001Bear with me on this sound stuff. We recording? Okay, the time is now 4.01. I'll call this meeting of the Granbury Independent School District to order. Let the record show the 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. We're going to start our meeting today with our budget workshop and hand it over to Emmett in just a second. I did want to note, I know we're recording, maybe broadcasting, that we have two trustees that really wanted to be here, but they both had family and health priorities that certainly take precedence. So if they're watching or listening, welcome, but we'll miss them in body. All right, with that, let's
002start with... Emmett, go ahead and launch into your presentation, sir. Quick question. The campus budgets, are they the same as last year? No, I mean the per pupil amount, the rate. Same? Thank you. So the next thing I want to show you here is a... pie chart that describes where our revenues are. You can see our local tax revenue is the biggest portion of our revenues. Again, this is going to change a little bit because our revenues are going to go up to $74 million. So that pie is going to pretty much be the same. It's not going to change a whole lot because when you start looking at that, it's going to take some of our state revenues down and it's going to... Like I said, it's going to take some of them. One's
003going to go one direction, one's going to go the other direction. The way HB3 works, it just kind of balances it out whenever they get our certified values. And we can sit here and guess what our tax rate's going to be, but it's going to be when I punch those numbers into TEA, they're going to tell us what our tax rate is. So we'll find that out here in the next couple days when I get those punched in. And, Emmett, these revenues on the federal side, they don't include you. They do not include the ESSER funds. The federal part of this would be the indirect costs that we get from federal funds. This is only going to be 199 funds that are recognized in a 5900, and that's where indirect costs are recognized. So we'll
004get 15.631, thank you, on anything we spend in ESSER funds. So those funds will show up in that federal revenue right there. Moving to the functions. You can tell that instruction and instruction-related costs are about $44.7 million, and that's the lion's share of that, which is about 60.84% of our budget. In the old days, we had to have at least 55% of our budget at function 11, and right now we're sitting at about 60.84%. Now, that requirement's not there anymore, but we stay pretty close to that as well. And you can go down through there. And that intergovernmental charges is going to change whenever certified values are entered as well because it's going to jump that recapture up, and that's where that category is. The next slide I want to show you will be our
005expenditures per ADA and then our expenditures per ADA net of recapture. You can see that in 2021, they were pretty high. And that's going to be due to the fact that They're supplanting S-2 funds into our 199 budget, and that makes our recapture extremely high. So you can see that our recapture is $10,639 per student right now. The net of recapture is $9,700. For this next year, we're going to budget $10,290, and net of recapture, that's going to be about $99.23. Having said that, again, I'll remind you that we're going to increase our recapture. when i put those certified numbers i keep saying it over and over again because i wish i had those numbers for you right now but i'm going to ballpark them for you here in a minute when we get down
006further in the in the slideshow this says our total expenditures are going to be 73 million 547 630 that number is actually going to be 74 million $653,000 and $240. I'm sorry. Let me say that again. $74,653,240 is what our expenditure is going to be. Now, that is an estimate currently until, like I said, I get all those numbers worked out, but that's what we're looking at. And it goes down to there. It tells you what our ADA per student is going to be, $99.23. And then that is about 60.3 of that is going to be our function 11, and that is up from last year at 59.8%. Instructional and instructional support is going to make up about 81.9% of the budget. That is going to be, let's back up to... Those top two numbers
007there, instructional and school leadership, that's going to be our function 21, our function 23, which includes our principals and our CTE directors and our special ed directors. Those numbers combined with our function 11, function 12, which is our teachers on the campus, is going to come out to about 81.9% of our budget. And it goes down through support services for students, which is going to be our transportation. Child nutrition now child nutrition not including this I'll take that back that's gonna be our transportation our counselors and our health services So we like to maintain about three months operating in our fund balance and I'll show you here in a little bit That's under tab. Well, let's just look at it now under tab seven of your book. You'll see that we have our fund balance
008analysis there Projected at the end of the year We're going to be looking at about nineteen point six million dollars in our unrestricted fund balance. That's 26.5% of our operating budget. However, I'm going to tell you that probably in August I'm going to bring you a memo to designate some of that fund balance so that we stay at our optimum fund balance. And you can see down there we're going to move it into those lower categories, either for construction, equipment, or other forms of fund balance. That helps us on our first rating so that we're not overextended in our fund balance. And we've designated those funds for other projects, such as like we're doing with Bronner right now. I can tell you with the Bronner project in this year, I'm still looking at putting about
009$300,000 into fund balance at the end of this year. I know that we're showing a deficit budget right now, but all of my preliminary calculations are showing us putting about $300,000 in fund balance, even with that project, and as well with the Oakwoods purchase. So we're still doing pretty well in those areas. Which combined those? $838,000 on Bronner and $450,000. Yes, sir. That's my preliminary estimates based on when school starts we'll have some revenue accrual back into this year. So once those all get calculated, when I sit down with auditors and we decide where we're going to sit at, I'm still thinking we're probably going to be about $300,000 added to the fund balance. But in that tab you can see where right now we currently have $500,000 assigned for construction, and then we have
010$1,200,000 assigned for equipment, and then $300,000 for other things that we might need. And that probably could have been the land purchase, but we've budgeted that so we can just leave that money there later on. The assigned fund balance, y'all have to unassign it for us to spend it, and that's basically what you've done with the purchases of the land and with the construction at Bronner. So those things are really coming out of fund balance. They're really coming out of those areas, but we'll probably leave those there and just bring that to you in the memo and say we're going to stay at $300,000 here. We'll probably add money, well, at your... discretion in the construction or into equipment wherever the best place is for it. Yeah, and just hit the pause button for a
011second because I had the opportunity to go to Brawner today, and I don't know that we've really given an update on construction, but they are on pace to finish. The superintendent over there thinks they'll finish next Friday is his goal. I looked at it, and I'm thinking, man, you have a long way to go to finish by next Friday. But they're for sure on pace to finish by the time school opens. And so it's pretty remarkable. All of those old locker rooms from when Meadows was a middle school, they've all been transformed into classrooms. And they're going to look really good. And in addition to eight brand-new classrooms, they're also getting a large storage area and a set of bathrooms on the, I guess what would be the Western Hall. Yeah, Northwest. Which is needed
012closer to the cafeteria. and then internally in addition to that our i know our maintenance crew is creating dividing the old band hall with a it could be a temporary or permanent wall but but essentially that'll give two extra classrooms there so it'll be a plus 10 on classrooms for brauner plus four classrooms that will be in portable buildings. So we know we're growing. We know that Bronner's taking on a lot of kids, especially with the addition of a full-day pre-K program. But the construction's really coming along nicely, and Emmett continues to head that up. So good job on that. Thank you, sir. Yeah, so we've had a few glitches, but we've worked through them with Huckabee and with the construction company, and they've come up with solutions. We're probably not as far along as
013we want to be. We want to be a week ahead of that, but I'm good with August 4th. He's looking at August 4th, August 6th is what he told me, so through the weekend. But that'll give Scott and his crew time to move those teachers' furniture into their classrooms because they're going to need a week theirself to set up their classroom how they want it. So we're in pretty good shape, I believe. Yes, sir. Moving along. This is what we expect our fund balance at the end of 2021 and 2022 to be, $26,167,000. Again, some of that is going to be committed out of the unrestricted area so that our first rating will not suffer there. But with a balanced budget, I'm not expecting that to grow. However, we know that it happens every year
014because we have the lapse in budget of... About we guess make three percent. We know that it's between three and ten percent so There would be money left over at the end and that is general operating and a fund balance I mean a general operating in nutshell. So are there any questions about those? Now, I do want to address the, if you guys will remember, we put a lot of money back in fund balance last year with the Hold Harmless and COVID and then just shutting the district down early, netted a savings. And originally it was the intent not only to invest that money in the Brawner project, but also the opportunity to purchase some property came along. But stipends, the availability to push that money into a retention stipend for teachers. So it was
015the original intent to take some of that surplus and move that toward a retention stipend, but through Emmett and Stacy and Tricia's creativity, we're now not going to have to do that. We'll be able to utilize our SR3 funding stipends. Yes, sir. Okay. Anything else on that one? The next section is our debt service. The budget that we have set up, we were going to be at about $1,000. $10.2 million in revenues. That's going to go down to 9.6 million dollars. However, we're still only going to spend the $7.7 million, so we're going to end up adding $1.8 million to fund balance instead of the 2.4. Now, having said that, that's if we leave the debt service tax rate at 14.5 cents. which is not a bad idea. That excess fund balance can be used
