Pearland ISD Board Meeting - April 14th, 2026

001Testing. I call this meeting of the Pearland Independent School District Board of Trustees to order on April 14th, 2026 at 5 0 2 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 move the mic over to Mr. Johnson, who's going to lead us in the pledges and the opening remarks this evening. Thank you so much, President Carbone. Will everybody stand, if you can, for the pledges? First, to the U.S. flag, I pledge allegiance to the flag and to the state of

002Texas. Honored. You may be seated. Well, good evening, everybody, and welcome to our April school board meeting. I want to cover a couple quick things in my remarks. I wasn't here at the beginning of last month when the board unanimously voted to nominate Superintendent Berger for Superintendent of the Year. So I briefly say that I fully support our amazing superintendent and the great work he does. You will not find a better communicator, a better champion for our student success, a better advocate for the employees of our district, and no better person who believes in Parallel and Proud. So thank you, Dr. Berger, for all the work that you do. And since we have a captive audience, I want to remind everyone that early voting begins next Monday, April 20th. I'm not one for a lot

003of inspirational quotes, but I have one that hangs in my office. It's a copy of a speech that President FDR gave in 1938 in a preparation for National Education Week. FDR stated, democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education. I've researched this topic, and FDR is discussing two things. As residents, we must educate on why democracy is so important, why we are lucky to live somewhere where we have the democratic process and educate the next generation on why that's so important. And second, we must get educated on who we choose in an election. Luckily, there are many resources to get educated on candidates, including a candidate forum tomorrow at 6 p.m. at Barry Miller Junior High for those running in our

004own Paralympic ISD Board of Trustees races. And lastly, since we can't say it enough, graduation is coming up. And this year, all three high school graduations will take place at Paralympic Stadium, not on the same day, but on May 20th, 21st, and 22nd. Please visit the amazing website our communications department has with all the details. Thank you, President Carbone, for these remarks. Thank you, Trustee Johnson. Really appreciate that. All right. At this time, we're going to move to the front and do our favorite part of the meeting, which is board recognition. Good evening. At Pearland ISD, we have endless reasons to be Pearland proud. Tonight, it is our greatest honor to recognize achievements that fill us with pride. Parents, please stay with us until the last honoree is recognized, and families, if you are unable

005to stay until the end of recognition, we ask that you please exit quietly. Photos will be available for download on the district Flickr account later this week. This evening, we will begin a presentation from our Fine Arts Coordinator, Victor Raygoza. Dr. Berger, Board of Trustees, good evening. As the rodeo season comes to an end in the state of Texas, we have a lot of successes from our art students. And I am proud to say that once again, our art students have been able to corral the competition. So we're going to go ahead and get started with, let me go, with the Fort Worth Rodeo. Okay. It's the longest rodeo running in the state of Texas. Every year they have a contest for the... Premier Classroom Art Classroom. This comes with a $6,000 award for the

006classroom in addition to a bragging rights trophy that they get to hang on for one year. They get to give it back and they get to take it back next year. This marks the second year that a parent. ISD classroom has received this. Last year, Barry Miller got it. This is the second year that somebody gets it here and it's from West. And we have a couple of students, actually we have one student and I do want to apologize. Some of our students have prior commitments. So not everybody was able to make it. So we're gonna go ahead and get started with Violet Haddock. And we're gonna do Abigail Liang, Kathy Gu, Alice Tsang. Catherine Wang and Rena Chen. They were not able to make it, but we're gonna go ahead and move on to

007our next rodeo, which is the Austin Rodeo. This is open to the whole state. They had over 3,000 entries, of which only 17 advanced to the auction lots. From those 17, I am proud to say that Paralympic and ISD students secured four of those lots. So, we're gonna get started. Lot number 14 from Pearland High School, it got auctioned off for $700, Charlotte Butts. Lot number nine from Dawson High School, auctioned off for $1,000, Kaylin Bowie. Lot number eight from Pearland High School, auctioned off for $1,500, Vanessa Dominguez. And we have lot number seven from Pearland High School, auctioned off for $1,800, Cameron Toombs. And we move on to the granddaddy of them all, the Houston Locks Out Show and Rodeo. This year there are 128 districts and private schools that participated, which came in

