001Good evening. It's 6 o'clock p.m. The Board of Trustees of the Brenham Independent School District is now convened. I wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone present. In collaboration with our families and community, Brenham ISD is committed to providing an exceptional education for all students in a safe environment. As the Brenham ISD Board of Trustees, we are here to provide local citizen governance and oversight. The management and day-to-day operations are the responsibility of the superintendent. This is a public meeting of the Board of Trustees. School board meetings are open to all who wish to attend and hear the matters discussed. Audience participation is limited to the public comment portion of the meeting. These proceedings are recorded and I respectfully ask that you please refrain from talking while others are speaking. Thank you for taking
002time this evening to join us and for your interest in the Burnham Independent School District. At this time, I will lead us in the pledge followed by the invocation given by Archer Archer. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please bow your heads with me. Lord Jesus, we come to you tonight. We're so grateful and thankful for all the people in this room. We're so grateful and thankful for everyone that is involved and engaged with Frenem IST. We ask that you bless our teachers, staff, custodians, secondary, our whole entire team. We ask that you bless our students over the summer, that you keep them safe, that you keep us safe as
003we go on vacation over the summer and that we return safe in the fall for a new school year. And finally, Lord Jesus, we ask that you bless this new board as we go on a journey together. to determine the direction of our district, whether it's new or old. We bless all these things in your name. Amen. Amen. We didn't have anyone sign up for public comment, so we will move into the election certificates and the statement of elected officers. And at this time, Sean Koontz, if you'll come forward and sign your election statement, and then if you want your family to join for your oath of office, you'll do that as well. Congratulations. And Judge Durenberger is here to give the oath. Raise your right hand and repeat after me. In the name and
004by the authority of the state of Texas, I, Sean Koontz, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of Brenham ISD Trustee Position 5 of the state of Texas and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this state. So help me God. And Justin Colley and your family. Raise your right hand and repeat after me. In the name and by the authority of the state of Texas, I, Justin Colley, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of Brenham ISD Trustee Position 6 of the state of Texas. And I'll do the best of my ability to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United
005States and of this state. So help me God. And now Jared Krennic and Jared's family. No backing out for you. Ready for this? You're not quite as nervous tonight, maybe. Experience. In the name and by the authority of the state of Texas. I, Jared Krennic, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of Brenham ISD Trustee Position 7 of the state of Texas and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States. And of this state. And of this state. So help me God. So help me God. At this time, will the newly elected board members please come take a seat. Our current, our sitting current president has just walked out the door, so our sitting vice president,
006I will take over. I'm not as eloquent as her, so I will do my best, guys. Next order of business is each year the board of trustees elects officers, which include the president, vice president, and secretary. Nominations are now in order for the Office of President. At this time, please raise your hand if you have a nominee. Ms. Bickmeyer? I nominate Jared Krennic for the Office of President. Do we have any other nominations? If no further nominations for the Office of President are offered, nominations are closed. Is there any discussion? At this time, I will call for a vote of the Office of President. Each member will vote one time by raising their right hand. Those in favor of Jared Krennic to serve the Office of President, Board of Trustees, raise your right hand and
007keep it raised until counted. There's a 7-0 vote. 6-0, excuse me, I can't count. All board members voted for Jared Krennic. 5-0. I'm sorry, Kyle Hafner is not here today. So it is a 5-0 vote. So Jared has received the majority of votes to serve as president of the Burnham ISD Board of Trustees. Nominations are now in order for the Office of Vice President. At this time, please raise your hand if you have a nominee. Mr. Raven. I nominate Bonnie Brinkmeyer for the Office of Vice President. Are there any further nominations for the Office of Vice President? If no further nominations for the Office of Vice President are offered, nominations are closed. Are there any discussions? At this time, I recall for the vote of Office of Vice President, each member will vote one time
008by raising their right hand. Those in favor of Bonnie Brinkmeyer to serve in the Office of Vice President of the Board of Trustees, raise your right hand and keep it raised until counted. Again, it is a 5-0 vote. Congratulations, Bonnie. Bonnie has received the majority of votes to serve as Vice President of the Brenham ISD Board of Trustees. Nominations are now in order for the Office of Secretary. At this time, please raise your hand if you have a nominee. Mr. Cawley. I would like to nominate Kelvin Raven for the Secretary position. Are there any further nominations for the Office of Secretary? If no further nominations for the Office of Secretary are offered, nominations are closed. Are there any discussions? At this time, I will call for a vote for the Office of Secretary. Each member
009will vote one time by raising their right hand. Those in favor of Kelvin Raven to serve in the Office of Secretary of the Board of Trustees, raise your right hand and keep it raised until counted. Again, a 5-0 vote. Kelvin Raven has received the majority of the votes to serve as Secretary of the Brenham ISD Board of Trustees. Congratulations. At this time, we will now rearrange the Board of Trustees seats to reflect their current positions. Okay, next we move on to the special recognition part of the meeting where we will start with the finance department. Ms. Brooke Trahan will help with this. And first, I believe we have a nice order. Yes. Good evening. First, I'd like to call up band director Eric Redding to tell you about the amazing accomplishments of our Cub band
010here at Brenham High School. Thanks, but thank you all for allowing me to come we've actually been trying to do this since February But with two really busy young men, it was it's been difficult to work it out When we get back in July we even though we're starting marching band, our state governing body, TMEA, it's Texas Music Educators, puts out a series of music. And then all across the state, students, not just band students, but choir students, orchestra students, even now they have a mariachi division, mariachi students, even a jazz band division. And they'll get music and they go from one step to the next step in auditioning. And less than like 2.3% of the students that start the process actually earn all state recognition. And this year we had two young men that
011received all state honors and I'd like to recognize them with you all. So the first one is Brett, I almost called him Kyle Babbitt and that's like a name from like 50 years ago. Brett Campbell and Kyle Freeman. Brett plays bass trombone and Kyle plays trombone trombone. And they both take lessons from Mr. Freeman, who does so many things for Brenham ISD. We should say thank you. And next year, Kyle is going to study music at Oklahoma State University. And Kyle, he wants to be a trained, he was going to study engineering, so he wants a woo-woo at Texas A&M University. So that's all I've got. Okay. Now, next up for our fine arts, I'd like to invite Ms. Kara Freeman from our amazing theater department to come up and tell you about their program.