016to pay off bonds earlier, just like we did this past year, and bring those bond numbers down just a little bit. Of course, that is up to your discretion as well, but since we did it last year, I don't see a problem doing that again to bring that down if that's what you want to do. So adding $1.8 million to that fund balance, which would bring us to about $4.1 million, we can do just the exact same thing that we did last year to bring our debt down. M&O is going to come. Yes, sir. This is true. Some high points there. We don't qualify for any state funding. We don't qualify for EDA or IFA, which is existing debt allotment or instructional facilities allotment. It's saying that our tax revenue is going to be 10.2,
017but I'll just explain to you that it's going to be 9.6. Thank you. It's on a different page for me. $9.6 million. And maintaining that 14.5 cents will add $1.8 million to the fund balance and bring our total to 4.1, which is about 60% of our projected debt service budget. Again, we can reduce that, though, with a defeasement again this year. You can see in this chart, you can see our revenues over the past few years. They just continue to increase. And then when we look at our expenditures, you can see how When we first went out and had those bonds how they affected our expenditures in the debt service, but they're coming back down again as well because of Your decision to pay those now as well. That is your debt service. That's the
018easiest budget to do Because they tell us what to pay and what we're going to make so dollar the hell it is for us is to set the tax rate on that Are there any questions about that? Okay, so we'll move on to our food service budget And she likes to present a balanced budget as well. We get her salary numbers out of salary negotiations, and then she sets the rest of her budget in there. You can see that highlighted number in there. That's our indirect cost rate that we're allowed to charge child nutrition. It is adjusted. It's not the complete 15.261% that we can take from them. But if I did that, her budget would not be balanced at that point. So I adjusted my indirect cost rate so that she is showing a
019balanced budget. Now, having said that, when it comes down to charging my indirect cost rate, I can only charge what I've budgeted. I can't go back up. However, that's not a big issue for us because she lost $400,000, I believe, like two years ago. Two years ago. So not an issue. I think she's going to do fine, and her budget will stay balanced. You can see her revenues over the past few years, how they're increasing. We are budgeting an increase this next year. You can see where she went down two years ago because of COVID, but then it went back up with federal funding, and then we're budgeting that same increase again this year. And typically, child nutrition is one of those programs where we try and charge as much to it as we can
020because they make so much money, and a lot of it falls back into their fund balance. creative on how we spend it but with the free lunch program now extending it and Amy's not in here at least to the at least till December maybe through the whole year you know this whole year I believe you're saying over here so she's not netting what she would net in a in a typical year is her buying their lunch and she is required to stay within three months of operating on her phone balance she can't go over So we have to be careful how we do that. There's a reason for the indirect cost rate being so high for her usually. You can see her expenditures here over the last few years. And with a balanced budget, you
021can see that this year it's quite a bit more than it was the past two years. But her budget is actually only about $100,000 difference than her budget last year. However, I'm projecting about $3.1 million in her expenditures this year. We're going to show an increase to her. We're expecting her fund balance to stay the same from 21 to 22, and currently I'm projecting her fund balance at the end of this year to be about $477,000, which keeps her within her, about a $30,000 increase this year. It keeps her within her three-month operating. So as a total, get these all up, this year we're at... 1.114 on our tax rate, which is our M&O compressed tax rate is 9,664. That up there shows that we're looking at about 94.4. That's going to come down to
022about 92.81 with our certified values whenever I put those into the system. Now, later on this evening, I'll give you a proposed tax. rate that we're going to publish in the paper and it will have a number significantly higher than this because I'm going to publish what the state says the maximum rate that we can charge is. That's not what we're going to end up setting our tax rate at. But if I don't set it that high and something wacky happens and we could go up higher, I can only go as high as I publish. So we're going to put the highest amount that the state of Texas will let us put in there and they set that number. Now, I can tell you that when I get finished with it, putting it in the
023system, we're going to be 9281 plus 14.5, which is going to bring us about to 1.0731. So that number in that 1.089 is even going to come down even further. That's pretty close to a four-cent tax decrease. Yes, sir. Is what we're looking at this year. Based on certified values. That's what I think that they're going to do to our tax rate that the TA is going to let us charge at the maximum rate. And that includes our five golden pennies. That's pretty significant. Pretty significant, yeah. That essentially wipes out. I'm trying to do the rough math in my head, but I don't remember our tax rate in 2013. for my time. I'm thinking that that four cents ought to just about wipe out the last bond. Yeah, my numbers here only go back to
0242017, 2018. Yes, sir. We'll have that whenever we present. Yes, sir. We will. We budget on a 99% collection rate. However, we typically go above 100% in our tax collections based on penalties, but we budget on 99%, so that's what that number comes from. In conclusion, now this number shows us an increase in our budget of $222,536, which would be a 0.3% increase. It's going to be more because of recapture, but net of recapture, we're still going to be about that. 3% increase in our budget over last year. And we project our fund balance at the end of 2022 to be $26,167,975. If everything, you know, if it's a balanced budget, it ends up being that way. Based on the numbers that I gave you just a minute ago, with that 1.0731, that's going to
025be a reduction from last year's tax rate. by 1.0383 cents, so almost 4 cents reduction in the tax rate. Again, that's just preliminary numbers that I've punched into my spreadsheet, not what I've punched into TEA. But once I do that, I suspect that'll be confirmed because I'm using Omar's template and I trust it. This next slide shows all of our tax rates from 2017-2018 through... And it shows that 108.9 up there, but we know it's going to be the 107.31. So, again, it just keeps coming down. That's the one bar graph you want to see go down. There it is up there. Child nutrition, we expect at the end of this year, the fund balance will be about $477,000. And if all things stay in the same at the end of 2021-2022, we'll still have
026a fund balance of $477,668. And then our debt service fund balance, we are predicting to be 4.154 at the end of 21-22. And that surplus can be used to reduce the overall debt of the district. And then we always like to thank our offices and the principals and directors for helping us put that together. And I give a special thanks to the business office and the facilities department because I had them working on budget books today too. So we were putting those together first thing this morning. So both of those departments, I want to thank them both. Are there any questions? That's pretty quick, but I know we visited a lot, some of us before, so I feel comfortable with the knowledge that you have. And if there's anything else, we can meet again and
027talk it over again. Now, I'd just like to say, you know, the signs of a healthy district are seeing values go up, which we're seeing the values in Granbury rise dramatically. It's always a hard conversation when we as a district continue to lower the tax rate year after year after year, but the value of someone's property goes up year after year after year, and so they don't necessarily get to see that net out unless they're moving property a lot, in which case they... certainly benefit from the value increase. But the values of our properties are on the upswing. We're seeing more kids come into the district, and obviously as the city lifts the moratorium on housing and we start seeing the market stabilize a little bit with materials and labor costs, you're going to see
028more growth here in our community, which is a positive sign. And then fund balance, we continue to have a positive fund balance. I think the missing key Maybe that we haven't spoke about a lot in the past, but it's becoming more critical, and Emmett brought it up this morning in our cabinet meeting, is attendance rate. And so the old hold harmless, the recapture money, and we remember it, gosh, it wasn't three or four years ago we were paying $8 million a year back to the state, so local tax dollars being given back to the state of Texas to the tune of $8 million that we want to keep here in Granbury. And now under under the new hold harmless regulations, the only way we can really fight that or combat it is to keep our
029attendance rates high. And with COVID, that presents a lot of unique challenges. You know, we were pretty proud of the fact that we had 93% attendance last year during COVID when kids weren't even coming to school in a lot of districts. But it wasn't it wasn't good enough and it wasn't where we need to be this year. And so those conversations are ongoing because our goal is to keep as much as many of our tax dollars here locally as we can. And so do you just want to briefly comment on that? Yes, sir. And I mentioned it right off the bat when we first started talking. I'll pull that back up. Prior to the 18-19 school year, we were running 95-96% attendance rate. We consistently dropped from 17-18, 18-19, we were below 95%. Which, you
030know, when we think 1%, that's not that big of a deal. But it is when you talk about ADA. Last year we were 93%, which I'm not debunking that at all. I mean, that's pretty good for what we were going through. However, to get that recapture money to come down, we need to be looking at 96% attendance rate. Even higher than, well, 21-22 we budgeted on 96%, and that's even higher than we've seen the last five years. But how do we make that happen? That's a challenge for our administrative team to figure that out, to make that happen. The numbers that are in here for student counts are fairly close to Templeton Demographics study. They're not exact. I didn't go as high as he did, but I got as close as I felt comfortable getting.
