001That's pretty awesome. Layla and Joshua, if you guys could come out now. We are ready. Do this every time. I call this meeting of the Casper Independent School District Board of Education to order. Let the record show that a quorum of board members is present, that this meeting has been duly called, and that notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 551. Just a reminder, we are here for what is best to promote and encourage achievement for every student in our district. And right now we'll go to item number three, communication from citizens. We appreciate you being here this evening. We always welcome communication from citizens in our district, individuals who wish to participate during the portion of this meeting designated for public comment.
002shall sign up with the presiding officer or designee no later than 1 p.m. the day of the board meeting, and shall indicate the agenda item or topic of which they are to address the board. Ms. Branch, do we have anyone who wishes to speak to the board tonight? No, we do not. Thank you, ma'am. So now we are on to item number four, 4A, Texas Academic Performance Report. Yes, Mr. Board President, at this time we have Denise Chedville, our District Assessment Coordinator, will present the 2425 District Annual Report. Good evening, Board President, Mr. Tolliver, board members, and Superintendent Renee Smith-Faulkner. Thank you for allowing me to present the 2425 District Annual Report in compliance with the Texas Education Code 39.306. The purpose of this presentation is to review and summarize the annual Texas Academic Performance
003Report, or TAPER. Here are some of the items that we're going to discuss this evening. Remember that you have seen this information that is about to be presented before. Scott presented this in June, and the campuses present their data during previous school board meetings. We are no longer delayed by district litigation with the state. All of the things we're supposed to report on our website, we are reporting. This was cleared last summer with the 89th legislature. Okay, now let's look at some of our highlights compared to local districts. Grade 3 reading, for example, approaches meets and masters. This year, we're at 76%, 41, and 18, whereas last year we were at 74, 43, and 14. The results shown here come from the taper report, which includes all English and Spanish on grade level assessments, as
004well as special education students who take Star Alt 2. A previously referenced Fort Worth report article looked only at English on grade level assessments when all students were included. Castleberry ISD's performance compares more favorably and is ahead of several neighboring districts. The taper is important because it provides official, standardized, and transparent data. That accurately reflects how Texas public schools and districts are performing. It serves as a trusted source of actual data for several key reasons So let's look more specifically at the data in grade 4 mathematics We increased in approaches, meets, and masters. In grade five, science approaches increased to 68%, meets to 31%. We were above the state in the region. In grade six, reading approaches, meets, and masters increased. Grade six, math approaches, meets, and masters increased, and we were above the state
005in region. In grade eight, reading. Meads increased to 47% and masters to 22%. Grade 8 math, masters increased to 15%. This is even more impressive due to our demographics. Castleberry Elementary also received a distinction in fifth grade science. So let's look at some other areas. All grade sciences increased in approaches, meets, and masters. End of course biology. increased to 92% with meets to 61% exceeding the state average. And of course, U.S. history approaches to 93%. Now let's look at some areas to grow. Castleberry ISD demonstrates strong foundational performance in student growth. However, advancing more students into meets and masters, particularly in special education, middle school math, and English language development, represents the district's most crucial next steps. When our district was faced with an approximately $4 million budget deficit, our superintendent took decisive action to
006guide the district through a critical time. For a two-month period, she assumed the responsibilities of chief financial officer in addition to a role as superintendent, working to stabilize our finances. Now let's look at our overall accountability rating. Castleberry ISD was a B, Fort Worth ISD a C, and Lake Worth ISD a D. These all came from the taper reports. Let's take a moment to look at special education, the determination status. Castleberry ISD needs assistance. But for Worth ISD is needs intervention and Lake Worth ISD needs substantial intervention. Needs assistance is based off the results driven accountability or RDA scores for which Castleberry demonstrates stronger compliance and outcomes for students with disabilities. The RDA system system evaluates districts over 15 performance indicators. A rating of needs assistance corresponds to the overall RDA score of two on
007a 1.124 scale. Castleberry ISD identified area need is primarily connected to special education student performance on STAR at the approaches level. While Castleberry ISD maintained its needs assistance rating, neighboring districts including Fort Worth, Lake Worth, and White Settlement experienced a decline in their ratings during the same period. So compared to local districts, Castleberry ISD outperforms neighboring districts in accountability, early literacy, middle school achievement, and student support systems, delivering stronger outcomes with fewer resources. Okay, now let's look at enrollment by program. These areas are economically disadvantaged, Section 504, EBs, emergent bilingual, dyslexia, homeless, at risk, and special education. The state mobility rate is 16%, where Castleberry mobility rate is 19%. The attrition rate, which I'll explain in a moment, the state is at 19% and Castleberry is at 15%. The data reflects the diverse needs of
008our student population and highlights the programs that most significantly impact instructional planning and accountability. Our mobility rate is higher, which affects 703 of our students approximately moving in and out of the district. Students enter with gaps in curriculum alignment and increased need for remediation, which also increases teacher burnout. This also affects our longitudinal accountability measures. Attrition, which is just the total student numbers we have from one year to the next, so even though our students are moving in and out of the district, our total numbers stay close to the same. This helps us not to have to close campuses. So let's look at next at... Teachers by Ethnicity. This slide shows the ethnic composition of the Castleberry ISD teaching staff. Recruiting and retaining a diverse staff strengthens relationships, enhances cultural understanding, and supports inclusive instructional
009practices across the district. Now another very important area is Teachers by Years of Experience. We're the Navy there, so if you look at beginning teachers, years 1 to 5, 6 to 10, 11 to 20, 21 to 30, and over 30. This slide highlights the distribution of teachers by years of experience, and as our superintendent has pointed out, our teacher pay is higher than the state in all but one category. This area continues to be a focus for our district. Look at the last column, which is our teacher to student ratio. The state is 15 to 1, whereas our district is 15.5 to 1. This helps with individualized instruction, student engagement, and classroom management and safety, which is our utmost goal. Next, they also report the teacher incentive allotment on the taper, which is interesting. For
010our recognized teachers, we pay out an average of $6,667. For our exemplary teachers, an average of $13,562. Masters, even though it's reported, it's not shown here because if it's a small enough number, they don't put the actual amount. So one way we keep our excellent teachers is through the teacher incentive allotment. Not only do we have higher teacher retention rates, but we also have a higher rate of retention in our leadership. Our assistant principal retention is higher than the state, as well as the years of experience of our assistant principals. Now let's look at annual growth in school progress. The district demonstrates notable strength. In elementary math, where performance exceeds both state and regional benchmarks, math progress remains stable across grade levels, providing a strong foundation for continued improvement. This is school progress. Accelerated learning
011is next. And Castleberry ISD demonstrated strong accelerated learning gains in 2024, most double digits, outperforming the state and the region across multiple grade levels. While in 2025 results reflect a statewide recalibration, the district remains aligned with regional benchmarks and shows clear evidence of instructional capacity. Next, this is an area we really shine, and our CCMR went up from 94% to 98%. TSI 84% to 86% industry-based certification, which is lagging data, 27% to 37%. and on down. So maintaining exceptional CCMOR and TSA outcomes. CHS also received a distinction in post-secondary readiness. We're really proud of those things. So this report, and you have the report, the entire report, fulfills our requirement of... presenting this to the school board in a special session within 90 days after receiving the results. And it is already posted on the
012website, which must be done within two weeks. TEA was here Friday presenting the new A through F accountability system, which changes again in 27-28. Fun. So we're being proactive. And we're staying informed, and we're strategically placing our district in a great position for the future. And that's it. Does anyone have any questions? Thank you. I move we adjourn. Hearing no objection, we stand adjourned at 6.15 p.m. And with that, we will open our second meeting. I call this meeting of the Casper Independent School Board District. of education to order, let the record show that a quorum of board members is present and that this meeting has been duly called and that notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas government code, chapter 551. Do we have anybody
013signed up to speak to this meeting? No, sir, we do not. All right, that's item two. So I will... Jump to item three. Ms. Smith-Faulkner, are there any questions called in regarding the consent agenda? No, sir. Then we move on to item 4A, the fine arts recognition. Yes, Mr. Board President. At this time, our fine arts students will recognize how staff and students in Castleberry ISD fine arts programs are en route to destination success. So I'll turn it over to our fine arts department. Good evening, President Tolliver, Superintendent Smith-Faulkner, and Board of Education. My name is Layla Bahmed. And my name is Isaac Marquez, and we are representing the CISD Fine Arts. It is an honor to come before you to share and celebrate the Fall 2025 accomplishments of the Castleberry ISD Fine Arts Program.
014Our mission is to represent Castleberry ISD with a spirit of excellence. All success is a journey, not a destination, or so the saying goes. But what if success is the destination, and our journey is powered by the collective momentum of our incredible Castleberry team? We are thrilled to be here this evening to honor the people who make it all possible. You. Your continued support gives all students the tools we need to do amazing things. And speaking of amazing achievements, we would like to kick off our presentation honoring one of our Castleberry Elementary art students. Would you please give a round of applause to fifth grade student, Lena Cabral. This past weekend, Lena Cabral from Joy James Academy of Leadership was named by the Youth Art Month Texas Art Educators Association as the overall flag winner
015in the elementary division for the TAEA YAM flag contest. This is an incredible honor as this contest includes all participating districts in the state of Texas. Lena's artwork will be on display at the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin, Texas. Her artwork will have the opportunity to be selected by Mrs. Abbott for display in the Texas Governor's Mansion. Congratulations to Lena Cabral and elementary art teacher Miss Rocha for this exceptional achievement. And make sure to look up at the Castleberry ISD flagpole as you leave the building this evening. Lena Cabral's flag design is being flown right now in front of the CISD Administration Building. Please give just one more round of applause for Lena Cabral, please. Good evening, everyone. My name is Nora Bahmet. My name is Aldana Gorman. And my name is Genesis
016Chavez. We are here to proudly represent the elementary art program. Believe me when I tell you that we are working extremely hard in our art classes. You can see by our creations on this slide that we have what it takes to succeed. We recently competed in the Lions Club Red Ribbon Contest. We also created fantastic artwork for our musical productions. Castleberry Elementary students visited the Amon Carter Museum and learned about American art. They practiced making inferences as they viewed the stunning exhibitions. Many of us also completed the Trinity River Art Contest and the Fourth Worth Stock Show and Rodeo Art Contest. Ms. Rocha's art students were selected as overall elementary classroom winner and guess what? We won $6,000 for the art program. That deserves a round of applause. Thank you for your support. Good evening,
017everyone. My name is Osvaldo Galvan. My name again is Alden Aguerman. So many shows in so little time. Wow, we have been extremely busy. Avicator Elementary students have performed two exciting musicals titled I Love the 80s and Merry Grinchmas. Casabella Elementary students also performed two heartwarming musicals titled Falling Into the Gratitude and Christmas Around the World. We even performed a spectacular musical-like show to celebrate the season. Students at Joy James Academy of Leadership performed a festive holiday musical. We also honored our veterans with our annual patriotic performance. Thank you for your support! Good evening. My name is I Alcaraz and my name is Carlos Duran We are here to proudly represent the CISD Lyon choir program I'm MMS and CHS choir students are working diligently to prepare for the upcoming choir competition in the spring
018Three Castleberry High School choir students earned positions in the all-region choirs. Marley Guzman was named into the Region 5 Trouble Choir. Isaac Marquez and Monzereth Rico Serrano also achieved the honor of earning a place in the all-region mixed and honored choirs. Additionally, Isaac Marquez also qualified to audition in the UIL Choir Competition. Would these students please stand as we applaud you for all your achievements. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Isaac Marquez. My name is Charlie Martinez. My name is Eileen Gonzalez. And my name is Layla Bahmed. We are here to proudly represent the CISD, IMMS, and CHS theater programs. IMMS Lion Theater recently presented two winter productions entitled The Hallmarks of Horror and The Theater Winter Showcase, both of which were a huge hit with the students and families. IMMS Advanced Playbook students
019are currently working on their UIL One Act Play Spring Competition performance. Good luck to our IMMS Thespian Troop. CHS Lion Theatre also recently performed their annual musical, and I bet you can guess the title. Yes! This year, Castleberry families enjoyed the magic of Frozen Junior. CHS Thespians are also working on their UIL One Act Spring Contest performance. Good luck to our Castleberry High School Thespian Troop. Both CHS and IMS theater students recently attended the Texas thespian festivals Students participated in training workshops led by nationally recognized theater professionals Good evening, my name is Cameron Andrews. My name is Medardo Iker Morales. My name is entire Reese And my name is Joshua Almaguer. We are here to proudly represent the CISD, IMMS, and CHS Visual Arts Program. Please join us in celebrating the following Castleberry High School
020and Irma Marsh Middle School art students who were selected to have their artwork displayed at the 2025 Association of School Boards Convention Art Exhibit. When we call your name, please stand to be recognized. Audience, please hold your applause until all names have been announced. I, Alcaraz, Joshua Almaguer, and Lourdes Nieto. Congratulations, students, on this honor and exceptional achievement. Our visual arts students recently visited the Amon and Carter Museum, the TCU School of Art, and the Kimball Art Museum. Students sketched and gained valuable insight into their future and college career paths. The National Honor Society has been donating their time and talents to our school and surrounding communities. Painting with the Paw continues to be a huge success as all teachers are offered an instructional painting experience by student leaders. NEHS students also collaborated with theater
021to assist with painting set pieces as well as serving the River Oaks Community Center. Most recently, NHS students gathered and donated 147 sweaters to Presbyterian Night's Seltzer, supporting the homeless during the winter season. We will continue this year to serve the hearts and needs within the community during our time in artistic talents. Finally, it is my pleasure to announce that the Castleberry ISD Visual Arts Program was recently recognized at the Texas Art Educators Association, earning the District of Distinction Award for the third consecutive year in a row. This distinction places CISD Visual Arts in the top 8% of programs in the state. Congratulations. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Evelyn Martinez. My name is Giovanni Ramirez. My name is Steve Sanchez. And my name is Camila Gallardo. We are here to proudly represent Castleberry
022IMS and CHS mariachi programs. The Castleberry IMS Mariachi Program delivered heartwarming winter performances to the community, celebrating us with two highly attended stunning performances. Students showcased their hard work in preparation for their upcoming Spring UIL competition. CHS Mariachi Los Leones honored exemplary bilingual educators with an outstanding performance at the Texas Association of Bilingual Educators Conference. In addition, Los Leones had the opportunity to represent CISD performing for thousands of fans at a recent CCU football game. Finally, CHS Mariachi students visited Texas State University for the 2025 Ensemble Series, Noche de Mariachi. This student experience included a guided campus tour, mini concerts, and guided master classes. This unique experience gave students the chance to explore collegiate mariachi opportunities. We are incredibly proud to announce that our violinist Steve Sanchez has earned a place in the All-State Mariachi
023Ensemble and will be performing at the TMEA conference alongside other top mariachi students in the state of Texas. The historic accomplishment marks a first for CISD as Steve is the first student to achieve All-State Mariachi honors. He earned the tremendous distinction of placing sixth chair in the entire state. Please give a huge round of applause for Steve and our fantastic CIC Manager-Chief Director. Thank you for your support. Good evening. My name is Evelyn Martinez. My name is Robert Rodriguez. My name is Ruth Juarez. My name is Miley Najera. And my name is Jesselyn Chavez. We are here to proudly represent the CISD Lion Band Program. Castle Bear ISD band students were surprised by the district during the grand opening for our new band hall. We celebrated the event with the ribbon-cutting ceremony and kicked things
024off with our first new facility performance of Sponia. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Board of Education, Superintendent Smith-Faulkner, BTC Construction, WRA Architects, and the entire Castlebury community for your support of this beautiful new facility. Please give everyone a round of applause. The IMMS Lion Band Program hosted their largest community concerts to date with almost 400 middle school students performing. This included 180 beginner band students, who delivered an outstanding performance at their winter band concert with over 600 parents in attendance. IMS band students are currently preparing for this UIO contest season. Good luck to all IMS band students at UIO. The CHS Lion Band program also experienced an impressive fall concert and fall contest season. The CHS Lion Band has performed an impressive 28 times this fall. Three of our CHS
