001Where's my four? I call this meeting of the Pearland Independent School District Board of Trustees to order on September 9th. 2025 at 5 p.m. 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. Let the record show that Trustees Johnson, Stuckey, Scheffler, Carbone, Weimer, Murphy, and Carter are present. At this time, I'm going to hand the mic over to Trustee Johnson for pledges and opening remarks. Our pledge to the U.S. of A. Now to the Texas flag. Well, good evening, everybody. It is September 9th, and I can't believe we are already on the 19th day of school. I just was looking at some numbers
002and just wanted to share that we didn't start the year with a slow pace. It's been so impressive to look at the calendars at all of our schools and see everything from athletics to arts already competing. We've had students go to the Sugar Land Space Cowboys and perform choirs. We've had football teams and sports travel. We have great things already taking place on our campuses. We've done meet the teacher nights at all the campuses. We've had great opportunities for PTA events and picnics at Challenger and house days at our campuses. So it's just been exciting to kick off the year and see all the great work that is taking place in Pearland ISD. And I want to recognize the 20,522 students that are enrolled in Pearland ISD as well as the 2,550. employees we have
003as we kick off the 2025-2020 school year. And I just want to end with reminding everybody that the Pearland Expo does kick off tomorrow. Encourage everybody to come out to our ag facilities and see that great event as it takes place over the next two weeks. And thank you for the opportunity to serve you guys. It's been a great first four months on the Board of Trustees with all of y'all. Thank you, Trustee Johnson. The name of the kicker for... I don't have that handy, President Carbone. But yes, we did have a wonderful student that was on college game day, won $200,000 through that program. A former Dawson High School graduate last year. And I had his name down in my other notebook and failed to transfer it over. Just want to recognize that Pearland
004Proud is living well beyond our boundaries and we're proud to recognize all those students. So thank you, Trustee Johnson, for those opening comments. We're going to move now to the opportunity to recognize our students and staff during our board recognition part of the meeting. So board, if you want to join me up front. All right, good evening. At Pearland ISD, we have endless reasons to build Pearland proud. Tonight is our greatest honor to recognize achievements that make us filled with pride. Photos will be available for download on the district Flickr account later this week. But if you like, feel free to come a little closer and take photos of your student or our guests tonight as they're recognized. If we have any principals here tonight, I ask that you please join me at the front
005for photos with your student and the board of trustees. Okay, each year our administration selects students as the featured artists for our district employee birthday card. The 2025-26 birthday card artist is Pearland Junior High South's Maheen Quadri. Her art teacher is Imelda Valencia Gutierrez. So come on up, Maheen. Okay, this concludes our student recognition for the evening. So let's give her another round of applause. But now I would like to welcome Ms. Caitlin Owens to the stage to give a special presentation. Good evening. My name is Caitlin Owens. I am the teacher for the 18 Plus Live program. I want to thank you all first for giving me the opportunity to speak to you all tonight. I also want to take a second to introduce Mr. Sean Maurer. He's one of our transition teachers. Eric
006Maxwell, assistant principal at Fairlane High School, and Debbie Harris, our department chair. I want to introduce a special person. Last school year, CompuCycle, led by CEO Kelly Hess and President Clive Hess, helped us launch what we call our TechCycle program, which is a work-based learning initiative. It's an electronics recycling company, and CompuCycle is not only promoting environmental responsibility, but also helping our students make real-world connections between education and meaningful careers. Work-based learning is more than just career exploration. It's a bridge to the future. Thanks to the Hesses and their generosity and as well as their vision, our students are stepping into professional spaces with confidence and curiosity. On behalf of our school district, our transition team, and the entirety community, we are proud to present an award in recognition of your outstanding commitment to student
007success, career readiness, and community partnership. Your investment in our students is an investment in Pearland's future, and we thank you for that. So, Miss Kelly Hess is here. Thank you all so much, truly. This is such an honor. If anything, we should be giving y'all the award. It has been such an honor to work with all of you and Sean, Debbie, Eric, and Caitlin. Thank you all just for your commitment to making this happen. But you guys are leaders. I mean, to be able to do this with your school districts, so thank you, Board of Trustees, as well. Thank you just for making it a reality. I love it, love it. Hold on, I want to put my shirt on real quick. Awesome, we'll do the video right after this. I'm going to throw this
008on. I'm so excited. Okay, now we have a quick three-minute video that we're going to show to highlight what our students are doing. The collaboration between CompuCycle and the Paralyzed Transition Center. The Transition Center supports students with disabilities as they move from high school into adulthood. Through personalized instruction, community-based experiences, and vocational training, students gain skills they need for independence and employment. That's where CompuCycle steps in. As a Houston-based leader in electronics recycling, CompuCycle provides students with real-world job experience in a structured, supportive environment. Students assist with sorting and processing electronics, learning workplace behaviors, and sustainability practices along the way. This partnership is more than just a training opportunity. It's a launch pad for success. According to Paralyte ISD's latest data, 48.5% of students who complete transition services go on to post-secondary education, employment, or
009military service within one year of graduation. Paralyte ISD begins formal transition planning at the age of 14, ensuring students are prepared for life beyond the classroom. The Transition Center's collaboration with CompuCycle gives students a chance to apply their skills in a meaningful way while contributing to environmental sustainability. Statewide, Texas reports that students with disabilities who had IEPs and exited high school, only 36% enrolled in higher education. 43% were competitively employed. and 58% were engaged in either education or employment within one year. These numbers reflect the power of partnerships like this one, where education meets industry, and students are given the tools to thrive. Together, CompQCycle and the Parallel ISD Transition Center are proving that when we invest in students and sustainability, the results are transformative for individuals. for families, and for our planet. Thank you
010again to the educational leaders who built this partnership into CompuSci for all your work and partnering with us to help our students reach higher goals and achievements every day. So thank you very much. All right, at this time, we're going to move to the public comment section of the board meeting. This is the portion of the board meeting where the board receives input from patrons. There are no public comments in person this evening, but with the new Senate bill, we're required to tell you about any comments that we received electronically as well. And this month we received a comment from Ms. Chantel Provenzano, and she had questions to the board of trustees regarding Senate Bill 10. So just wanted to add that to the record this evening. All right, moving right along. We're going to
011move the closed meeting section of this to the end of the agenda this evening. And so now we're going to have a public hearing and open that public hearing at 5.14 p.m. regarding the proposed tax rate for the tax year 2025. Thank you, Dr. Berger. Yes, ma'am. So as you know, kind of how we do things is we approve the budget and then we approve the tax rate. So this is opening the tax rate hearing. We will go over the process that establishes the tax rate, and then we will have the board item and regular agenda to approve the tax rate. So just given the calendar update, we started this on June 24th, and we're going through July, August, and today. This is our public hearing to discuss the proposed tax rate and then have
012the tax rate adoption for this fiscal year. What happens with the tax rate is we have our maximum compressed tax rate, or the MCR. The state sets the ceiling and the floor for this, and based on property values and growth and comparison of local values versus state values, it kind of determines where you fall as a school district between the ceiling and the floor. Traditionally, Pearland ISD has been at the floor for the MCR tax rate. We are currently not at the floor because, as you can see on the note on the bottom for the tax year... 2025, our growth was 3.1%, was below the state average of 5.6%. So because of that rationale, plus the $140,000 homestead exemption that's being added, as well as a $60,000 exemption for elderly and disabled residents that came
013under Senate Bill 2 in the 89th session, as well as Senate Bill 23. So based on that, our district's adjusted property value growth actually declined by 8.88%. So therefore, we are not at the floor, but our maximum compressed tax rate would be $61.69. In addition to this portion of our M&O tax rate, we have our enrichment pennies. As you may recall, we have gone out and we've had great support from our community through our Vader elections, and we have maximized our tier two pennies at 17 cents. With that, we have our golden pennies, which are eight, and our copper pennies, which are nine, and it kind of gives you the approximate funding we get per penny based on the gold yield or the copper yield. So what happens is you take... that tier one of
014that 61 69 and you take the tier two of 17 and that gives us our M&O tax rate of 78 69. In addition to that our tax rate is compromised as you may recall from all the bond presentations and Vader presentations. We have two portions. We have the maintenance and operations is what we just discussed at the 78 69 and then we have our INS tax rate. What the INS portion is is the interest in sinking rate. This is where we pay off our bonds, pay off our debt, our capital expenditures, renovations. It does not go to personnel or payroll. It really is to pay our bond debt and other outstanding debts. The IAS rate is set based on the amount needed to cover those annual debt service payments, both principal and interest. And so
015with our financial advisor that we work with through the district, administration recommends maintaining the same INS tax rate of $34.81 as the previous tax year. This will allow us to sufficiently cover any debt service payments that we have for the 25-26 school year. So how it works is you take that M&O tax rate of $78.69 and the INS tax rate of $34.81, and it gives us our overall tax rate of $113.50. I'd like to highlight that this is the same tax rate as 2425. We are not increasing the tax rate. The maintenance and operation tax rate will remain at 7869. The interest and sinking tax rate will remain at 3481 to give us a total of 11350. Once again, this proposed tax rate for this year is the same as last year. This chart kind
016of shows the historical and current proposed tax rate. You can see from 2020, we have gone from $131.85 down to the proposed tax rate of $113.50. It's been an $18.35, $0.18 decrease over the past five years. You can see where the VADER was passed on those two years, and then our proposed tax rate once again is the same, $1.1350. One thing that is required, very similar when you may recall us talking about the bond elections, even though we were not proposing a tax increase to pay for the bonds, there is legal language on the ballot that said, if you vote for this, it is a tax increase, even though the rate stayed the same. As I pointed out and has been highlighted here, the tax rate is the same. It's $1.1350. But we are required
017to compare our tax rate to the no new revenue rate. So therefore, by comparison, even though our tax rate is not moving, but in comparison to the no new revenue rate, it is considered to be a 7.11% increase. And that, once again, is based off of property values. Property values go up even though the tax rate stays the same. Therefore, it is considered an overall increase. And so when we do move later to approve this, the motion will have to read, I move that the property tax rate be increased, although it is the same rate, by the adoption of a tax rate of $1.1350, which is effectively 7.11% increase to the tax rate. I know it seems very confusing as was the bond language, but this is statutory language in the way that it has
018to be approved because once again, it is comparison to the no new revenue rate and not necessarily the tax rate that we had previously in the previous year. Any questions? Hearing none, Dr. Berger. All right, I am calling for any constituents that are here tonight that would like to speak on the... public hearing regarding the proposed tax rate for tax year 2025. All right, hearing none, we'll close this public meeting at 5.20 p.m. All right, moving to the next agenda item, we have consent agenda items one through 13. Are there any items to be pulled this evening on consent agenda? Item eight. Item eight. Going from memory, that was the library one, wasn't it? Yes, sir. Yeah. Item eight. All right, any other items to be pulled from consent agenda this evening? I had a
019question on number seven. We can pull it, too. Okay, we're going to pull seven and eight this evening. I'm sorry. Consent agenda eight, approve district library materials listing compliance with Senate Bill 13. Yes, so I'll hear a motion for everything except for items seven and eight. Motion to approve the consent agenda items one through 13 with the exceptions of items seven and eight. Second. All right, I have a motion by Trustee Johnson and a second by Trustee Stuckey to approve the consent agenda. All those in favor? Motion carries 7-0. All right, Trustee Shuffler or Dr. Berger, item seven is the consideration and approval of renewal of memorandum of understanding with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Do we want to just move to Dr. Scheffler for questions? Okay. I just had a question in the