031But hopefully his will be more correct than mine and it'll just be a yes sir. Yes sir. Yes sir. I know that's not a full day's full budget workshop but I don't know if I could talk for a full day about that. No offense taken. I know you plug everything into Omar's template. Is that something that we're seeing across the state, the M&O side being able to drop that significantly for other districts or is it just in fast growth districts? Well, we are considered a fast growth district, but that number out there dropping like that has to do a lot with our certified values, depending on how your certified values are. And there are probably people out here that know more than I do about real estate. You know, real estate's gone up across the
032state, so it could very well be affecting everybody the same way it's affecting us. We know that, you know, you could sell your house for quite a bit right now, but you're also going to not have a place to live in because it's not going to be easy to find another one. Yeah. So, yes, sir, to answer that question, I would make the assumption that, yes, it's affecting every school district the same way. All right. Any other questions, comments, observations? i'm impressed with us there's a lot of districts that would be envious of how well we've had a savings account for other districts but awesome job well emmett we want to thank you and and your team and uh for all that hard work you mentioned um we know also the staff uh many aren't
033here but at the campus level it all starts with them at the first year in the budget cycle For the public or those tuning in, I want to stress something you said, that we don't take this lightly. Our fiscal oversight of the district finances is paramount. It's right up there with the one employee that we monitor. We have spent, I know in some of our cases, hours on this. We've had this information at least for a couple weeks. I know we had one-on-one sessions with you. So I just want to make sure, you know, we're spending all of 45 minutes that the public doesn't think, oh, wow, you know, they get a binder and just, you know, shuffle in and hear your brief presentation. It's a lot of work, a lot of thought. A lot
034of number crunching that goes behind this. I am appreciative of the lower tax rate. I think Dr. Glenn hit it on the head, though. Some of us, doggone it, have appreciating values in our properties, but in some of our cases, when we go to sell the next year, we'll be happy about that. So the public's got to realize you can't have your cake and eat it, too, sometimes. We're in a fast-growth district. And all we can do as a board is be fiscally responsible, keep that rate as low as possible, but knowing full well that some folks will see higher tax bills just because of their values going up. And lastly, just a comment. I do sit on the appraisal district board, and I hate to state the obvious, but we have a lot more
035rooftops this year, year over year, in the last two, three, four, five years, as Paula knows, being a realtor. I forget how many properties we had come online just in the last year from what Eddie told our board, but it's going to continue. And everybody's growing, all the governmental entities, and we are. We're studying that now, as you know. So thanks again for all your work. I'm sure if any of us have questions, we'll know where to find you. Absolutely. But we'll look forward to the rates getting published and then settling up with you in another month or two. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. At this time, we'll go ahead and, I guess, kind of shut down the budget workshop. We have opener meeting. We posted we were opening at 4, so I think
036what we'll do is we'll go ahead and slide into closed session. I see there might be some food back there for those who want to eat. So we'll call the time 445. And we'll now convene into closed session under Texas Open Meetings Act under the Texas Government Code Section 551.001. And we'll have several things to talk about in Section 551.074 to deliberate the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline, or dismissal of public officer or employee. And again, that's primarily staff recommendations. Section 551.076. in the event we need to deliberate on security devices or security audits in section 551.072, the purchase exchange lease the value of real property. So time is now 445, and we'll convene in the closed session. I've got the time shown as 6 o'clock. The board's reconvening following our closed session. So
037with that, we'll go ahead and move into our open session. Welcome, everybody. Glad to see some folks out there. It's summertime, so I'm sure some people are out of town and doing other things. So we're glad to see you. At this time, we normally open our meetings with prayer. If you'd bow your heads and pray with me. Heavenly Father, we've certainly been through some trials in the last year and a half, both in our education. world here as well as to some of us personally. We all get challenged, Father, but it's through our faith and the strength you provide that true miracles happen. And we want to thank you for Jace Glenn, Father, surviving his accident and surrounding him with love and the prayers of this community. Father, we just can't express. just our awe
038of your amazing healing power and your grace and your mercy. We lift up our praise and thanks for that. Father, we just ask that as we get through our agenda tonight that you lead this board, you reveal to this board wise and informative decisions and help us to do what's right by the kids in this school district. And Father, as we all head home tonight, we just ask you to cup us in your loving hands and get us home safely and help us to always do your bidding and be in your word. In Jesus' name, amen. And at this time, we would like to do the pledges. So, Ms. Townsend, would you lead us in the pledges tonight? All right. Thank you, everybody. At this time in our agenda, we do open our mic to
039the public. We always welcome public input and would invite even more folks to come spend a little time with us. Tell us what's on your mind and what we can do to do our jobs better. In that vein, tonight, I think we do have someone here. Emily Shugut. Did I say that right? Shugut. Okay. Emily, come on up while she's coming up. Again, we normally fill out these little slips. This is just so we can document that you were here. We know who our speakers are and we can respond if necessary. I would remind the board that we cannot answer questions. So Emily, I think you may understand the... that we can't address anything that you might say, but we certainly want to have all ears for you and beautifully listen to what's on your
040mind. So since you're the only speaker, you can have a half an hour, an hour. No, no, no, no. I'm joking. That is a joke. We normally get five minutes. If you need a little more time, that's fine. I think that's perfect. Okay, go ahead. It's all yours. Okay. Dr. McDonald. We, the educators of Granbury Independent School District, would like to know exactly what it is that you're afraid of happening within our classroom walls. Let me elaborate. As educators, when in the presence of our students, we are continuously in awe of the astute observations made and the intelligent dialogue that takes place. Most teachers hail these moments and strive to construct a safe place for these young minds to further explore the questions and resulting answers that follow. Most teachers have these moments, pardon me,
041you know that our classrooms involve a great deal of student-led learning, where teachers take on the role as facilitator. The students are allowed autonomy in exploring the world around them, their world, posing questions and then developing their own answers. Often, the problem posed and their attempts at a solution prove unsuccessful. These are the moments when true, meaningful learning takes place. It's a natural process that then, in turn, forces the student to try a different approach that better solves or answers the initial problem. It's quite the tug of war between resilience and failure. One of the many benefits of this approach in learning is that natural and genuine dialogue surfaces. Then the classroom becomes a colorful place of discussion. Trust is built. Ask any teacher to describe their most successful lessons. More often than not, it's
042lessons surrounded in intentional discussion. Classrooms are built on that foundation of trust. Classrooms are the foundation of school campuses. Our campuses are the foundation of our district, and the districts and the students in this district are doing amazing things. That all being said, your actions from earlier this summer in supporting a speaker to come to our town were concerning to many of us. This visitor illegitimately warned the audience of an impending evil takeover by way of critical race theory. Having extended this invitation only proves the lack of knowledge you have in regards to the populations of both faculty and student that you are trustee over and what exactly is required of Texas public school educators. Equally as concerning are the articles found on that individual's personal website. Articles titled, Making K-12 Less Expensive, Fire the
043Teachers. as well as unintended consequences of America's rush towards STEM education. Where a quote of hers is, the United States was unique in offering a well-rounded education that emphasized creativity until recently. Ultimately, what you succeeded in doing is directly telling the educators of this district, the educators that you've been elected to serve, that you disagree with meaningful discussion taking place within the classroom, and more importantly, our... ability to professionally facilitate those moments. We feel that it is not the side of Granbury ISD that you stand beside, but perhaps some other outside entity. In this upcoming school year, we hope to see yourself and everyone else up here at our schools, as well as in our classrooms. You're always invited, as you know. Because there are actual and present challenges based on fact. that the students