025Jazz Band students were awarded coveted seats in the All Region Jazz Band. When I call your name, please stand to be recognized. Audience, please hold your applause until all names have been announced. Aaron Rosales, Jesus Almanza, and Francisco Trejo. Erin and Jesus earned second chair and qualified for the area jazz band. Congratulations students. Castleberry band recently hosted close to 700 students and instructors for the ATSSB high school all region auditions. Our Castleberry high school students were highly successful in securing multiple spot positions in the all region band. Ten of our CHS band members achieved the honor of region band and one area qualifier, Aaron Rosales, placing second chair. We'll go on an audition to the area to earn a place in the Allstate band. The CHS Lion Marching Band has had an impressive season once
026again, earning straight first submissions from all judges at the UIL Region 30 Marching Contest and advancing to finals in the UIL Area B Competition as one of the top 10 area finalists, competing against some of the best 4A programs in the state. Overall, Castleberry ISD Band continues to be the highest ranked band in the region. In addition to these remarkable achievements, the Castleberry Wind Ensemble competed at the national level this past year. I am proud to announce that for the first time ever, the Castleberry High School Wind Ensemble earned the title of National Wind Band Honors 2025 Commended Winner. Congratulations to all students and directors for your dedication to excellence. Thank you! At this time, we would like to ask our amazing fine arts staff, teachers, and all parents to stand as we thank them
027for their support. At this moment, we're going to pause a little bit. We're going to take some photos. Remember this moment. So how do you, I'll let you organize the groups. So if all, everyone, all of our band, fine arts students, if you'll come to the front, we're going to get a quick photo just so that we have something to remember all of these achievements. We're so proud of you. If you'll come on up front, fine arts, we'll get a quick picture. Okay, staff, if you'll make it back to your areas, we're going to go ahead and get started with item four. Going to move on to item 4B, campus improvement plans and campus targeted improvement plans. Yes, at this time, Mr. Board President, we'll have our principals with Ms. Michelle Strambler first, given a
028highlight of their campus improvement plan goals and actions, and then followed by that, Dr. June Richland will follow up with a targeted improvement plan for applicable campuses. Good evening school board members president Oliver superintendent miss Smith Faulkner What you will see today is a cliff notes version of our comprehensive district progress monitoring for context a two hour 15 minute data presentation and discussion has been intentionally condensed into a six minute summary. We know our data understand our challenges and have made intentional informed instructional adjustments which are reflected in our presentations. Our campus priorities continue and are directly aligned with the district goals. We will begin with our third through fifth grade data. I'll begin by explaining how all campus graphs are set up. Light blue represents our current school year goal. Red is the data
029from our 24-25 star. Gray is Benchmark 1 data. And lastly, Navy represents Benchmark 2 data. For math benchmarks, the assessment only assessed the taught curriculum. Benchmark 3 will be a full-released star. You will notice a dip across the district from Benchmark 1 to Benchmark 2 due to the longer assessment. For third grade, our goal is 34% meets. We are not yet to that goal. For fourth grade, we outperformed our goal of 43% meets with 64% meets. Fifth grade is only 2% below our goal of 49. Overall, we know we still need to be intentional to meet our end-of-year goals. For results driven accountability our special education goals are based on the approaches performance level. For math our third graders are at 33 and have not yet reached their goal of 50. Fourth and fifth grade
030have exceeded their goal on benchmark two based on the taught curriculum. For all of our action plans our teams collaboratively looked at each child's data to determine their strengths, weaknesses, and supports to ensure growth. Each action plan slide includes several strategies. In each of tonight's presentations, the principals will share a couple of their high yield strategies with you. You will see IXL in all content areas. Students complete skill based lessons directly correlated with their assessments. Our campus has created an IXL data tracking form that is a component of each child's data folder. Beginning today, we are implementing a targeted extended learning block from 3.30 to 4.00. During this time, three of our strongest math teachers will provide small group instruction, replacing their typical dismissal duty responsibilities. Now we will look at reading. The color scheme
031is the same in reading as it was in math. Benchmark 1 was the shortest of the benchmarks with only 20 questions and a short constructed response. Benchmark 2 was the 2024 STAR release test that included 41 questions, a short constructed response, and an extended constructed response. Due to this difference, you will see data for all campuses decreased from Benchmark 1 to Benchmark 2. The goal was to gradually increase our students' stamina and the assessment's rigor. For third grade, 38% meets exceeds our star score for last year, and it is only two away from our goal. Fourth grade is at 29% meets with a goal of 49. This group was our third graders last year that scored 30% meets. They are making gains over last year, but we have a ways to go and have a
032majority of these students being served by our daytime tutor, reading interventionist, and or ACE. Fifth grade is currently at 54% meets and our goal is 58. This is a high performing group, so our expectation is for this group to exceed our goal of 58% meets easily. When looking at our Spanish testers, we are not meeting our goals. Our largest group is 23 students in third grade. We have a plan to provide additional support for those students. In fourth grade, we only have three testers, and in fifth grade, the data is higher, and it represents eight testers. For our special education testers, third have not reached their goal, fourth is 2% below our goal, and fifth has surpassed their goal. Now we will look at the reading data through a different lens. This chart breaks down
033the star reading assessment into its scored components. Reading is 50%, revision is 15%, editing is 15%, and the extended constructed response is 20% of the overall star reading score. Viewing each component separately allows us to monitor performance more precisely and develop targeted action plans. Writing performance has a significant impact on our reading outcomes, as evidenced by our third grade star scores last year. I would like to draw your attention to the percentage increase in the ECR for English over last year. It went from 20% to right now we're testing at 38%. Our ECR for Spanish did not fare as well, and that is the reason for our Spanish meets score being so low. This slide breaks down the extended constructed response data. Reducing the number of zeros on ECRs is a key district focus. Scoring
034a zero on an ECR impedes the opportunity for a student to score meets on the star reading test. Last year, 63% of our third grade students earned a zero on their ECR. On benchmark two, we had 31% earn a zero. That's not where we want to end up, but it is exceeding our 53% goal by 22%. An area of focus is our Spanish testers. 72% of the 23 Spanish testers scored a zero. 10 of those students... started with a daytime tutor this week, and more have been added to our ACE roster. For fourth grade, you can see the increase in revision from benchmark one to benchmark two. This was an area of focus from our first progress monitoring, and the data shows that our efforts paid off. When looking at our ECR data more closely,
035you will see that we had 47% of our students score a zero. That is more than our last year's star, but please remember this is our group of third graders who scored 63% zeros in third grade. Our fourth grade RLA team is focused and working hard. I'm proud of their growth and look forward to even larger gains by Benchmark 3. For fifth grade you can see revision was also a focus from benchmark one. Interestingly though, our reading category decreased. This is a reminder to keep instructional balance. Our ECR percentages are 16% higher over STAR in English and 17% higher in Spanish. The increase in ECRs directly aligns with the higher meets level in the fifth grade. Our fifth grade has a much lower percentage of students earning a zero. As you can see, we have
036the majority of our students earning fours and higher. The goal for fifth grade is to move more of our students earning higher than a five on their ECR. All elementary presentations you will see examples of writing standards-based bulletin boards. Our standards-based bulletin boards serve as a window into the classroom instruction, making teaching and learning visible and transparent. Each student work sample includes teacher commentary, providing clear, actionable feedback. This approach promotes accountability, clarity, and instructional alignment across classrooms. On a recent campus visit, Mrs. Smith-Faulkner left a note for one of our students with some encouraging words on his work sample, and he was so excited that our superintendent saw his work and even left him a note. When looking at our reading action plan, Teach Big is a long-standing partner of AVCADO. Their ECR professional learning
037and resources are now being provided district-wide. AVCADO sent 30 writing samples from Benchmark 2 to be graded by their automatic scoring engine and receive feedback and suggestions for follow-up lessons. We are also having great success with Magic School AI. Our students are typing into the program and getting immediate feedback. Benchmark two for science was longer and covered more TEKS than benchmark one. We are at 22% meets, which is slightly lower than last year's score and not yet to our goal. Our special education students are currently at 7% approaches with a 28% goal. Based on our progress monitoring data and team discussions, Mrs. Smith-Faulkner is recommending three district-wide science professional learning days prior to our next benchmark. During these sessions, Dr. McDormand will work with science teachers to deepen their understanding of the new science TEKS
038and to align instruction to effectively address these new standards. The first professional learning day is scheduled for January 20th. While science teachers are participating in training, students will be engaged in targeted math fluency activities. As I'm sure you noticed, our early literacy and early numeracy are not included in tonight's progress monitoring. These levels are currently administering their middle-of-year assessments, and we will present that data at a future board meeting. Now we'll look at goals three and four. Our strategies continue. And for our progress update, I would like to point out that we had over 1,200 attendees at our student-led conference day with 445 conferences. For literacy night, each grade level provided hands-on literacy activities that parents could replicate at home to help their child. We had 675 people attend. Also, I'm excited to report that
039A.B. Cato passed our TEA audit on December 11th. I'm encouraged by our progress we have made toward our goals, the strong collaboration across our campus, and the highly targeted action plans in place. Thank you as always for your continued encouragement and support of AVKto. Oh, you're welcome. She mentioned having professional learning days. Are we going to have to do any changes to the calendar for those three days? That's all. I noticed on your table for the reading categories, it has short constructed responses and extended constructed responses, but on the benchmark two, there were no short constructed responses. Is that accurate? So, no, there was a short constructed response, but it was in with reading. We pulled that short constructed response out with benchmark one because we really wanted to see how the students were doing
040and if they had a firm grasp on the shorter essay before we then layered in the extended. So we really focused on that with the first round. So we didn't want to leave it off, but that's why we pulled it out the first benchmark. Thank you, Ms. Strambler. And at this time, if Mr. Charles Gideon will come up for Casper Elementary, you're going to notice that these reports are getting faster. We asked Ms. Strambler to explain what you were looking at, but they're going to be going through the data pretty quickly, and you'll have it for more questions. And then it's on the superintendent scorecard, and then I'll also be presenting it later this month. Okay? So I just had a quick question for you. Does anybody know what you call a hen that is
041really good at counting her eggs? You've never heard of a famous Mathema chicken? Okay, sorry. Now I feel better. I apologize. I know we're on time crunch, but again, thank you for allowing me that brief help. Okay. I might talk so fast you don't have to worry about it. Because that normally does happen too. But, Mr. Faulkner, President Oliver. Board, thank you for giving me the opportunity to present Castle Bay Elementary's campus improvement plan update. As you can tell, our priorities are tightly aligned with the district, and we are jumping straight into the data, beginning with math. With third and fourth meeting and exceeding our goals set from last year's star, we also have a little area of improvement in fifth grade, but we are going to be throwing some help their way, and we're
042going to see that grow before the star gets here by benchmark three. But when you break down for the special education numbers, all three of our grade levels have surpassed our goal already. And we are continuing to put them now that they're on track of course to show even greater heights by the end of the year for our math action plan We see through observation that some of our third grade classes They need some more independent practice our teachers might be doing a little bit too much hand-holding there And so we're gonna get those kids practicing a little bit more independently of course I excel which was talked about and that's gonna be a big part of the plan for all the campuses and now we are also using our math coach, which he's already
043been in-depth with us, and continuing our observation and feedback through TEAL, which is a focus on co-teaching resource. And you can tell it's working because of our special education numbers. Then looking at reading, we see some stars there, which I was, you know. Being a man I'm trying to add some color there, but we got some stars on all the good stuff. Third grade has surpassed their goal. Fifth grade we can see that they're on track and will be there by the end of the year. Fourth grade is that area of improvement that we're going to be throwing some resources at. And then on the bilingual side they've all met or exceeded their goal which is exciting to see. For the special education numbers, third grade right there on the cusp and we're going to
044be we're gonna be pushing through by the end of the year. Fifth grade surpassing their goal by a lot, and then fourth grade mirrors that gen ed number where it is selling a little bit low, and that's gonna be an area of focus for us. When we break it down by components, across the board you're seeing a lot of stars, a lot of good things happening, especially with a focus on that ECR number increasing, which is what we wanna see for overall whenever it has 20% of the test on there, so that's a good part. And when you look at those grading and the scoring of the ECRs, a huge dip in zeros. you know, third grade or 30% dip in zeros and then on both bilingual and monolingual for third grade. Looking at fourth
045grade, that's where you see that area of concern, some dips across the board. This was our low group from third grade, and we're looking to show some more resources for them because you can tell from the data that they need it. So we're going to be making some adjustments in our action plan. But on the bilingual side, huge growth across the board. That's about 22 testers there for the Spanish testers in fourth grade. Breaking down the data for ECRs on the monolingual. That's one of the hiccups there is those zeros have increased from last year to this year, and that's a big part holding us back. So the writing is going to be a big focus on our action plan, which we'll show you in a second. And then fifth grade, looking at the components,
046strong numbers across the board and a huge gain in ECRs. Even Spanish, there might be seven testers, but every kid counts. With the ECRs broken down, a huge decrease, looking at 40-point decrease in the English testers and zero for the Spanish. testers. With that action plan, again, oh, sorry, bulletin boards, we have them. Following the rubric that Ms. Smith-Faulkner sent out, giving you that insight to what they're doing in the classroom, therefore your viewing pleasure, and then our action plan. Specifically in fourth grade, that number of zeros increased, so writing is going to be a huge focus. We're going to be implementing using our interventionists and some other experienced writing teachers to jump in the fray with there in fourth grade, and we're making some tweaks to that master schedule to get more tier one
047instruction time for those students. That is along with our implementation of Magic AI for the grading. piece and feedback and then again implementing those observation and feedback for co-teach and resource. With looking at our science, unfortunately you see a dip in our science numbers. Last year we had a master level TIA teacher where she would have stayed and not retired. She would have been master level. And this year we have new teachers to that grade level and content area. So you do see a dip there, but thankfully we have a plan in place. The bright spot though, when you look at our special education numbers for fifth grade science, they are on track to meet their goal and surpass what we've set in place for them for the star. For our science action plan, we
048are going to reach out to that master level teacher. I've already been in contact with her, coming back, modeling, co-teaching with us, and using her expertise. Also, we're looking at that language of testing. We have some Spanish testers that tested in Spanish, but in the reading, they test in English. And so we want to make sure they're in the right spot to be successful. We have now also gained IXL Science, which we'll be implementing with Fidelity, and looking for those professional learning days with Dr. McDormand, which is going to be an exciting tool to help improve that Tier 1 instruction. Moving on to our... engagement and efficiency in operations. Three of our big things that we're pushing of course is attendance, safety, and retention of our teachers as has been very helpful in our continued
049success at CE. For attendance we have done a masterful job of sending out information in our parent newsletter, making sure that we've been in contact with parents regularly, and then incentivizing that attendance through fast food coupons. You'd be amazed at how many fast food restaurants were like, yeah, give them a coupon. And then also some extra play and toys for those that have had great attendance. Also, we are excited to be able to see some results from our Stronger Connections grant survey, where we're talking about safety. All the parents that took the survey, 100% of them said that CE, they believe CE does the things necessary. to keep their children safe and we are taking effective measures in all that we do. And then for retention, I believe we are very strong in recognizing our
050teachers for their hard work. I know Ms. Jackson does a great job of sending frequent emails for thank you emails that are for teachers that go above and beyond. And then... Our teachers took part in that grant as well. 92% of them say that they are proud to work at Castleberry Elementary, which is very exciting to see, and that piggybacks off of a wonderful survey from last year where we had 97% of our staff enjoy and are proud to work at CE. Thank you for the opportunity to present Castleberry Elementary's Canvas Improvement Plan update. Oh, I know those claps were for the joke, so thank you for that. Okay, great. I just have one quick question. He's like yes, ma'am. Gotcha. Yes, ma'am. The extended construction responses I saw you said it said something about