020language that was written in that. It kept referring to the department. I wasn't sure which department. Is that Department of Education? Is that just the way that the actual item was written up? I was confused as to who that was. Yes, being that this is the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board as well as the FAFSA, when it is listing department, it is Department of Education at the federal level. Okay, I had thought that it was Department of Ed FAFSA for people that's federal student aid applications and a lot of that goes through Department of Education. So just want to make sure that I understood that. So I'll motion to approve item seven with that clarification. Okay, I have a motion on the table. Second. I have a motion by Trustee Scheffler to approve item seven
021on the consent agenda and a second by Trustee Carter. Any further discussion on that item? All right, hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 7-0. All right, Dr. Berger, moving it to you for approval of district library material list in compliance with Senate Bill 13. Yes, I realize this has been pulled by the board, but before the board gives their comments or questions, I would just like to have an explanation for the board and have a request. This is in line with Senate Bill 13 where we had new library standards put into the new policy, which is FEB local was rewritten to align with Senate Bill 13. And so there has been parameters put in place for now that what happens in the process for procuring library material is
022our librarians create the list. The list is sent into the district. It is posted for 30 days for public comment, very similar to what we do with new instructional material all along. There's a social media post that goes out. There's an email that goes out, and then it's posted to our website where anyone can go and see all of the listed materials, and if they have a concern about one of the library materials, there's an inquiry process. This list of items, which is over 1,400 items on the list, was posted for 30 days. The board has the opportunity to review this list along the way, but obviously 1,400 items is a lot to ask our board to read every item and work through it. So time is of the essence. In looking at some of
023these materials, there has been some concern raised about some of the titles. not necessarily because we have validity of what's in the content, but because we don't have validity of what is in the content. There are questions about what's in between the covers because of the number of items we've had to review. I am asking that there are about 57 items that were of the 1,400 that I provided for you that I asked the board to consider motioning to adjust the list to have these items removed. not to prevent from approval, but to allow us to do a little bit more review of these books, bring that information back to the board in October, and allow you to then, with more information about these titles, make a more informed decision on approval or not approval,
024as opposed to today, if, say, you looked at the title Death in the Jungle. and you did not know what was in the book, but because of the title death, you're unsure it's appropriate for our campuses, so let's deny it. I don't wanna make a choice that is not informed, and due to the number of articles we asked to review, I propose that these 57 items be adjusted from the list and be brought back in October with more information for the board on approval. Thank you, Dr. Berger. All right. I have a feeling this is going to be an item that we all want to have a voice about. So I'm going to give this each and kind of go in order and make sure everybody has an opportunity to speak this evening. And I'll
025start with Dr. Scheffler since he's the one that pulled this item. I guess I would just seek some clarification because I wasn't sure if we were going to go ahead and try and approve the rest of the books on the list and just exempt these from approval for right now, or do we need that expedience, or does it behoove us maybe to review kind of the list that it sounds like a lot of us just flew past us. We didn't know to go look at it, honestly. Yes, sir. One of the reasons, if you remember, when we first started talking about EFB Local and the new process from Senate Bill 13, some of the concerns was in the past, librarians procured their own books and put them on the shelves, and that was the process.
026But now, because of the extra steps, there's a delay. And so librarians and books on the shelves and what students may need or what students may want to read, we want it to be... expedite the process as much as possible and not have new books not show up in the library until second semester. And so we've already approved one list, which is a little bit smaller. This is a larger list. And so... Of the 1,400 items, when we did multiple reviews through, I'll be honest, through AI models, through library reviews, through other portals that give library information, House Bill 900, back in the previous session, asked the vendors to rate their own books, but because of a lawsuit, that hasn't happened yet, so we have to do more internal researching. So when we reviewed the
027entire list... It was only these items that stood out as possible violations of Senate Bill 13. All the other items did not show any violations at all. And so that's why we pulled these out and that's why I'm asking for this modification to allow the other 1,400 items that are available for approval that have not shown any Senate Bill 13 triggers, if you will, or concerns or risk level to actually be approved so that they can be purchased and be brought into the libraries. And then just for clarification on the rest of the process, let's say that those other 1,350 books go through. There is still the process where parents can say, I object to this. It gets pulled. It becomes reviewed by committee. It's not a permanent thing, even if there's other stuff that
028sneaks by. Correct. Let's say, for example, that through the review of all these books, that one does come in and it may be inappropriate or there's some cultural value that a parent doesn't agree with. They have two recourses. One, as a parent, you can go into the portal or do a notice to our library managers and say, hey. I don't want my child to check out this book. And you can self-select that. Or if you truly believe it doesn't belong in anybody's library or availability to check it out, you can challenge it. And through that challenge process, it will be reviewed and then brought back up as an individual book that we don't believe belongs here based on the parent's concern. I guess I just would point out my one conflict with this, because I
029will fully admit I did not review the 1,400 books on the list. And even I've seen, I looked at these that you sent out. but I'm just not familiar with the others. And I guess the spirit of the law is to basically put a level of responsibility and not just oversight, but also some responsibility on board members for what gets put in the libraries. And so I have a certain degree of trepidation for voting for something which I did not review, which I was supposed to for 30 days. That's no one's fault but my own. And so there's that side of it. On the other side, I know that there's recourse to remove materials if they need to be removed. It might not be the best use of district resources to buy books and then
030have them pulled from the shelves. I also don't want to slow someone's educational process or their librarian's process or second guess their capabilities by holding up the entire thing. But that is my conflict and I know the legislature, their intent was to basically say the board is going to be responsible for these decisions. I need to take a look at the next one that's coming up for the next meeting, I guess. And on that, and again, 1,400 books for the board to review is a lot. We are going to do some internal measures to get you guys. Some more information other than titles and authors and grade levels where we'll try to get you more information So you have a more robust picture. The other thing I want to highlight is we do have Professional
031librarians that select these books that follow the policy that follow the curation Based on the policy and based on their professionalism. So I am NOT saying that these 57 books violate Senate bill 13 All I'm saying is based on the review that we did, it raised some flags that we want to get better understanding of why these books are being proposed. So we want to go back to the librarians and say, hey, you have proposed these books. They have had a higher medium risk level for whatever reason, by whatever keyword that was brought up in our search. Can you explain to us why this book is being proposed? Allow us to bring that back. Because of the other books. All the professional librarians have selected those. And if you look at some of those, there's
032some sports biographies, there's some nature books. There's things that you would look at and go, yeah, that's not an issue. These are the books that, hey, gave us pause because there is such a responsibility on the board. I don't want you to put you in a position where capacity didn't allow us to review these. And because of our desire to get books in the hands of kids, we made a mistake and approved the wrong books. So that's why I look to pull these just to say, hey, there's a little bit of pause that needs to happen here. Let's not rush the process with these, but I'm not saying that these won't come back to you for approval. Trustee Stuckey, do you have any questions or comments on this item? Thank you, Dr. Berger. I think
033you said it perfectly. Number one, we have great librarians here, and I think that when reviewing these, I too used like an AI model, and some of the books came up with certain themes, and without having read the books, it's hard to know how those themes are presented in the books by the author. There was one in particular. It's not on here. It seems to be perfectly fine. That was about a 2018 Japan lost the FIFA World Cup and was looking for the perfect striker or something. So it's a series of books. But it had a lot of one of the themes that came up was, you know, locker room talk of a sexual nature and male nudity and all that. So it turns out it was fine. None of that, that's something that AI
034generated that wasn't really present as part of the book. But some of these, again, come up with certain themes and without reading them, you don't know how the author's presenting those themes. A lot of them are about serial killers and how are we presenting what they did to young adults. So there are some concerns and I agree. I think we just. take a little more time to review these. The other ones are completely fine and our librarians did a great job on those. Thank you, Trustee Stuckey. Trustee Johnson? Thank you. If we move to further review these books, will they have to be republished for the 30 days? Will we have to put them back out to the public so they can look at the list? No, sir, the 30-day process is one time they
035have been posted but just because the community we had 663 during the 30-day period visit the website to where these were posted Just because there was no comment given doesn't mean it gives them a free pass because once again It's 1400 and the community is looking through it. So we have multiple layers of review and the board is the final layer Thank you. And 663 people viewed the site. The most recent Facebook post was shared twice with eight likes and comments. So did we get any official feedback back from the public on this? No, sir. No inquiries were made. Thank you. And I think that for the public watching, we did post these for 30 days and parents and people that are watching this at a later date, we encourage you to go look at
036the list. That's why we are publishing the list out there for 30 days for parents to look at that and provide feedback and stuff. And so I want to applaud the district for following the law even before it went into effect on September 1st because it wasn't in effect till September 1st. 30 days was posted before that to give adequate time. The only question I had, you mentioned a parent or guardian can go in and deselect a book. Is it just done by specific title of book or can they choose categories? So if I didn't want my child to see any... mysteries and I'm just picking a category. Can I deselect that or is it done by particular one book at a time? And I'm just curious for those and if we don't know that
037we can it's not gonna impact me today. I'm just curious how that process works for parents. I know for sure that it can be title specific. I am not sure if it can be genre. That is something that we'll have to research. It's through our Destiny software, and so that's something that we'll have to research, and we may get that answer through text here in a little bit. But I know for sure you can pick, I don't want this title, this book, and maybe this author, but genre I'm not sure about. I think just for, you know, as we go through this, it is an opt-out. of a book, not an opt-in. As a parent, you need to go and opt out of particular titles. You're not opting. It's a little bit different than what
038we did with clubs and after-school activities. You opted in to all those activities. In this case, parents, and I know this was to give parents more opportunities to be a part. They need to opt out of certain titles if they're not comfortable with their child checking those books out. Yes, sir, that is correct. You are able to go in. The children can check out any book that is in the library unless you go in to select specific titles that they cannot check out. You can do it by genre. But also, the parents do receive emails of the books that their child's check out, and that's even if they check out a book and turn it in within the same day. That's one of the things that we were able to update this year, so you'll