044in this district currently face. From socioeconomic status, a lack of support at home, to the stressors of state mandated testing. Working together as one, we can continue developing meaningful resources that will help our students both inside and outside of the school day. And finally, I'd like to explain what it is that we fear as educators, and that's having honest and respectful discussions stifled. within the classrooms that we've tirelessly worked at making safe places for learning. Safe places where each and every student is heard and respected. This is our goal, to begin the much needed basis for making education truly equitable for all. I appreciate time. Thank you, Emily. We have no other speakers signed up. Okay. On to item eight tonight, we have, we call it academic spotlight, but we use this time to put
045the spotlight on members of the community as well that the district would like to recognize. And I don't want to steal anyone's thunder. So, Jeff, I see you coming up. Go ahead, sir. Come up to the podium. Mr. Wilson's 15 minutes away. He forgot about it. Why don't we table this for later in the meeting if the board's okay with that? Fantastic. I'll text him that it'll be tabled later. Okay. Yeah, whenever I see him come in, we'll find a spot to get him in. All right. Thanks, Jeff. Okay. Well, with that, then I'll hand it over to... Well, actually no. So we have item number nine, our consent items, so we don't want to gloss over that. We have several consent items on the agenda. The board's had the opportunity to review these in
046board book for a few days, and I know some of us have had questions with administration and gotten some clarifications. Does the board at this time have any comment? We'd like to pull any of these items for further discussion. Well, I will take Dr. Harrington's spot tonight. And looking at our budget, I want to make a point to note that the Stowaway Booster Club has given the school $9,793 for stowaway uniforms. The fact that the... Members of our community were willing to help the Booster Club to raise this money to help these students who, some of them can't afford those kind of uniforms. And I just want to say thank you to the Booster Club and anybody and any organization that helped them raise that money. Thank you, Ms. Townsend, for that comment. And it
047looks like, looking up the spreadsheet there, we also need to thank, I'm not sure who Dorothea Mills is, but she donated an instrument, it looks like. to the high school at a value of $600. So we thank her for that. But thank you, and I know Dr. H said she'd be looking in or listening in tonight. So Dr. H, I hope your granddaughter does well in that National Ride and Shoot Contest in Las Vegas, and you can thank Dr. Townsend, Barbara Townsend when you get back. Yeah. For that. Board, I would like to pull item number three out of consent just so we can have a little bit of discussion and hear from Dr. Glenn on a possible remedy to the contracts that we have to enter into, or at least we've traditionally entered into
048with the surrounding counties where our school district has a little bit of overlap. Is the board okay if we pull item three? Okay. We'll take that up after we pass the consent items. So at this time, I'll entertain a motion to accept consent items 1, 2, and 4 through 7. Mr. President, I move that we approve the consent agenda items 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7 as presented. And I'll second. Thank you, Ms. Solano, for that motion and Mr. Moore for the second. And again, all except for item three, as presented, all those in favor, raise your hand. Those opposed, none. Okay, so now we'll go ahead and take up item three under the consent items to approve contracts with counties for the November 2, 2021, trustee election. Dr. Glenn, would you share with
049us a little bit, I think, what we've heard wind of? Excuse me. Thank you, Mr. President. Just a quick note as it relates to elections. As many of you know, not only does the Granbury ISD jurisdiction fall in Hood County, it also falls in Parker County, Johnson County, and Somerville County. And to that end, we have currently and in the past partnered with the elections offices in all three of those neighboring counties to allow the small percentage of individuals who live in those counties the opportunity to vote there. However, the expenses continue to add up significantly to the tune of probably close to $40,000 per. per election and last year specifically in Somerville County we were responsible for I guess right at 25% of all of their new voting machines even though we make up
050probably less than 50 votes that are actually cast on those machines. Say that again. 172 accounts and I believe it was, yeah. And so we ended up having to pay for 25% of their voting machines, which was right at like $16,000. So it's an exorbitant cost. And so what we'd like to recommend is that we provide notice to those individuals that live in Parker and Johnson and Somerville County that we will be contracting just with Hood County moving forward and in future elections. And for them to cast ballots in our elections, they will need to come to Hood County to vote. So, in other words, these counties have kind of stuck it to us because they thought they had us over a barrel, but we've got an option now when we need a trustee election,
051we're just our Hood County elections administrator to reach out to these folks that live in these outlying areas. The example being part of Pecan Plantation, I think there's about 160 rooftops that are actually in Johnson County that we took. That's great. And that's probably not a great example because I would imagine even though we're paying for those individuals in Johnson County, they... They likely come over here because we annex that piece. But, yeah, so we're talking about very few votes, and as the cost of elections goes up, up, and up, a significant cost to the district every time there is an election. So with this vote, this would change it from now on? Won't we just for this one election, it will be from now on? That's the pleasure of the board. So you could
052do that every time you call an election. You could make that distinction. Is the filling we have time to implement this with the November election? You know, that's something we'll need to visit with the elections administrator about. I feel like because we're not, we don't legally have to call our election until August 16th that we have time to put this in place and provide notification to those individuals, but we need to make sure that we're meeting state statutes as far as timely notification to the individuals in Parker, Johnson, and Somerville County. But certainly if we can't do it this election, moving forward we can look at it. And again, this was quick, and so if you want more information about how many people actually vote from these counties in our elections, it's extremely low. But
053again, they are GISD voters, and they go and vote in other counties. My hesitation is we've got contracts from these three counties that are wanting us to sign to the tune of about $40,000. But we're a little bit under the gun because of the state mandate. We've got to call this election by August 16th. So we say it's too late. for this cycle most likely do we need to approve these contracts tonight i don't know that it's too late you can you can authorize the you can authorize me to give me the authority to approve the contracts in in the event that it's not possible to provide notification uh to the residents of somerville johnson and parker county i i like that idea if the board uh if it's your pleasure i'll take a motion
054on that so just to make sure All these people can vote. They can vote during early election. They can vote on election day. But they will have to come to Hood County to do so. And they've always had the ability to come to Hood County and do so for GISD elections. But they've had both in the past. This will limit them just to GISD. Okay. So I will entertain a motion if we'd like to do this. Empower Dr. Glenda. pursue this further with our elections administrator and see if we can't just send notice to these folks. And again, as Barbara just alluded to, they're of course free to vote in their home counties and will vote for those countywide elections and so forth. All we're talking about is if they want to vote in the
055GISD election, they would need to come into Hood County. So I'm all for it if someone wants to make the motion to allow Dr. Glenn to pursue this. It would essentially cut our election costs by two-thirds. Yep. Item 3 under Item 9, we pulled that. Well, to allow Dr. Glenn to either, if we have to enter these contracts, he can go ahead and execute them. If it's too late to send proper notice to these folks. That's the one we pulled. Yes, sir. And I'll bring back in a future report just how many registered voters there are in those three counties. All right, Mr. President, I'm going to attempt to make this motion. I move that we give Dr. Glenn the authority to work with our county election judge to approve. are to work out the
056details on the upcoming election so that these individuals who reside outside of Hood County but within the GISD boundaries who want to vote on the GISD election have the ability to vote in Hood County. in the early election and in the irregular election day, have the right to do that and give Dr. Glenn the authority to work that out. Does that make sense? That's a long motion. You probably could just say authorize the superintendent to contract with Hood County for all election services. Okay, we'll go with that. Yeah, and we'll make sure we follow state statute before we do that. I'll probably say yours is a little bit longer, too. But great synopsis. Great synopsis. Okay. I'll second that. Okay. So the motion was made by Ms. Lana, seconded by Dr. McDonald. S stated. All
057in favor, raise your hand. All right, go get them, Dr. Glenn. Thank you. That's why nobody wanted to make the motion. Okay, out of 9B, it's adopt, TASB, local policy update 117. Dr. Glenn. Thank you, Mr. President. You have update 117 in your packet. One thing that is great about the way TASB is now doing updates, you guys get them a month in advance, so you have the opportunity not only to read them, but now they have a great video associated with them. And so I'm happy to answer any questions you have about 117. Again, this is pretty common language used throughout the Texas Education Code to update our legal policy. Very few local changes tonight. It'll be our recommendation that you approve as presented. That's a motion I think I can handle. It's short.