051calibration are those AI scored or they're They're hand scored. They were hand scored. We look forward. We have since put them through the AI and magic AI and seen a couple of different places where we need to calibrate and get a little bit closer to what the state might expect going from human. And then, of course, we know that the state does use some AI for that grading purposes. So we're excited to get magic AI and fully use that to the best of our ability to help our kiddos. So that's for everybody. To kind of calibrate and make sure we're... Oh, yeah. And we've already been looking at that data. Dr. Depp did a great job of putting them in there, and we've already seen some tweaks that need to be making that grading, but
052it'll help us moving forward. And that gives feedback as well? Yes, ma'am. Yeah. And when you guys use that... in conjunction with the hand scoring, how close were we or how off were we? It depends on which grade level. And thankfully, Dr. Depp and Ms. Pennington, our demo teacher, did a great job of also going back and scoring as well. So they've already had a lot of in-depth conversations about the grades for that ECR. But as they put it in Magic AI, they did see where most of the scoring is adjacent, like we're off by a point or two. And so it's not huge gaps where you had an eight versus, and it should have been a two. So nothing huge, but it's like, okay. But if we're consistently one point above for every student,
053then it can skew a little bit. So we want to make sure that we're on par with the education. Well, and instruction needs to match, right? Of course, of course. So we have to make sure that that's on par. So thank you. Of course. Gideon, you said on fifth grade science you have new teachers. Is that new, like first year, or new to the district? We have new to the position and the grade level. So we have a teacher that has bumped up to fifth grade. Our bilingual teacher rolled up from fourth grade. And then we do have a new teacher that's new to the district, and she's in her second year. And this is, we've been doing coaching year round, though, from like the initial plan of as we see things and we're monitoring,
054coaching has been happening. But you're saying now we want to also look at getting the previous teacher to come in? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. And with this data now being closer related to STAR compared to that benchmark one, and you see that drastic dip, we thought we were on good, and it seemed like we were through all the hands-on experience. This year we've implemented a science lab, and they've been using that readily and all those kinds of things. But then whenever you have a test like this and you see that, oh, we need to do just a little bit extra. Whenever you see that it's going well and then the test shows a little bit different, we're adjusting to the data. And I think one thing to note is our coaches look at strategies, and
055so now we're going to bring in a content expert also to help in that area. Yes. Thank you. Of course. All right, y'all. Of course. Okay, at this time, Dr. Phelps. Good evening, Superintendent Smith-Fogner, Board President, and School Board. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to give the Campus Improvement Plan update for Joy James. As everyone stated, our campus priorities align with the district priorities and are listed there. For third through fifth grade in math, our third and fifth grade did not yet meet the goal, while our fourth grade met the goal on benchmark two. Our special education students exceeded their goal in math in all three grade levels on benchmark two. The math action plan focuses on strengthening instruction and targeting targeted intervention through experienced teacher placement, daily star preparation, and expanded tutoring
056through ACE and RTI, ensuring students receive multiple touch points from certified teachers. Teachers will closely analyze student work by aligning the mystiques to IXL skills, scripting solutions to the most challenging questions, and calibrating expectations using star-formatted assessments across grade levels. Consistent student work, documentation and collaboration between classroom instruction and HIT tutoring will support accelerated growth and readiness. In reading, our students are not yet meeting the goal. However, our special education students again are meeting the RDA goal and we are excited to see their continued growth. Our third graders saw an increase on benchmark two from STAR on the extended constructed response. We are continuing to focus on writing and that reading comprehension. Our third grade English testers have not yet met the goal for decreasing the number of zeros on the extended constructed response, but
057our Spanish testers exceeded the goal with zero percent scoring zero. In fourth grade, we surpassed the star performance for extended constructed responses, and we're continuing the work again, both on reading comprehension and writing. We are excited that our fourth grade students met the goal for percent zeros on the extended constructed response. This will help our overall star performance, and we are excited to see the continued growth in our students' writing. Our fifth grade students have improved significantly on the extended constructed response as well. We continue to focus again on writing and reading comprehension. The fifth grade RLA students met the goal for decreased percent of zeros on the extended constructed response. And then our pictures for the writing standards bulletin boards are there for you. And for our reading action plan, it emphasizes increased constructed
058response practice, again, daily tutoring through ACE and RTI, and a vertically aligned RTI framework that explicitly teaches students to align evidence and explanations to the question with expectations increasing by grade level. Teachers collaboratively plan and calibrate instruction by scripting annotations for the most rigorous questions, creating modeled exemplars, and using reflection tools during data digs to strengthen analysis and instructional accuracy. Targeted comprehension, vocabulary, writing, and AMIRA interventions further address overlapping reading and writing gaps to drive that measurable growth. In science, we also are not yet meeting our goal. Our special education students are showing improvement over STAR, but not quite to the goal. And our action plan focuses on strengthening instruction through collaborative planning, targeted checks for understanding, and consistent use of data. Grade 5 science will integrate SCR practice using Snorkel with ongoing coaching support.
059While weekly PLCs analyze misconceptions, script annotation for the most rigorous assessment questions, and calibrate expectations using STAR-formatted student work. Targeted intervention is supported through aligned IXL skill plans by TEEX. and our ACE tutoring as well as the RTI block, ensuring students receive frequent, focused practice on the identified skills. And then we'll move into goals three and four. A few of our goal strategies are listed here on this slide for your reference. We have, and to sum a little bit of it up, we have expanded family engagement opportunities in partnership with ACE. We are continuing the implementation of Leader in Me along with layered MTSS supports. And then, as always, I have to include a few pieces of our kids doing great things. And so there are some pictures of our artists. We've taken the Beanstack
060trophy to our home for two months. And we got to perform at the City of Sansom Park Christmas in the Park. Thank you again for allowing me to share our progress. And are there any questions I can answer? And maybe there's more for you, Renee. So I think, I noticed we said there was a dip because Benchmark 2 was a release test. What percentage of TEEX have we taught for that? Do we know? No. No guesses. But Kristen, go into a follow-up. Can you give me that information and I'll follow up and give it to the board? Perfect. Perfect, okay, thank you, but we'll follow up with some numbers fantastic. Thank you I think that just gives us context as well as a group That's what that's what I'm assuming because by the time by
061the time we're cycling back, but yeah And then the other thing is I see on the action plans there's a lot of technology use and things. I'm just wondering what's the balance between that and direct instruction, direct teacher touch points as opposed to a program? So in the structured literacy block, it's broken down in that. So I think that you could see exactly what minutes would be there. And there's a lot of it used during the RTI time when the teacher's working individually with the student, then they're actually working on that. and then they're bringing, they're looking at the data, and then they're making their small group instruction and adjusting what they're doing with small group. And then also in ACE, we do the same. We use it, and then we also use the data
062to drive what the teacher's doing with small group. Okay. Thank you. One positive, thank you. One positive about Amira is it actually provides individualized lessons for the teacher to use in small group based on the data. And so that's one reason why that was selected over the other program. Yes. We're still working out the overall bugs, but actually it's getting better now. I think we can, do we have time for one more before we go to closed session? If we can't, yes. Ms. Spears, you're lucky. Come on down. All right. Good evening, Superintendent Smith-Faulkner, Board President, and members of the Board of Education. Tonight's update is focused on where our CIP is working as intended, where the data shows we are not yet strong enough, and how we've already adjusted instruction and support. These campus
063priorities were intentionally narrowed based on last year's data and remain the sharp focus points. Let's start with Goal 1 data. In sixth grade math, we are just below our 25-26 goal for meets. In seventh and eighth grade, we are almost 20 points above the meets goal. You may remember we moved to a new model where seventh and eighth grade are taking the eighth grade test. We've seen quite a bit of success in this area. In SPED in sixth grade, 10 students missed approaches by just one or two questions, and only 30 students are needed for that goal, and we're at 19 students now. In seventh and eighth grade, you can see we are well above the goal. In algebra, we are under our goal for benchmarks one and two. While benchmarks are currently below the
064goal, we're addressing this through targeted small group intervention and a grade level focus on engagement. And this is our teacher who has had success for seven years. Our action plans are completely teacher written and they are already in motion. For all core content, we have reteach plans for DEN, which is that 30 minute extra period that we have built into our day that are monitored by our leadership team. We've increased our after school tutoring to twice a week for core content and this is in addition to our ACE program. The teachers have to submit their targeted tutoring group plans for all content areas based on MTSS, the growth points that we hope to attain, and the skills missed on our benchmark. In ACE, some of our best math teachers, which includes our campus academic leader
065and our district math coach, are tutoring students. And in algebra, we're tackling basically what is an eighth grade high achiever apathy problem is what we have right now. And we've done that through small group intervention in our counselors, but also Jill, Ms. Loudermilk and I polled the entire eighth grade to talk to them about trying, just trying, you know, in life. Reading remains a really complex challenge, right? Because it requires both strong tier one instruction and sustained student effort. So we're closest to our meet school in seventh grade, which is fantastic because you can see that they did not perform very well in benchmark one. They are still down seven points to make that approaches goal in special education. In sixth and eighth grade, you can see we are missing our meets goal by almost
06620 points in each. However, sixth grade did increase from benchmark one to benchmark two, and they have very similar benchmark scores in benchmark two last year. And it's an incredibly strong team. When we look at those reading categories that you've looked at three times already, you can see in the green in those areas where we've had growth. Across grades, we're seeing improvement in these skills, but ECR performance and zero scores are where that deep work remains for all of us, sounds like. All areas saw growth in seventh grade reading categories, including the number of zeros going down. Super proud of that. It's a new team as well. Eighth grade is our hotspot. This is our area of focus going into benchmark three. This is an area where I'm personally involved through coaching conversations, classroom walkthroughs,
067and a new fun thing where I'm going to meet with every single child that has a zero in eighth grade. In our reading action plan, teachers are focusing on some key areas that you can see there. In DEN, we're focusing on that ECR writing improvement. As of this week, Ms. Reynolds will be our on-campus instructional ELA support full-time. Now we're super excited about that. And then I talked about meeting one-on-one with all the eighth grade children who got a zero. In eighth grade science, we have the same dip as elementaries from benchmark one to benchmark two. It signals pacing and concept complexity rather than a lack of effort on the students or the teachers. This insight is driving our PLC focus and reteach adjustments right now. For SPED, 20 students would get us to a
068PL2. You can see we're really close there. And then 13 students only missed approaches by one or two points. So that'll be a focus for us so we can have some success there. In biology, we're slightly below our meets goal, but we will meet it. In science, you can see their DEN focuses and their PLC focuses and how Ms. Kogar is going to adjust pacing for that reteaching as well in that seasons and weather concepts. In social studies, you can see that we're just under our meets goal for all students, but we are above our approaches goal in special ed by 14 points, and that is a huge celebration. Social studies is a key leverage point for both literacy and engagement. So this spiral review and these small group structures are designed to stabilize performance
069before the spring testing window. And we're excited to use sixth and seventh grade teachers to assist us in that tutoring for SPED and emergent bilingual. Parts of goal two and three exist to protect instructional time, improved attendance, stable substitute coverage and staff support directly impact what you saw earlier in that academic data. So some of our celebrations in those areas are that over 100 parents attended our first academic pep rally. We have another one coming up. You should come, super fun. You can yell for the spirit stick or play in one of our games. Students have been saving the postcards we've sent home over the years. This is the third year we're doing that and we're currently working on that project. Attendance is up almost a full percentage point. That is a huge celebration for
070us. We have worked really, really hard this first semester on that. Almost 50% of our families attended the first student-led conferences. Over 900 attended our homecoming event. We used title funds to create and implement a mentor program to really target social-emotional support for our year zero teachers. And we have a wellness initiative this year for staff. They all made well-being goals, which... You can actually click on in that document and then it's based on the wellness solutions for educators. It's a free framework from Solution Tree that we've been utilizing and coming back to over and over. You can see it in my newsletters. And we're excited that PLCs have only been interrupted four times in the second nine weeks from our substitute coverage issues. Finally, and I added this real quick when Gideon did his,
071that our Stronger Connections grant survey, 97% of them, you'll have to go back because I don't know what it says and I didn't write it all the way out. They said that admin recognizes staff for a job well done, so that was great to see. These results tell us that families are engaging, staff systems are stabilizing, instructional conditions are stronger than last year, giving us a better runway for growth heading into the second semester. Thank you so much. I'd be happy to answer any questions, but I will request that you turn your microphone on so that when my staff watches this, because they are required to, they can hear what you ask me. Just have to continue this the trend here. I do have a question about science I know we did we're transitioning teaks
072and there's a whole new thing that's happening is this year. They're gonna test all the new teaks But and then and that's what they wrote in the action plan about breaking down the teaks that have been added to that assessed curriculum So making sure they do that And I think we're struggling with creating the test with the new teaks because we don't have any examples. And so, you know, we're doing the best we can. Well, because it's anchored in phenomenon, right? And so now you're having to really pull that out of somewhere. So yeah, it's not just a basic knowledge. Yeah. And they experienced growth from two years ago to last year. I'm not really worried about that team. We're going to do everything we can. But I know that they're being really intentional. And
073then also, not only in social studies, but in science, we have that really high performing biology teacher who got her SPED certification and is doing inclusion in that class as well. So I know they have the right support and the things they need. to be successful. You better wear earplugs. Thank you, Ms. Spears. I just wanted to share that I continue to see postcards on refrigerators, so while students are saving them, so are the parents. It's really cool to see that it's handwritten, it's taking the time, and it's not this general note. I read them every time I see them on the fridge, but they're just really a nice touch of being able to say how much we can do with our mid-sized community with this huge impact and focus on our students, our families,
074and the well-being. So thank you for every single person who takes the time to do that. I think it really means a lot to the families. And then the goal setting document was really exciting to look at. I don't know how teachers would have any time to do it, but I thought it was really cool. And it was something that I even looked at. How do we better support the mental health of our educators? We had to be really strategic and we bookmarked two hours in our August PL for that. And so. You know, and it really is based on your values, right? And your values really lead everything that you do in life. And so I felt like it was really important for them to not only connect to their values, but then spend
075time talking about how am I going to connect with myself. And you'll be surprised because if you looked at that solution for educators, like mine is in social wellness. And mine is like on the bottom right, and it talks about like finding meaning and joy at work. And so that actually was my well-being goal. And so we made micro actions based on that. So mine is to have three conversations a day with staff or students. that are something about them. Does that make sense? And so those were my actions for my well-being. And I really am having just a better year all over on like being happy at work. And so other people might have put food and, you know, the things you normally would put. But a lot of people really intentional, like stand
076up for myself more and different things like that. And the piece that I think is the best was the very bottom. It says, how do you want your presence to feel? this year and I've had to go back to that. So like, oh, I've yelled at a kid and maybe da da da and I'm like, hey, how did you say you wanted your presence to feel? Now how did that match that and how can we get there? So it's really helpful. It's very practical and reflective, which was cool to see. Thank you. It's my T-Pose goal. Well, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. We're going to go ahead and take a pause on 4B and move, jump to closed session real quick. So at this time, the board will retire to closed session under Texas Government