039still be able to see that so nothing will get past the parents of what their children are checking out. And I think y'all are doing an excellent, my comments are for those parents that are going to look at this and go, I didn't know. Yes, you can opt out of books. Yes, you should get communication of what book your child checks out, whether they return it in the same day. And yes, the list is posted 30 days in advance. So feedback is available for those wondering about that. And I think we're meeting that law and exceeding it because it didn't go into effect until September 1st. And what I'd like to highlight about that is right now. there is a September list that is out there that's for the 30-day posting. So if you'd like
040to go to our website, go to Curriculum and Instruction in the Library of Media, it is the top one that has the current list that's up for review. And the next link is an inquiry. If you see a book that you don't agree with, you click the inquiry and let us know. Are you including this in any of your burger emails that go out? Has this list been dripped in any of those? I'm guilty of not knowing if they are. I assume there's other communications, but just curious if we're including in that any district-wide email communication. It doesn't come through me. It comes through communication. They push it out through emails as well as social media. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Trustee Johnson. Trustee Carter? Yeah, I've got a number of questions. You've said that
041this selection, first of all, I am appreciative of... The effort here to expedite the ordering process by pulling out anything that we may need to discuss So that we don't have to hold up the rest of it I did look over the titles. I didn't investigate every single one of the 1,400 of them But it is it's something that we're charged to do and I don't want the kids to wait any longer simply because We didn't do it But my question is you said you pulled these and said they've stood out they stood out to whom They stood out to whom? There were, I had three board members ask questions about the book list. One, I didn't look at it, or two, this title is what's in this book. And so once I had those
042questions about some book titles, that's when internally I reflected and said, well, maybe as a body, we didn't have time to review all these in a way that we needed to. So what can I do to help with this? And that's when I took the whole list, put it through a couple models, and it returned these to me. Many of them were returned for what was talked about was violence or possibility of, there's like Mr. Stuckey said, there's some. biographies on serial killers or true crime, and so sexual assault and those things came up. Some were flagged for possibly language, mature language that may be in there, or mature themes that may be in there. Some of these are anime. Some of the anime was highlighted for violence or mature themes, which may not be
043something that we're worried about, but because universally, if it came up as a medium risk or a high risk, I just pulled them. Like, for example, one of the books is Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of... of death and dementia. That doesn't mean we're not gonna approve Edgar Allan Poe, but I didn't want to, because of my own bias, say, well, I like Edgar Allan Poe and there's not a problem with it, let's go ahead and put that on approval. But because it was flagged just like the rest of them, I wanted to be universally pulling all of them at the same time. Okay, so when we were running these AI models, was there any sort of factor or consideration for the grade level that it was appropriate for? Yes, ma'am, because as it is posted,
044you can see here, the grade level is here. So the entire list was uploaded, and the AI models were told to do deep research based on Senate Bill 13 and the qualifications of Senate Bill 13. And in Senate Bill 13, and this is Berger's summary of it. There are mandatory reasons why the board needs to pull it, and then there's some discretionary reasons. And so what the model did was it pulled it based off of mandatory and discretionary and kind of highlighted it, where in the red where it's a high risk, it felt like that's possibly a mandatory violation of Senate Bill 13, where the other one where it's content review, that may have been more discretionary. Okay, so I certainly don't mind. Obviously, with this huge amount of books that we're told to review.
045Oh, one other point I wanted to make was, just for everybody's knowledge, this bill requires them to, any book they're purchasing, even if it's already been on our library, if they're purchasing a new copy of it or a new... Version of it it has to go through this so some of these books may actually already be in our libraries the vast majority of the books on this list are young adults or grades 7 to 12 so I think The keywords that they're looking for, I would say that I would trust the librarians on this one. I know what I was reading when I was a young adult, when I was in seventh grade, and a lot of kids have very macabre interests. A lot of us, a lot of my generation was reading Stephen King
046in middle school. So I hate the idea of pulling this based on arbitrary keywords. So what I did was I looked at, I have a subscription to Common Sense Media. I find it to be a little bit more reliable than AI because these are people who have actually read these books and flagged every single little thing in it that anyone might find offensive. So it says, you know, here's what's good about this book, here's what's not good about this book, if you're a person who's concerned about language, if you're a person who's concerned about depiction of smoking, et cetera. I would think that... If we are going to dive back into this, then I would recommend that anybody who has concerns about approving books based on the titles needs to look beyond AI and look
047at Common Sense Media, look at one of these resources that are out there, or talk to the librarians, which you've already said will be part of the process. But I don't like the idea of wholesale. excluding books that have been recommended by our librarians. It's not just random books. These are books that professionals have looked at and said, this is appropriate. I know what my kids wanna read. I know what... What's going to garner interest in the library and keep kids reading and keep kids researching? And you know the sports biographies and things like that keep kids Involved in stuff that they wouldn't be involved in if we weren't hitting their interests, and so I am super concerned about this I know the law is the law and we have to do this but I'm
048against the idea of preemptively pulling things. I would like to have, I did spend a lot of time on this, and so I would like to have some voice in it when it comes to it. And I would also like to highly recommend that anybody who, I didn't look at all 1,400 books, but I did scan for what I knew would be sort of triggering title words and then looked it up on Common Sense Media. So I would highly recommend that everybody check that website out. Or there are multiples, and there are some that are skewed. a little more conservative and there are some that are just a little more facts and not, but I think common sense media is right down the middle. It always flags what people who get upset about these kinds
049of things might get upset about. And it also points out the storyline, the positive lessons of the book, all of that. Agreed. And one thing that we are working on with the September list that's currently put out there for the 30-day review, that's what we, in reflecting on this with Dr. Allen, myself, Ms. Leggett, of valuing the library and so realizing that maybe on the September list there's some books that may be... flagged that may be triggered. So let's get ahead of it and go to the librarians and say, hey, these books may be questioned by the board. Can you preemptively tell us why it was selected? Where does it belong? How is it education relevant? How is it student relevant? That way you have it beforehand and we don't have to do this again.
050I could totally see doing that for the ones that are highlighted in red here. The ones highlighted in yellow I find kind of questionable because I do think that the... what's calling it up is quite arbitrary. And I don't feel like we need to self-censor ahead of time. We haven't had any complaints. We haven't had any questions. It's been on the website for 30 days. And I don't see why we would hamper the librarian's ability to go ahead and order the books that they want in there. Because this is two pages. And the first 10, five or 10, I could see where we may want to... cover our bases and discuss it but And I agree with you, but I would say of over 1,400 books and 57 is what we're questioning I'd say our
051librarians have a pretty good hit rate on on being successful of getting books that we want approved that are sufficient for what we need in our libraries And the reason this was done was based on the thresholds that we set, I did not want to self-select. So if it hit it as a medium risk or a high risk, I wanted the board to have confidence that we weren't in the back office making determinations before it came to you. I also didn't want to present the list and if it was an all or nothing and the board had concern with one or two titles because one or two titles, then the whole list was not approved. So I'm trying to work a happy medium to where if there are concerns, we can get as many books
052on the shelves. as possible. I do appreciate that. I really do. So I understand that's what your goal is. I think that, you know, I just, I think, I think when you look at the list, especially the ones in yellow, it just seems, it seems like a computer has flagged something. It kind of reminds me of. them renaming a ship that was named after a soldier whose last name was gay because AI was going in and pulling any reference to homosexuality in government stuff. And it's like, I just don't want AI to make us look silly in the end by, you know, pulling death by whoopee cushion. Yeah. Ms. Carter, you said it was common sense media? I've been very helpful. I mean the AI models will pull some themes out of these books There
053was one in particular that had several themes that after About an hour of googling. I mean I could not figure out that they even existed in the book So I don't think that AI is always right. I think it can show you some themes and pull some stuff out, and then we could use the common sense media to do a little bit deeper dive into those things and see how they exist in the book and would it be appropriate or not. And I agree with you. We used common sense media. We used library resources that go through and do a synopsis of each book and kind of tell you why it's good or why it's bad. But I will fall back on where we want to go back to. are our librarians. We want to
054go back to our librarians and say, hey, we're working through this process, and I understand it may be a little frustrating right now, but we need to give the board some validity and veracity in what we're doing. And so can you help us so in the future, can we get better information on these books, why they were selected, so you're the expert. So help us work through this process to where we're better engaged in this and so truly yes We can use common sense we can use library sources We can use AI models that lean on that but ultimately I want to go back to the librarians and go okay Help me with this these were flagged. Why were they flagged? How can we prevent this in the future? How can we make sure that
055we work through this in an efficient way? Agreed Thank you guys. Thank you trustee Carter trustee Murphy. Do you have any comments or questions here? Yeah, I mean I think what I will say about this you know being on the board You know when I was elected to the board. You know I knew my job was governance right and That's oversight of the district oversight of the well-being of the students the teachers and the taxpayers and There's decisions that we make when we approve things when we procure things you know and my hope was never to get involved in the day-to-day actions of what our Dr. Berger and his employees do. And it feels a little bit like 1400 books is now the responsibility of us board members to kind of go through and look
056at, which is a lot. So I can tell you, speaking for myself individually, it would be difficult for me to look at this list and figure out and go through which book should be approved or not. So with that said, As always, I probably would most likely be leaning on Dr. Berger and possibly his staff to make recommendations, although ultimately we have to vote for these books. Are we going to find some that pop up? maybe that we approve or we don't approve. I imagine that happening over the years if this becomes our to do every month to look at these books. But I think we have to a little bit lean on Dr. Berger and what his staff are doing, which is looking at the books that are meant for education, that the reasoning
057behind why these professional librarians have ordered them, and come back to us with some. detail and some responses and then we have to make a best decision as a board to how we wanna approach this. So, you know, the law is the law that excludes the sexually-deplicit. things, right? So we know immediately those have to be pulled out. So, you know, there could be a lot of questions around the books that are pulled. And again, our job is to govern and make sure that's in the best interest of the students. So for me personally, you know, I'll be leaning, you know, towards, you know, Dr. Berger and his staff as well as, I mean, it seems like you guys, a couple of you have gone through with the AI and some of the other. common
058sense media to look for some of this stuff. So again, I think time is a resource and 1,400 books to look at as a board member is a lot. So I think for me personally, again, just gonna reiterate, I'm gonna lean probably the staff and what the responses are from them. Thank you, Trustee Murphy. Trustee Weimer, do you have anything to add here? Well, the bottom line is the state put us in this process, so we're part of the team on this. We have some of the best librarians. They're all great, and I'll say that, too, and I've worked with many of them, and two come to mind, Tori Landis and Debbie McCombs. And I think that our attorney mentioned to us, too, once that we hardly have any appeals if we've had any. So