012Hi, I'm Kara Freeman, and she's coming. Kendra Secret is, we're the theater directors here. And we've had a really exciting year with a lot of firsts. I first want to tell you that we have, go ahead, guys, come on. We got gold honor troop for the state of Texas for the third year in a row. But this year it was led by our board president, Noble Ferone. Another first, or the first first, is we have our first state student officer. And we have Sadie Royer. And she was elected to be an ambassador. So she will be going to state government and be an advocate for schools and fine arts in general. The rest of these kids that are up here before you are all students that went in November. Our state is in November. And
013they competed and scored a superior rating. And so that gave them the right to go to nationals in the summer. So all of these kids are going to go compete for the next level. So we're super excited about that. It's nerve wracking. The next we have the very first thing that we've ever had is we had two students Kyle and Mickey and they both Michaela I'm sorry Michaela and they both they scored a perfect score at Nationals which we've never had that before so that's really hard to that basically means that all three judges gave them a perfect score so that's really awesome for them. In addition to that, we had Kyle Freeman qualified. This is not the first time we've had this happen, but he qualified for two separate events. So he will be
014going as duet musical and also solo musical. So that's awesome. And then. So we have a lot and we have our very very first triple threat National qualifier which we have Laura Beth and she qualified in acting dancing and singing so we're super excited about all that No, so thank you so much for this opportunity to have a highlight on our fine arts. We love each other. Our departments love each other and we are super excited for each other's successes and we are so thankful for how you support us. So thanks. Make sure you have a face window. Jared. Okay, next up on our fine arts special recognition, I'm going to invite up Miss Amanda Seymour, our choir director. Thank you so much for having us tonight. Hey, sorry, we're getting ourselves organized. Thank you
015so much for having us tonight. We've had many celebrations this year. All the choirs across both the junior high and the high school campus earned excellent and superior ratings at our UIL concert and sight reading competitions in March and April, which is fantastic. We also had a number of students that are actually here before you that qualified to attend the States Hill Ensemble Contest. Will y'all wave, guys, if you're going to States Hill Ensemble? Yay! so they'll be traveling to Pflugerville after graduation to go compete at the state contest and we just finished up our spring show which was wicked themed and so to celebrate we thought we would share a song with you Defying Gravity And then wrapping up our fine arts special recognition, I'd like to invite up Miss Savannah Nichols, Mr. Stephen
016Henry, and Mr. Austin Youngs, our three art educators here at the high school, to tell you about their amazing accomplishments this year. All right, thank you. Yay, we get to follow that. Hey, it has been an incredible, incredible year for visual art. I want to thank new kid Mr. Young's great, great addition. And of course, our lead teacher, tireless worker, and a great teacher, Ms. Savannah Nichols. So I've got to say that. And I'm the clown of the group, and there's no doubt about that. But it has been a great, great year. And looking back, I I think we could go back all the way to the summer. We started a little contest in Fayetteville. Y'all, I'm going to blast through this because I know we've got a lot to cover tonight. So I'm not
017even really going to say many names. I will here and there. But we had a little contest in Fayetteville in the summer. Next, we had the county fair, and we showed out at both of these. I can't remember exactly when this competition was in there. This is one of the many side things we did. This was a competition downtown that Ms. Nichols and her kids took an award in. Oh, yeah, there's Mr. Young. Like I said, he's the addition. Kids get to walk in and see this kind of stuff that he inspires them with, and I think that's just great. Here's some of his kids with masks this year. And then we come to rodeo. I think this is our first kind of breakout. We had four special merit awards, two gold medal awards, one
018best of show, and one rodeo auction award. And that's the max we can get, right? Yeah, so we cleaned house there. Okay, there's Peyton. She's here. Okay, Carnell, he's here. Yeah, Jordy. Okay, and this was pretty cool this year. We had a kid in the auction, Catherine Nostrosian. That's a pretty big deal, y'all. She sold her auction piece for $40,000. Yeah. It's kind of cool. As many patrons came together as a group and donated to make that possible. Then we went to base. All right, look at here, y'all. This is why we took the base. That's what we came back with. Yeah. That looks like it's from D-Day or something all those medals. I'm so proud of that and four of those were state medals and I've got some handouts there I could Copies of
019these is too many to read right away But if you want to see I'll hand out some copies in a little bit, but all the honors we got Okay I'm just gonna blast through a lot of these It's too bad the timing we had our show up But we absolutely had to take it down This morning it would have been cool to go through there, but you know how things work out and don't work out sometimes. There's our state medalists. Then we go to our auction, Dinner to Remember. Threw in a few pictures from that. Sorry, Carnell. Oh, it gets worse, buddy. I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. This was a cool show Miss Nichols put this together and in a small amount of time did a huge huge thing and It's I'm gonna call it our
020inaugural. I hope we plan to do more Miss Nichols make it an annual thing. All right Yeah, that's awesome. But we had a show downtown at the Brenham Fine Arts League gallery and It's kind of a prestigious place especially for these young people to to break into and have that experience Oops, sorry go back murals if you go down the hall here to the English department We've got one section of these started this year. Hopefully we're going to get a lot of these lockers painted but English teachers gave us some Some of their favorite books and this is my little art media class. So we started to me earlier And you owe it to yourself if you get a chance This is like in the very early stages. This is Carnell Burns work here. He's
021doing a mural in the boys locker room and He's almost done and it is it's just phenomenal. I mean, I can't believe this young man just knocked us out so He can't either. Yeah Then there's some more stuff here's from our quick draw kids they did a great job We did broke out into some you know a little more eclectic things. We did some monotypes with screen prints this year and You know who doesn't love cats. That's a vase piece, right? Yeah, and hey, this has been my favorite piece. Who did this? Anyway This has been one of my all-time favorites to come out of this department. But, I mean, this cat, you could insert any emotion here. And we've had, he could be laughing, he could be screaming, he could be yawning, he could
022be kicked in a very sensitive place. And we've gone through all those emotions this year. But, you know, like the ribs or something. That's what I was talking about. Yeah. Sorry, yeah. But hey, and I want to thank everybody for your support for us, and they're a great bunch of kids. I can't say enough about the kids. I know, speaking for myself, my kids make me look a lot better than I am. They're just taking off, and it's a pleasure to watch them go. So thank you very much. And you extra kids, can you all come up and take pictures with us now? Yeah. Yeah. continuing with our special recognitions this evening I'd like to invite up MCJROTC captain Bays good evening oh that's a lot okay this is about just so we're this is
023about 20 less than we normally have but let me tell you throughout the year I run these kids down and they don't have a chance to work and 20 of them are now working to make a little bit of money so Banner year, probably, I think as an educator and a coach, if you want to call it that way, or an instructor, the best we can do is facilitate, right? Facilitate the information, facilitate the knowledge, facilitate the training. But if the kids don't... you know, take ownership of it, it's not going to work. And one of the things that I think this group in particular has done is taken ownership of it and just took the ball and run. And the things that we've done this year are things that have never been done before.