077Code Chapter 551.071 through 551.076 and 551.08 through 551.083 to discuss the items listed on the agenda. The time is 7.27 p.m. After our recess, it is 7.55 p.m. As we continue tonight's meeting, we welcome all who have joined us. As we keep asking how we can best promote and encourage achievement for every student in our district, the mission of Castleberry Independent School District is inspiring and empowering all students to be innovative thinkers in our global community. At this time, we will begin with the pledges of allegiance. Yes, at this time, Mr. Lenny Lasher will lead us in the pledges. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God Now the Texas Pledge Honor the Texas Pledge I pledge allegiance to the
078Texas one state under God one and indivisible Thank you, sir 6c Miss Katherine Walker if you'll come up good evening Board of Education families and community members This month we joined the Texas Association of school boards and other districts across the state to thank these local leaders our Castleberry school board members for their dedication and willingness to serve as advocates for our children in public schools. At this time we'd like to kick things off with presentations from our community. The mayor of River Oaks, Darren Houck, would like to express his appreciation to the school board. Mayor Houck, would you please come forward? Thank you so much, superintendent, president, and school board. The city of River Oaks sure appreciates our relationship with you guys and all that you do for our community. So we've got this
079proclamation. Whereas the mission of public schools is to meet the diverse educational needs of all children and to empower them to become competent, productive contributors to a democratic society and an ever-changing world. And whereas CISD school board members are committed to believe that all children. can be successful learners, and that education is tailored to the individual needs of the child. And whereas CISD board members work closely with parents, educational professionals, and community members to create an educational vision we want for all of our students. And whereas CISD board members are responsible for ensuring the student... the structure that provides a solid foundation for our school system and whereas CISD board members are strong advocates for public education and are responsible for communicating the needs of the school district to the public and the public's expectation
080to the district. Now therefore it be proclaimed that We, Mayor Darren Houck and the River Oak City Council, do hereby declare our appreciation to the Cassberry Independent School Board members and proclaim the month of January 2026 as School Board Appreciation Month. With the recognition theme as our future is Castleberry, and urge all citizens to join us in recognizing the dedication and hard work of CISD board members and in working with them to mold an educational system that meets the needs of both today's and tomorrow's children. Proclaim this sixth day of January 2026. Darren Houck, Mayor and City Council. Thank you, Mayor Houck. And now, the mayor of Sampson Park, Jim Barnett Jr., would also like to express his appreciation to the school board. Mayor Barnett, would you please come forward? Part of my New Year's
081resolution is writing stuff down, so I wrote something. So good evening. My name is Jim Barnett. I'm the mayor of the city of Sampson Park. I'm also a graduate of Castleberry ISD. I'm honored to be here this evening and proudly proclaim January as a school board appreciation month. Our school board members give their time and leadership and vision to ensure that every student has their opportunity to learn and grow and succeed. Thank you for your commitment and your service to our community and our school district. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Barnett. Next, the Mayor Pro Tem, Carlos Flores, with the City of Fort Worth, would like to express his appreciation to the school board. Mayor Pro Tem Flores, would you please come forward? Good evening, Superintendent Smith-Walkner. President, Talafiero, and board members. It is my
082pleasure to greet you here tonight and address you on this occasion. As Mayor Pro Tem, it is my honor to tell you that I am here on behalf of Mayor Parker to present a special recognition. This special recognition is for the School Board Recognition Month on behalf of the City of Fort Worth. And what would a special recognition without... lot of whereas is be so bear with me all right it reads special recognition Castleberry ISD school board recognition month whereas Castleberry Independent School District is an essential partner in strengthening pardon me, strengthening the educational and civic future of the city of Fort Worth. And whereas each January, communities across Texas recognize the dedicated service of local school board members who volunteer their time and leadership to ensure strong public schools for all students. And whereas
083the 2026 Board Recognition Month theme, Our Future is Castleberry, reflects the belief that the success of our students today directly shapes the strength and vitality of the communities they serve. Whereas school board members are elected by citizens they serve reflecting the trust placed upon them to govern with integrity, transparency, and steadfast commitment to the students and the successes that they achieve. Whereas the members of the Castleberry ISD Board of Trustees work collaboratively with educators, families, and community partners to promote academic excellence. fiscal responsibility and opportunity for all students and whereas the city of Fort Worth values its long-standing partnership with Castleberry ISD and recognizes that strong schools are fundamental to making Fort Worth a better place to live work and learn therefore I Carlos Flores Mayor Pro Tem the city of Fort Worth do hereby
084recognize and commend the Castleberry Independent School District of Trustees and proclaim January 2026 as school board recognition month the City of Fort Worth and encourage all residents to join in thanking these dedicated community leaders that's you all for their service and commitment to the future of Castleberry ISD and the City of Fort Worth so proclaimed Thank You mayor pro tem Flores tonight We aren't just looking at a timeline. We're looking into a crystal ball. But we don't need magic to see what's coming. We just need to look at our students. The theme tonight is The Future is Castleberry. And let's be honest, the future looks pretty bright. In fact, it's so bright, we should all wear shades. To show you what I mean, we've invited some of our future shapers to share a timeline of
085their Castleberry journeys. It all starts with the class of 2038. Please welcome from Castleberry Elementary, Kindergartner Cassidy Gideon. Cassidy and I am in kindergarten at Castleberry Elementary. In kindergarten we learn big things like reading, writing, and math. Before I started pre-K I went to the early start summer program. I heard that all of you support our summer program. Someone told me that Mrs. Gallman even brought her grandchild to the summer program. She really loves getting kids ready for the future. I may be little, but I have big dreams for the future. Thank you for making Castleberry a place where I can dream big. My name is Emiliano Tello Martinez. I'm in second grade at ABK Elementary. In second grade, we're learning to be strong readers and great problem solvers. Thank you for supporting programs that
086challenge me. I heard you really support our bilingual program. Thank you. Learning in English and Spanish is hard work, but I can feel my brain growing. If the future is Castleberry, I think we're ready. Good evening. I'm Valeria Mauricio, a fifth grader at Georgians Academy of Leadership. At our school, we don't wait for the future. We build it. We've been learning about the seven habits of highly effective people and how to take ownership of our education. Castleberry has taught me that leadership isn't about being the boss. It's about helping every student discover the leader within them. Thank you, school board members, for programs like Leader in Me. Mrs. Gatica, they told us you help make the big decisions. That sounds stressful. Thank you for looking out for us. I'm heading to the middle school soon.
087Don't worry, I'm ready. But the middle school might not be ready for me. Hello, I'm Kristen Alvarez. I'm a 7th grade STEM student at Irma Marsh Middle School, where we're learning to think like engineers. My day involves reading, writing, math, 3D printers, robots, and occasionally trying to explain to my parents what coding is. This STEM program was approved by all of you a few years ago. Thank you for all of the gadgets and labs. This STEM program has put me on the path to my future career. Ms. Carroll, I hear you have spent a lot of time at the middle school and are a big supporter of programs like STEM. Well, you would be glad to know that I am not worried about robots taking over the world like others may be. Instead, I am
088coding them to... I am programming them to do our chores. When I look at the future of Castleberry, I see a place where we don't just use technology, we create it. Hello, I am Cassandra Salas. I'm a freshman at Castleberry High School, but technically I'm a college student. I'm a member of the Castleberry Collegiate Academy. I will graduate high school with 60 college hours. It's mind-blowing to think that I will graduate high school and already be halfway finished with a four-year college degree. Some school board members, your support of the Castleberry Collegiate Academy is changing lives. I'm living proof. Mrs. Martinez, I've been told that you work at a college university and are a big believer in students getting a jump start on their college education in high school. You've given us a head start.
089By the time I'm 25, I'll probably have three degrees and a very tired brain. But it's all thanks to the path you paved for us. Good evening, I'm Delilah Heaven-Madrid. I am a senior at Reach High School. You know, they say the future isn't a straight line, it's more of a squiggle. My past was a bit squiggly, but Reach High School gave me the tools to find my way. School board members, your support of Reach High School has made high school graduation a reality for many who have not graduated otherwise. Mrs. Martinez. Word has it that you are a big supporter of connecting students and families to the tools and resources they need to be successful. Thank you for knowing that the future includes every single one of us. No matter where we started, you
090didn't just give me a classroom, you gave me a launch pad, and trust me, the view from here is amazing. Good evening. My name is Pedro Villafranco, and I'm a senior at Castleberry High School. After 13 years in this district, which adds up to roughly 2,300 early mornings, 450 long weeks, and more deadlines than I can count, I am incredibly proud to say that my next stop will be MIT. People often ask me if I'm nervous about attending what is often called the hardest school in the world. I am. But I also know that I'll be okay. Because CASPER didn't just give me an education. It taught me how to work, how to adapt, and how to keep going, even when things aren't perfect. To the trustees, thank you for supporting administrators, teachers, and staff
091that show up for us every single day. And Mr. Toliver, thank you specifically for the leadership and the time you have invested in our success. MIT might be my next destination, but I've learned success isn't just somewhere you arrive. It's something you build. And I'm grateful that I started building it right here in Castleberry. Thank you. Well, there you have it. Students are progressing towards a bright future in Castleberry. We want to again thank all of the school board members for working side by side with our superintendent to lead the way. And if any of you need help with your iPhone or 3D printer, I suggest you talk to these students before they leave tonight. Thank you students for sharing your Castleberry journey with us. If you are a parent of one of these students,
092would you please stand and be recognized? School board members, we want to again thank you for keeping the future of Castleberry bright. And we also want to capture a photo of you, the people who make the policies, along with these students who turn these policies into dreams. So at this time, I invite the board to please come forward for pictures. And our mayors also. We're going to jump around a little bit more tonight. We're going to 7B, 2024 Casper High School Bond Program Construction Update. Is that correct? Yes, at this time, Mr. Cameron Holliman will give us an update. Your senior at Texas State that can't read as well as Cassidy. So let's jump right into it. I'm going to make this quick because we have some people to follow, but we're still reaching our
093goals on the strategic plan. We are on schedule and budget, and I love to say that every month because it doesn't happen every time. But jumping into our timeline, we flipped it to 2026, so we've got a fresh timeline. Some notes is that we're still working with Fort Worth on the water line. We do have a pad for the new transformer and that'll be the last major electrical infrastructure that we have to put in place. Still working on... Media Center throughout the summertime so we've got some before and some renderings I believe coming up to show you some pictures of what that may look like in the summertime and Then moving forward I've got some photos of the student parking The keynote there is that we're able to move a lot of the connex boxes
094and all of our contractors are now parking in the new student parking lot so it alleviates a lot of that traffic there right on White Settlement Road. And furniture will be moving forward for the next six months. So we have posted the RFP for our furniture. We placed all the HVACs. I talked about that a little bit last month. That was a huge undertaking, but it does allow us to get conditioned air. which means that we can put the interiors in. I'll show you some pictures. Also means that we can get some furniture moving here in the next few months. So we'll make that recommendation to you tonight. And then we'll begin site work in the last area, which is where the trailer is now. So the goal is on the 19th, which is next
095Monday, to move that trailer. over to the student parking lot as well and all that area in front that you drive by on White Settlement will begin the site work there and start to look really, really nice like a school. Okay, Angela, thank you. Financially, there's not a whole lot to show. You'll probably recognize these numbers are similar to last month because we had the Christmas holidays. So we've got a little bit of a logjam, but we've got bills to pay next week and so we'll... push that forward, but I can assure you we are still way ahead of schedule as far as where we're at with construction and what we've paid out. As far as the soft cost, Lenny's done a great job of keeping up with that and furniture will be a pretty
096big part of that, so we'll take a chunk of that next month. And a few photos, that's our student parking lot of spots. I don't know the exact number for you, but I can get that. So yeah, all that's going to be full for the next six months, which is great for us on White Settlement Road. Yep, and this is a photo from White Settlement Road. That is the fire lane and one of the two entrances that we'll have to that student parking. Starting with C, here's the connector. You can see we've got railing in, and in the background we've got sheetrock in. Also up top, you can't quite see, but we've got ductwork going in throughout all three areas. Yes, thank you. Here, if you'll notice on the interior, we've got wainscot going in
097on the hallways. So it's a beautiful gray tile. Ms. Smith-Faulkner has done an outstanding job of matching up what you'll see, these renderings and some of these tiles, and even the decor of the tile is beautiful to look at. So hopefully we'll get to see that in person soon. Go ahead. Class A, so I took this particular photo because I noticed in our walkthrough when we did the top beam ceremony that a lot of you stood, this is that corner where it was wide open and all you had was basically a cable and you could see downtown. So this is the amount of work that they've done in two months in that area. And it's this way throughout Unit A as well. Pretty cool to see that. And this is sort of the same view
098but from the outside. So those little red ladders everywhere around the outside of the building is our brick veneer that is starting to go up. There's actually one wall that's complete. You can't see it driving by, but you will be able to notice it from White Settlement Road. So I think that is awesome. Windows are about 75% complete as well. And most of the windows that we don't have installed are already on site, which is... huge as far as, again, getting conditioned air in the building. And this is the infamous transformer pad working with Encore. We're still missing the actual transformer, but we have a pad. So we have a place for it to stay. But once we have that in place, and we're already working with TXU and River Oaks as well as far
099as permitting, once we get that, that's a huge relief. So now we'll have all the electrical supply that we need for the whole job site. So as I've reported to you guys the last few months, these are some of our goals that we have reached. And then at the bottom, I mentioned that we were staying diligent with our budget to seek opportunities to stretch our dollars. So moving forward, Angela. We have had some people come out. We've noticed over the last couple of years that we've got some of our infrastructure that's aging as well. And we actually, through some studies I'll let them share with you, have found out we're not as bad shape as we thought we were. But however... Because of the old infrastructure we do have a lot of opportunities to reduce
100our spending on a monthly and annual basis using new technologies, advanced lighting and things like that. So we've got some folks that have been out here, engineers and contractors for the last six months really looking under the hood and engineering what that could look like if we move forward with some renovations throughout the district I would say. So the goal is to reduce spending and, of course, less interruption in the classroom, less buzzing of lights, less flickering, and also 72 degrees. And who doesn't enjoy 72 degrees at all times? Without further ado, I think I'd like to go ahead and introduce to you Mr. Adam Corwin and Zach Christensen. They are with Centrix. And again, they're a huge company that works all around the United States, but they've spent quite a bit of time, and
101I want to appreciate both of them for the trips that they've made here, and Adam flying in from out of state as well. I'll let them share more of the good news and what they found and what our opportunities may be moving forward. Thank you. Yeah, this is item 8A. This is the next item after 7B. Yes, we have Zach Christensen, general manager of Centrix, and again, Adam Corwin, who is the president, who will be presenting a feasibility assessment and remedies for overcoming challenges in funding some of our facility improvements and hopefully even saving some how we can save in the future on our utilities. Thank you, Ms. Smith-Faulkner, Board President, members of the board. Thank you for having us tonight. As they mentioned, my name is Zach Christensen. I'm the general manager of the
102Texas Business for Centrix Partners. If I had any brains at all, I would have one of your students come give my presentation for me after seeing that today. Very impressive. And Adam Corwin from Tampa, Florida, our president. Thank you. Okay. So pictures of us. These are some of the other team members that have been. As Cameron said, we've been kind of engaged with you guys for the past six, seven months. We hope to tell you about some of those findings and analyses today. This is a picture I ran across just a few years ago. I always like to present it when it comes to this because does this picture not really just, in a very sobering kind of sad way, tell us where we are these days in terms of public education here in Texas?