059they're doing an amazing job is what I'm saying. But the bottom line is I agree with Sean Murphy. That's what I was gonna say. I feel like. On the record. The district, this time. Anyway, the district is helping the board with this. There's a lot of, like, we're down to 57. And if that means, you know, we need to look at that, we need to look at that. What I do like is I couldn't do this with, I'm learning here. So when the librarians come back with some of this, I think that we're gonna be. More part of the team we're gonna be insightful. We're gonna go. Oh, I mean, that's what we would do anywhere We have to ask the expert what's going on? What's this about? They know their kids. They know the
060best literature out there What's gotten the awards what's good what the teachers need for their support as well? So I appreciate what you did with this what the staff did for you know and looking at this it shows that we have due diligence and we want the best out there so I'm part of being part of that team and whatever I can do, I'll do. Thank you. Thank you trustee Weimer So just to wrap up these comments. I appreciate the dialogue and the civil conversation about this matter that could otherwise be very contentious we've all watched board meetings and seen things on the news of Boards having these kinds of discussions that get very heated and take a really long time to kind of process through So I appreciate each one of you coming to
061this from your own perspective and offering your unique thoughts to these decisions from From my perspective, I do want to underscore that our libraries are professionals and we do trust and appreciate them. But even I make mistakes because that's part of being a human. And I don't think that having accountability and having questions. asked minimizes that role or that profession at all. I think that questions and accountability help strengthen our entire system. And so while we're learning to get good at this, because it is something that was put upon us, not that we went out and decided on our own, we're gonna have to figure out a rhythm of what works for us and our district. And I think that this discussion tonight and the way that we're handling this is a step in the
062right direction. So thank you, Dr. Burger for. for making this happen this way, for opening the dialogue between us and librarians in a way that you are the conduit of that information so that we're not getting in the weeds of the day-to-day operations. The two things that I want to ask questions about is when I have seen the library postings on Facebook, they're not as visually appealing and eye-catching as other posts that we post. Can we look at a way of making that something that seems, can we fluff that up a bit? Yes, ma'am. Thank you, sir. And then emails to parents. I know that I received an email at the beginning of the year about how to go into the library system. Could we send that out maybe once every semester just so that
063we highlight that for parents as they're in the midst of the school year? That shouldn't be a problem. And actually, we can do it at the start of every nine weeks. Okay, I think that would be helpful just because sometimes parents don't even know they need that tool until they need it And so if we did it a few times a year, I think it just refreshes it and brings it to the forefront for parents Yeah, we can send that back out in October. Thank you, sir All right, so assuming there's no Murphy The last statement I do want to make on this is that if I were sitting in those meetings about the books, you know, the one thing that I always kind of emphasize is education. And the question I would want to
064know about the books is how does this tie back to education? And I'll give you an example. You know, we could take a book about 9-11 and say it's very graphic and violent, right? But it was a moment in history that changed our country. Or if I was doing a book on a... Mass serial killer, but I'm studying mental health. You know, how does that tie back to certain education? I mean those are the questions, you know I since I'm approving this that I would want to understand if I'm approving a book How does it tie back to an education of the you know to the student or whatnot? I'd like to point out that kind of the point here with the library, with the library as opposed to a classroom is that, I mean,
065yes, you use it for research, possibly writing papers, but it's also just to encourage the reading because the reading is, there's inherent education in the constant practice of reading. And so I volunteered. at the request of one of our librarians at the Teen Book Con, which, by the way, it happened in the spring, and I'll have to bring it to y'all's attention again because it is so cool. They have authors come in and sign books, but there are these kids that are just obsessed with reading, and they spend the whole day just running around, buying books, getting books signed, talking to each other, hanging out in little groups, and their lives are so enriched by what they read. for fun, and that's why there's even value in, I hate fantasy, and there's value in a
066kid reading it. There's a value in a kid reading Captain Underdog or Captain Underpants. I mean, just seeing them actually read, I do feel like is part of the educational process, and I just wanted to throw, I know it's obvious, but I can't really look at every book on this thing and say that it's necessarily going to help the child's pass the star test, but it would benefit the child. I wholeheartedly concur with what you're saying. I guess the question I have, my biggest concern in this list is the books about the serial killers. They are very graphic in nature from the research I've done, even on Common Sense Media. I feel like there are other books that we could have chosen that would have gotten to the same. understanding and content without the graphic
067depictions of what are displayed in these particular books. So I think that those are the things that I would like to, I wonder about in the midst of these discussions. So I concur, we're not in the room to have those discussions and whatever comes back to us, we can have a conversation about at that point about where we kind of fall as a board on those topics. But those are one of those times where... If I had a choice between the particular books chosen versus a more nuanced version of the same material, I would choose that. Yeah, I don't even know if there's a super nuanced version of a serial killer, but I understand what you're saying, and it'll be interesting to hear what the librarians say about it. And I suspect they're going to
068be like, hey, man, some of these kids are just dark. And I have some really light and fluffy friends when I was a kid who were... Their reading taste was quite dark and they had a great outlooks on life and they were good people So, you know, I suspect that'll be what it is, but I understand what you're saying. I mean it it does Keep in mind. They are all high school level. So Thank you. All right, trustee Johnson Yeah, the one thing as we go back and look at this list is, can we just know which ones are already in our libraries? Because I just did a quick, new to me that you can search and figure out which books, and even on our high-risk one, three or four of those books are already
069in our library. So just as we go through that, what information can we get more about that? Because I know the process is new, and the board wasn't approving those, but if they're already in our libraries, it seems like it's been in there for a while. Maybe that's something that we need to consider as we go through because we haven't had any complaints. But for example, a couple of these large print books are already in our, from one high school that I pulled up, they're already in those libraries. So just if that could be part of this 54 book review, if they're already in our libraries, just so we can know at the board. And if I can just highlight that, some of that is if the ISBN number changes, it has to come back
070to you. That's why they may be here. The other thing is, you are correct, there was no board oversight previously. So if we do go through this and we find that one of the books is in the library, but when the board looks at it, says we don't want to approve this book, then we remove it. And so it is full cloth. But yes, we can work on if the book is already in the library. because we had one of those, Dr. Allen, I believe it was Pride and Prejudice, because the ISBN number changed, it's on the list, but it's already in the library. Thank you. Trustee Sheffler. Yeah, just if I can summarize one point, I think. The reason, I kind of understand the spirit of the law that was imposed upon us, right?
071And again, it's one of those frustrations that I have where the state decides to interfere with my rights as a board member, as a trustee in the school district. Like the outcome or not, I think that we're an independent school district for a reason. Now that being said, I understand the intent. I think there's a key difference that we should keep in mind between the way school libraries function. in public libraries function. And we love reading, we're a reading family. We built a library into our house. My daughter was the librarian's assistant all last year, showing up to school 45 minutes early, elementary, just to help restack books. We're very much about books. But that being said, we take specific measures to try and protect our kids from content that we deem inappropriate for them
072as our children. And so when you're in a public school setting, there is a library component to every kid's experience in public school. And they're either going to be in public school or maybe you could afford to put them in private school or maybe you homeschool them. But basically, by law, for truancy reasons, the majority of kids are on campus and they're in trouble if they're not or your parents are in trouble if they're not. With these books, kids walk past these catalogs and they see the books and the titles and it piques their attention. Maybe it's something that they would never have looked into before or maybe it's something that sparks a curiosity in them. And I think curiosity is a good thing, but I also think it's a double-edged sword. We get to
073determine when it's age appropriate. And so as we're selecting books for a public school library, it is in everyone's best interest to make sure that they're basically the least objectionable material out there. I guess the way that I would put it out there, because I know that this becomes a political conversation, but you could take it in any valence to any extreme and say, okay, just like you wouldn't necessarily want something out there about... evangelical Christianity up on display, like we're celebrating this this month, or even if it's just on edge in the stack and kids are walking by and seeing it, you might also not want something out there about, well, just name any political belief to either end of the spectrum or any kind of lifestyle or any kind of violent content, graphic
074content, sexuality. There's just so many things that people try and guard their kids from. So I guess the summary would be that It is kind of, it's a public resource, but it's mandatory attendance. And so we do need to be guarded about what's in there and try and make it as unobjectional as possible. I do trust the librarians to do that. And just like you said. We all have errors in judgment. I'm a doctor, you know, and I've practiced for 20-something years. If something hasn't died because it was my fault, then I just haven't been practicing. I mean, that's just literally how medicine works is you make mistakes, and sometimes they're tragic. And so I just, I do appreciate the fact that we have some oversight over this. We have a moment where we can
075say, okay, we don't need to rush these through. Most likely, most of these are going to end up in there, and this is not a book ban. I know that'll be the conversation. Oh, it's a book ban. They're wanting to ban books. Feel free to go get the book. feel free to go to the public library and get the book. If it doesn't make it into our libraries, it doesn't mean that you're not allowed to have it. It just means that maybe it's content that some people or enough people might have some discomfort with that it doesn't need to be in a public school library. That's the end of it. By that same measure, though, you can't let one parent determine what another parent's children get access to. And when you say you can just
076go out and get the book yourself, you're... kind of ignoring the fact that a lot of kids don't necessarily have parents that are going to drive them to the bookstore, parents that have money to buy books, parents that have any value on the reading. So I think with our ability to opt our kids out of any book that we want, we're covering. everybody's ability to set what they want their kids to be exposed to. It's not like any of these books have a naked person on the cover or something like that that your kid's gonna walk by and be traumatized by. So I have to register my disagreement on that because I don't believe in letting... You tell me how I'm gonna raise my children just as you wouldn't want me to tell you how
077to raise your children. I'd like to point out that the state board said that we do have to decide what's in the libraries. That's our priority. We do, but you're saying you wanna keep things out that may offend certain people. And I'm saying we have the ability to review this stuff. I mean, we can go round and round on this. Yeah, and I think if we wait for this discussion for when we actually have the content back, we can have a more meaningful discussion about books once we have the information about what's between the covers. And that may be more productive of actually having the concrete material rather than the hypotheticals that we're talking about right now. For sure. I just want to make sure that we're working on, you know. That every voice on
078the board has an equal vote on whether or not a book gets banned. Sure. All right. Well, hearing all those discussions, thank you guys again for having this discussion and having a healthy debate about this topic. And I will call for a motion on this issue. Move to approve the library book with the exception of the. 50 plus books that were provided for further review. They come back to the board at the October meeting. Second. All right, I have a motion from Trustee Johnson, a second from Trustee Stuckey. Ms. Guzeta, do we need any further clarification on that item or you feel like you got it? Okay. Dr. Berger, do you feel like that encapsulates everything? Yes, ma'am, it does. All right. Any further discussion on this item? All right, hearing none, we'll call for