024If you notice real quick, we've got a pink side and we've got a black side. The pink side is unarmed. The black side is armed. Never in the history of the Marine Corps Junior ROTC have we had national champions in the same school. from both divisions And that's just a testament to the hard work that they put in this year and not only that I think sometimes some people don't quite understand what we do this like a tight narrow teeny tiny window that these kids have to operate through there's only one Marine Corps JROTC national champion and We have to compete against every school regardless of size. So we're I can give you one particular school has 6,000 students and 500 people in their ROTC program. And obviously we're like 1,400, 1,500, and we have
025about 100 kids in our ROTC program. So it's a very tight window, and it takes just dedication. And these kids have shown dedication all year. It's been a pretty amazing year. One of the other things I'd like to consider here. This one right here. So this was our CO from last year. Step forward. And we got our XO from this past year. They've kind of changed their positions. Move over here. And where's the other person? Dylan? Right here, Dylan. And we also have, he was color guard commander for the armed team, and we also have the armed exhibition commander. Step forward. Do I got everybody up here that's here? No, no, no. That's not what I'm talking about. These were the bigwigs of our group right here. And all four of them, I hope I'm
026not missing anybody, all four of them are about to go to Marine Corps boot camp. So to go and serve this country. So probably the, no, not probably. I've been here 11 years. This is the most Marines we've had in one year. So I think it's five, right? Five total. And Josh Espinoza is the other one. Anyway, so I expect. And she knows this because this is our new CEO right here, Valeria Alfaro. I expect us to be here next year. I expect us to be here next year. So please, I know that right now these kids earned a national championship ring. They're in the, they're not in the mail. They're being whittled right now, I think somewhere, somewhere in the world. I don't know where. But on August 5th is when we will be
027giving these kids their national championship rings at the first I believe the start of convocation so please join us so this can be it's great you know the I don't I can't tell you how impressed I am by these kids so that is all I have to say captain captain base how many how many years in a row has your ROTC program been to the Nationals I want you to toot your horn real quick That's incredible. Yeah, absolutely incredible. That's your program sir. So the kids do a great job But it's your leadership and everything that you do for this program. So thank you so much for everything you do I just want to make sure the community knows how lucky we are to have you in Brenham doing what you do every single year
028building up good citizens going forward. So thank you for what you do Thank you. Okay. Next we'll have the Daughters of the American Revolution recognized at Brenham High School teacher Becky Bailey will present Thank you Good evening. I am not Becky Bailey. I'm actually Bridget Lange. And Becky Bailey could not be here. She informed me at the last minute, so I apologize that that was not on your schedule better. I was the teacher that she nominated, along with my esteemed colleagues Jason Barber and Maddie Ruiz and Will Korn and our principal Michael Watts. And Becky Bailey is one of the leaders of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. And I came in second in the state this year, which was very wonderful for the local chapter, the Jabez Deming chapter, but
029also for Brenham High School. I have taught U.S. history for 11 years, and I was very grateful to receive this award and grateful to be in front of you tonight. aspects that they looked for in this award was a teacher who was trying to inspire the next generation to be active and engaged citizens in our democracy. And that has always been something that I have striven to achieve as a teacher of U.S. history. I think that that's a very important role that I play for our local community and our nation. And so this was a very meaningful award for me. So thank you everyone who made that possible. thank you very much for everything again i'm guessing who was the other one next we will consider possible acceptance of a donation to the choir department
030our chief communication and community engagement officer brooke tray and will present hello you're gonna see me a few more times okay just to make sure um i'd like to invite miss seymour up here with me as well the choir director. So as you all just saw, we have an immensely talented and rich fine arts department here at Burnham High School. So a local family of the late Patricia and Glenn Daughtry has generously offered to donate a 6-1 Young Chang Pamburg grand piano to Burnham ISD. It's a professional grade piano, and it is in pristine condition. And I will let Miss Seymour tell you why this is such a valuable asset for their program. Yes, so we are very excited and I would like to mention that this not only benefits the choir program but the
031entire Fine Arts Department because we get to the band can use it for their concerts we can use it and it will be a wonderful addition to not only our campus but to the entire district this piano is like like a mystery handset in pristine condition and we are very honored to have the opportunity to have it because most students in school districts do not get the opportunity to sing or play with this kind of instrument. So I would like to ask that you consider the acceptance of this donation. We really appreciate them just going over the board notes right now. That is a very gracious gift they're giving us. So thank them if you see them. But we will need a motion from the board. I make a motion to accept a donation of
032the grand piano from the family of the late Glenn and Patricia Doughty to support the continued growth and excellence of Fine Arts in Brenham ISD as presented. Second. A motion has been made by Kelvin Raven, seconded by Archer Archer, to accept a donation of a grand piano from the family of late Glenn and Patricia Doughty to support the continued growth and excellence of Fine Arts in Brenham ISD as presented. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? The motion is carried. Thank you all so much. Are you ready? Welcome back. Welcome back. Okay, I would like to invite anybody up that is here from the Texas Arts and Music Festival Board. to join me. I'm going to be wearing two hats. You all know me here. But I also sit on the Texas Arts and Music Festival
033nonprofit board. We are about to be entering our 10th year, our 10th anniversary. We take place every third weekend in October. And our mission is to support fine arts in Texas and local student groups. For the past nine consecutive years, the Burnham High School students have participated in enrichment day where on the Friday before the festival kicks off, they get to go behind the scenes. They get to meet with professional artists, ask them personal questions about how they got into art and made it here. And they get to do hands on workshops and other gallery tours. In addition to in the past, we've provided opportunities for both our theater and our choir departments to perform. And this year we are going to be presenting a fourth $1,000 donation to the Fine Arts Department and 3,000
034will be going to our high school art program And then $1,000 is going to be going to our choir program. So earlier when they performed, you all saw how immensely talented they are. And so they have been invited in June to perform at the Astros game as a special guest for the anthem. So in supporting their travels to give them this opportunity and this platform this summer, that is what their $1,000 is going towards to help support that avenue. And then I'd like to introduce Mark Rosenbaum, our board president, to say a few more words. I'll keep it short. It's been a great experience. The high school kids get a chance to come with the opportunity to come meet the artists and that. Also, but like the Marine Corps guys are there. The ROTC guys
035are there helping us clean up. Ravens there helping with security. I've seen several of you guys there. So third weekend in October. This is $1,500 more than we were able to raise last year. And I'm hoping this year has been our 10th anniversary. We'll even have a more successful event so we can continue to do this and maybe even increase the amount. And if y'all want to catch, it's June 26. The choir is performing for the Astros game. Thank y'all so much for the generous donation. Now I have a reason to go to the Strohs, so thank you again. I'm still learning guys. Anybody want to make a motion? I make a motion to accept the I make a motion to accept this valuable and wonderful presentation that you have here in the business of
036$4,000. We accept that $4,000. Okay. Here we go. I make a motion to accept a $4,000 monetary donation from the Texas Arts and Music Festival with $1,000 allocated to the Brenham High School Choir and $3,000 to the Brenham High School Art Activity Fund as presented. A motion has been made by Bonnie Brinkmeyer, seconded by Justin Colley, to accept a $4,000 monetary donation from the Texas Arts and Music Festival with $1,000 allocated to the Brenham High School Choir and $3,000 to the Brenham High School Art Activity Fund as presented. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Thank you all so very much. Next, we have possible acceptance of two monetary donations for the MCJROTC program. Brooke Chahan will present again. I'd like to invite Captain Bays first to tell you a little bit about the