058I move that we adopt the TASB Local Policy Update 117 as presented. I'll second that. Thank you, Mr. Moore, for the motion and Ms. Townsend for the second to adopt the TASB Local Policy Update 117. Again, we've all had the opportunity to review these actually for over a month. Seeing no further comment or question, we'll call a vote. All those in favor of adopting the policy changes? And that carries 5-0. Thank you. Item C is called General Election for the Greenberry ISD School Board Trustees. Places three and four. Thank you, Mr. President. Again, this is a state requirement for the ISD to call our annual November election. Mr. President, I move that we call the general election for Greenberg ISD school board trustees. Places three and four. And I will second. Thank you, Ms. Alana,
059for the motion. The second from Dr. McDonald. We have two places that will be on the ballot. This November, and Dr. Glenn will figure out how people vote for that. But we do need to call the election. All those in favor, raise your hand. And that motion carries. Item D is consider amending board policy DEC local. Dr. Glenn. Thank you, Mr. President. Dr. Harrington, who is not with us tonight, actually brought up an issue with one of our local policies that we would like to remedy tonight. From time to time during the summer, we do have non-contract employees, so support staff, maintenance workers, not necessarily custodial workers because we contract that, but in the future possibly custodial workers that... may for one reason or another need leave beyond five days. And so currently DEC Local
060does not let any employee take any leave beyond a five-day period for any reason. What we're asking is that you include some administrative discretion within DEC Local for individuals during the summertime that may have to take off more than five days. Again, they'd be using their personal days or they would be docked. We're not giving any additional days, but there are circumstances. that merit an individual needing to be off more than five days. Mr. President, I move that we amend our board policy, DEC local. And I'll second. Thank you, Ms. Townsend, for the motion, and Mr. Moore for the second. To amend as stated. I see no questions. All those in favor, raise your hand. And that motion carries. Item E, consider a stipend for Granbury Middle School and Bacchus Teachers. And it looks like
061presenting on this will be Wes and there she is, Stacey Brown. It's like Wes is gone. I don't know. Oh, there he is. Good evening, everybody. Before you use information surrounding the high needs campus stipend for Bacchus and Granbury Middle School, this information was discussed in a previous meeting when we brought forward some possibilities for ESSER II and ESSER III funding. And so the recommendation is that you approve the high needs campus stipend and the revision of the compensation plan to include the stipend. Stacey, would you provide a little, I guess, what's the... philosophical approach why we want to do this for those two campuses? Sure, absolutely. Specifically, it has to do with consistency in instruction and maintaining longevity, I guess you could say, at the campuses that typically have some high needs associated with
062their students. creating that culture takes more than just a year. And so we want to keep those teachers that are excellent teachers that are fighting for that campus. And so we would like to keep them longer. This is just the possibility to say we recognize the efforts that are made by the teachers on these campuses that go above and beyond regular duty. Go ahead. My question is, can you explain to... Are they coming from special funds? Yes, sir. These are coming from our ESSER III funds. These were the funds that we received so far through the ESSER III grant that we presented with some of the possibilities that came. Basically, there's been ESSER I, II, and III, and we got III before II, and we included this as part of the grant for ESSER III.
063And I'll say this, you know, this is one I struggle with because I think all of our teachers work hard on every campus. And I know Mr. Moore shares that because we had this conversation before the meeting. So it's always hard to delineate a stipend for one campus that is not given to another. What I will say and ultimately what helps me lay my head on the pillow when I'm thinking about the recommendation for this particular. action item is that both of these campuses are on targeted improvement plans. They're both low performing campuses. They both receive additional funding for the state for being low performing campuses. They've been locked into that for about three years rather unfairly without the ability to get out of it due to COVID and in the states. I guess, inability
064to count the progress that we have made toward our academic goals. But these teachers, because of the targeted improvement plan and the state requirements, are expected to go above and beyond, put in extra hours. And so this is not a blanket stipend forever. It's a one-year stipend, and possibly we can look at it moving forward. But essentially, we're just asking for it for this one year using the federal funding. Okay, any other questions for Stacy or Dr. Glenn? I think that it's pretty clear the emphasis is to put on the academic instruction that these kiddos get at these two campuses. So for all the reasons you stated, a little bit extra challenge. Well, I know I've been very impressed with the work that BACUS has done in particular with not only working on bringing those
065kids up, starting the Saturday school before school was out. I mean, you can tell that these teachers are putting in 110%, and I really do appreciate everything they're doing both at Bacchus and at Grand Prairie Middle School. And it goes without saying, I think we've got an outstanding gentleman, Dr. Smith, that's now going to lead GMS. I don't know, is he here? Oh, there he is. Right in the middle. Bullseye. No pressure, Dr. Smith, but we are excited to have you on that campus. We know we're going to continue to see improvements and great things here. Maybe this is another tool in the toolbox to really attract the most talented teachers, which we really need on that campus. So, in any case, any other questions or comments? I'll entertain a motion. Mr. President, I would
066like to have us consider the stipend for Granbury Middle School and Bacchus Teachers. I'll second the motion. Okay, so it's really to approve the stipend as recommended for both campuses. All those in favor, raise your hand in that motion carried. Next item, F, is consider the purchase of approximately 1.26 acres of land on the northwest side. of Our Savior Lutheran Church, which is over there off Meadows Drive, right by Emma Robertson. Dr. Glenn. Thank you, Mr. President. Trustees, as you know, we've considered this for some time. It is... It is a unique opportunity for us to not only purchase a piece of property, but kind of partner with the Lutheran Church to alleviate some traffic issues for the ISD. So just... So everybody can picture what we're talking about as it relates to Meadows Drive
067and where Bronner and Emma Robertson are located. The district would be acquiring the property just to the right of the Lutheran Church, which would allow us to put in a road that would go up to Emma and loop around. If you've ever been there in the morning, anyone who is dealing with dropping off kids at Emma Robertson or Bronner, you know that the traffic there is horrible. And so as a district, knowing that our community has infrastructure problems already, we're trying to do our part to be good stewards of that, knowing that we add to that every time school is in session. Acquiring this property, what is really probably below fair market value, the Lutheran Church, again, a gracious seller in this, would ask that we put a sidewalk in with any road that we
068put in just to allow. anyone who is walking a school to or from school, the opportunity to be off the road. And then they would like a delineation fence between their property line and the school district. They've had concerns about people parking up on the grass too close to the church when there are big events at Emma. So in return for those two things, they would like to sell us the land as part of the contract. And again, 1.26 acres and to be able to have a loop that... would go from Meadows up to Emma and then come back around, taking a ton of traffic off of Meadows in the mornings. Well, this is something we've been talking about for a long time, so this is definitely something that we need, and anybody that's been
069in that area, like we've said, in the morning or afternoon, knows that we definitely need something there. So I would like to move that we... Approve the purchase of the 1.26 acres of land there beside our Savior Lutheran Church on Meadows Drive so that we can improve the traffic problems there right off of Meadows Drive. One quick question. Dr. Glenn, did you mention the price? Yeah, I was thinking that. So it's $40,000 for the 1.26 acres. That money, as mentioned in the budget workshop, will likely be excess funds from this year's budget, so we'll not be going into fund balance. I have a motion on the table. Do we have a second? Mr. Moore seconded. Ms. Salana made the motion. Full disclosure, two trustees attend this church. I can tell you it is a very
070nominal dollar amount, and it truly is for the community good. Neither Ms. Townsend or myself have been involved in these negotiations. I will say it's refreshing that my church leadership didn't see dollar signs, didn't get greedy. We have oftentimes, more often than not, unfortunately, when people approach us with land they think the district needs or is interested in, the price all of a sudden goes two or three times the market value of the property. I can assure you $40,000 for that strip of land is very nominal. And as Dr. Glenn mentioned, the whole idea is not just for better traffic flow, but really safety too, just with a better way to guide folks in and out of that campus and with the sidewalk that's proposed, it should be. very clear where pedestrians and where the