079a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 7-0. All right, very good. Now we're moving on to the regular agenda. Dr. Berger, we're talking about the consideration and adoption of a resolution setting the tax rate for the tax year 2025. Yes, ma'am. Based on the wonderful presentation in the... open session about the tax rate. What we're bringing for you is what we showed you. We are asking for the tax rate for the fiscal year 2526 to remain the same with the tier one maximum compressed tax rate at 6169. The tier two that has been approved by the voters is 17 cents for an M&O tax rate of 7869 with our interest in sinking tax rate the same at 3481. So the total district tax rate would remain $1.135. Please remember that we have to use
080the language that does say I move this to be a property tax increase, but it is not a tax increase based on the tax rate. It is the exact same tax rate as last year. Thank you, Dr. Burger. Any questions on this item? All right, Mr. Johnson looks like he's ready to make a motion. I pulled it up so I wouldn't mess it up. I move that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of a tax rate of 1.135, which is effectively a 7.11% increase in the tax rate. Second. I have a motion by Trustee Johnson and a second by Trustee Carter. Any further questions on this item? All right, hearing none, we'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 7-0. All right, Dr. Burger, we are moving to the
081consideration of additional personnel request. Yes, ma'am. We were coming before you to ask for additional personnel. focused on our special education needs. We are recommending the addition of two new positions. One position is needed as a PEARS aid position at Cockrell Elementary. Currently there are two PEARS classrooms with 16 students with one student requiring one-to-one attention. Based on the needs of the students in the PEARS program, an additional PEARS professional would provide better coverage for our students' educational needs, safety needs, and IEP needs. The other request is for a new resource inclusion teacher at Silver Lake. Elementary. Currently the teacher to student caseload is 1 to 28 with an additional 8 students in the process of initial evaluation, meaning they may qualify. This will exceed the recommended ratio for those students and so you have
082before you one PEARS aid, one resource inclusion aid. I would just like to also announce for everybody that is watching that the number that you see is total cost of the person, not necessarily the salary of the individual. And so the annual budget impact is all inclusive of that personnel benefits and everything. And if you have any questions about those, Dr. Nixon is available. What's the recommended ratio for the resource and inclusion? Thank you, Trustee Carter. Trustee Johnson, you had a question? Okay. I just want to point out that even though, because I kind of get sticky about these topics sometimes because our enrollment is decreasing. And I just want to point out that even though our overall enrollment is decreasing, which would sometimes project a lower staff number need, our enrollment of students with
083special needs is increasing. And so we still need the general education support and the support staff are in conjunction with the needs of the specific students that are enrolling in our district. All right, any further questions or concerns? I'll make a motion to approve these two new positions. All right. I'll second. I have a motion by Trustee Stuckey and a second by Trustee Scheffler. Any further questions or concerns on this item? All right, hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 7-0. All right, that's all of our voting items this evening, but we have some really good content by Dr. Burger, the finance team, Ms. Pham, and yeah, I think that covers it. So have at it, Dr. Burger. All right, so we will start with the superintendent monthly report.
084Dr. Allen, my bad, sorry Dr. Allen, I didn't mean to leave you out there. Dr. Allen is gonna come up. So we're gonna get more in line with our strategic scorecard on the superintendent report. What I'll do is I will highlight priorities one, two, three, and four, and the first one is priority one, while Dr. Allen is getting ready for the academic performance presentation. Normally in January or February, the board will have a taper report, and that's a summary of all our academic data, and it aligns with our strategic scorecard. I've asked Dr. Allen to give a preliminary report on our STAR data and our I-Ready data outcomes for 24-25 school year. I don't want to steal a stun there. If you haven't seen any of the news articles, we did pretty good. I'd like
085to highlight that the data he's going to review in more detail highlights Pearland ISD as a school district at each grade level performance. But at the district level, Pearland ISD earned an A rating. To put that in perspective, only 9% of districts in the state of Texas earned an A, and 10% in the greater Houston area earned an A. So obviously we have greater competition around Houston, and Pearland ISD is that. We improved our schools in all three categories. 91 in student achievement, which is up from an 89, 88 in school progress, which is up from an 87, and 92 in closing the gap, which is up from an 89. I want to shout out to our 23 campuses. None of this happens without the effort of our students who are supported by our teachers,
086who are supported by our administrators, our counselors, and everyone else from cafeteria workers to custodians. The magic happens on the campus. Every campus either maintained their A rating or improved their overall score. I want to highlight C.J. Harris improved by six points. Carlson improved by eight points, Massey Ranch improved by 10 points, and Pace approved by 17 points, and the district overall composite score increased from a 64 to a 65. And you may say, wow, one point. You have no idea the monumental effort it takes to move a district composite score, and I just wanna give kudos to our CNI department, our teachers, our students, our parents, and our community for supporting us to reach this. And Dr. Allen will go over some specific grade level details. All right, thunder stolen, but good evening. So
087gonna go over our 2025 academic performance tonight. I just want to reiterate one thing that Dr. Berger said, definitely. Shout out to our students, the hard work of our teachers in the classroom, the administrators with their instructional leadership, and all of the support that happens here at ESC, not just from the CNI department, from all the instructional departments, the advanced academics, multilingual, CTE technology, special programs, CNI, working all together to help move the needle forward. So it is definitely a group effort, and that's how we are able to get. to be successful. So a quick summary of what we'll talk about tonight, we'll look at star performance, we'll look a little bit at growth, I-rated growth, and as well as some of the steps that we'll continually take this school year to ensure that we
088maintain and continue to improve. Just a real quick highlight right here, as Dr. Berger stated, not many districts have that A rating. If you're looking here in the Houston area, there are four of us that do have that A rating. We also have the highest ecodisc percentage of any district that has an A within the Houston area. So it just goes to show again the work that we put in to ensure that every child in Parallel NISD has the opportunity for success. So I have the star performance here. I know this data has been presented to you all in probably multiple different ways already. What we looked at was I broke down each one of the grade levels and tests, and we looked at the meets level. As you know, the passing performances are approaches,
089meets, and masters. Here in Pearland, we seek for our students to be meets as that shows that they are proficient on grade level. And I'll just kind of go through where we were this school year and talk a little bit about how those improvements happened from last year as well. So if we're looking at our third grade scores, we see that we saw a significant increase from 2024. I'll just back up just a moment. So when looking at each one of these slides, what you will notice throughout is that Paralympic ISD is ahead of the state and the region. There's only going to be one area in which we're not, and we'll discuss some of the steps that we're taking to improve in that area. But you will see throughout that we are ahead. So
090what I'll also speak to is how we increased from last year as well. So we significantly increased in math last year. The state slid by two points in the region, increased slightly. But in math for our third grade students, we went up eight points. Our RLA... scores were pretty much about where they were from last year from our third grade students so we maintained there. If we're looking at our fourth grade scores, as you can see, reading is pretty much the same as where we were from last year. But math, we grew five points while the state and the region only grew one. But one of the points that I would make about the fourth grade scores, if you remember last year when we had this presentation and we talked about third grade and we
091saw where those students were, we talked about how that was the group that started kindergarten at the height of the COVID pandemic. And so we saw those scores being a tad bit lower. When you're looking at this fourth grade scores and we compare them to our fourth graders from last year, our reading is where we were last year and our math actually increased, which means that those students that were lower than what we wanted them to be last year, that is the strength and the gains in which they made because even though we're comparing them to a different group of students, they were able to maintain that same level of success that those students had even though they were much lower than their third grade students when they were in third grade. Definitely huge games
092made in fourth grade for this school year. We'll be continually watching those students and evaluate them as fifth grade as we continue on as we know we want them to continually be successful as they move along. When we're looking at our fifth grade scores, we saw gains of 5% in our reading, which outpaced the region and the state. Math regressed, but we saw a small gain of 1%, even though it regressed in the state and the region. And then science, while the region and state also decreased as well, we increased in our science scores in fifth grade. So we're looking at our sixth grade scores, RLA. Again, we're still ahead of state and the region in everything. As I said previously, RLA gained three points while the state and region went down. And in math,
093we did decrease, but the state and the region decreased as well. All of us were about a 1% to 2% decrease there. So we'll be looking at the cut score of that test was the same. So that means that there's probably some different things in test items. Our specialists. are going through tests or already have done that and making those adjustments within the scope and sequence within the curriculum to make sure that if there's things that had a little more weight than we thought that they would have that they're making those adjustments in the curriculum so we're spending the time on the instruction in the areas in which we need to grow. We get to seventh grade our RLA in the middle level has always been a strong area for us here in Pearland ISD
094and seventh grade again was the same in RLA but then when we get to math that is where you see that one area where we are below the rest of the state and as well as the region at that 29% of meets. A couple of things with that. We never want to be below the state, and there's no rationale or excuse for that. However, one thing to note is that when you're looking at the state and the region testers, there are advanced students that are in those groups. Our students are all on level. I believe that we are still able to be able to surpass what the state and region is doing even with that. And moving forward, more of districts will be... Probably within the same plan that we are because of the way
095that state has changed the advanced math pathways that we're able to do But so this is not necessarily in the apples to apples comparison However, we still want to be above regardless of whether it's our own level students advanced students that is we still want to make sure that we're above the state and the region and there's some things that we've put in place with that with some targeted scheduling spiraling for the implementation of building thinking classrooms which is some of the innovative things that we talked about last year at this time we're utilizing our advisory time and we also this year and we'll talk a little bit about that later but we'll have instructional coaches at two of our title campuses at the junior high level which will be able to provide some additional
096support there as well Moving on to eighth grade, RLA, pretty much where we were previously with math having a slight increase across the board, state, region, and us. But again, we are significantly above. And we see the same thing in our science and social studies as well. So when we get to our EOCs, we went up three points where the state and the region both decreased. And when we're looking at algebra, we had a 5% increase there. The state did go up 4% and the region went up seven. We had five, so we did not stay with that regional pace. So we'll be looking at that, but we still are 20 points ahead of the rest of our region. And then when looking at biology, we increased by 4% to that 84, which again, significantly
097above the state and the region. When we get to our English 2 scores, we increased slightly there, and there was also a slight increase in U.S. history across the board. U.S. history was not our, a little bit not where we expected them to be, so we'll be working on that as well, even though we did have that slight increase. But we also, while this is meets, we'll be looking at our meets and masters in that area to make sure that we get back to where we have been previously in that subject. So when we're looking at growth in the accountability system, what they do is they take all of our reading scores and all of our math, and they are looking at how students have grown. So students that maintain at meets or masters, they