103Sadly, this has... you know, directs and knock-on effects when it comes to how we administer and how we operate schools. And so that's what we're here today to kind of show this as context of what we're doing and why we're doing it and how we think this could benefit Castleberry ISD. When we're in this position and control has been pulled away steadily from our local governance by Austin over the years and lack of funding compounding on top of that and any number of things, how do we address the, I almost hate to say it this way, the non-sexy needs that we have in operating a school, right? And those are our buildings, those are the educational built environment, which as we know doesn't have a correlating effect on student outcomes, but a causal effect, all
104right? There's studies upon studies that show us that that built environment has a direct effect on how our students perform. And it's almost like all these things that we do and that you guys have done here is like a race car. And then sometimes we operate in these facilities, which is like putting a drag chute on that race car. And it's just, it's sad. And it's not our fault because again, Austin has kind of pulled away from it. So what are we left with remedy-wise? when we're in that position. What if I told you that buried in the Texas Education Code, specifically in 44-901, is our remedy, one of our remedies? This is... a means that has been approved probably for the last 20 years in the state for school districts to undertake capital projects
105to address those critical facility needs that they probably don't have capital for and do it in a way that leverages avoided costs, avoided increases in operational costs, leverages utility savings, and bring those to bear inside of a project. that will then pay for itself. All right, that's an important point moving forward here. That's what 44-901 does for you. If you could move all the way down, there's a couple points there. I want to point out here that the three areas that we are mainly looking at, and by the way, this is in the non-high school square footage. We've been through every square foot of your district over the past six, seven months looking inside and out, analyzing operational data with that. putting it together, the three main areas that we're gonna be able to find
106these savings then are there, the utilities, operation and maintenance costs, and capital cost avoidance. And when we put these things together inside of 44901, the district has a safety net for undertaking these projects. We'll get into that a little bit more later, there's a lot of detail there. But suffice it to say, 44901 compels any vendor that you use, any contractor like us that you would use for these projects to make sure that it performs operationally and financially. We're bound by the law when it comes to that. I want to point out as well, go ahead on the next one, some of the things that we have then been looking at have to do with, this is your utility spend here. The chart, I know this is a little bit of an eye chart, but
107the one on the right shows that over time, your utility costs are continuing to rise. That's just the cost of utilities. You can't do anything about that. Well, there's small things we can do about that, but they will continue to rise. As you operate inefficient infrastructure at the same time, that will have a compounding effect. So in summary, the operating of your school costs more year over year unless we do something to stem that tide. We also looked inside all the, you know, mechanisms that run your school. So these are controls. These are HVAC. We like to joke with Cameron that picture on the top left there, proof positive that he does come to work. So it's on the record now. Cameron has been amazing, by the way, your whole staff, Mr. Lasher, Ms. Smith-Faulkner,
108in supporting us and showing us, you know, where we need to go and giving us access. Go ahead. Lighting is another one. So outside of your high school, the majority of your lights, pretty inefficient, old technology, not LEDs. There's also an effect here on the learning environment that we'd address. Keep going. You can see some pictures here. Some of the lighting is good. Some of it is not functioning. Most of it is replaced when it needs to be, but not designed well from the onset. So these are things that we're looking at. Just so happens that the lighting has the biggest and most immediate ROI, as you can imagine. So you get a lot of savings from that. And what that boils down to then is really four areas of recommendations that we would have.
109So HVAC, lighting, controls, and then roofing, solar potential, and water. All of these things spin off savings and avoided costs to help pay for the actual work that's being done. And that has to be designed and engineered there. I want to say one thing, double click on one thing. So in our analysis, we did uncover that you guys... and this is amazing, by the way, I just wanna, I really need to point this out. Your utility, Encore, has an incentive and rebate program for school districts that want to look into solar that is truly the best one I've ever seen in the industry. We didn't know about this, which is sad to say, because we're in the industry, but we did uncover it while we were looking around it at your data. And I can't.
110You can't hold me to these numbers, so it's kind of broad. But what we found is that there's about a million dollars of money floating out there that we can potentially bring into the district to help fund something in the solar realm. That solar project, we're estimating, could cut your utility spend from between 40% and 60%. This is something that we didn't expect to find. but that bears a little bit more investigation, we think. It is amazing for what you guys could be trying to do here. So I want to point that out. The last, I'm not giving numbers really tonight. This is more preliminary, but I do want to put another number in front of you, a high-level number. We are estimating that if you look across all four of these scopes of work,
111you could be saving about a quarter of a million dollars a year off your operational spend. All right. those savings there are what we would turn around and leverage to pay for any work that you would do, right? It's a true self-funding type project. So I just wanted to put those out there. To finish, that's supposed to be my logo up the top there. Apologize for that. It's a great logo. We've done this for years and years across the state of Texas, mostly in K through 12, all right? Every school district does have unique challenges, but... many of you have a lot of the same challenges that are kind of caused by the same reasons, right? And we have a lot of experience in addressing those, and we'd love to work more with you on
112that. I think I have one more slide, perhaps. These are some of the most recent projects that we've done with some of your peer districts. I think Northwest is one of your close neighbors. We did about $40 million worth of work with them recently. Beaumont, another one in the top corner. And then that yellow Texas logo there, that's Rosebud Lot. Small district south of here, but for them, we developed a bond, helped them sell it. It was really hard to sell bonds down there. And then now we're constructing the bond. It was passed last November, November of 24, and we're about halfway through the construction of it now, so we'll be finishing that this summer. And these are all... the same similar kind of things that we're seeing here that we'd love to further address
113with you. So I think that's it. Thank you. I know there's no action item tonight, but what we are hoping to do is to continue to work with Ms. Smith-Faulkner, Mr. Lasher, Cameron, and come and see you again next month with some more substantial numbers and things for you to chew on. So thank you so much for having us again. Thank you, sir. Do you have any questions? going to need a lot of information. And you talked about some of our design. There was some problems with our lighting design. So I'm just trying to understand what you're... Oh, it's on. So I'm just trying to understand exactly... What you do yes because because and what it's making me think that is because you said that you would love to come back next month and work
114with us so I'm just trying to understand how you're working with this so we were Planning design and construction firm so we kind of do all of that. We're in the planning phase moving into design now and so with your Continued you know association with us. We would then design the project and then build it at the end so Yes, contractually under 44901. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. For example, when you say our facilities, there's not LED lighting. I don't know, 10 years ago or so in some of it. And so that would be an upgrade that immediately would begin to pay for itself. So we're looking at how can we go in there and make some of these changes so that we can begin saving money in our operating. And then we know some of
115our roofing needs to be replaced based on. cuts that we've had to capital assets and so how can we get back on track for getting some of these repairs done so that it will pay for itself over time. And not to offend you or anything, but why would WRA not be doing these types of things? Well, they're going to use what he showed you for the reimbursement part. Thank you so much. And WRA is not construction firm, but pretty much they've done only in those areas that we're looking at to save money and assessment. But it pretty much, Lenny does the HVAC replacement, not WRA. And the roofing also, if you remember, the roofing was also done through capital assets. Thank you. Continuing on to 8B, discussion on the Cascade High School. Phase one, furniture
116bid. Yes, at this time we have Monica Castillo and Derek York from WRA who are here tonight. Monica has done a great job putting together the phase one furniture bid. They handled the bidding for us. We developed a rubric. They went through all of the submissions, and we came to the conclusion of what we'll be bringing to you later. for an action item to approve, I believe it is Interior Resource Group for the amount of $599,000, a little over. And so Monica's going to go over some of the drawings that we have and renderings, and then I have some of the fabric that goes, that's been picked out. Thank you, Ms. Smith-Faulkner, and thank you to the board. Good evening. Like mentioned, we'll be looking over the latest renderings for the furniture package phase one.
117In the first rendering here, we can see we have the renovated media center, showing one of the areas that we have, showing a more flexible type of classroom area, where you see some tables and chairs, some soft seating with some sofas, as well as some bar height stool tables and chairs as well, allowing a lot of flexibility and versatility for the students. The second rendering here is from the opposite end, showing the same classroom view, but also showing you the entire media center as a whole, showing you the true variety that we have in this area, trying to give the students as many experiences as we can in this space, but also in choosing the finishes that you'll see in a bit that we are complementing the new design that you'll see in the addition
118and renovations as well. This shot is also in the media center that you see. This is more at the standard table area where students can gather, whether they're doing homework, eating lunch, like what they're already doing in this area, but also some sofas and lounge area, again, for comfort, but also for a studio, so a nice balance within the space and complementing the colors that are existing. Here is one of our more flexible spaces that we have and more open space as well. We have some seating poofs here which are movable. Students can move them as they wish depending on how large their group gathering may be. But near the cafe center we have some more fixed seating with bank cat seating and standard height for them as well. In this view, we're looking outside
119the storm shelter where we have majority of the tones blue and gray. So we went with a accent chair, red bar height stool tables here for people who have gone to the concession stands are able to relax outside before they go to the exciting game back into the gym here. You can see that there. And in the main connector space as well, you'll see we're at the large stair gathering area and to the right we have some more of the lounge seating that you'll see with that accent red carrying on and complementing the many blues and grays that we have throughout the space. Up on the second level of the connector, you'll see we have two options for lounge seating. We have the bar heights so that we saw it with a different chair, still
120bringing that accent red, as well as the larger lounge chairs around the perimeter of the railing. Underneath that large stair as well, we do have a banquette seating with tables and chairs that are movable for all students so that they can fluctuate as to how large their group is or whatever activities they might be doing. Also on the first level of the connector here you'll see we have a variety of lounge sofa seats and other tables and chairs that can, ottomans that can be moved depending on the gathering, whether they're waiting for the next sporting event or some other event there. Make sure that we are providing a comfortable space for all students and users. Our furniture package also extends out to the exterior of the building here. You can see that we chose finishes
121that complement the exterior just as much as the interior of the building. A bit hard to see in the rendering here, but we will have a mid-gray table with a light blue, which will accent those panels that you'll see on the exterior of the building. And that's a bit easier to see here in this one, just showing you when that sun is coming down and everything, and that great view you'll have from the exterior of the building. Thank you, and we appreciate the opportunity to work on this project. Thank you. And it's Castleberry Colors. Yes, definitely. Thank you. It was. It was great. Thank you. And thank you for your help with this project, Monica. It's been great. And WRA did do that project, so they did that one. Now on to 8C, Mid-Year Finance
122Update. Mr. Wood? Oh, that's right. Sorry. My apologies. 7A. We're jumping back to 7A, Strategic Plan Update on Educator and Substitute Recruitment. Good evening again. Tonight, I will be updating you on Castleberry ISD's efforts to both recruit and retain quality full-time educators and grow our substitute pool. Today we will start by looking at the Texas academic performance reports a yearly report that was shared with you earlier by Miss Ched Phil From the Texas Education Agency that details student performance demographics and staff in Texas schools and districts Then we're going to explore The challenges that are faced by today's North Texas school districts as well as dive into some specific needs of our district Next we'll review some solutions that we're working on and follow some progress monitoring and goal goal tracking and And how we're
123tracking our progress and then finally we're going to take a peek at some innovative solutions That we have in the works to expand our recruitment and retention So starting with our taper data, this slide shows a report on the number of employees in the district for 2024-2025 broken down by role. Now, as part of our district's efforts to remain within our projected budget, we reduced our workforce with the biggest impact in our professional staff. This table shows how we compare to state averages in terms of the percentages of staff in various assignments. This next slide shows a comparison of the years of teaching experience held by our teachers. We exceed the state for teachers with one to 20 years of experience, and we are especially proud of our 70 teachers with 11 to 20 years
124experience. So we've increased that number. This table shows how we compare with the state in terms of four-year undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. In 2024-2025, we had two teachers without degrees, but they were in our career and technical education department, and so they had an industry-based certification in lieu of degrees. Now, we beat the state in teachers with no degree, with bachelor's and with doctorate degrees. Now that you've seen our data, next we're going to look at some of our needs. Now, the first challenge... is teacher shortages. And this is actually a nationwide issue. Now teacher shortages stem from two things. First, fewer people are entering education. And secondly, a higher number of teachers are exiting education to pursue careers in other avenues. Unfortunately, nationwide interest in teaching in high school and college students is at
125the lowest level that it's been in decades. Enrollment in educator preparation programs has also decreased in the U.S. And here you can see just over the past five years how local educator preparation programs have decreased in both enrollment and hiring. Additionally, teacher attrition, that's teachers leaving a district, comprise 90% of districts hiring needs and less than one-fifth of those leaving are actually retiring. Instead, they're leaving for reasons like dissatisfaction with their current position or teaching in general or needing a higher salary in pursuing other careers. Now, of the educator hiring pool, there are fewer and fewer applicants in traditionally educated through a four-year university teacher preparation program. Here you can see in our area that most of the hires across the region were teachers who left one district to move to another. followed by intern
126certified teachers. So those are teachers who've graduated with a degree outside of education who are seeking alternative certification. And this increase in non-certified and intern certified teachers leads to our second hurdle, unprepared teachers. Teachers seeking alternative certification are 25% more likely to leave their position the first year. And over the past five years, data shows that 20%, a 20% decrease in the number of enrollees who are actually completing their program and earning their standard certificates. Why? Well, many of these teachers lack the pedagogy and the basic management skills necessary to lead a classroom. Often they're placed in hard-to-fill positions or they're in high-stakes areas with high expectations placed on them. And this can lead to feelings of frustration and feeling overwhelmed. And when teachers experience this, it's a double-edged sword that leads to hurdle number
127three, high turnover rate. In the taper report data shared by TEA, our turnover rate is above the state average at 23.3%. Here you can see that many North Texas districts are struggling with retention also because they also have high turnover rates. Because of the teaching shortage, we know that teachers have options. Teachers who are placed in positions where they don't feel supported are likely to leave. In North Texas, we are competing for that same pool of teachers. So it's more important than ever that we find ways to incentivize teachers to not just join the Castleberry community, but to also retain and grow these teachers. And that is just what Castleberry is doing. In our strategic plan, we set a goal to increase our teacher retention by 6%. We are collaborating and partnering with local universities
128as well as educator preparation programs to build our talent pipeline. We are increasing our substitute pool to ensure quality instructions when our teachers are out. And we are targeting support for teachers based on their teacher needs, student outcomes, and evaluations conducted by administrators. And over the next few slides, I will highlight each of these initiatives and provide a progress update thus far. So one of the district's initiatives is to build our talent pipeline by growing our own through both our paraeducator tuition assistance program and our high school CTE program. First, in partnership with Grand Canyon University, current employees can continue to work for the district while also working toward a four-year degree in teaching certification in the district's high-needs areas with the district subsidizing tuition costs. We have nine students so far who have earned