071cars need to go and won't be as chaotic as I know we've seen it there in the past. And the church welcomes that. They want to be good stewards as well and help the community. So that's why it was such a low price. I am comfortable voting on this matter. I'll leave it to Ms. Townsend if she wants to or not. We do have a quorum tonight of five trustees. We can also hold off on this as well. So it really doesn't matter whatever the board wants to do. I know the two trustees who aren't here are well aware of this little strip of roads. But we do have a motion on the table. We can vote on it or we can push it to next month. It's up to you guys. I will be
072abstaining, but whatever the board decides is fine with me. Windsor meeting in August. Okay. And the likelihood that that road be put in and the improvements, yeah. No, no, no, no, no. No, I mean, it's going to be next summer at the earliest or something like that. That is correct. I mean, if the board's okay with it, then let's, I think I'm with Ms. Townsend. It may be safer just to wait until we have a full board at the table and can do this the proper way so there's no appearance. you know, with church members here that we had anything to do with this thing. So, okay, we will not vote on that matter. We'll let the motion die for lack of vote. We'll move on to item G, consider the proposed tax rate to
073be published in the notice of public meeting, which we had earlier to discuss the budget proposed tax rate. Emmett. Thank you, Mr. President. Board, before you have for approval, the proposed tax rates to be published in the notice of public meeting and discussed budget and proposed tax rate. As we discussed, the maximum tier one state compression rate is .9134 cents with five golden pennies to bring that to 96.934 cents. And then our INS rate is at 14.5 cents. As we discussed in the Budget workshop we know that we're going to come in below that but we post for publication the maximum rate the state of Texas would let us the recommendation Is that the proposed tax rates of .9634 cents for the M&O and the .145 cents INS be approved for a total tax rate
074of 1.1084 for publication on August 11, 2021 in the local newspaper in accordance with Texas Education Code 44.004. And say the rate we're going to publish again, 1 point. 1.1084. And what's our current rate? 1.1114. We're about three cents now, but it's safe to say we probably may come in a little lower. We're going to come in lower than that, yes, sir, with certified values. Thank you. Any questions or comment for Emmett? The board has been discussing this and looking at this matter for the last couple of months, both in our board workshop and... And, Emmett, you got our certified values yesterday? This morning. Or this morning. Okay. I know they were coming out this week. Do you have any comment, Dr. Glynn? No, I appreciate. Mr. Whitefield and all the work he and his
075office have put in, I think that we're taking a conservative approach on the notice of tax rate tonight and that, again, look forward on the 23rd to coming back with a significantly lower tax rate than the district has had in many, many years for adoption by the board. Okay. Any other questions? Otherwise, we'll entertain a motion. Emmett, how many years in a row have we lowered the tax rate? This is seven. Thank you. I'm not in it. He wasn't fast. I was thinking back whenever she, during board workshop, when did she say that tax rate was? But, you know, some years it's half a cent or a cent. This has the potential to be more significant. And so, again, the credit really goes to our trustees. You guys. That's something y'all put a lot of
076pressure on us as an administrative staff is lowered as much as we can. I give that money back and then when we need it, we go ask for it and hope to make the case to voters that it's worth the investment. And that's what was done in 2013. And hopefully on August 23rd, that entire increase from the 2013 bond will have been returned back to voters and then some. Mr. President, I move that we publish the proposed tax rate. I'm sorry. I move that the proposed tax rate be published in a notice of the public meeting to be discussed in the budget and proposed tax rate. And when will that be in the paper? We are scheduled for August the 11th. August the 11th. And I will second that motion. Did you read the amount?
077I'd say do we have to have the amount? You need to read the amount. Okay. The amount of, let me make sure I get this right, 1.1084. Okay. We have a motion. I'm not sure I heard a second. I did. Oh, sorry, Nancy. Okay. We have a motion from Ms. Townsend to publish, which is really just an exercise, but we need to do it and let the public know the highest it can possibly be. but in all likelihood they'll come in a little bit lower. But for now, published rate as stated, and motion made and seconded by Ms. Solano. All those in favor, raise your hand. Great. Motion carries. I see that, I think I saw Commissioner Wilson walk in. Oh, there he is. Hard to miss him there. Jeff, why don't you work your
078way up? I think everyone knows Commissioner Jack Wilson. We're happy to see him at our meeting tonight. Always welcome someone from the county or city. And I'll let Jeff say why we asked Jack to come. Fantastic. Good evening, Board. The reason we're here, the Marshall Department would like to acknowledge Mr. Wilson publicly for his support of the program. Several years ago, you'll know that the... The MARSHALL program was implemented and is growing pretty significantly, so we're sitting real well. The state qualification is at 70%. That's standard for law enforcement. GISDs, we're at about 95%, and that's a direct correlation to the support of Mr. Wilson allowing us to use his range to continue to get better as firearms or as a perishable skill. You don't use it, you lose it. When that day comes, you
079want to have everything together. So I'd just like to publicly thank and acknowledge Mr. Wilson for his support of the Marshall Program and GISD students, staff, and faculty. So Mr. Wilson, if you want to come up here so I can address you. And Jeff. I want to just acknowledge one more thing while Commissioner Wilson is up at the podium. It's so important that the school district have good relations with the county, and since Commissioner Wilson took office, if there's an issue with the school, he is quick to give me a call, clarify information. But more than that, he really does care about the students in the district. I can tell you that he worked pretty hard. pretty tirelessly in the spring to make sure that every student who graduated both Stars High School and Granbury
080High School this year received a copy of the U.S. Constitution upon graduation. And so he really is trying to be a good partner. And I'll tell you, in an era where we see... county and city and schools and state and national government at odds all the time. It's great to have community partners that want to reach out and try and work together and find common ground. And Commissioner Wilson does that and we're grateful. Thank you. I appreciate it. Mr. Ross. Mr. Mayer. Wait a second. Thank you very much. You're on two. I just want to add, I've been out to Jack's range and shot with the marshals, and he's got a great facility out there. I would say homemade, but, man, it's more than that. It's a nice range, and the fact that he opens
081his doors and really receives them very well out there, and they enjoy it. Jeff, I think we can say this publicly. How many marshals are we up to now? Round number? Yeah, around 30. That's what I thought. Okay. And we've had this program now three years, I believe. So, great. Good job. Thank you, guys. Thank you very much. Okay, with that, we're down to our last action item tonight to look at the purchase. of curriculum and Stacy, I see you still in your spot there. Jump on up, tell us. Sure, I tried to come up early and take Mr. Wilson's award, but I apologize for that. Can you shoot a gun? Exactly. Good evening again. Before you is a purchase order over $100,000 for Mentoring Minds Think Up. It is a supplemental resource used at
082our campuses for reading, math, and science. And if you'll allow me a little bit, I'd like to give a little bit of information surrounding that so that you could have a little bit of background on that. Mentoring Minds is the company and they produce a resource called Think Up. And so we have used Mentoring Minds and Think Up at all of our campuses for several years. The reason the bid is coming to you as it is, is specifically because we're merging some of the electronic items that are being added into the resources that we already... have, the ones that we've already used in the past. And so, as you know, part of the responsibility is to get our students ready for online testing across the board. And so one of the things that is being
083offered through Mentoring Minds now is a way to do online testing with our students. And so it incorporates the new items that are coming that are being expected in 22-23, as well as gives us a jump on that continued online testing. way of doing common assessments through online testing that's a little bit more authentic and like what the state does for us. And so it's taking the resources that we've used that are at a very high rigor. incorporating critical thinking and taking it to the company itself has merged with another company that is going to be offering an online platform for us to be doing those assessments. It also encompasses a test bank of the items that we have used before but now in an electronic format and including the new test items that the
084state is asking that we go through. So it's kind of encompassing multiple things, however, because it comes before you in one big lump sum it looks a little bit overwhelming. That being said I will tell you that we've used these before. We are adding a few resources, the online platform and and the test bank as well. So Is this just K-5? No, sir. This goes all the way through Algebra 1, and so it encompasses the test item bank goes even higher. So we have a test item bank that will allow us to go from first grade all the way up in math, reading, and science, and then it also offers the same resource that we've used in first through eighth grade that we've had in the past. You said primarily math, reading, and science. It
085is math, reading, and science. So we're not talking history or government or... No, sir. ...anywhat appear to be hot-button issues out in our society right now. So this is just the basics. This is just teaching and reinforcing the basics. Yes, sir. It is reading, math, and science, and... The company itself allows you to pick additional if you want those. That is not the case with these. This is specifically reading math and science. Thank you. You bet. Any other questions for Stacy? I remember a few years back when we started looking at online testing, we found that it really did take a while to get the kids acclimated to that. So I'm really glad to see that we're going to be doing it on a regular basis. Do you have any idea, like when a child