098get... points for that and then students that move up a performance level either get a half point or point depending on where they were and where they're going to. These slides are slightly this is the one slide that's slightly different from what you already have because after going back with my assessment director we checked the numbers and I was slightly off but last year 2024 we did have 75 percent of growth in RLA whereas this year we have 76. Last year, 24. We had 72% growth, and then 25, 75. So increases in both of those. As you know, our strategic plan goals are for reading within four years to get to 81% and math, 79. So we are moving in those directions, but still quite a bit of work to do. So that is all
099of our STAR scores. I'm about to get into iReady, but if there are any questions about any of the things on the slides for STAR. Might be some low-hanging math growth in that eighth grade cohort this year that you could pick. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Definitely. Definitely. Looking at our I-Ready growth. Okay, so last year we began the I-Ready program. We started, we had all of our students with the diagnostic in grades first through fourth. We only had specific campuses and students that were utilizing the personalized learning and reading when we started the school year. So this shows you where we started in the fall when they did their B-O-Y and then this is the E-O-Y that they took in May. As you can see, we increased significantly with the number of students that are
100at that early. on grade level or higher, but more importantly, significantly decreased those students that were two grade levels below. So we started with 20% of those at the start of the school year with only eight at the end of the school year. Now, if you're looking at the overall, the green, and that being at 66%, you would say, well, we still only have 66% of our students that are reading on grade level. But what I really use is a vertical scale score, which is something that is supposed to be predictive of how students are gonna be successful on STAR. So it's not like a BAS. where they get a Lexile or Pontus and Fennell, I probably said that wrong, Donna, get me, but where they get the letters for their reading levels, it's more
101to be a predictor. So what we should see is where we're having more students on grade level here, it should correlate somewhat with where we see in meets on STAR. If you go back and you were to look to see in reading our numbers in iReady Growth. If we're looking at where those students are, as far as in the green as being on grade level or higher, those numbers are higher than what we have in our meets and reading. But I-ready does not have writing, right? And that's 25% of the test. So there are going to be some students that are going to fall up and down within that because of they're not being, we're not looking at that when we're looking at I-ready. So when you take the start test, that's going to be
102a little bit different. Math should be a closer comparison. And when we get to those numbers, you'll see that we're slightly. lower in I-Ready than we'd had on our meets. So we actually did better than what I-Ready predicted to us. But also with math, we did not get the diagnostic until much later in the school year. So we have a much clearer picture in reading than I think we have in math. And after this second year of having both programs, I think it'll give us a better idea of how it's really supporting us when we compare that Nevada back to last year. And this morning we actually discussed, we looked at some of the BOI. that we have so far, not all of our students have taken it. Can I intercede there? No, I just
103wanted to, for public purview and not understanding B-O-Y, E-O-Y, can you help understand those acronyms for anybody that might be paying? So with the iReady Diagnostic, what it does is it gives you a beginning of the year assessment. Then there is a MOI, a middle of the year assessment that we do in January. And then an EOY that students actually would take after start testing. So they may be a little tested out by the time we get to EOY, but they will do that system. And what that does is that it allows for us to be able to see their growth from the beginning of the year throughout. But most importantly, what it also does is it gives the teachers feedback specifically on where students are struggling and what they need to inform their. instruction.
104So the most important part of assessment is to be able to inform instruction and it gives them exactly what they need. And with the iReady program and also having their personalized learning, it automatically programs students into some online lessons that they take that are specifically prescribed for their individual needs. So the teacher has this data to be able to use it for their instruction. There's lessons built in the system that they can pull to also be able to use, as well as the student has access to that online, which they can do in class and at home as well. you saying now that the personalized learning opportunities, so I hear you saying that was a huge chunk of data that you just shared. So what I heard you say is that we're doing reading, we
105were started with reading on iReady and only a chunk of those reading got the personalized learning services, or services, whatever you want to call them. But then as we progressed through the year, we noticed that that was working well. So we... expanded the personalized learning services to more students? No, we started the school year, we looked at some special populations of students, and we also targeted some specific campuses. There were also some additional campuses that purchased the personalized learning on their own as well. We had the diagnostic for all of our first through fourth grade students. What happened with math is there was a grant through TEA. that we received later in the school year, and that allowed for us to be able to get it second through fourth, with also some fifth and sixth
106grade students as well, to be able to have the math diagnostic, and it came with the personalized learning. So we, this year, because we saw the success last year, so this year we have added the personalized learning in reading across the board for everybody, first through fourth grade, and we're still in the grant for math as well. But we've also extended... that up to fifth and sixth grade. So now we would have first through sixth, fifth and sixth is only at our title campuses, but we would have that, the math I ready all the way through sixth and the reading through fourth. Gotcha. All right, that's helpful because that gives teachers an extra tool in the toolbox to supplement what they're doing in the classroom, the small group instruction and all those kinds of things.
107Awesome, thank you. So that next slide is just a breakdown of the individual grade levels and how they did throughout the course of the year from the B.O.Y. to the E.O.Y. And were EOY predictive? You said that the reading was slightly under what our star score were. And you're talking about EOY or you're talking about middle of year or end of year? So when we are looking at, for our purposes throughout the course of the year, we're looking at the MOY, right? Because obviously that's the next before and that is the I-READYs. prescription as well that you're looking at it from that perspective. What I'm saying is when we're looking at the end goal, even if we're looking at the EOI and we're looking at how many of our students are on level, what that
108should be is correlated somewhere with meets. So our I-ready scores in reading are higher than our meets because writing is not impacted there. That's my... guess, right? That that would be the reason why we have a larger skew there than we do in math, whereas they're doing pretty much the exact same thing within the program and the diagnostic that they're doing on the start test, whereas in reading, there's this added piece that's not within the diagnostic. Thank you for clarifying all those things. I guess in my mind, I'm thinking just, I know you guys, I don't, you're probably thinking, why is she asking so many more questions? But I guess I'm correlating this to that new state. the new testing bill and knowing that I ready is likely to be a resource like we're gonna
109continue doing Beginning of your middle of year and then the star at the end of your assessment based on the new bill that's come out from legislation Correct. That is correct. And I already may be one of the options that we can utilize and we'd have to look at that, which one are we going to choose to be able to do that. But yes, moving forward, there will be a BOI, MOI, and then that EOI or STAR, whatever they decide to call that last assessment moving forward for the starts of 27, 28 school year with the possible of the pilot for next school year. So. And so by the end of this year, we'll know if that predictability is really on par or do we want to switch to a different assessment? we would have
110some data points to be able to look at to make those decisions, yes. Awesome, thank you. Yes, ma'am. So here we have the math growth overall. This is all students. As you can tell, those numbers are a little bit lower if you look at the bottom where it says students assessed. That's less than what we had in reading, but part of some of the conversations we had earlier about the amount of students and all of that. And again, when you look at those levels, those students that are showing on grade level, it is more aligned, probably about four to five points with our meets versus those huge gaps that we have in reading. and then the breakdown by the individual grade bands as well. So things that we are continuing to do, this is not
111an exhaustive list by any means, but just some of the things that we're gonna continue to do this school year to improve, because we're continuously looking for ways to improve. So the curriculum development, we've been revamping the curriculum documents that is still... huge efforts of ours to make sure that we're providing that quality written curriculum for all of our core classes. As I spoke, I already implementation last year, it was a little bit of a little bit here, a little bit there. Now we're kind of full. full press at the elementary level of having the I Ready program while also taking the math into that fifth and sixth grade level at our title campuses. I'm thankful to you all that this has allowed for us to be able to increase our instructional coaching team from
112five to 18. I do believe that a lot of the gains that we were able to make at the elementary level was attributed to the instructional coaching. We only had five people that were stretched amongst eight campuses last year. This year we will have those 18, so now we are covering all of our elementary campuses except for one. We have all of our middle schools covered as well as our title junior high campuses as well. So we believe that that additional support, being able to give teachers real time PD right in the moment is gonna be extremely helpful in us continually moving forward and getting better. But the other campuses still have access to instructional coaches? Yes, sir. Which campuses are missing instructional coaches? In the elementary level, Silver Crest does not have an assigned
113coach, but the two coaches at Silver Lake are available to be there. They're just not assigned. They're on a rotation. And then when we get to junior high, East and Miller currently do not. But they would also but then that is also where we have our so we still have our curriculum specialists, right? so with the coaches being able to do more of that push out and be on the campus that does free them a Little bit more to be able to provide those supports within the junior high campuses and the high schools where we don't have the coaching So there's still a layer of support to be there as well And we can always be able to utilize our coaches in other spots when it's needed. So Instructional leadership series, something that we really
114ramped up last year and is continually just working on and improving, getting better, ensuring that the CNI meetings and things that we have here are really preparing our campus administration for instructional leadership. So ensuring that the things that we are doing with teachers, that we're showing them, we're mimicking some of that and showing that to administrators so that... their teachers aren't getting trainings on doing things like a building thinking classrooms, for example, then you're held accountable for going into the room to ensure these things are happening, but you never were trained, you never saw it, you don't know what this looks like. So we're trying to make sure that we're giving them all of the same tools that we're giving teachers and giving them the prompts and all the things to be able to continually
115manage that. This is not a skill that they lacked, but we want to continue to build on it and improve it because that is how we're continually moving forward. And then our- Ask a question there, if you don't mind. The professional development piece, I heard a lot of really great feedback about new teacher orientation this year. new teachers really actually reached out and sent emails about how much, especially when they came from other districts, how much better prepared they feel compared to other starts that they've had. So kudos to you and your team and technology and everybody that kind of came together to make that happen. But I also am wondering about returning teachers and the PD days they got. Did you get any feedback? I did not get any feedback, but notoriously in the
116past we've heard. I'm just sitting here doing like the same old things and this is boring and that kind of art. Do you have any thoughts or feedback about that part of it? Two things out first. I'll just welcome week. I appreciate the kudos, but that's dr. Dahl camps team They're the ones who really put that on and make all that happen We have our small piece technology is also a big part of that as well specifics that I received was that curriculum and instruction in the whole day there that they had more hands-on ready classroom experience and they were told with stuff in addition to everything that was offered but see and I really it was an addition to But I don't want to minimize the impact that CNI had that day and especially