129617 credit hours. Another initiative is our education and training pathway offered through Castleberry's CTE program in partnership with Tarleton State University. This is for high school students who have the opportunity to obtain an educational aid certification while earning up to nine college hours in education. We currently have 60 students in grades 9 through 12 participating in this program. A key pillar of our talent development That's our hope, at least. Thank you. We're going to jump back up to 4B. I think we left off with Ms. Beerson. Is it Mr. Molinar? Mr. Molinar, come on down. I promised I wasn't watching the football game back there. The Cowboys are out, so football's over for me. Well, good evening, President Talbert, Superintendent Smith-Faulkner, and Board of Education. This evening, I will be presenting to you our campus
130improvement plan update. Our campus priorities were aligned with the district's improvement plan, and we'll go ahead and start with Algebra I. Our meets performance on the first benchmark increased from 34% last year to 53% this year, with growth also reflected across both benchmarks for SPED. SPED remains a key target area for us. Benchmark 2 was a full release assessment which explains the slight decline in results. During PLCs, the special ed co-teach model is being emphasized through intentional co-planning and effective co-teach strategies to maximize student engagement and ensure appropriate accommodations. They will also be covering solving for Y, fractions, and equivalent expressions. Targeted students will also receive support during the instructional day and in ACE. Now moving on to English 1 and 2. A focused team effort has been placed on improving ELA-1 and benchmark data
131reflects steady growth. SPED performance is also steadily improving, reinforcing that our targeted supports are making an impact. You can see English-1 improved from 34% to 42%. SPED grew from 21% to 24% on the first benchmark, and they took a small dip on the second benchmark, but we are confident that our scores will go back in that area. ELA 1 writing and editing continue to be a focus for our campus. Performance in revising improved from 49% last year's start to 57%, while editing showed some gains, increasing from 49% to last year to 64% so far this year. Students are trending in the right direction, with zeros decreasing from 28% on last year's EOC to 18%. It's also encouraging to see that students are earning higher overall writing scores. ELA 2 continues to show growth and remains
132a strong focus area for us. For all, performance increased from 41% to 43%, while SPED showed a significant gain from 24% to 32%. ELA 2 reading and writing categories continue to show progress. Revising and editing remain a bright spot. with revising improving from 46% on last year's star to 60% and editing increasing from 46% last year to 52% so far this year. Students are also trending in the right direction with zeros decreasing from 37% on last year's EOC to 32% and more students earning higher score. While these gains are encouraging, we still have a lot of significant work to do in ELA 1 and 2. We will conduct a PLC reboot that will focus on lesson internalization process with an emphasis on unpacking the TEKS. Teachers will also be practicing their lessons in front of
133peers to improve their delivery. They're also going to be working on academic vocabulary, authors' purpose in craft, and building background knowledge. Accelerated instruction will continue through ACE and BLIT sessions. During PLC, special ed co-teaching model will be emphasized through intentional co-planning and effective co-teach strategies. Now for biology. Following the first benchmark, meat's performance increased from 50% to 64%. While there was a dip in benchmark two, it's important to note that it was administrated with limited review, using one brain dump, and at a higher level of rigor. We remain confident in our biology team that they will meet their goals at the end of the year. Targeted students will receive individualized support in ACE. Interactive lessons and labs will be intentionally designed and integrated to strengthen instruction and student engagement. IXL will be utilized to provide
134additional academic support and practice. PLC time will continue to be dedicated to reviewing guiding documents and planning spiral reviews, including student-led brain dumps, modeling, peer explanations, and academic vocabulary. Now U.S. History. U.S. history data reflects some strong gains compared to last year's EOC results. Meats performance increased from 48% on EOC to 79% on Benchmark 1 and remains strong at 70% Meats on Benchmark 2. SPED performance is also steadily improving, increasing from 71% to 96% accomplished. Overall, U.S. history continues to be an area of strength for us. During PLC's US History teachers will analyze student data using explorers to, that one's hard to say, to develop targeted intervention plans. Instructional rigor and consistency will be maintained across on-ramps courses with PLC's also emphasizing strategies to support EOC success including the integration of star-aligned questions, visual maps,
135and writing assignments. Now for our retesters. Since the summer of 2025, I'm proud to say that we have met our reduction goals in all subject areas of 30%. Now with the exception of ELA 2 where we just missed it by four kiddos from fulfilling and meeting our target. Our retester data is a major area of success for us and it reflects the strong collaboration among ACE, campus staff, CISD administration as we worked really, really hard as a team to achieve these goals. Now, of course, retester meetings were held as a team to review progress and determine next steps. Weekly meetings are held with ACE to closely monitor attendance and set weekly targeted goals. Students are also pulled from classes to participate in focused tutorials, including ACE and Blitz sessions. Now, this highly effective model has
136led to our success this semester. Now, I would like to sincerely thank Ms. Patton. Ms. Garcia, I believe she's still back with us. Ms. Reynolds, she's not here. Dr. Barnes. Mr. Vasquez and Ms. Avila and all of our dedicated teachers for their hard work and commitment and teamwork that made achieving this retester goal a reality. Now, we're not done yet. First one's done, then we're going to start the second one, but so far, so good. Now, moving on to CCMR. In September, our senior class was at 55% CCMR, and currently seniors are at 74%, with a goal of 99% by the end of the year. Now here's a breakdown of how seniors have earned their CCMR points so far. Keep in mind that IBC and on-rent status will increase as they complete their coursework. TCIA
1372 exam opportunities are provided monthly to students with additional math peer tutoring occurring in ACE. TSIA 2 boot camps are provided to students for targeted support as well as mentoring and targeted support to improve completion rates for this area. Now on a bright note, our senior scholarships total right now is up to 8.9 million dollars and is continuing to grow. So that's always a positive. Now here are some sample strategies for goals three and four. Now we continue to prioritize attendance, safety, and accountability through coordinated efforts using parent square newsletters, attendance tracker used by third period teachers to document parent contacts and follow-ups. We've passed. Our TA secured audit this year and participated in Region 11 safety audit this year. In addition, we have two daily checkpoints to ensure students comply with cell phone policy,
138IDs, and dress code expectations. Do you have any questions? It's been, ooh. At first, I will say at first the students were, you know, were turning them off and abiding by the rules, but. And so they're going to start pushing and they're going to start testing us. But, you know, with constant communication with teachers and constant telling kids to turn them off and taking them up, it's been good. Now it's a work in progress. It's a lifestyle change. Boy, has it in referrals, skyrocketed. But that's the law. That's what we got to do. And so we're constantly monitoring it, pushing it. But, yeah, it's just a work in progress. I don't envy you. So I'd be one of those. I need my phone. And then I was just wondering, too, about what we're doing with
139the data that you take from the retesters on identifying what their needs were that may be not being met at the onset. Well, I think as a team, I think we met. We went from meeting monthly to honestly whenever we needed to meet. But that's something we track. Oh, yes, ma'am. Because it's great because you've got this great success. We have several trackers, and I mean, we've documented kids to why don't you come into A's, to whether they're at an A period, to pulling them from A period. Yeah, having lots of arguments with kids. That was a loaded question, but I'm just curious. But I think by really knowing our kids and knowing what our targets are, I think that's why we achieved those goals and why I think we've been so successful so far.
140But, yes, ma'am, it is very intentional. I think to piggyback on that retester question, how many of our kids, or you don't have to answer this, but rhetorical, how many of the kids that we have as retesters are in multiple content areas? I'm going to take there. We have a very low amount of retesters in biology. I think there's like four. We have U.S. history, just a six. Okay, I know Ms. Patton knows this too. And math, Scott? Twelve. Ms. Patton. So where you're going to see the double up is Ms. Patton English one and two? Yeah. So through their targeted... Tracker, I mean, they had a tracker. Ms. Patton put some process in place. Ms. Barnes was working with teachers. Ms. Patton was working with our new teachers so they understand how to track,
141how to go back to PLCs, look at the skills they needed, training from Ms. Garcia, Dr. Garcia, working with them. It took a whole team because that was a focus. And a lot of people spent a lot of time on it. And by having this focus, knowing that we can't have these kids that are testing and testing because our accountability will just continue to reflect all of these retesters that we got together and we decided our target has to be is we have to eliminate retesters. Because if you look at eighth grade last year, the scores were high. But when you carry retesters, your overall accountability decreases. And so it's been a focus on everyone that was part of the plan. They did a wonderful job. And now that they have the systems in place,
142then it's turning over to the high school. So they're going to continue with that system. I mean, I think accountability is one part of it, but kids being successful, that's the bigger, right, the bigger piece of it. Yes, I think the bright spot for us when we were actually, I think me and Dr. Barnes were up for like two weeks. clock texting each other back. I was like, look who passed! And we're like, I can't believe that this guy passed. And it's like, what? Some of these kids, it was just amazing to see. And then, of course, when they start telling the kids, just their eyes lighting up is pretty awesome. So we had some really good success stories that... That was pretty odd. They're putting in a lot of work. And I guess just,
143I'm not going to ask any more questions, but just this one is historically, how many of those kids in English 1 and 2 have not passed since third grade or habitually not passed, right? Like it's been hard. Yeah. Well, I am going to answer that because additional day school year, Saturday school, all those things you guys have put in place is eliminating that because they're getting their hours in and they're tutoring, they're hit tutoring and individualized lessons and even, you know, using title funds to tutor on top of it that they have a, they pretty much have. a tracking system for every single child and then ACE works off the same tracker and the minute they turn them over to ACE, they know which students they are and what skills they need to work on
144through all these trackers. And so I think we had a lot of that previously, Ms. Aguillon, but I think that we're starting to break that cycle. which is a good thing, because we're having less and less students. Our approaches, now remember, we don't talk approaches here. I told them they can never say the A word. We're always talking about meets. And so we had very high approaches in several of the areas when we look back like at third grade, but we were working on meets, which means we have less kids that didn't pass when we have high approaches. But we want to focus on meets. Which kind of brings me to my question. How is that standard different for our kids? And then I see the SPED is approaches. So how does the A word
145work for SPED and not for R? Unfortunately, that's RDA. It's dictated by RDA is approaches for SPED versus master. So that's the only place they can say that word. Okay. Consistency. Thank you, guys. Reach. And Mr. Salimas will be guiding us through the REACH Campus Improvement Plan. All right, good evening, Board President, Mr. Tolliver, Superintendent Smith-Faulkner, and Board of Education. Tonight we're presenting the January 26th, 2026 Campus Improvement Plan for REACH High School. Okay, those priorities there, our campus goals are aligned to the district. We'll go into Algebra I goals. In Algebra 1, there is a significant increase from the prior performance and demonstrates that our targeted TEKS instruction, reteaching methods, and consistent formative assessments are producing measurable results. 50% of our Algebra 1 retesters met level of achievement with all retesters passing. Our action
146plan for Algebra 1 is we received two new students, is to continue working with our first-time testers and adapt to retesters we may enroll by targeting underperforming TEEX based on real-time data. Our kids know that, they track it. Instruction by topic to ensure full TEEX coverage, daily formative assessments through IXL, and ongoing monitoring through benchmarks. As we move to English 1 and 2 performance overview, in English 1, 36% of our students met the meets level of achievement, indicating our instructional plan is gaining traction, moving towards our target of 40%. In English 2, we did see a decrease from the benchmark meets performance to winter star results. We're using this data to intentionally refine instructions that strengthened our ECR support and staying focused on achieving our goal by June 2026. As we move to English 1
147reading and ECR data, this slide highlights extended construction responses performance in English 1. On the Winter Star, ECR performance at 20% revealed a critical instructional gap in riding stamina and response structure. I will add that that 20% was actually higher than the state, the region, and our district, as the state was at 13%. from 2025 to winter 2026. Editing an increase from 49 to 59 percent reflecting the impact of our daily practice in grammar instruction and revision strategies while reading and revising remain relatively stable. Our campus approval plan is to reduce those zeros by 10 percent by June 2026. As we go into English 2 reading and ECR data, English 2 we see positive trends in reading, revised in editing with editing increasing by 13% to 45% and revised and improving from 10% in the
148winter start. With ECR remains our primary instructional focus, it's important to note that the zero score writing response and submissions decreased by 14% compared to 2025, indicating stronger student engagement response completion. And that too, the ECR on that one was higher than the state, region, and our district. When we go to English 1 and English 2 action plan, we'll continue to practice revised editing cycles. We'll work on short and extended construction responses, practicing using the A strategy. We'll do explicit instruction in ECR formats. We work heavily on author's craft, inferencing, text structure, reading passages. And then this work is not embedded daily. It's embedded daily and is not treated as test prep. As we move over to biology, all students who participated in the benchmark were first-time testers and are newly enrolled students prior to
149benchmark in November. While no students met the meets level achievement on this benchmark, this data is being used to guide targeted reteaching instructional adjustments. Our action plan is to have the students track their data, TEKS-aligned formative assessment through IXL, hands-on cooperative learning, and full-length release star benchmark as we move to the spring testing. As we move over to U.S. History, for U.S. History, our winter star data results... 48% of our students met the meets level of achievement with 84% passing rate. Importantly, 100% of the students tested were first time testers. So we did see a 90% decrease from the benchmark in meets performance. This result still represents a strong progress compared to our baseline of 29%. We'll continue working the action plan. As new testers come in, the students will diagnose their data. They'll work
150daily bell ringers. And then benchmarks are built from star released items. Retester data for REACH, it's a little different as they can come in at different times. But I'm proud to report that REACH High School has exceeded that goal across multiple areas. In Algebra 1, we achieved 100% reduction in retesters, meaning every student successfully passed. In English 1, retesters were reduced by 36%. And in English 2, by 53%. reflecting strong aids in literacy instruction and targeted reteach systems. In US history, 100% of students were first time testers, which speaks to the effectiveness of our diagnostic systems and our readiness supports when bringing in newly enrolled students. In biology, we currently have zero retesters, and we're working on two students testing here in spring thus far. Our action plan, this success is driven by early identification,
151focus on TEKS instruction, small group reteaching, weekly progress monitoring, and student data conferencing that reinforce their ownership. As we move over to CCMR data, currently 20 students have met CCMR through Texas College Bridge. Two students have met criteria through TSI Math and ELA. An additional five students are only one component away from full TSI criteria met. Our TCC dual credit fall courses were successful. We'll start spring dual credit here with 12 students doing dual credit at REACH. Our scholarship total at REACH right now is $507,000. So we'll continue working that area with our kids as they do Pathways. Our CCMR action plan includes to continue working TSI math courses and we will also work a TSI MET prep class with our math teacher. As we go over to goals three and four strategies, these key
152strategies include maintaining a shared tracking system with the high school and reach interested students to provide TEKS-aligned instruction, resources, and professional learning across all contents. Our progress on goals three and four, we continue to strengthen our enrollment and transition systems. Students referred to REACH are now contacted within 24 hours to schedule an intake interview. On average, students transition within four days from referral to placement. As a result, REACH currently maintains a 90% acceptance rate, ensuring students receive timely access to support their needs. Under goal four, these systems have directly contributed to reduction in... And retesters, we believe the faster we can bring them in, the faster we can work with them and get them to their levels of achievement. And also with that, we're working on aligning stronger star expectations for them. In closing, REACH
153High School remains focused on high expectations, strong systems, and student growth. And thank you for your continued support as we finish the school year. Any questions? Congratulations on your retesters. Thanks. Dr. Richland, come on down. Our last presentation in this area is our targeted improvement plan. I know you're getting tired. I will go quickly. Good evening, Board of Education, Ms. Smith-Hockner, and Board President. Thank you for this opportunity to present on the targeted improvement plan for A.D. Cato, Castleberry Elementary, and Irma Marsh Middle School. As a reminder, the TIP plan must be approved. by the Board of Education as a requirement of the LASSO III grant. You probably recall in the past that we have had the Effective Schools Framework grant, and that grant also required that the Targeted Improvement Plan go before the board
154and be approved. If we had not applied for either one of those grants, this year the LASSO III, then the Targeted Improvement Plan would not need to go to the board. It would just be incorporated into the the strategies in the campus improvement plan. So that's just a reminder if you've forgotten from previous years. So when we applied for this grant, we had to identify a strategy out of the possible strategies available to us through TEA. We chose to continue instructional leadership. You have heard a lot about observation and feedback. Our principals have already been trained and most of our assistant principals. So this year we wanted to train our instructional coaches, their key role, because, of course, they use our coaching plans, which are aligned to our observation and feedback. get better faster scope
