it does to our families what it does to our kids and then to know that hey they're not alone in this obviously the property insurance I mean I think that would be such an easy wi to say hey our property
125insurance has gone up 89.5% could you give it to the coast could you give it to us too we aren't going to talk about how much we've gotten from our property insurance over the last few years okay okay because that is more like 25 million so yeah but anyway anyway thank you thank you so and that that 2.3% increase I I I still want to give credit I mean a lot of that is because the equity syst had they not fought to get that inflationary we've talked about it before had gotten that inflationary factor into our tier 2 funding we probably wouldn't have that 2.3% because we've gone down you know we're going down in student population so our revenues we lose revenues but that really has helped us I mentioned that because with the
126real estate market falling out in Austin um we're not going to probably generate those kinds of funds off of that inflationary adjustment because it's based on the Austin values so may I make one more comment to your last slide Cheryl um this ties into something that I feel like we as a board and uh Dr Spicer and Miss Davis looking at the 22.5% cost of living knowing that our property insurance has gone up roughly almost 100% 90% so are our teachers and their families and we have got to take care with our salaries that we're giving not just to teachers but to Paris to our custodians to our cafeteria our bus drivers everyone that is essential to teaching school and making School happen we have got to come forward and make sure that we are
127protecting the people that help us make this District happen because that 22.5% hitting our district it's hitting the people that are touching our children touching our children's lives in one way or another and it's just something I want to bring out and we did adopt a budget with an 8 million deficit we did not do a salary increase last year but last year was a first year we did not do a salary increase we were still doing a salary increase we even brought up that beginning salary for our our auxiliary staff Food Service workers and custodians to where they were we were able to compete with the fast food restaurants around here and so we did we have made efforts to try to keep our salaries up try to keep our benefits up but you
128know it's the reality is if you add salaries to these that's pretty much our biggest part of our expense right so if our Revenue stays the same and we know that we we can't decide not to pay more insurance this year then that means that the only thing left is getting squeezed more and more if our pie isn't growing more and more so correct I would love to have each of these broken down individual slide and I will hit every social media platform I can and I will have every friend of mine do the same thing to say uh if you believe in teachers and teacher pay and care for teachers administrators supports St uh then you have to vote that way and this does it better than anything I've seen to say we're not
129doing so this is School Alliance um we have been a member of the school Alliance I think almost since it's onset um this is what they their priorities were for this legislative session the basic allotment needed to come up we needed more money in student safety since they um passed all those laws with all the requirements teacher pay has got to be addressed special education has got to be addressed and transportation so this is what wakeo ISD we we're not as bad in some categories as in in some of the others um but States the state funding for Safety and Security is projected to be $462,000 in the current year there is a bill in front of the legislature that would almost double this but um right now our Police Department budget alone is $3.8
130million so this uh if we maybe end up getting less than a million dollars it's not even coming close to covering our cost for just the police department looking at the national we actually do a little bit better on the national starting teacher pay is only which doesn't actually seem right to me but I did that research myself Rural and the rural salaries are like absolutely it's everybody a rural we would be behind and so ours is 53,000 still not still way below urban districts um State funding for special education we don't do too badly here it's projected to be 17.5 million this year our budgeted expenditures total 18 2 million so we are know technically we're only supposed to spend 55% of those funds on the direct program but we are spending over what
131over 100% of what we're getting for special if our state funding for student transportation this one is just amazing um we got $575,000 or getting $575,000 last year right now I'm estimating the same amount for this year I don't know yet but our budgeted expenditures for 2425 total $6 million so we're getting half a million dollars from the state for student transportation for a budget of $6 million now talking a little bit about what bills kind of have been filed right now um I know I never want to talk about that too much because that changes so much is they're getting ready to go into some um compromise meetings and anyway the Senate's not really doing us a lot of favors no increase in the basic allotment money into teacher salaries um for a district
132like us we would get $2500 for teachers with three or more years of experience up to well three to five from five and above it's 5500 but we get nothing for any teachers below three years of experience sure what does that average out to per paycheck if we if that were to come true $2500 would be about two 200 a month right yeah so before taxes before taxes yeah right um so not have to buy two dozen eggs and 5500 you know about twice that so $500 but but that's only for teachers that means we wouldn't get any money for any other employee group for custodians or Food Service workers or Care Professionals or anybody else so that's just for teachers they are going to put a lot of money into Tia that would that