037letter and the information because these have to pertain to their national rings and then I have some notes from the donors. Well, I'm a little surprised. I didn't know I was speaking. Anyway, so on behalf of, you know, to pay for the rings, we went out to the Chamber of Commerce and I wrote up a letter for the parent group to send to businesses around the community and this is the result of that. It's not the only result of that. I was going to say. earlier you'll see again you'll see a convocation we have another 25 odd donors that donated different amounts but less than a thousand dollars so it's been great community sport so it's about $160 a ring so about 75 to $8,000 total So we have two donations that came in over
038$1,000, which is why we're here for y'all this evening. So the first one came in from Blue Bell Creamery. So as y'all know, Blue Bell is a generous sponsor of Burnham ISD. And they have sent a $2,000 donation for the purchase of the rings. In addition to, we had a gentleman by the name of Blake's, oh, 2,500 from Blue Bell. Sorry, 2,500 from Blue Bell. A gentleman by the name of Blake Sawyer who reached out and then after speaking with Mr. Sawyer, he visited with both Captain Bays and I. He ended up actually upping his donation because he was trying to make sure that every cadet. So he upped his donation to $3,000 and 10, right? 50? 3040 so he just sent me a little note this morning that he asked if I could read
039on his behalf So he says dear captain bays sergeant major Marika and the cadets on behalf of a grateful community and a proud former Marine I extend my heartfelt congratulations To you all for your incredible victory at the National Jill team competition in Florida Your achievement is not only a testament to your discipline dedication and teamwork But also a shining example of the excellence cultivated through the end MCJROTC program at Brenham High School. It is fitting to repeat the mission of the MCJROTC program to develop character and citizenship in the youth of America. You all embody this mission through your tireless efforts, selfless service, and unwavering commitment to representing our nation's flag with honor. Whether in high-profile competitions or quietly at parades, special events, and other requests whenever called, true acts of service. I am
040proud to live in a community where young people pursue such rigor with humility and grace the NG JROTC program at Brenham High School is magnificent and we are all fortunate to have you as a part of our school in our community at large congratulations once again team on this extraordinary and well-deserved victory with respect and admiration and a salute Blake Sawyer I would like to make a motion to accept a $2,500 monetary donation from Blue Belt Cream Race and a $3,040 monetary donation from Mr. Blake Sawyer to be used towards a purchase of a national championship, national championship rings for the Brenham Marine Corps Junior ROTC drill team as presented. A second. Archer Archer has made a motion, seconded by Sean Koontz, to accept a $2,500 monetary donation from Bluebell Creameries and a $3,040 monetary
041donation from Blake Sawyer to be used towards the purchase of national championship rings for the Benarau High School MCJROTC drill team as presented. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? motion carries congratulations again archer i like the way you put that so i had to repeat it man i do have a picture on my phone if you'd like to see what they look like okay next we will have a legislative update uh presented by superintendent uh clay gillentine good evening this is as much of a plea as it is an update we are entering the final stretch of this legislative session and this is a critical moment there's still a lot of work to be done on house bill 2. that's the state's Key school finance legislation legislation with less than just two weeks left. So
042I want to be clear that all of your voices matter Every school board member up here every advocate we need to speak up and we need to now with with time ticking I know some of you feel discouraged. Sometimes I've been there as far as reaching out you might wonder if it's really gonna make a difference but silence guarantees that our concerns will be ignored. So I ask you to please speak up. Lawmakers, they can't represent our schools or us unless they hear from us. They need to know what's at stake. It starts with, again, all of us and our voice. The Texas House has, I think, done their part. They passed the Senate Bill 2, which addresses the governor and sentenced. school choice priorities. And let me say this about school choice. After all
043the awards we just saw this morning, I've said from the get-go, I don't like the idea of giving public school money away to private schools. I've said over and over again, bring on the competition. Compete with that. Compete with what you just saw. What we offer in public schools is extracurricular activities. That's the carrot that gets kids to school. That's all the kiddos you saw here today. That's the shortstop on the softball team. That's the band, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Again, compete with that, private schools. I know there's no way you can keep up. We've got one of the best offerings in the state of Texas. Senate bill 2 has been taken care of from the house. It's time for the Senate to step up and take care of House bill 2 Which
044will now? Give us an increase in our allotment The current House bill that the Senate is approving is just way too Restrictive it fails to give our districts of flexibility that we need the house version i believe is more equitable more flexible more responsive to real needs of schools across the state when you consider small schools medium-sized schools and large schools so make sure that our lawmakers hear your voice again i know that can feel like a lot to ask i've been in that seat where you are i don't hesitate anymore maybe because i'm staring at the outcome every single day It takes revenue to run a school business it takes revenue to run any business. We are no exception to that The house version of House bill 2 allows for much more flexibility it
045allows for An increase in revenue, maybe not where we want it, but an increase in revenue with the discretion to use it as we see fit to run this business. So if you haven't done so, please call your senator, your representative, ask for the chief of staff, email, whatever it takes so that they hear our voice. We need to fund public schools. That's my legislative update. Thank you, Clay. Superintendent, monthly update. Yes, sir Monthly update is first of all, I'd like to recognize our two new board members formally publicly congratulations mr coontz mr colley we are very excited to have you join this team so grateful that you stepped up to serve our students our community in an even greater capacity than both of you already do you're both so already you're both so involved
046we appreciate you to step up in this more formal setting um a big heartfelt thank you again to tommy and natalie um some some tears and hugs as they stepped out they've been with us for a long time i appreciate their service and the way we know they're going to continue to serve and impact this district really my monthly update is can you believe that it's uh the last week of school um i i don't in ways uh when i think back to some of the things we were talking about in september That feels like years ago and at the same time I can't believe it is the end of the school. So It's a week packed full of just very meaningful moments From the time honor and traditions like daisy chain and I look
047to see that my daisy is still on my lapel here from today Senior walks our award ceremonies campus-wide celebrations. There's just so much to look forward to Do we have any kindergarten graduations left? Because those are awesome. By the way, that's where Kyle is this evening for anyone wondering. He's got his own child's kindergarten graduation and would not want him to miss that. I say to all these guys, to myself and my team out there, family first. Never, ever miss a kiddos event. Newly elected board president has reminded me of that as well, which I thank him for that. So that's where he is, but just some wonderful. milestones this this week of course Friday is graduation hope to see any of you there board members hope to see all of you there absolutely it
048can be hot but that's why we push it later in the evening till 8 8 o'clock 8 o'clock graduation Friday evening well got to keep our gotta keep our newly elected president from uh passing out heat Again, hope to see you there. Hope to also see you board members at the end of the year celebration. This is such a special time for all our staff. Really upped that last year and are looking forward to it again this year of feeding the entire staff. Great contributions from across the community. Thank you all the community members out there that have donated to that to give away gifts and again feed the staff. honored honored to be a part of that we also honor the teachers and professionals of the year from the campus and name the district-wide
049sub professional and teacher of the year which is a really neat time We honor our retirees. We do our service awards. It's really just an amazing time. So a good chance to reflect and hope to see you all there. Very quick, again, I just touched base on school funding and House Bill 2. That's going to continue to be something that I stress for these next couple weeks. That's what gets most of my attention, but there's some really... neat bills that we want to keep an eye on. House Bill 4 proposes replacing the STAR test with three shorter assessments spread throughout the year, revising the A through F school rating. A similar version is under review in the Senate, so it looks like something could happen there. So that's a neat bill to watch. Teacher certification.