155and sequence that we use. We also are training our remaining assistant principals. This year, this training is provided to us through Region 11. When we applied for the grant, we had to show that we are, in fact, utilizing high-quality instructional materials or materials from the IMRA list, which is the Instructional Materials Review Approval List, just if you're wondering what that acronym means. And so we utilize... HMH reading, STEM Scopes math, and Carnegie math. You'll recall last year you approved Bluebonnet for the middle school. That is Carnegie math is now Bluebonnet math as a reminder. We also had to show when we applied that we provide the required instructional minutes to our students in reading and math, and that ranges for us from 250 to 600 for reading and 250 to 450 for math, and that's
156because it varies from the elementary school to the middle school. Remember, this is just one plan for all of our campuses. We also had to show that we implement PLCs. That was a requirement for instructional leadership observation feedback, and we do implement PLCs. PLC's four to five days a week for the elementary and five at the middle school and also that there was a there is a system in place for assessment for teachers to analyze data identify areas that need to be addressed develop action plans and you know that we do that through our progress monitoring process which you all are have heard much about it really does guide the work that we do in Castleberry if we move on to the next slide professional learning The professional learning for the targeted improvement plan is
157provided primarily through Region 11 through observation feedback training, but also through coaching with our campus leaders and leadership development. Our coach from Region 11 works with me, coaches me, and then also assists me with coaching the principals. And then we utilize the data that we collect to drive our coaching. Also, our instructional coaches and assistant principals, as I said, are participating. participating this year, so they still have one day left in this year for training. They've already had three days. Our teachers receive professional learning through PLCs, coaching that they have. Some of them are assigned coaches, not all of them. And then targeted feedback is provided through observation feedback. We differentiate through coaching plans. You know that not all of our teachers are assigned a coach, which that came up earlier this evening. We also
158have some teachers that have a mentor. And then feedback is also provided. Individualized professional learning is provided in differentiation to our teachers through targeted observation and feedback. I do want to point out, one of the principals mentioned this earlier, that all of our observations this year through TEAL are conducted in our resource and our... co-teach classrooms because we know that special education is a priority. Also I want to point out that the targeted improvement plans for all three of these campuses is the recommended the reason for the targeted improvement plan is due to special education performance. So you've heard that all night long that that is a focus for us and so that is why we adjusted this plan to ensure that it is focused also in those areas. And then we monitor the, on
159the next slide for me, please, Angela. We are monitoring our progress through ongoing collaboration with the principal manager, that's me, and our Region 11 coach. She meets with me frequently, helps and monitors the work that I'm doing to ensure that I'm on task. She loves Castleberry and always asks me to explain some of the things that we're doing in particular. She is very impressed with our progress monitoring process and says she does not see that. anywhere else and she works with a lot of school districts so that's a testament to what we're doing in Castleberry also the principal manager again that's me is responsible in coordinating with the region 11 coach to monitor our milestones and then Through educational leadership and through principal one-on-ones, we monitor their data. So we analyze their walkthrough data, identify
160trends, and then set goals for those trends. We also... As I've already spoken a little bit about progress monitoring, we also monitor through progress monitoring. During progress monitoring, our principals identify teachers who are on coaching plans, what we need to work on with our teachers, and then our coaches are also a part of progress monitoring. So they, too, are able to give input through this process. So this is a very transparent process that involves all of our districts and campus leaders. Are there any questions for me? I hope that was fast enough. Okay, at this time, yes, principals, my maker way out, I see you sneaking out. Thank you, guys. Yes, Marcy, Dr. Garcia, you guys may leave unless you want to hang out with us. That's great. Item 8C, Mr. Wooten, after I teased
161you earlier, sir, I apologize. Yes, Mr. Wooten will provide a mid-year 25-26 revenue collection and expenditures by fund and function as of December 31st, 2025. All right, good evening Mr. President, Board of Education, and Superintendent. Tonight's presentation provides the mid-year financial update on the 25-26 district budget. So there's two things I want to accomplish tonight. My goal is to highlight what has changed since the district budget adoption and explain how we are actively managing the budget moving forward. So the discussion points today are we're going to talk about the key drivers of funding. We're going to talk about the projected M&O changes. Basically, those changes are what was changed since adoption, and then thirdly, the action plan. We're always looking at the budget. Next slide. So basically, approximately 94% of general fund is calculated by
162the state through the summary of finances. So these are some of the drivers that we look at every month, average daily attendance. Obviously, more kids come to school, we get paid more. So when I say average daily attendance, that's strictly talking about state funding. And then tax rate and tax collection. So our local tax, average loan taxes, also supplement. the actual state funding. It's a shared responsibility based on a calculation. And then student weights. That's extra on top of our basic allotment. Next one is the remaining 6% is made of, you can read that, indirect costs, TRS on behalf, SHARs. And so we also get indirect costs from our federal child nutrition funds as well. Projected MNO changes for the year, a fall snapshot enrollment decline by 94 students. That's compared from this fall snapshot
163to previous. The good news is that we did not build the budget on those 94 students. We built the budget on 3,350 students. And so we built a very conservative budget. Myself, Mo Casey, and also the CFO of Houston ISD, we spent a lot of hours looking at this budget. And so we believe that we will be in budget because our budget is conservative. We plan on between 3,350 students and 3,400 students come to Cal State Bury ISD, butts in seats. And so with the math, if the math works out, we get 3,400 students in class and in the district every day. That's, based on the basic allotment, that's about $21 million. So I'm looking at if I... and able to get 3,400 kids to school every day. I'm looking at $120,000 per day. And
164so I'm very excited about that. These are some new weights that came out this year, special education evaluations, and then the transportation rate per mile for sped students. Small gains, but yet still a gain. All right, so this is important. This is probably one of my favorite slides where you can see, actually you can see that, that... State funding is so important. It's based on average daily attendance. For our district, 78% of our funds come from the state and 22% from local average loan taxes. And so I always like showing this slide because you can see the calculation working. Basically here, this graph shows you that there's been a soft, very soft dip in average loan taxes. The calculation works out what state makes up the difference. And so they're going to, the state has
165promised to educate every kid in this district, and this is an example of how the calculation is chewing up. So next slide. So this is a projected expenditure changes during the year. We had payroll costs increase. But I want you to know that these increases reflect operational needs, and at this time, we're expected to remain within the board-approved budget. So we're not asking for any increases. We just let you know that in the amendment that you're going to see later, that the purpose has changed, and we had some flight increases. But at the end of the day, we believe that our total adopted budget is sufficient to carry that pressure. We've reallocated $94,000 from a vacant position to contract school psychology services. The neat thing about that is that with $94,000, it's just a straight
166payment in terms of we don't pay benefits, so it's not an employee. That's a contracted service. Because of that, this contract is expected to exceed $50,000. It's just giving you a heads up that next month I'm going to bring an amendment. I'm not an amendment. I'm going to bring a board approval will be requested next month. Anything that goes over $50,000. The good news is that we believe that we're going to be within budget. We adopted a $48.6 million budget. we're going to land around $48.6 million. So our variance is zero. And so how do we make sure that this budget stays in alignment? We're going to continue to collaborate with staff to identify efficiencies, eliminate unnecessary expenditures, and ensure our spending is in line with district priorities. And so the budget is always moving.
167It's a living document. It's always changing. It's what we do, right? And so any changes that's going to... shift the purpose, we're going to make sure that it's a legal requirement to bring to the board. So next slide. Speaking of budget amendment number three, next slide. Here's the key point I want to stress right here. This is a decision point tonight later on in the agenda. I'm going to ask you to approve the budget amendment to realign existing general fund expenditures to meet district priorities. Key note, we're not impacting the fund balance and no increase in total expenditures. Next slide. So just kind of revisit one slide that we've seen before. There's two types of budgetary control. There's one that's a budget transfer. It sits at the superintendent's budgetary control authority. And there's one that
168is a budget amendment. It's a legal requirement for the board. That's when we're changing the purpose. Still 199, but the purpose has changed. We're moving money around, and that's the reason why we're here. Here are some of the changes from a very high level. We're moving money in and out of instruction to the student transportation, athletics, a little bit in general administration, and maintenance and operations. So we're not increasing the budget. We're just asking the board to approve the purpose of these funds. in certain functions at the function level. So later tonight, the board will be asked to approve budget amendment three. Mr. President, pending any questions, that's all I have. Yes, ma'am. So good question. We actually will chew up the budget again because the certified property values will be out January 30th. So
169everybody in all the 1,200 school districts, they'll have to go to the template and see exactly where they stand based on certified comptroller values. So what we revisit is again in February. And with that, are we going to fall within the level of confidence? Are we in the grace? I believe we are. That's what I'm hearing. We're still hearing that. I hadn't heard anything change. Okay, good. We put a lot of work into that one. Well, you did. Support our retesting programs. Is that part of instruction? It's not separate. It's functioning. No, it's all covered in 11. Okay. That was a curious question. And ACE covers some in the after school program. That's a good question. You're welcome. Thank you, board. I appreciate you. Thank you, sir. Thanks a lot. On to item 8D, Casablanca
170Academic Planning Guides. Yes, Dr. Richland will be. Break. Okay. Sure. So, 30 seconds on the clock. Somebody do the light flickering thing. Do the light flickering thing like they do at the opera or whatever. Okay, we're getting ready to get started on the academic planning guide. Coming back after our break. Go ahead. Thank you. That was eight minutes. Do you have to say what it is I'm presenting? No? Okay. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I know there are rules that you have to follow. It's 8D, Casper Academic Planning Guides. Thank you. Okay. Very good. Good evening again, Board of Education, Ms. Smith-Faulkner and Board President. Thank you for the opportunity to speak about the proposed academic planning guide for 2026-2027. You did see this as an information item last month, and then you'll
171see it again next month to approve. So if we'll start, Ms. Branch, on page 9. So I do want to point out on this page, this is new to the academic planning guide, but not new to. This program is not new to Castleberry ISD. I want to just point out that we have had career prep and career practicums in place for several years, and students and parents have been receiving guidelines on these programs for years and have had to review them and agree to them. But if we are already giving these things guidelines and... criteria to our parents and students. We decided that we should add them in our academic planning guide and so that is the reason that these have been added. I do know that there were some questions that were called in.
172We will follow back up in a CTE CCMR update and we can answer the questions that were called in. Let's see if I wanted to say anything. The reason we added this is because it does give clarifying language. It also puts the information in one place for us. So if we move on to page 15, on page 15, you'll see here when you look at our pathways that we have made adjustments to the pathways to allow... align there we go right there miss branch to align to the tea a requirements as well as align to the career requirements and needs not not requirements but career needs that are in our area we want to make sure that we're setting our students up for success for the job opportunities that are available to them in their
173home or around their home on page 25 We added the CHS Learning and Earning Academic Progress Program. This program has been in place for several years. So again, this is one of those programs that we have had but has not been included in our academic planning guide. So we have added this program. This is a program similar to what REACH does for some of our students. This is embedded in the high school. On page 27. We clarified expectations around late arrival and early dismissals. Of course, at the high school, we do have some students who qualify for that. And so we want to make sure that the criteria is very clear and students understand what they have to maintain in order to participate in that privilege. On page 32. We're excited about this opportunity that
174we have added. We have added Tarleton today. We're excited about this new partnership with Tarleton because this will provide additional opportunities for our students as well as additional CTE opportunities. On page 34, I want to point out something that we added throughout. I'm going to point it out here, but then I want you to know that it is throughout the academic planning guide. You know that TSIA is a focus for us, and so we have added TSIA throughout this academic planning guide so that our parents and students know when they will have opportunities and when they will be required to take the TSIA assessment. We have been strategic about placing the assessment after courses. aligns and so you'll see it not just here but then you will also see it after the specific courses when
175the students will be required to take these tests and then on page 37 On this page, you'll see that we've added college prep English. This is, you know that there is an English college prep class that has been approved, and so we have added that here. This course will be able to be taken by students for CCMR. We also have added some additional dual enrollment opportunities for our students. You'll see that there with dual enrollment creative writing as well as dual enrollment speech. And then on page 42, at the very bottom, you'll see that we've added college prep mathematics in anticipation of TEA approving a college prep class for math. We won't know until June if they do. If they don't, that's okay. We're not going to hang our hat on this. We want to
176be prepared for it. We do have other plans, though, to ensure that our students are earning their CCMR credit, which we will go over with you during the CCMR. I am really tired doing a CCMR and CTE update. All right, and let's go on to page 46. Here you'll see that we've added pre-AP chemistry. These are for our STEM students who have completed biology. On page 49, this is a very important one I want to talk about to make sure you understand this new requirement. This begins next school year. beginning with our incoming ninth graders in 26-27, all students will now be required to take a personal financial literacy class. This is a graduation requirement. And then on page 62. Actually, pages 62 through 75, these are our CTE courses, and you're going to notice
177what we did with these courses is we have aligned them to TEA requirements for CTE pathways, and we have ensured that they also align to the career opportunities that are in our area. There is one that I want to specifically point out to you on page 69. So on this page, notice that while we removed on page 69, Miss Angela, here we go. You'll notice that we removed culinary arts. However, notice that is replaced with tourism and marketing concepts and practicum and hospitality. And then on page 71, you'll notice that we've added two additional CTE options there, web communications and digital media. And then on page 74. Here we have removed advanced academics career prep and that's because of the other career I'm sorry college readiness classes that I've already mentioned and then last on
178page 75 This is something we've offered for years and has not been included. We've added our library office aid teacher aid course because it's not been included. I did not go over every tiny detail or change in the academic planning guide, but I did go over any major changes that were included. I do want to quickly take a moment to point out three changes in the middle school academic planning guide. So if we can transition to that, Ms. Branch, that one will just take a moment. So Ms. Branch, if you'll go to page 12. This mirrors what you just saw in the high school academic planning guide. This is important because we want our students in sixth grade to see this so that they understand when that TSIA is important and when they will have
179the opportunity to test. Our eighth graders are already taking the TSIA assessment at the end of the year. If they are taking a course that leads to that, like algebra, for example, would be an example of that. And then on page 13. Notice here that we have added, we've taken our STEM Academy language, which we have already printed and published in other areas, but have not included it in our academic planning guide, and so we have now added that here. And then on page 26, just to quickly point out, we also made the adjustment to hospitality, and you can see that it's been removed and replaced with... with principles of business and marketing. So again, the CTE, there are a few other courses there. These have all been adjusted to match the career needs in
180our area and TEA requirements. That's all I have for you. Are there any questions? Yes, ma'am. So what was the reason we moved culinary again? So culinary, and Ms. Martinez can add to this, but what we have found is that the culinary pathway is not leading to careers that students are able to really earn money to really be successful. There are very few chefs that are out there. Instead, what we find is that it's leading to positions that just don't give the students the... the income that we would like for them to have. But the replacement will, in fact, lead to that. It opens more opportunities. Did I answer that correctly, Ms. Martinez? There we go. She said it much better than I did. High wage, high demand. You're welcome. Yes. I have a question.