133would go up and then again they do have a bill for to increase that safety allotment on the house side a little bit better they are increasing the um they are increasing the basic allotment on the bill that was filed last week late I think on Thursday um they were increasing the basic allotment by $220 from 6,160 to 6,380 and then they're increasing the small and midsize allotment doesn't do us any good because we we would it would have with the transportation Zone because that was quot was funding that but um it doesn't help us at all and then of course they're going to both House and Senate are increasing the homestead exemption um and I think they're both going from 100,000 to 140,000 and uh let me see what else we have here oh
134they do H they are increasing special education funding considerably in the house bill and they are creating uh new allotments for Fine Arts and and Special Education Service Group allotment in it again so the total of that of House Bill two is $7.8 million um both have passed vouchers I don't as as you said I don't think there's any any way to stop that at this point so the only thing I think we can hope for is to get some additional Revenue now what this would mean the house bill for us would be $4 A5 million that we could probably generate um we will have some small increase what's in the law right now because of that the Austin values and our tier 2 funding we would generate about 400,000 next year off of that
135because because again it's not very high this year the increase is not very high at all but the following year we would in generate about a million and a half dollars but that's if nothing else happens um we still no this is just because this is just for the basic allotment increase would be four and a half million yeah so we have a adopted a budget of with the $8 million deficit that we'll underspend that you know as I said when we adopted it well probably half of that will be under spent at least um but we don't have as much you know with Esser funds and other funding sources to spend this year either so we'll underspend that but even if we underspend that by half this basic allotment increase would only make up
136that difference no it just make us break even with no salary increases so now we do know we do know we have some um savings that we will see in closing uh ala Vista just administrative cost the fixed cost off of that will probably be about 700,000 in savings um but is that through M yeah okay yeah that's that's Staffing you know that's your principal nurse counselor those people that will be moving to other campuses into current positions right so so we're absorbing them so it's just the building itself is what we will we are absorbing the people not the position right I mean I meant absorbing the teachers and administr yeah I think so okay that's where we are CH I have one question for you Le U going back um it says page
137six um it was with the fund balance table and you were talking about committed fund balances uhuh and you said uh August 31st 2024 we had 2.6 million purchase orders that we had to carry over we carry over the purchase order we don't necessarily carry over the funding everybody is told um at that point in time when they're issuing purchase orders that it's going to come out of your next year's budget out of your next year's budget now there are some cases you know that was beyond their um control that maybe the vendor couldn't deliver whatever and we will roll some of those forward we didn't roll a lot forward I think maybe a few hundred 000 this year but um that 2.6 came from this year's they have to cover it with their current
138year budget okay that was what I was asking I leave the ability I'm I'm not like a lot of CFOs that close purchase orders in May or something and act like the district's out of business for the next three months I leave them open for people to spend um I used to leave them open to August 31st until my staff was not happy with me so we close it usually like the first end of the first week or so of August I think but um yes I leave them open but people know if it doesn't come in they have to cover it next year all right thank you Miss Davis sis this is was really really easy to read for me uh thank you for that okay moving on to announcements Miss Cox hopefully it's
139I'm excited about the basketball game gonna say feel free to seal my thunder it is definitely worthy of celebrating good evening um Madam president Dr Spicer trustees wakeo ISD fans we must make the trip South on I35 to Temple High School tomorrow night to cheer on our Trojans in the regional finals boys basketball playoff game versus Colleen Ellison if you if you didn't already if you weren't already fired up um Mr vidna has some video for you to watch um we we are ready we are ready to face um our district uh foes uh Colleen Ellison tomorrow night at 7 pm I hope to see many of you there I know I will be there um if timle High School yes sir if you prefer to stay in town there is still um great Student
140Activity to take in we can um host you at Tennyson middle school for this second um production of High School Musical Junior tomorrow night at 6 p.m. tickets are $5 Mrs Barrera was there tonight and said it was a packed house um so definitely worthy show to go check out and their beautiful new facility this is their first production I believe um in that new campus so definitely worthy to go watch if you're not at the basketball game there's your options um this Saturday wakeo I police officers will be taking the plunge for Special Olympics at Hawaiian Falls at 9:00 a.m. I want to thank Chief Goodman Lieutenant Freeman Sergeant Martinez officer G Jr and officer Steiner for supporting this worthy cause and our students and for the communications team helping Pump It Out Wendy
141will there be um media there to to to capture and I bet Chief has his prayers are answered for warm weather what if it was last week man it was rescheduled from last week yes most definitely as Dr Spicer mentioned next Tuesday night March 4th we will be hosting um our final attendance boundaries public hearing at GW Carver at 6m hope to see many many people there um and then next Friday March 7th is a student holiday staff development day um as we send everyone off into spring break a hard earned spring break March 10th through the 14th thank you so much awesome thank you so much okay um let's see here I think with that we are the board is going to go into close session at 8:20 this time pursu of Texas open
142meeting act Texas government code 551 section 071 and 072 no action will be taken when we come back