050piece is legislation is advancing to ensure that all core subject teachers are certified by the 2930 year. The bill includes mentorship and stipends for some of those teachers. There's a school safety funding. This bill would double per student and per campus safety funding. It's passed both chambers and is in final negotiations. Another really neat bill to be watching. There's curriculum and parent rights several bills that we've heard dealing with parental rights DEI restrictions and off-campus religious instruction, so I'm looking forward to seeing how those move forward Lastly I just want to mention tomorrow night is a big night for for us our administration all the folks you see out here will be at our very first launching of the strategic planning committee that's committee meeting we've been looking forward to for some time that's the
051ambassador program those that have selected to be a part of that strategic planning committee several of you board members trying to avoid of course a quorum this group will play a key role in helping us examine just where we are in this district and chart a clear path toward a long-term measurable goal. So really taking a look at our mission, our vision, our goals from facilities to academic concerns, and how are we now going to attack those goals as a community, okay? How are we going to agree? That's going to be my one message to the Strategic Planning Committee over and over again is we have got to agree on something and then come together and see something passed. You know, I'm tired of the the 55 to 45 passing votes that doesn't show a
052real commitment by the community. I'd like to see the community really come together and stand behind something. So anxious to see the work of that committee moving forward. Tomorrow night we'll have Steve Perry. He's the financial advisor for Brenham ISD. We'll have, of course, our own CFO, Dan White, our chief tax appraiser, and Steve Pierce. He's our deputy director for administrative services at Region 6 and a retired superintendent. here to help sort of uh walk that committee through uh school finance um at large as far as the state of texas is concerned but then also um as uh as bernamisd so again looking very forward to that i want to update you weekly with that and definitely monthly moving forward and anxious to see what that group achieves lastly again congrats so this of course
053is the last board meeting of the school year congrats to all those student groups you saw this evening and the many many that we didn't mention my philosophy of education as most of you have heard is is just kids kids show up for that they show up because of those activities and from now 26 years in this business we've got One of the best shows in the state of Texas when it comes to extracurricular activities so very proud of those kiddos It's all I got Okay, next we will do board member reports and comments Archer I'll start with you if you don't mind so we don't throw the new board members under the bus right away No, you're good. Nothing for me. Thank you on Monday, May the 5th. We had a tragedy In our
054community. We lost a precious young lady miss woods and I wanted to say that the school district came together. The teachers, the principals, the administration building were there. Chaotic scene, chaotic scene. I'm just so thankful that we have a community that can come together and mourn together. I mean, it was horrific. When I start seeing Brenham Elementary employees come and I saw Clay there. IT MADE ME FEEL GOOD EVEN THOUGH I HAD TO DO MY JOB BUT IT MADE ME FEEL GOOD SO WITH THAT I'M JUST THANKFUL FOR THAT AND THANK YOU UM MY COMMENTS COME AS A BISD PARENT AND NOT AS A BISD BOARD MEMBER I'VE GOT TO SPEND A LOT OF TIME AT THE SCHOOLS FIELD DAYS CSI OPPORTUNITIES AND I JUST WANT TO TAKE SAY THANK YOU TO THE TEACHERS PARAPROFESSIONALS
055AND EVERYBODY THAT HAS ORGANIZED THESE EVENTS FOR THESE KIDS AND HOW MUCH JOY IT BRINGS THEM AT THE END OF THIS END OF THE YEAR TO BE ABLE TO GO OUT AND PLAY ON BOUNTY HOUSES AND power chug 19 dr peppers because that's what they like to do with their friends but it's not something that you would think of that's in the what teachers do and it takes a lot of prep and a lot of time out of their lives and away from their family so not just at the middle school because that's where my son is but it was all over every campus so just i wanted to take the opportunity to say anybody that was involved in that thank you for that because the kids absolutely love it and it's the highlight of
056their year so just thank you for everybody involved as a parent i know my kid enjoyed the heck out of it so I know it's been a long year in a lot of ways, and in a lot of other ways, it seems like it went by so fast. Thank you, principals, for the job that you do every day, all the time, and your teachers have been great. We have had some hard times in terms of we had some losses, but at the same time. We have so many people who work well together and come together because it's that important to them that the kids have everything that they need for a great education, but also for a lot of fun and everything. This is that time of the year when there's a lot of banquets
057and a lot of meetings, and graduation is right around the corner. But thanks to all of you for pulling this. together and we hope to have a wonderful safe summer for our kids we hope that they come back ready to learn in august all right a new board member so first time here this has been fun A couple of things I have attended here recently. The spring game was last Friday. So coaches, thanks for hosting that. It was a good time to see the community come out and gather together and celebrate the upcoming football season after summer. I know it was warm out there that night, but it was a good turnout from the community and an exciting time for everyone to be there and kind of celebrate the football team and something to look
058forward to coming up. you know, immediately after summer. So, um, excited about the strategic planning committee tomorrow night and got a band concert following that tomorrow night at the junior high. So I look forward to seeing some other, some more faces at the, at those events. So thank you. All right. I guess I just echo, I'm just glad to be here, uh, to have a seat right here. So, um, but you know what, uh, just to echo what you said, um, and both y'all, whether it's a celebration or it's a morning, our teachers show up. And our educators are there. They're in their spot. And the complexity of what they have to do every single day is beyond. I mean, until you get into the throes of that, let's just call it the front lines,
059you have no idea. So I am so grateful for the people that we have serving in those capacities that are teaching my daughters, that are teaching our community's kids, and then the principals who are leading, and then the educators in our admin office, and everyone who provides that support because it can't be done alone. And so I hope that we can. TO APPRECIATE WHAT WE HAVE HERE IN THIS TOWN. IT IS A BEAUTIFUL, GOOD THING THAT I BELIEVE IS ONLY GOING TO GET TO BE BETTER IN THE DAYS AHEAD. AND I'M JUST HAPPY TO BE UP HERE TO HAVE A FRONT ROW SEAT TO IT. SO PRINCIPALS, EDUCATORS, THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO EVERY DAY, ESPECIALLY STUFF NO ONE SEES AND THE STUFF PEOPLE REALLY APPRECIATE. AND WE'RE JUST EXCITED FOR WHAT'S GOING TO
060BE HAPPENING IN THIS FALL SCHOOL YEAR. SO PLEASE GET SOME REST OF SUMMER BECAUSE WE GOT A LOT OF WORK TO DO. Okay next we have the consent agenda we can approve all of this one or if somebody wants to pull anything to discuss So, Jared, I would just ask, I know that 13B, actually, excuse me, 13C and 13D are covered through departmental activity funds. Clay, can you talk about the Perkins Grant program that covers item 13B for the HOSA convention in Nashville? Yes, sir. Glad to do that. Yes, all of our activity, all of our groups have really stepped up this year with travel. Knowing the restraints of our budget, students have raised funds for students, and that's what typically our activity accounts look like. CTE funds those are federal funds that can only
061be spent on certain things and this is one of the allowable expenses and federal funds must be spent down so again these are funds that we need to spend on only certain allowable things and this qualifies so we're happy for them to use the funds in this manner. I need to be clear enough. Sarah, I'm looking at Sarah. Mary, anything else there? No? Good. Okay. Thumbs up from. That was very clear. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Archer. Any more questions on the consent agenda? Okay. We will need a motion. I make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Second. Calvin Raven made a motion seconded by Bonnie Bietmeyer to approve the consent agenda as presented. All in favor? Aye. All against? Motion is passed. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's it motion
062passed next to the next office. It's a CEO Finance update which is a our chief financial officer. Darryl Sinclair will present good evening everyone All right, we'll go ahead and get started with our usual report here. The first thing on our list, as usual, is our local revenue, excuse me, our total revenue for our general fund, food service fund and debt service fund, our local, state and federal sources. These are increased this month as compared to last month by about 1.3 million, majority of that being local sources. As I believe I mentioned not too long ago, our Final state payment will come in August this year. So right now we've received about all we're going to receive from TEA until we get to the end of the fiscal year. So our other revenues are the