181In the construction avenue, are there any other options for or possibilities of certifications? Like OSHA 10 or OSHA 30. That we have to ask Ms. Martinez. Do you want to come up, Ms. Martinez? Good question. Thank you. Item 9. Item 9, the consent agenda at this time. We will consider the consent agenda as presented. Is there a motion? That was Tracy? Second. Second. Tracy. Is there any further discussion? Please indicate your vote. Motion carries 7-0. Now on to item 10, the action items. 10A, consider approval of policy update 126. I move to approve policy update 126. Is there any discussion? Committees. Will you turn your mic on? Thank you. So I believe it was the committees you were asking about. One of the things that I jotted down last time was what would resignation from
182a committee look like? And when I went back to research that, that new policy about board committees basically says that as the board is setting up that committee, they need to set up all of those avenues in and out of that committee and set all of those terms that will follow for that committee. Now, the committee that we're talking about. on the grievance side is also a board committee, which would be determined by the board. But in the case of the, the one difference I found in the case of the board committee for the grievances is typically that that committee is making the decision about the grievance, whereas other times a board committee may or may not have the authority to make a decision based on how the board set that committee up from the
183beginning. You're welcome. Is there any further discussion? Please indicate your vote. Motion carries 7-0. Item 10B, consider approval of the 2025-2026 budget amendment number three. Is there a motion? Second. Is there any discussion? Please indicate your vote. Motion carries 7-0. Item 10C, consider approval of the Cascade High School. Phase one furniture bid award to Interior Resource Group in the amount of $599,204.83. Second. I don't know who won the race. Sure. Is there any discussion? Please indicate your vote. Motion carries 7-0. Item 10D, consider and take action if any unproposed. non-renewal of term contract of Taylor Dwyer. Is there a motion? Oh, I have to read the motion, and I'm making the motion. Board members, I move to accept the superintendent's recommendation and to propose non-renewal of the term contract of Taylor Dwyer, and I move
184that the record of this action reflect the following. Before voting on this motion, the board considered a draft of the letter to this employee providing notice of proposed non-renewal. The superintendent reviewed with the board the reason or reasons for making this recommendation regarding the employee, and the board considered the reason or reasons and any other information provided by the superintendent and that by passage of this motion, the board directs the superintendent to prepare for the board president's signature final notice of proposal non-renewal for Mr. Dwyer and ensure that the notice is delivered to him no later than the 10th day before the last day of instruction in the current school year, i.e., 2025-2026. Directs that the notice of proposed non-renewal include the time limitations and procedure for requesting a hearing from the board. Agrees if
185a hearing is timely requested to engage an attorney to assist the board in the conduct of the hearing on the proposed non-renewal, including any pre-hearing matters necessary to ensure a fair, efficient, and expeditious hearing. Directs the board president to notify Aqaba, Wardell, Hanson, Powell, and Munoz, PC of this action and request that all... office to designate an attorney on behalf of the district to assist the board in the conduct to assist the board in the conduction of the hearing If the employees request a hearing and authorizes Aquawam, Wardell, Hanson, Powell, and Munoz, PC, to consult with the superintendent to approve the final notice of proposed non-renewal and take whatever actions are necessary and proper to present the case in support of the proposed non-renewal and directs that a copy of this motion be attached to
186the minutes. To this meeting and the final notice of proposed non renewal sent to mr. Dwyer. Is there a second second? Is there any discussion? Please indicate your vote motion carries 7-0 Information items is anything we need to jump on I'm gonna jump down Discussion items. These are Anything I don't think there's anything some of this stuff is just want to make sure we Everybody had it in their purview, but I know 12B, we already had an action, so there's no action that I know of this month. I'm just jumping on down. Keyboard dates. I should jump back to 12A. I'm sorry. Keyboard dates. My apologies. Mariachi Los Leonis on the 17th. That's Saturday. And I believe I heard it's 9 o'clock in the morning for their first one. Oh, yeah? 9 o'clock. Okay. So
187our next meeting is on the 20th, which is a Tuesday. Next Tuesday, actually. So it would be similar to last year. I am putting together all of the eight domains currently. Now that I have the taper report, I can add that to the A through F accountability. And so tomorrow I will actually be working on that with Angela and putting it together. And so I know that when we meet next week. that I'll be going over all of that data for you. And then you'll be able to give your input afterwards. No, it'll have to be afterwards. Because of the timing of the taper. I'm just going to go over all of the data that I have and all of the evidence and all eight goals. And so that you'll have that. Then y'all will
188be able, I can leave and y'all can discuss it. So we're not doing anything before the meeting? No, ma'am. Okay. I will try to get as much information to you as possible. But you have a lot of the data already. So this is different than we've done it before? It's the same format, and you usually get it earlier, but because the taper report has been a little later. Yeah. And so I'm going to, so what I'm going to ask is I don't know that I can get it to you in time to do it before that you'll probably need to do it afterwards. Within that meeting. It can be up to the school board president. It might be easy for y'all to be thinking about it as I go through each goal and then you
189can turn it in. We can give you a deadline to turn it in. Just like you do usually, you know, through the online. It's the same exact document. So who is... Ellie Kelso gives it to you. And then she gets the results. No, they should come to me. I should be the only one that sees everything. I think that's where we're sitting. And that's where we've kind of in the past. Everything comes to me. I can let Dewey kind of, yeah, just talk through that. Everything will come to me. I'll give the overall score. Right. The average score. And then, you know, we'll address anything. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Because we've talked about how it needs to be anonymous by law. Yes, definitely. So make sure that we're following those things. You know, all those little
190legal things. And that's why I thought I'll just go over all the data so you can hear it before you give any type of input or information. And just because we have such a short time to turn this around. So Kelly will create it, but it's only going to go to Dewey? But access is in two places? Or how does that work? So we can make it work that way. Kelly, she can create it and then give the permissions to Dewey. Okay, so you're not creating it? No, I'm not creating it. No, because I actually create the document myself. You've seen it's like 80 pages or 75 pages worth of data. It has eight goals on it. Do you remember the booklet? Yeah. I'll be creating the booklet, and then there will just be an
191area where you can rate it and give feedback. We can even do it by hand if you want to. I think electronically, I just know we have not been doing it. accurately and it was out of more people were seeing it than should it should only be us here and so I wanted to make sure that that doesn't happen again. Yeah that's that's yeah we've had those conversations definitely and they have been accurate but they haven't been uh handled as as in thank you um in the past so you know that's one of the main things we've been doing is trying to do things right. So um Yeah, and that's what we plan on doing as far as I know and then my understanding is there will not be individual it will be One feedback
192it will not be individual people's feedback that I will see I won't share it with and the cast praise always done it that way But it best practice would be not to do that So do we need to ask them back to practice if Kelly can even create it? I create it, actually, and Kelly adds the interactive piece, but what we'll do is we'll give it to Dewey, and you can look at the permissions for him to give it to you in a folder, or you can do it by hand. I think electronic is fine. I wonder if it would be best practice to keep Kelly out of it entirely. Well, she's already set up the template, and I'm filling in everything because... It's actually 80 pages, about 70 or 80 pages, so it would
193be very difficult for Dewey to create it. I'm wondering if you create the document, right, the 80 pages, and Dewey creates just the scorecard somewhere else. That would be fine. Then it's not, Kelly Kelso doesn't have access to the scorecard, and we still have access to the actual, your... document, right? Yeah, I'm creating my document. Yep, and then Dewey just creates the scorecard that he only has access to. And I'm saying that out of the guidance that Dennis specifically said, only the board members should be able to see this document. So not the whole committee, just the board members. I can actually give my... evaluation to anyone to see. No, yeah, you can. Just remember that, you know, if I get all the feedback, it can be, anyone can look at it if someone, if
194I say, hey, we really need to improve in this area. Yeah, you can share it. We just can't create it and someone else have access to it. That is not. To disaggregate the data. We absolutely should not be doing that. Well, and not only that, y'all, actually the board used to put it in board book and everyone would see it until I was like, why is that happening? Yeah. So that's what I'm saying. Like we've gotten better, but even last year it still was not in compliance. We do better when we know better. Yeah. And I mean, it's better for Kelly. Kelly doesn't have to have any part of this. It should only be us being able to access it at all. On the scorecard. On the scorecard. Sure. On the scorecard. And if, yes,
195to your point, if you want to share it, you can share it with whoever you want to. So I just want to make sure we know, like, who's creating that we don't run into that same issue again. I think we're talking about the same thing because creating of a template and then input once Kelly would be done with it before we even see it. And so once we see it, she won't see it again. No, that's not true because she then pulls the data together and she collects it. That's what I do. We won't do that anymore, right? Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I get the calculator out and 3.5 or whatever it is. Well, and that's why I wasn't. The president has always normally done his job. And that's why Dennis had said last
196time, it's actually safest, instead of having Kelly or an outside non-board member have any access to the document, he could even create it. Like, you give him what we want, he'll create it, everything goes to him, so that we don't have this issue, a continual issue we've been having for years. My suggestion is, well, then we score it handwritten. That way there's no electronic document if the concern is once electronic documents made you enter it electronically That's going to exist somewhere in reality So I say we hand score it once we have the presentation and just everybody just turn it to me. That's my suggestion I don't mind doing it electronically. I think it was that we were putting our names to the comments, and then we just do away with attaching the name, and
197then we can still do it electronically. And that's the part that I was like, I don't think I should see names attached to that. Right, and I think by law, we'll have to ask Dennis if we can't do that. I don't think it's a choice. I think it's not legally, we're not supposed to attach our name. Oh, yeah. And I think it's better for us to have some sort of tracking. I don't think, you know, piece of paper and we burn a, you know, bonfire afterwards or something. I don't know. I got a fire pit in the house. Paragraph. So we're all clear on that? So electronic, not handwritten. Electronic just serves us better. I don't know why we would go handwritten. Okay. No. Anything else? Anybody going to be able to make the stock
198show show for? The Mariachi Man? Okay. What about the fifth grade musical? Ace at A.B. Cato? It's a Thursday. Fourth grade North Pole Diaries the next night? That's back to back at A.B. Cato. Well, they're going to be busy. District Science Fair is on the 27th. Irma Marsh, I'll try to make that one. Yeah, that's always so good. And I'll also, I will be at Midwinter that week. So just. Okay. I will miss the February board meeting. Unfortunately, I'll be out of town. More than out of town. So that matters as far as the evaluation goes? No, I'll be gone if we've decided to do the evaluation on the follow-up meeting. On the 9th? I'll get back the 13th. The other thing that Dennis also said when we were talking to him is that the
199board does not... adopt and approve an evaluation, only the contract, if that helps with that. And we've had that practice, too. And it was a... You don't approve it? You don't. You've always approved it. I know. I think they've just been doing it. And so when we were talking about what's been done, what's been the practice, that was something else that he says the board does not need to do informal action on, because I was telling them it was in the agenda where everybody can see it. And he was like, well, they don't really, they shouldn't really even be taking action on that. It's just the contract. And I said, that makes more sense. Now, do we have to file it with TEA, your evaluation? Okay. I don't know why I was thinking that. Anybody
200going to make the movie star night on the 29th? Jumping back into January? Movie star night, possibly. CE, 6 p.m. REACH graduation is on February the 6th. It's before the next meeting. That's Irma Marsh at 7 p.m. Well, I'm going to remind everybody the Lone Star Government's training, end of February. All day, but what's the time specifically? I believe so. We're doing it here, right? Yeah. We'll get clarity on that, just so we know whether it's 8 or 9.30. Friday and Saturday. I think we just received an email yesterday, so we can send out the times to you when we check the email. I'll be there. I can go. Yeah. I'll be there. The three of us. I'm going to put away the calendar unless anybody's got anything. Well, I think we are rescheduling pictures,
201but not for February. Tracy won't be here, so I don't know if we want to reach out about March or April, just so that we can get that on the calendar. When? On evaluation night. I mean, it's up to, it's not that we can't, it's up to availability of the photographer. Yeah, it's the photographer availability. No, she's coming up the 20th of January. Can we not do it January 20th? Can we not check with them? Yeah. Because we'll already be here. Okay. Yeah, just take it from the waist up. Let's just do the 9th then. If it's a casual meeting, we can't consider it a meeting. No, the 9th of March, and it gives more heads up to the photographers. Yeah, explore some dates, please. The sooner the better. We'll see if we can do
202it. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's fine. Sorry. It's not a long meeting. I planned my meeting away so I could be here for Lumsdor governance. Yeah. Okay. I've already mentioned everything of the 12s. It's already a discussion that's been happening. Those are just on there. Yes, ma'am. Except for 12C, we were going to revisit that, but I'd like to make a motion that we put that on next month's agenda because of the hour. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? That was too fast. For 12C to move to next month's agenda? Not table it because it's a whole other animal. We're just going to move it to the next agenda. March. To March. Thank you. I'm in my motion to reflect March. Mr. President, I move to approve the resolution as presented. Is there a second?
203Any further discussion? We need our voter. That's okay. It's late for it. I'm so sorry, guys. Please indicate your vote. I'm glad I almost skipped over it. Please indicate your vote. Motion carries 7-0. Next 13A. Next meeting is Monday, February 9th. Oh, that's right. Sorry. Yeah. Thank you. I was reading off the next meeting is Monday, January 20th. It's not Monday. It's Tuesday. I'll get it right. It's 1030. Yeah, I move. We adjourn hearing hearing no objection. We stand adjourned at 1035 p.m.