086first starts doing online testing to when they feel comfortable with it, you feel like they're getting the grades that they should be? without the online testing? So I will tell you that our teachers are magnificent at incorporating multiple Google Classroom extensions and ways to have them working through any of their curriculum online. The online platform for testing has kind of looked a little bit different. I know that several of our campuses jumped out this year and did online testing at the elementary. As far as data that shows when kids are able to get the same level. I don't have that for you. I can look into it a little bit, but I will tell you there's always dissenting opinions on either side. But regardless of that, the state said you'll be ready to go in
08722-23 as far as online testing. And so our responsibility is to make sure that our kids are ready and have the practice. And this particular resource has that. Any other questions or comments? Mr. President, I move that we approve the purchase of the, what is the project called? Mentoring Mines. Mentoring Mines. That is on, needs to be re-approved by the board since it is over $100,000. We have a motion from Ms. Townsend and a second from Ms. Alana. Any other questions or comments? We'll vote. All those in favor, raise your hand. And that motion carries 5-0. All right. We're into our report section of tonight's meeting. Thank you, Stacey. I'll turn it over to Dr. Gleer. Thank you, Mr. President. I need to digress for just a second here. We had a staff member speak
088in open forum. Typically, open forum is not the time that the trustees interact with the public, but I get an opportunity to give a report. And I just wanted to say, first of all, I commend you on coming and speaking during open forum. I know that's incredibly difficult. It's difficult for anybody to come up and stand in front of a group of trustees and speak their mind and say what they think. And I will tell you, I could not agree more. The integrity of the classroom is important. As a public school educator, it's important to me that the quality of instruction in our classrooms. I don't get on social media, and honestly, I don't have a lot of time or care or concern with those who think going to social media with their opinions is
089the proper way to express themselves. So I do admire you coming here tonight. I will say that the heart of Dr. McDonald is that of a mom who has a child in our school district. It is that of a businesswoman in our community. It is a board member who serves, and it's also a former educator who's been in the classroom. It's easy to hit these hot-button national topics. and want to bring them into our school. And a lot of people, they really like trying to push things that are happening on the national stage into Granbury schools. But let me tell you, it's a word of caution from an educator who's been doing this a little while. careful standing at the dais and using the term we teachers because we teachers means you represent a thousand
090employees and and I can tell you that in in Granbury ISD I don't I don't ever as superintendent don't say we because I know not not necessarily everything I say is is going to be some something that everybody agrees with When you're talking about critical race theory, which is I assume what you're referring to, I can tell you that our state legislature has already said that will not be taught in the classrooms, and I can tell you it will not be taught in Granbury ISD. And any teacher who wants to teach it will have to go teach somewhere else because we're not going to have it in our schools. And in any public school that is teaching it, we'll answer to their state representatives and they'll answer to the governor. But it won't be taught
091in our schools. And so I really don't know where you were going. And because I didn't have the opportunity to exchange dialogue with you, I'd invite you to always feel free to come to my office and share your opinions. Feel free to email any of our trustees. You can access them on our district website. But at the end of the day, there are conversations that need to be held between the parent and their child, and it's not the teacher's role to jump in and have those conversations in place of the parent. We can be there to foster. We can be there to support. But the relationship of educating a child is a relationship. that involves the parent working in collaboration with the school district and i know i know because you're head nodding you agree
092with that and so i just it was on my heart to clarify that comment and also to to defend dr mcdonald uh because again i i don't know what happened what you're referring to the speaker i don't i don't get involved in that sort of things but i can tell you that she's an advocate for teachers. She has voted to support raises. She has voted to support benefits. She has voted to bring in strong curriculum. She has voted to improve facilities. And so her record as an educator in this district, even though it's short-lived, has been nothing short of phenomenal. So I want to set the record straight while I have a little time during my report. And so with that, I will jump in to what I have this month, which is actually pretty
093short. But I do want to go on record talking about COVID because I know that's on a lot of parents' minds. What's going to happen? So specifically, I can tell you this, there will be no mask mandate in Granbury ISD this year. That's by the governor's proclamation. So anyone who wants to wear a mask will absolutely be allowed to wear a mask, but it will not be mandated by Granbury ISD, nor will it be mandated by any public school. That doesn't mean that the district will not be taking mitigation strategies. We understand that there is still a virus. We will encourage proper hygiene. We will encourage hand washing. We will make sure our buildings are clean. When given the opportunity, we will make sure that our assemblies are outside, and we'll try and limit unnecessary
094assemblies. We know that there is a virus, and certainly we're going to do everything we can to protect our kids. But as far as a mask mandate, there will be none again, and that's really out of our control. In addition to that, vaccinations, I was asked, are we gonna require all of our teachers to be vaccinated? Absolutely not. Again, that's out of our control. That's not something we can compel individuals to do. We offered it to individuals in this community. In fact, we worked in partnership with our county to be able to offer vaccines in this building for those individuals who wanted a vaccine. But it will not be required. In addition, virtual learning. Virtual learning is not funded by the state of Texas this year, and it didn't work. And we will not offer
095virtual learning as a district this year. We are moving into this school year, again, taking as many mitigating strategies as we can, putting those mitigating strategies in place. But we're going to follow the guidance we receive from. the Texas Education Agency, and also from the governor of the state of Texas. And that's the direction we're moving forward with COVID-19 this year. And so you can find more information on our district website. In fact, Tammy Clark and Jeff Meador have been working on that, and hopefully it'll be up in the coming weeks. Outside of that board, I can tell you that we are moving forward with our long-range planning committee. We hope to have a preliminary list of individuals to serve on that committee to you within the coming days for review, and we'll look to
096finalize that list in August. And lastly, I do want to thank everyone in the room tonight, all those watching in our community for their thoughts and prayers for my son. He is doing better. God. God was with him, God watched over him, and God continues to be with him. And so for those of you who have been praying for him, I am thankful for your prayers and our family is blessed. So that's all I have, Mr. President. Thank you, Dr. Glenn, for your report. This time I'll ask Amy Parker to come on up and give us her annual support services report. Good evening. So I know that my staff will be happy that we don't have to wear masks next year because it gets really hot in the kitchens. So child nutrition, our main mission
097is to feed our kiddos a nutritious breakfast and lunch every single day. We do have a lot of guidelines, a lot of rules we have to follow, just like teachers do. So we do the best that we can within those boundaries to do what we can to feed our kiddos nutritious meals. And there we go. Our budget and our staff last year, we had 58 staff. We had, at the beginning of the year, there were six of us in our office here, and then we had someone move to a different department, so we had to do a little bit of rearranging. We made it work. It's working very well. So, so far, going into next year, it's going to be very successful. We have nine campuses with nine managers. at one manager at each campus
098and then 44 food service workers. Then our budgets, of course, our salaries and our food is going to be our highest expense. And then you can see down at the bottom that $2.4 million is what makes up our expenses. The good thing about last year is because we had so many students here on campus, we didn't have to do what other districts did. We didn't have to do the prepackaged meals. We were able to buy in bulk like we normally do and to prepare those meals. They can have hot meals and it was more of a normal atmosphere for them when they came to school for breakfast and lunch. So that saved us on cost as well. So our meals that we served, a total between breakfast and lunch, was just over $900,000, which is
099amazing. We started free meals in October, and that was a blessing, I'm sure, for many families. I know it was for mine. And then our federal reimbursement was $2.7 million. We add in all of the state revenue. We have commodities every year that the state gives us, which is... amazing and our free and reduce is that percentage you know we still had to track that and it's been pretty good it was pretty good last year considering everything and then our a la carte it did go down but it's it wasn't significant we still were able to get those sales in and to be able to make that revenue so our total meal and a la carte revenue for may through august I'm sorry, August through May was 3.2 million. Then just adapting to COVID, you