063ones that we will see continuing to increase in between now and then. Okay, then we have our slide here regarding our Attendance rates our attendance rate still maintaining right about ninety four and a half percent That's from August through the end of last week. Yes Through the end of last week and so that has been fairly constant for the majority of the school year Still maintaining that and still expecting to receive very close to what we budgeted for in our state revenues as long as there's not any great departure, which really at this point wouldn't matter a whole lot at this point since we only have this week left. But still looking to maintain what we have been expecting all year long in our state revenues. Then you'll see the comparison of expenses to budget
064per function. Again, this is all three of the funds that the board approves, the general fund, the food service fund, and the INS or debt service funds. You will notice that expenses are about $4 million more than they were last month, which is about an average month for us. Even though it may seem a little concerning that I just said a few minutes ago, we've only had about a $1.3 million increase in revenue. But keep in mind, we do collect most of our tax, our local taxes, the bulk of it in December, January, February of the year. So we're actually... Just fine as far as our collections versus our expenses And we've got a good bit of that excess collection right now excess till we get to the end of the fiscal year in our
065pool investments, which you'll see here in a second okay on our investment report the The rates have been very constant lately. I think only about a tenth of a, no, not even a tenth, about a hundredth of a percent change from the last month. Not much movement at all up or down. So again, rates very constant, which obviously could be a little bit higher. It was higher earlier in the year, but still remaining very steady. Contrary to what I was expecting to happen back in the fall, there was a lot of talk about rates declining. throughout this current fiscal year that we have. But fortunately, they have maintained very well, and so we're still earning well over 4% on all of our investments. And then we have our tax collection report. And last month... I
066mentioned to you that our current collections were at about 94%, 93.9%. They're currently up to 95.3%. Again, showing that we have received the bulk of our tax collections for the year. Right now, we have a steady increase in delinquent collections, and our current is... waning but still at a significant level so we're still moving upward towards that that goal of hopefully about 97 to 98 percent by the time we get to August are there any questions about any of the information there or what was presented in your reports in your packet so many questions thank you thank you next we have the review of the 2025 preliminary certified values Mr. Sinclair all right You've got in your packet a copy of the preliminary value certified by Washington County and by Austin County These reports come
067in from the county appraisal districts by the end of April each year We'll get the Certified values the final certified values by the end of July I believe July 25th is the actual date that the appraisal districts are required to report to the district So these are preliminary again. These are values as of January the 1st this year 2025 These values will be used to do our calculations for both our tax rate collections Our tax rate itself, our state funding, all the funding pieces that we will be looking at for the 25-26 school year. So this is our starting point on understanding and trying to realize what type of... tax rate we may be looking at for the next year. Please keep in mind though that since 2019, TEA now compresses our tax rate and
068does calculations and gives those to us by the first week of August. So we will not know exactly what our tax rate will be and that's assuming no major changes in the legislative session that's still ongoing. Not really expecting to see any great changes in the way tax compression is calculated, but that's always possible since the session's not over yet. But anyway, back to these values here. I did also include a summary of the values as compared to last year this time. And so basically you'll notice across the different categories, and I'll briefly go over the categories here in just a second, the total market value is up about 7% from last year. Our total assessed value is up about 6.4% from last year. Net taxable up about 7.4%, and our freeze-adjusted taxable up about
0695.4%. Now, again, there's a couple of things that could drastically change this. The homestead exemption is under review and is expected to increase per voter approval in November. That would cause a change in these numbers. As usual, the state... typically tries to maintain a hold harmless so that districts don't lose their revenue when the state tries to require and to change in the exemption status. Otherwise, having more exempt values would decrease our revenue, but again, the state tries to keep a hold harmless in place so that we don't suffer those losses. Just a quick note here about the different categories I just rattled off, those four different categories. Total market value is basically just what it sounds like. It's the overall complete value of all the property that's in the market. So unfortunately, we don't
070get to collect taxes on that amount. That is before a lot of other things reduce those values down. Things like the 10% homestead cap. circuit breaker limitations and productivity losses those all reduce the total market value down to get us to the total assessed value then after that we have further exemptions we have the property exemptions and the home the homestead property exemptions and then other exemptions that are calculated as required by law which reduces the total assessed value down to the net taxable Which is basically what we get to tax on that's why it's called the net taxable That's the share that we get to actually claim and do our calculations on But there is still another slight change below that or another adjustment even below that which is the freeze adjusted values the
071state requires that certain Certain property owners be exempted most notably home homeowners over the age of 65 In other categories, those are reduced or those are frozen taxes. Those tax rates, the current tax rate does not affect those individuals. Their taxes are frozen at the point at which they become 65. There's a calculation that the appraisal district will do for us to calculate just those taxes. Separate and apart from the actual rate calculation that we get to charge the risk the rest of the residential owners. So again, there has to be a breakdown there and that all has to be tracked separately to make sure that we're maintaining our compliance with state law. So for the most part that final value that you see that freeze adjusted value That's what we really multiplied by our
072tax rate both our M&O rate and our INS rates And that's what generates our local revenue each year. Are there any questions about the information here on the preliminary property values? I just want to make sure that the community knows that an increase in property values does not mean an increase in school funding. I think there's a lot of people get confused when they see that they're paying more, that they think that we automatically get more as a district. So it still comes back to our average daily allotment. So just kind of wanted to make sure we said that out loud, that increase in that. Property values does not correlate to direct funding for the school district. So yes, that is very true I'm glad you pointed that out. I mentioned I plan to mention
073that and I hadn't overlooked that Yes for quite some time now basically the state Wants or expects that school districts are going to maintain the same basic total collection of state and local revenue and so for the most part when local values increase Then the the compression of our tax rate kicks in They usually allow us I believe it's about three to four percent of an increase without a compression of our tax rate That's been fairly standard for the last biennium But if our rate if our property values increase much more than that then the law requires our tax rate to go down to basically offset the increased value and That coupled with our state funding our foundation school funding PRETTY MUCH MAINTAINS A FLAT LEVEL OF INCOME FOR THE DISTRICT BETWEEN THOSE TWO SO
074YES GENERALLY WHEN ONE GOES UP THE OTHER GOES DOWN TO COMPENSATE DOES ANYBODY HAVE ANY QUESTIONS THANK YOU I WAS REAL QUICK I WAS JUST GOING TO SAY IT LOOKS IF I'M IF I'M UNDERSTANDING THE NUMBERS CORRECTLY COMPARING THE FREEZE TAXABLE VALUE COMPARED TO THE TOTAL MARKET VALUE WE BASICALLY ONLY GET TO COLLECT ON 36 PERCENT OF THE MARKET VALUE Yeah, there's a big drop. In fact, the biggest drop is that first one from total market to total assessed. Yeah. We lose probably close to half. Yeah. About 50% of it right there. So, yeah, there are a lot of exemptions that takes, in this case, for this year, it's looking like almost $13 billion of market value. And then, like you said, our... Final value there that we'll probably collect on will be closer to
075five. Yeah. Okay, so yeah It's a it's a quite a reduced amount from start to finish on that process Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. Okay next Cassandra Davis will present information regarding the CE CEP program Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Thank you to the new board members. Congratulations. We're here to share some information about an exciting opportunity for Brenna Myaste, the potential of implementing the Community Eligibility Provision or CEP. CEP is a federal program that allows eligible schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students regardless of household income without requiring families to complete a traditional free or reduced price meal application. See, last time I took y'all on a tour of the kitchen. Now they're making me use, like, PowerPoints. All right. There we go.