117classroom management tools that they walked away with. So don't minimize your impact there, sir. And as far as the returning teachers for the professional day of the week, I think Dr. Berger wants to jump in with some feedback that we've, some survey data. But what I've heard verbally has been positive. But I'll let him share some of the numbers. Part of the superintendent was on priority two is staff. And one of those is Pearland ISD will increase staff satisfaction with job-aligned professional development. and we had 1,606 surveys completed just from back to school training, so that was new teachers, returning teachers, auxiliary. 91% of those surveys felt training was very relevant, and 80% felt very ready to use that information. And so we had that broke down by all departments that were training, so the
118feedback we received from those 1,600 surveys was yes, you gave us what we needed, and yes, we feel prepared to use it in the classroom. Thank you. And that takes me to that last thing, which was the foundation's blueprint. So specifically for our new teachers, one of the things that we wanted to create was a new teacher pathway of what is. means to be a teacher here in Parallel and ISD. That's whether you're a first year teacher or you have experience but you're new here. And we created a set of courses. They went through some of that during Welcome Week. There'll be some more of that training on September 19th at our next PD Day. And the goal is to continually build that, continue this while also building a year two, possibly a year three
119as well pathway so we can make sure that we are supporting our teachers when they're coming in you know those first two to three years are very important they need to feel supported they need to feel like they're getting the training that they need and our dog camps team is working on the mentoring side of it we'll work on the PD side of it and hopefully together with that we'll provide a good program where teachers come here and they want to stay so I don't want to jump the gun there but I think you made another important point that the board may not be aware of but that Dr. Burger and I, you may have it in the staff part of this, but the mentoring program and using Title I funds. Can you talk a
120little bit more about that with the board? Yes, through conversation with Dr. Allen and Dr. Dahlkamp when we were reviewing Title funds, when we thought the federal government was taken away and we had some leftover that we wanted to spend, the idea came up for our zero-year teachers, can we take some of that money and get retired teachers that are current subs or not subs on board? to go into our zero-year teachers and not necessarily teach them how to do the curriculum, but teach them how to be teachers, to give them that support of, you are a brand new teacher, you may not know how to do anything, but let me bring a veteran teacher in and visit with you 15 hours a week. Yes? 15 hours a week for six weeks. And that has
121been, we hope, a monumental thing for retention of those teachers, that they feel like they weren't isolated and left alone. They had that resource, and they were able to lean on somebody when they needed them just to help them get through, what am I supposed to do as a teacher? Thank you, Dr. Berger. Is there any opportunity that we can do more of that in the future? Is this a one-time thing or is this something that's sticking? No, that is the goal. One, we want to improve it. I mean, we rolled it out. I don't want to say we rolled it out hastily, but, you know, we're like, hey, we have this idea, school's starting, let's go. And so working with Dr. Dahlkamp and our new personnel there in HR and working with CNI, we
122want to create a more robust model, but a more efficient model. Awesome, thank you. And to piggyback off that, President Carbone, I know one of our goals was also to see more student teachers within the district, and I think that's another opportunity for student teaching through the district, and we do offer them employment. They're learning the Pearland way. They're learning that opportunity. They're getting skills from valued teachers within our district, and I think it all ties into that. As you say, maybe we can't increase it that way, but another goal will benefit that one on the end as well. Very good. Thank you, Dr. Allen. Thank you all. Any other questions? I just want to share, like this is a part of the strategic plan that we start talking and shining the flashlight on things
123that are important to increasing those outcomes on that strategic plan. So as we shine the light on curriculum and instruction, that only makes the focus for everyone shine the light there. So thank you for your work. Thank you for everything you've explained to us today. And we look forward to more to come. Thank you. At least I do. And so as Ms. Carbone said, in October we'll have a deep dive, our first deep dive in the strategic plan. But to touch on priority number three, which is community, I just want to highlight our communication department. If you look at any of our metrics, any of our social media metrics, any of our publication metrics, through the lens of district to community communication, and you compare it not only to school districts but to business and
124industry, we have a high top performer. engagement score in all of our social media. The one area where we're going to look at is Instagram and that's really reaching our younger audience, our students and getting them involved and getting better connected. But if you look at any of our logistics or any of our metrics or any analysis of our communication, we are meeting our goal of enhanced transparency and accessibility to our district communication. The other thing we had in community was strengthening relationships with local and state leaders. I just want to say that through the House Bill 8, we worked very closely with Representative Buckley as well as Representative Berry on House Bill 8, which is the accountability bill. We also engaged with Raise Your Hand Texas and the Texas Rural Education Association. We wanted
125to robustly engage in this conversation, and we did that through that process. House Bill 8 was passed. Pearland ISD was part of that voice of either concern or questioning that bill, and so we will continue to do that as part of our strategic plan. I also want to highlight community events. As we said, the Pearland Expo is coming up starting tomorrow. Advocacy ambassadors, that is 52. adult volunteers that said, yes, Mr. Burger, we'll meet with you four times during the school year so that we can learn more about public education and what it means to promote parallel ISD and public education at the local, regional, and state level. That meeting starts tomorrow. Student Ambassadors is back and that begins on 9-22. And if you missed it. PHS Homecoming is this Friday. On priority four, which
126is finance, I just want to focus on the systematic long-range facility planning and management. One of the goals is to improve our maintenance and facilities. We had, in August... 4,874 maintenance requests, we had 788 schedule requests. We had a 78% maintenance completion rate on that 4,874 and we had 100% schedule request completion. So I just wanna highlight our maintenance and operations departments on working to reach that goal. And that concludes my superintendent report. Dr. Burger, how many ambassadors were in your ambassador group last year? Last year we were around 65, 70, that would show up. How many applications did you receive to apply to continue that program? Over 400. I appreciate your work there in reaching. And so we have grown, it's difficult and I just wanna say of the over 400, they all qualified.
127So it's really a random pool for available seats, but I did grow it to a hundred. So we have a hundred student ambassadors starting on 9-22. Thank you for the opportunity to give students a voice really appreciate that all right We're moving along to the report on my we're going to talk about fund balance The experts are behind me, so if you have questions, they will come forward. We have talked about wanting to have a fund balance overview or training to discuss what fund balance is. You always see it in the budget reports. You always see it in the amendments. You always see us talk about it. We talk about the number of fund balance days. One of the goals the board has given me is we want a 95-day fund balance. But what we
128really haven't ever talked about is what does fund balance mean? Some of us may think, well, that just means we have this much money sitting over here that we can spend any time we want to for anything we want to whenever it comes up. It's just a piggy bank that allows us to have those funds. That's not necessarily the case. Fund balance is not cash balance. Fund balance is not the same as cash in the bank. It is a snapshot of our district financial health at the end of the year. Cash balance is cash in the bank. Fund balance is our net worth. And so fund balance is divided into many categories, and we want to break that down for you. There are five categories of fund balance. You will hear them talk about GASB
129all the time, how fun it is to work with GASB procurements and announcements. But governmental funds are divided in an unassigned fund balance, which is discretionary funds. That is our cash flow. It's for management or emergency reserves. It's very, very flexible. And then you have assigned fund balance. That's where management and that's... me and us, where we set aside that we want this assigned balance in our funds. It's planned, but it's a little bit more flexible. Then you have committed fund balance. That's board set aside. That's where y'all have made a decision or a resolution that says, we want to take this much money and set it aside and commit it for these reasons. And we'll talk about what those reasons were and how much money that is based on board resolution. Then we have
130restricted fund balance. This is strings attached. It's for grants and bonds and debt service. And then we have non-spendable. What this is, it's money that's already locked away. It's in our inventory and it's in items that we have in our warehouse and across the district or prepaid. So those are the five categories of fund balance. Mr. Berger, may I ask a question? Always. Under the governmental slide you were on, what is a, under our by-function... other intergovernmental charges, function 99. Where do you see function 99, sir? In our budget. Oh, not on this slide. Not on this slide, no. Sure, experts. I just figured since we were on the subject. It's tax collections from Brazoria typically are coded to function 99, other governmental entities. So what we pay to Brazoria County? Yes. So days and
131fund balance collection, assigned and unassigned only. Historically, all five fund balance categories were included in our days of fund balance. So at the end, and you look, how many days of fund balance do we have? And we say, we have 135, or we have 127, or we're going to have 142. That was us looking at all the categories and presenting it to you. That's not necessarily the best way for us to look at it. And moving forward, that's not how we want to present it to you. How the business service department wants to present it to us and what we want to think about is when we talk about fund balance, we want to talk about assigned. and unassigned, the more flexible pieces of that. And so you can see what we should be counting
132and what we necessarily shouldn't be counting because when you're looking at committed and restricted and non-spendable, it's kind of a misnomer to count that in our fund balance because that's already allocated somewhere else. And so if we say to you, we have 142 days and we're counting all five categories, we're giving you a... wrong picture of what our fund balance is and what may you want to just spend. Like Mr. Murphy has talked about with replacement of technology. Why are we going out and passing bonds and taking on debt when we have such a large fund balance? Why don't we use our fund balance to take care of these technology devices? Or when we talk about salaries and raises and we want to get to that point. Well, if we have 142 days sitting there,
133why aren't we using that money for raises? Because it's a misnomer for us to present it to you in that fashion. So we want to move forward when we talk about fund balance, really talking about assigned and unassigned to give you an idea of what's flexible. Can I ask you a question about that? Sure. Excellent. We're not the only people that report fund balance. So what is the generally accepted practice of the five categories that should be reported? Clarify that question for me. Oh, I'm sure other school districts because our creditors look at our fund balance as part of our metrics right and TASB looks at it and so I know that we're not the only ones reporting what our fund balance is so what is the generally accepted practice for which of those five
134categories should be included? Is it what we've been doing with all five or is it the two that are being highlighted right now? It's the two that we've been highlighted right now. So on the next slide, it's going to go over what best practices and benchmark from the state and from GFOA and from credit rating agency. It's the assigned and unassigned. But historically, we've done all five. So we've not been adhering to... Historically, when we look back at the data, we do fall in between 90 to 120 days of assigned and unassigned. So based on the TA benchmark to get the full point on the first report, all you need is 75 days. That's basically the minimum, right? And based on like normally a rule of thumb is that's the minimum benchmark. that you want
135to not go below, but for a healthy fund balance, you really need about 90 days, between 90 days and 120 days. That's assigned and unassigned. The reason is to manage the cash flow because in accounting, when we record it, we record revenue not based on when cash is received, but based on when revenue is earned. So there's a timing difference between what the state... when the state pays and when our tax collection, so we have to have enough of that cash balances for cash flow while we're waiting for the actual revenue to come in. So we basically operate on an accrual basis, right? Yes. Yeah, and I don't really have any concerns. We've had such a big fund balance. I don't think that we're at risk or have been recently of being below any of