100know, we met with every single principal last year and we asked them, what do you want to happen on your campus as far as, you know? the feeding style. Like, do you want to feed in the classroom? Do you want to feed in the cafeteria? What is this going to look like to benefit your students in their time when they're in instruction? So we did what benefited them, which we are again doing for this year. We've already met with all of them. We've asked them, what does this look like for you? And we're meeting the needs to make sure that those kiddos have that time to sit down and eat, and they also have their instructional time during the day. And, you know, adapting to, like everyone did this last year, the social distancing, the
101wearing of the masks. And our cafeteria staff, we wore our masks all year long. My big thing last year was perception is reality, so you're going to wear your mask all year long. And a lot of people were very, very thankful for that because we're in the kitchen, so we're around food. And now for... This last year was, of course, the free breakfast began in October, and we were able to also feed children outside in the community because we were operating the Seamless Summer Option Program, and we were required to feed kiddos in the community. We started at a couple of campuses, and then we moved it here, and it was more beneficial here, and we actually did bulk meals in the end where it was for five straight days. That benefited parents coming one
102pickup. for the five days instructions on how to cook the food so that way it was just it was just easier for those families we started a marketing program and caitlyn langford she does our marketing and jeff helped us with that and it goes on facebook instagram and twitter that seems to be pretty successful and then of course the saturday school meals we partnered with Julie and helped her with getting hot meals for the kiddos for that. That was very successful too, and I'm pretty sure we're going to do that again this year. Then our summer lunch program did very well because we had so many kiddos doing summer school. So they came in and they had the free breakfast and the free lunch, and we ended up serving almost 18,000 meals. So for next
103year, or this coming year, Some of our goals are, of course, the kids are going to eat free. We want to encourage them to eat free. Come and eat with us. And then our pre-K kiddos are going to do the family-style feeding, which is exciting. We've gotten with Kelly Lambert on that. And we've already ordered all of our small wares, our plates, and things like that. They're adorable. I have them here if you want to see them. And it's just going to be fun. And then we also have a new program. It's the child and adult care program, which is for our snacks. So we will continue doing the seamless summer option for breakfast and lunch for free for all students. And then with the CACFP, it's for snacks specifically. We're going to keep healthy
104options in our menus. You know, the salads, the fruits, the vegetables, that is imperative. We're introducing a new program. It's the farm to school program. for Texas grown produce. Some of those options are like grapefruit, pears, watermelon. There's a whole slew of things that we can choose from that we're really, really excited to introduce to these kiddos. We're also gonna do a breakfast kiosk at the high school. This has been one of my goals. So down at the CTE wing, I've talked with Mr. Ross about it. I've talked with Mr. Dawson and now with Mr. Gibson. It's basically just a piece of equipment that has slots in it where we can put food, we can make actual reimbursable hot meals, we can do snacks. It's catching those kids coming off of the bus that don't
105have time to either go to the cafeteria or they just don't want to. So there's that that's going to be introduced. And I'm hoping if that's successful, maybe we can do it in the middle school. Then, of course, just training. It's all the training on all of our rules and regulations that we have to do every year to stay on top of things. And that's it. Any questions? I would love to tell you that the goal number five for the farm to school, outstanding. Can't wait to hear how that goes. And really nice, innovative thinking on that. Thank you. And, Amy, just to be clear, this just blows me away. So during the summer program, it's come one, come all, free breakfast and lunch for, I mean, they don't even have to prove they're a
106Granbury ISD student? Any kid under 18? It's any child that is 18 or younger. Right. Yes. Wow. Yep. Unbelievable. Yes. Great work, you and your staff. Thank you. Please thank them. Is that a Texas program or a federal program? It's a Texas program. Yes, TDA. Amy has been just phenomenal since she took over as our child nutrition coordinator. I can tell you that before she got here, it was a lot of prepackaged stuff in our cafeteria. Like maybe with COVID, she had to go back with that briefly because we were under a lot of pressure, especially when we were delivering meals to houses. It is truly her passion to provide fresh fruits and fresh vegetables. And it's more work on our staff to have to cut those fresh fruits and fresh vegetables up every day.
107But they do it with just a joyful heart. And the meals, they look appetizing. They taste great. And truly, it's because of her leadership. So thank you and all your cafeteria managers for what they do. especially for a student body that's 50% economically disadvantaged. It's good to know that those kids are being taken care of twice a day. Absolutely. Thank you. It's my pleasure. Okay. Now the highlight of the evening. Either at Whitefield or financial reports. Take them away. Thank you, sir. Board, before you, you have the financial statements for the period ending June 30th, 2021. You can see there that our year-to-date percentage on our total revenues is 96.04% as compared to last year's 98.48%. Something notable there, and I know you are all aware of it, is our investment income is not where
108it should be. And we talked about that in the budget workshop that we were bringing that budget down to around $100,000. Some other notable scenarios there in our state revenues there. Last year, we were actually under-budgeted on state revenues. But this year, we are actually under-budgeted in our federal revenues, and that's all due to Medicaid funds that we received this year. They kind of negate each other out. So the total of it, you know, we're just about 2% off of where we were last year. Down at the bottom under the expenditures, you can see we are currently at 76.74% of our budget as compared to last year at 74.6%. The notable factor there is under our Function 81, which is our facilities and our construction acquisition having to do with the Bronner project. That's going
109to bring us up just a little bit higher in that section on that, function 81. And that is your financials in a nutshell. If there are any questions about that. Okay. And your investment report. It's pretty standard as it's been all year long. There's not much money being made there. Sad but true. You can see it down there. We're showing $175,000 down there at the bottom is total investment revenue. Well, you can see on the financials that that is not the case. But if you'll look up there, inside that, the investment revenue on your financials includes that line up there where it talks about appreciation and depreciation, and over the months, it eats up that. $175,000. And so currently we're at the $75,000 mark, which I expect us that we'll probably meet $100,000, but just
110barely this year. So that's what we expect our budget for next year to be. Any questions for Emmett? I appreciate you and your staff. Thank you for the reports. Good job. All right. Our final item tonight is to consider action on items we discussed in closed session. This was really just the staff recommendations. Dr. Glenn. Thank you, Mr. President. You have the HR recommendations as prepared by Mr. Jones. I want to thank him as always. He and his staff do a great job, especially this time of year. They are moving a lot of people around. And it seems like every district is with the influx of federal funding, but I just cannot commend Wes enough for his leadership in this. In addition to our standard teacher hires and professional hires tonight, we do have a
111recommendation for technology director. Mr. Brent Wilson will be the recommendation. He is an internal candidate, which is great, although he's short-term internal. He's only been with us about eight months. Comes with just a wide away, just a vast amount of experience from CBS. We're looking for somebody as we streamline to a more technical... technology-driven technology department, if that makes sense, with a focus on networking, programming, software, cybersecurity. We wanted to get away from the instructional technology blend with that. And so we're confident that Stacey Brown and her curriculum team can handle instructional technology, which will move under her leadership. And then we are going to let our technology department and our new technology director. focus on making sure that all of our systems are up and running and protected as well. And so it is
112our recommendation tonight that you approve the HR report as presented along with the Director of Technology recommendation of Brent Wilson. All right, Mr. President, I move that we approve the staff recommendations as presented. And I will second. We have a motion from Mr. Moore and a second from Dr. McDonald. Staff recommendations as presented, and I would encourage all the board, I know we'll eventually meet you, Brent, but we're thrilled that you're shifting into that role and hopefully be with us quite a while. Yeah, we need someone to lead us through that whole morass of technology that I know is over my head. All right. Let's vote and make it official. All those in favor, raise your hand. And the motion carries. Seeing no further business tonight, I'm going to call the meeting adjourned at 7.14.
113Thank you, everybody, for coming. Thank you, Board.