076Okay. So what is CEP? CEP is designed to simplify access to school meals. To qualify, a school or a district must have at least 25% of their enrolled students identified as eligible through direct certification. Direct certification includes students who are part of programs such as SNAP, TANF, Medicaid, Head Start, or those classified as foster, homeless, or migrant. Here in Brno ISD our identified student percentage rate is 46.67%. Some key benefits of CEP, allowing free meals for all students. CEP ensures that every student has access to two nutritious meals every school day at no cost to families. This helps students stay energized, focused, and ready to learn. It also reduces stigma by providing meals to all students. There's no stigma for those going to the line or eating at school. Increased participation because there's no stigma
077and all kids can eat for free usually there's just a natural increase in those participating in the program or those maybe who've never tried food at school or whose parents maybe have just always packed a lunch they're more willing to go through and try the cafeteria food if it's free and Lastly it reduces meal debt CEP eliminates negative student meal balances and the need to serve value meals Which are repaid from non-federal sources such as the general fund So on this slide It shows some information So as we consider the potential benefits of implementing CEP one of the most significant as the financial relief It provides to families here in Burnham ISD. This slide shows the estimated annual meal cost based on our current prices and a 171 day school year for elementary students the
078combined daily cost of breakfast and lunch is $5 totaling $855 per year if students ate with us every day For secondary students, the daily cost is $5.25, which is an annual cost of $897.95. With CEP, these families would be provided at no cost to all students, eliminating this expense entirely for families. And this is just if you have one child. This shows some average cost savings for families in our district. The savings become even more impactful for families with more than one child. For example, a family with one elementary and one secondary student would save over $1,700 per year. Families with three or more students could see a savings of more than $2,600 per year. These savings aren't just numbers. They represent real tangible relief for families, especially those just above the income threshold for
079traditional meal assistance. There's a lot of families that feel like they may not qualify for assistance, and so they don't apply at all. And usually they're the ones that are struggling the most. With CEP, we can remove financial and social barriers to meal access and support all students in learning and growing with full bellies and fewer worries. While CEP brings many advantages, it also requires strategic planning. Since CEP removes the need for meal applications, Brenham ISD would need to adopt a new method to collect socioeconomic data used to qualify for funding such as Title I and the teacher incentive allotment. At this time, I'm going to turn it over to Mary Gold and Allie Sellheimer to discuss their suggestions and how we can ensure CEP is successful here in Brenham. Hi, I'm Mary Gold, and
080I'm Federal Programs Coordinator. Thank you, I like As you just heard the CEP would have would have students receive free breakfast and lunch without families having to fill out meal applications I'm going to talk about how that could affect title 1 title 1 for those of you who don't know is a federally funded program that gives schools extra support or funds when they have higher numbers of students from low economic families the goal of title 1 Is to make sure that all students no matter their background have a fair chance to succeed in school so it gives schools extra tools to help students grow or succeed and some of those tools could be Staff additional staff it could be tutoring intervention programs purchasing of supplemental instructional materials and technology. The amount of Title I funding
081our district receives directly ties to social economic status of our student population. Traditionally, as Cassandra said, we've collected this data through the I'm sorry. Through the National School Lunch Program forms. This is where families submit income information to determine eligibility for free or reduced lunch meals. If our district chooses to participate in CEP, parents will no longer complete the form for meals. Allie, was it this one? Thank you. So we would have to come up with a different plan, one of which is the form that is shown here. This is a household data collection form or an income survey because we are federally required to collect socioeconomic data for each student to determine Title I eligibility and funding levels. If we go to a form like this. It's it is shorter. It is more user
082friendly. It is just typically one page and it is designed to make the process easier for families. So the bottom line for Title one or for federal funds moving to CEP. should not negatively impact Title I funds or services. In fact, it brings multiple benefits. First of all, all students receive free meals. Schools still receive Title I funds as long as parents complete that simplified socioeconomic form. And, Board, I'm going to say that one more time. As long as the families complete the simplified socioeconomic form, we receive Title I. funds all right the form is shorter so it should be way easier to fill out and maybe more families will complete them for us for that particular child for that particular child so i know this was i'm sorry i mean no you go ahead
083so i know that was one of the biggest dropouts we had as the kids started getting into the secondary schools was they stopped filling out the forms so how do we get this form filled out That is a great question. And that is why Allie is here, because she is going to very eloquently, way better than me, because I'm shaking like a leaf here, explain that. But we just have to make sure that families are completing this form, because it's a win for families, students, and our schools. Allie, explain how this is going to work. Good evening. Welcome new board members. Mr. Coons, Mr. Colley, President Krennic. Okay. All right. So you just asked a great question. How are we going to make this happen? So like Cassandra and Mary just mentioned, in the past
084what our process has been is if students want to qualify for your reduced lunch, they go through cafeteria, they fill out this whole process. The cafeteria team, child nutrition, sorry, they have to validate some of the information that's presented. That's going to go away if we move towards CEP, which is an amazing opportunity. So to make sure that we still get that family economic information that we need, we're going to include that in part of our EVP process. EVP stands for enrollment verification process. This happens. This starts for us this year, starting July 28th. That is after all of our systems roll over software systems roll over to the 2526 school year. If your kid is a senior and they've been here since kindergarten, you still got to do the EVP. If you registered your
085kid in June. This can be the first year in Brenham ISD. And that was prior to that rollover of July 28th. You're going to complete the EVP. So every parent for every student in Brenham ISD is going to go through that process. The form that Mary just talked about is one of the important forms that the parents are going to look at and verify that they have received of. But it's also updated. handbooks policies nursing information do you remember back in the day your kiddos would come home and they had a stack of papers you had to fill out and then take it back to the schoolhouse that is what EVP is it's just all digital now so what we're going to do for that family income form is we're going to include that as
086a required part of the EVP process And to make sure one we are communicating this because as Mary stressed the potential benefits of this move to see P beyond kids every kid getting a meal for free every single day is this information with the new systems of acquiring information could potentially lead to us receiving more funds for title one for TI a lot meant. for E-rate. I mean, that information, think of it as like a census data. It's incredibly important. So requiring that as part of that yearly EVP process will help us hopefully increase the numbers past what we currently have. So Cassandra, right now you say it was 47%? Okay, 47% of our students qualify for free and reduced lunch. Only 14% of that are students that do not automatically qualify through SNAP or
087some of the other state and federal programs. So that means 14% of that population is parents going through child nutrition. So we want to take that 14% and increase it as much as possible by requiring that documentation for every student within our district. Real quick, let me just clarify that. So 47% of the students are directly certified, which means that they're already receiving benefits through the state, through SNAP, TANF, something that Texas is already providing. From that, 14% in addition to that are filling out applications for us, bringing our total free and reduced percentage closer to that 60%. It changes, fluctuates daily with Medicaid. They changed some of their rules so that number, you know. kind of changed a little bit this year so what we're trying to do is from the 47 percent that
088i would use to calculate all of my district reimbursement each month we're looking for that 14 percent of families that fill out the application with ally requiring that in her start of the year registration forms you're probably going to get more than 14 percent of our families filling that out because they can't hopefully move on to the next page until they fill it out which significantly increases the information that brennan mysd is receiving to increase all of the funding all right to sub to support our families with this um like i said our systems roll over we're going live with all software's july 28th so starting then parent square is going to be as it is now our main source of communication and reminders and getting information out about e about evp but also providing