136the benchmarks. It's just interesting to me that all the... the organizations that benchmark us were talking in one language, but we were getting different information at our board meetings that doesn't necessarily reflect what they're all interested in. It does kind of make me wonder. Because we are on an accrual basis. And like something like ESSER funds, right? So ESSER funds would fall under restricted, correct? Okay. So ESSER funds, we were able to use those because money is fungible to offset other costs. And so even though the ESSER funds were restricted, in effect, they were spendable cash. They were spendable cash in the essence that you can reclassify expenditure that you would normally pay with general operating. and move it to the ESSER funds, therefore freeing up your general fund. Yeah, so I guess the question
137is just on the fungibility of money, right? Like let's say that we get a grant, somebody is very generous and says, you know what, I'm just going to pay all insurance costs for Pearland ISD because I love Pearland ISD. Now, the thing to be cautioned with that is the ESSER fund, because of COVID, it was targeted to help school district with operations to reopen back school up versus... Most federal funds, they have stipulations on how to spend it and there is a supplement versus supplant clause that you cannot replace. It needs to be on top of what you're already doing with your general fund. So Esther's a bad example? Yes. Okay. In terms of COVID. I picked the one. I'm sorry. Yeah. Well, but even then you're prepaid. Like, for instance, your insurance is a
138prepaid. So if you prepay your insurance for the year, well, that money's been spent. But you're still going to do your division for days of fund balance based on what your total year expenditures are. the money has already gone to the expense. So are you balancing that on both sides of the equation? Right, because technically once we paid it, it's out. But we committed basically we have to put it in fund balance in the non-spendable to say that, hey, we do have the liability, but the liability isn't until next year to pay off in the following year. So in the following year, we reverse that prepay and hit the expense. And so then, therefore, your revenue and your expense will align with what? the time period that the insurance is covered. So it should offset
139on both sides because the expense will also accrue and all get evened out at the end. Okay, yeah. When I looked at this and it looked like we were going to change it, I was kind of like, we've had the fund balance conversation before and is this much money sitting in the bank? I think we all acknowledge that it's not, but it just seems like... Well, for those of us that don't have a financial background, it's math tricks, right? Like, it's a shell game, or it can have that appearance. And so I just want to make sure that we all have clarity about why we're looking at this and what we're doing, and then also that, okay, I picked a bad example, ESSER, but most of these things, if they're earmarked, they are kind of
140locked down. It's not fungible money that you could move to offset other expenses. Because the purpose of really fund balance, when Dr. Berger and I talk about it, is to manage your cash flow. So if it's kind of locked up, I can't use that. Or whenever we, in October, we're going to come back to you and ask for a commitment. And if the board commits that to change that commitment, we have to come back to the board and ask the board for permission. Therefore, I can't use that on a day-to-day to manage. cash flow while we're waiting for the revenue because revenues don't come in, it doesn't get distributed evenly every month, but our payroll and our expenditure is pretty even. So in order for me to meet that cash flow, I have to have
141enough of it while we're waiting for it to come in. Oh, yeah, I don't doubt the need for the fund for cash in bank to exist I think that every homeowner every family, you know understands that you need a rainy day fund You need to be able to weather a storm and you know If you're doing things right try not to be paycheck to paycheck if you can But yeah I just want to make sure that we had a little clarity on a little bit of the why but also on the mechanics of how this is gonna work because this is gonna change the way all our reporting looks Historically, we have always been rated on the first report based on assigned and unassigned fund balance. But how the previous administration in terms of the
142business office where it's calculated using all fund because it's not wrong. It's just a method of should we align it more to the benchmark or should we take the fund balance in total? So it's just a matter of which approach we want to go with. And I feel like... Because fund balance cut is a measurement of your ability to respond in an emergency situation. But fund balance cover cash flow and any emergency that arises that we didn't plan. To have that capacity, I really think that we should be, yes, track the fund balance overall based on the five category because I think that's also important because if... prepay if I can prepay something ahead of time and take advantage of the discount based on multiple years and Versus investing that money I would definitely if
143I can get more of a discount to offset the investment That's sitting in the bank to make that interest. I I will do that for the multiple year contract Right and that varies between school to school district because in the past it was not really frown upon, but more so of all of our contract were kind of structured to where it's on an annual basis because it takes a lot more tracking if you were to do multi-year, right? It's a lot more contract management. There's a little bit more involved in accounting to track that, but if we take advantage of those multi-year, then you can take advantage of the discounts. And so therefore that's why I'm really using all five category fund balance because if we already make these commitment for the multi-year to take
144advantage of the discount, I wanted to make sure that we have the money set aside to when it becomes due on the following year to be able to make the payments. Isn't that a philosophical something that we should discuss as the board whether Because for example if I can make a yearly payment on something so that then I can you free up Those funds to be able to spend elsewhere in that year For example, if if I'm asking you to pay an annual contract so that I can free up reoccurring costs to pay a teacher more That is also a reoccurring cost those simultaneous costs Like there's gonna be years where we have a greater need if we pay it all up front, right? It's it's a balance right because if if we don't spend
145the money ahead of time and if I can invest that money and earn the interest Then obviously I would but a lot a lot of the multi-year contract that we do we take to the board Right and we say hey this contract is for five years or for three years and when we enter into these contract, let's say we're a saving of 30% discount if we were going to enter into a three-year. We try not to go past five-year. I think five years is the max, but normally it ranges from three years. I appreciate this information because I don't know that I've ever really looked at it through that lens before when making those kinds of approvals. I mean, I definitely trust the nuances of the way that your brain is working, thinking through all
146of these things. I just think it's important to think about the pluses and minuses of the cash flow available each year to do that. We're choosing to do things differently by going at it from a full contract basis up front. Well, it is it's kind of an offsetting thing too though because yes in the first year when she makes that decision It would be made based on this year's financials and the cash flow available right now But in the following year if you did it as a prepaid and you got the discount that expense would be eliminated So it actually frees up cash flow at that point and you got a discount off of it. So it's a trade-off And the reoccurring cost is not stable. I mean I guess I'm thinking that it doesn't
147really allow us to do increase. I'm conceptualizing this with the target and the strategic plan of getting us to 25% bracket of our pay in comparison to other districts. I don't know if I'm using the terminology correctly. If you save on expenses, I guess the simplest way to think about it would be if you save on expenses, like say a 30% discount, it frees up more money. whether I enter into a multi-year contract, but you're just going to spend more money. So based on accounting, you can... Put it in fund balance, basically savings, that you know these expenses are coming up. So, for example, let's say Microsoft. Let's say we need to renew a three-year or a five-year. Well, if we can take, I'm not sure, but I'm just going to use that as an
148example. But let's say if we're able to negotiate and say, hey, give us a multi-year contract and they give us 30% discount. We're going to spend that money because we know we're going to use Microsoft. Don't sit down. Oh, we got more. Oh, yeah. So this is what she was talking about, recommend days and fund balance. And I want to simplify it how I understand it. We have been presenting to the board all five categories as one number. But all the time where we're audited for rating and first, they've always only looked at assigned and unassigned. They've never looked at how we present it to you. So we are trying to align with the board how we've already aligned with the audits. And so I think that was the question that you asked. Dr. Berger,
149real quick on that. You just said it aligns, but... So I'm looking at the report. It says we're at 93 days. This report that we have here on the fund balance based on the two categories, 88 and five days. At the end of fiscal year 2024. Okay. And then we set. So when we set our goals a couple months ago on our strategic scoreboard, we put a 95-day. fund balance. Is that correct? Correct. So was that when that data was presented to us was it under the idea using all five buckets and then because with five buckets we were 140, so was that based on this recommendation that we moved to the two categories? Because I'm just kind of understanding where that 95. The 95 days at the time, and I won't speak for the
150board, when that was proposed, I believe it was based on what had always been presented to the board of all five buckets. Well, but we were always presented also the benchmarks of here's the minimum you want to be at. 75 for these guys, 95 for these guys. We feel comfortable here. But I think that. the conversation that two and I were just having is that was in a conversation that probably only involved the two pools of money. Whereas all our reporting always came to us with five pools of money. Like, I feel like we were always probably talking about the same benchmarks and the same, the same minimums. It's just the data we were looking at. And that's why the conversation is, why are we at 147 days balance? Like this seems excessive. Correct. We're
151just trying to true that up. And so if you look at this, Mr. Johnson, healthy is 90 days, where two wants us to be is closer to 120 days. And so while the goal is 95, eventually she would like us, the business service department would like us to for board best goal practice will be between 90 and 120. Yes, ma'am, assigned and unassigned. Where does that best practice recommendation come from? Is that two's come for, is that a benchmark out there for school districts? And they're both great. It's just, I don't know. So 90 to 120, just good, you know, kind of... Best operating practice from accounting. As an accountant, Mr. Berger, this is what I'm telling you is best operating practices. That's what I've heard for the last three days. And so this kind
152of breaks down the general fund balance into fiscal year 24. We're still closing out 25, so any surplus that we had projected is not shown here. So each circle is the same circle, but it just gives different information. So as we talked about, the five categories, assigned, unassigned, committed, non-spendable. That's four. So in the discretionary fund balance of unassigned, we have $52 million. In assigned, management set aside, we have $3 million. In board set aside, we have $17 million. And unavailable, we have $3.3 million. And then if you go to the next one, it gives you a further explanation of what that is. Discretionary, obviously, is emergency saving and cash flow. That's the most flexible. As Mr. Johnson pointed out, that's 88 days. And then you have management set aside. This is for insurance deductible.
153There's some flexibility there. That's five days. The unavailable, as we talked about, is inventory and prepaid. That's six days. And then what the board set aside, and I think it was done in 2021 or 22. So the board set aside $17 million. $3 million for future damage from a named storm, $4 million for any major maintenance repairs that, you know, if we have a chiller that just goes out and we don't have any money, capital renewal, or in the budget, it's in here to say, hey, you have $4 million set aside for that. And then $10 million for what we call economic stabilization. So that is 29 days that the board has set aside in our fund balance that says, hey, district, you can't touch this money unless it's one of these categories and you
154bring it to us for approval. What we have talked about is the board can look at this and go, well, we set $17 million aside, but do we need to set that much aside? Does the board want to look at that and go, well, maybe we only need $10 million and we can use $7 million to refresh devices or $7 million to do... one-time payments or salaries, whatever it may be. Or the board may say, based on the economic situations we have and the possibility of named storms and the cost of facilities that are going up and our insurance premiums that we lowered, we want more money in there. So that's what we were talking about when we come back before you and we talk about committed balance from the board, the board set aside,
155that's where that lives. Do you have an estimate of what the expectation for surplus will be when it's shored up in, I guess, next month? We don't like to ballpark. But it's going to be somewhere between, what, five and eight? Eight. Eight. Good ballpark, too. Yeah, I like that ballpark. And eight equates to?