089resources to help families fill that out at home in addition On July 29th, July 30th and July 31st, Miss Thibodeau has been gracious enough to open up the library at Brennan Middle School for us to have community events with staff members. available for families to come in and complete the EVP so if they have questions we're gonna have a number of people available to help support that we're gonna have the technology we'll have translators available all of the resources to support the families and getting that completed our goal is to have every family complete for each of their students for the mysd students the EVP by the first day of the school next year We're going to fight hard for that, but realistically, we're planning to send out some reminders those first few weeks of
090school to follow up. I'm a big believer, Sarah hears me say it all the time, follow up for the follow through. And we're definitely going to, the PEMS people, the PEMS team, we're going to do that for the EVP. So to bring it all together. So the reiteration of the positive effects of CEP, first and foremost, all students have free breakfast and lunch. Happy bellies are ready to learn and are able to learn a lot more. Families save potentially up to $1,700, if not more, depending on how many students they have. CEP will bring on... updated EVP enrollment processes, which if we do it right, which we're going to do it right, has great potential to increase Title I funds, E-rate funds, and the teacher incentive allotment. Any questions? So TIA is based off of
091the demographics of each campus. So when the families turn in their family income surveys, that demographic is coded within our system. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Okay, this may be very simple. So just excuse me who has access to that information once it comes in. How else can it be used? And I guess it's a three-part and then are there people who potentially will be put off by that? Not wanting to share that and then now they're stuck in their role as the process. Absolutely. So the people that will have the access to that or the peeing seem that as part of the registration process, which consistently deal with highly confidential information. A lot of legal documents, custody things. We go through specific training and at the beginning of each year, every PMC member that directly
092processes that information signs an affidavit of confidentiality. The people on the team are well trained and respectful of the confidential information that they receive. Let me clarify. I'm sorry. Outside. of your government agencies otherwise have access to that information because it is a federal funder program right and so are they having access to that information for the funding and does that extend to other agencies having access to that same information. I can answer that question. All right under a title one they they do not have access to what you check there as to what your income is what we would have if you is our registrar's would label them. Like if they're low social, they would put SES or whatever that category would be. They do not have access to actually the number or the
093range that would be checked. Also, if you look at the very bottom of that form there, you do have the option to opt out from filling out this information. But this information, other than being in PEMS, no one else would see it. So I guess the follow-up question so we have if every kid gets free breakfast and lunch, which I think is fantastic I love getting rid of the stigma. I think this is great But what if half of them don't want to eat it? What if they're just like we're just not gonna take does the funding increase decrease Based on if they take if they take the lunch or if they don't take the lunch How does that how does that affect us long term because we're still preparing food? It will not because
094it like I said earlier it's like the census data once they're coded within the socioeconomic range and that demographic is set that's what goes into the teacher incentive allotment and the Title I funding. Yeah, and just I was wondering to your third question was what if you know parents are uncomfortable about filling this out I just want to stress that yes, they do have that option to not participate. They just check that box and sign it But what's important for the community to understand is how greatly this could benefit all students with them with providing this information And of course we would protect it with the utmost professionalism Cassandra How much money did we spend on the value mills last year in the district? Well, the year is not over. We still have four days
095left, but as of April 30th, the district has to pay back $29,000 in change. So this program would allow that $29,000 to be put back into your budget, or was that money that was taken out of our fund balance? The $29,000. Yes. Is that part of your budget? No, that has to come from the general fund. Okay. So this program would allow $29,000 to get put back into the general balance for the district, which we desperately need. Okay. So I just want to make sure we said that out loud again. So again, sounds fantastic. Like Sean said, free breakfast and lunch for all kids is something that is absolutely amazing. I didn't see any type of emotion in on this. So is there another presentation to follow up or what is what is the next
096step in this process? I think the plan today was for informational they put it out there for you guys to ask questions ponder it think about it and then in June we might come back together. Yes, exactly. You've got to have it by I have to let the state know by June 30. Right? So our June meeting is scheduled before then so we'll seek approval at that meeting and then add to me just to be very frank this is a this is a no-brainer it's uh saves money to all our families out there it ensures all our kiddos get a good breakfast and a good lunch every single day and it's cost most cost effective for the district as well so i want to say too this is the one item that kyle had really
097called in about today he's asked several times just you know how can how can we feed all kids um for free and um has kind of pushed to investigate this a little deeper so i appreciate his uh his support with this as well i'd just say that to say i know kyle is very much in support of this this agenda item is this the same program that burton's using yes this is what burton so when you um qualify for the program it's a four-year program and then you in four years would decide if you want to continue with it or not So do you have to keep reporting the same data every year to the state? I mean, once you qualify for the first year, but I mean, we're going to still continue with the
098EVP process every single year just to make sure we have all the data that's required for the state and the federal funds. And kind of going back to Jared's first question, with the secondary families kind of falling off, because it would be required for all families, that's how it would help the secondaries really get the money. So, Cassandra, are we automatically re-accepted after four years, or do we have to reapply again? And then if we do have to reapply, what's the likelihood that we will be accepted again or multiple times again? Yeah, so you do not automatically qualify. Each year I'm required to do a CEP report to kind of see does it make sense for our district or not. So in four years we would look at it again and see if it still
099made sense to do. At any given time during the four years, if our individual student percentage rate goes up and I can claim more than that 47%, I can go up at any time in that four years so we could potentially get more money back in my program, but we don't go down at all in the four years. you know, we would reevaluate if it did go down would we want to continue? Any more questions? And do you have do you have any data like from Burton or anywhere else on the on the re? The re-acceptance rate of districts when they apply a second or third time? Yeah, 55% of Texas school districts are utilizing this program right now. It's been around for over 10 years, so it's highly successful in a lot of different
100ones. Each district is going to be a little bit different just depending on their student makeup and how many students are qualifying for those state benefits to begin with. But yeah, recertifying is not difficult. Any other questions? Any more questions? Thank you all so much. Thank you. Okay, next we have monthly reports for information purposes. And then unless anybody has any questions on the data that was given to us in our board book, we don't need to go into an executive session. I can ask for a motion on the action item, and we don't need to go to an executive session unless y'all want to. It's the about the okay um an exemption executive session will be held for the purpose of authorized by the texas open meetings act texas government code section 551071 consultation
101with attorney and 551074 personnel matters the board of trustees went into executive session at 7 48. According to the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 551-071, Consultation with Attorney 551-074, and Personnel Matters. All final votes, actions, or decisions will be taken in open meeting. Thank you. It's 8-14. The board is reconvening in open meeting. Mr. Watts, the floor is yours. The floor is yours. Good afternoon. Congratulate to the new board members, new board president. At this time, we did an interview process with an individual. I had every assistant principal from the middle school, junior high, and the high school assistant principals. We looked over the applications, and we come out with the new DAP assistant principal is Mr. Weiser. Here he is. He's a teacher here at Brenham High School, and he's an
102outstanding teacher, and I think he'll do an outstanding job at DAP. Introducing Mr. Weiser. BEFORE WE TAKE ANY ACTION ON THIS I WANT TO SAY UM DISAPPOINTED BECAUSE YOU'RE AN AMAZING AV TEACHER MY SON WAS THE FIRST UH FIRST GUY THAT DID ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR Y'ALL AND SO HE HAD A BLAST AND YOU DO SO MUCH FOR THOSE KIDS AND SO I SEE WHY THEY WANT YOU AS AN AP AT ANOTHER DAP SO LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR FUTURE OVER THERE SO A GREAT CHOICE MR WADS THANK YOU I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A MOTION TO I accept the superintendent's recommendation or employee Robert Weiser as the assistant principal at da da EP and approved contract recommendations as presented I'll second already gotcha Justin Colley made a motion seconded by Bonnie Bregmeyer to accept the superintendent's recommendation
103to employ Robert Weiser as the assistant principal at da EP and approved contract recommendation as presented all in favor all opposed yes have it congratulations Mr. Weiser And with no further business to come before the board, this meeting. Oh, yeah, we do have to take a picture. We almost, I almost closed the meeting. This meeting is adjourned at 8.17.