008with over 300,000 entries, of which only 90 get auctioned. That is right about .003% of making an auction at the Houston Lakeside Show and Rodeo. From those, I am proud to say we have some great numbers. We got 13 of those, three high schools, two junior highs, and one elementary. So we're going to go ahead and start off with lot number 75 from Junior High West. Auctioned off for $18,000, Kathy Gu. She's not able to be here. Then lot number 68 from Dawson High School. Auctioned off for $22,000, Emerson Lee. She had prior commitment. Lot number 66, Dawson High School. Auctioned off for $20,000, Grace G. Lot number 49, Dawson High School. Auctioned off for $22,000, Lola Bunta. Laura? Laura? Lot number 45 from Barry Miller Junior High, auctioned off for $27,000. Christy Zhang? Lot

009number 41 from Pearland High School, auctioned off for $31,000. Lana Arroyo? Lot number 33 from Dawson High School, auctioned off for $32,000. Yu Wang? Lot number 31, Turner High School, auctioned off for $30,000. Addison Throsle? Lot number 30, reserve class premium from Massey Ranch, auctioned off for $80,000, Adeline Simpson. Lot number 25, reserve class premium, Turner High School, auctioned off for $25,000, Adeline Hoang. Lot number 18, class premium, Dawson High School, auctioned off for $50,000, Ian Chiang. Lot number 15, reserve class champion, Junior High West, auctioned off for $86,000, Iris. And lot number four, class champion, Dawson High School auctioned off for $100,000, Leah Huang. This year's total sales comes out to $543,000 for Paralympic students. And of course, this couldn't be done without the wonderful guidance from our art teachers, Terry Sutek, Alyssa Hargrove,

010Guillermo Jimenez, Gabriela Flores, Krista George, Sarah Mendoza, and Shot Sandlot. Thank you so much. Hi, I'm Mandy Sarah Marcus. I am the CTE coordinator for Pearland ISD. Pearland FFA students had an exceptional showing this season, earning top honors across major Texas livestock shows. Their accomplishments include multiple first place finishes in heifer and swine divisions at the San Antonio and Houston Livestock Shows, a second place swine finish at the San Angelo Livestock Show, and numerous qualifications for the prestigious Houston Livestock Show, Swine Broiler Auctions. These achievements reflect the students' dedication, hard work, and commitment to excellence in agricultural education, animal science, proudly representing Pearland on some of the state's biggest stages. Please join us in recognizing the following students for their accomplishments. Presley Morrow, Pearland High School, San Antonio and Houston Livestock Show's first place Maine

011Edu Heifer, Megan Tarajas, Pearland High School, San Antonio and Houston Livestock Show, first place red, heifer. Cameron Mellon, Pearland High School, San Antonio Livestock Show, first place swine and Houston Livestock Swine Auction. Hello, my name is Rachel Welsh. I'm the librarian at Sablatura Middle School. The Texas Blue Bonnet Award is one of the most prestigious children's choice literary awards in the United States. This award was established in 1980 to recognize children's literature and authors who contribute works of literary merit. Each year, 20 books are chosen for the Texas Blue Bonnet Award list. Schools and libraries around the state participate in the program, encouraging students to read a minimum of five books from the list. In January, students vote for their favorite title. The author of the book receiving the most votes wins the Texas Blue

012Bonnet Award, which is presented at the Texas Blue Bonnet Award presentation held during the Texas Library Association annual conference in the spring. Students from each of TLA's 10 districts apply to be part of the Blue Bonnet Award presentation, and one student from each district is selected to participate. District 8 represents the Greater Houston area. As the District 8 representative, this student was able to meet Minda Dentler, the author of the winning book, The Girl Who Figured It Out, and participate in an interview about her life as the first female wheelchair athlete to complete the Ironman World Championship. This student also serves on the Library Ambassador Club. She is a voracious reader and a great representative for Pearland ISD's devotion to promoting literacy and libraries. Please help me to congratulate Elliot Walker from Saboteur Middle School.

013Proud to recognize a group of teachers who have achieved one of the highest honors in the teaching profession, National Board Certification. This accomplishment reflects an extraordinary commitment to deep professional learning, reflective practice, and student success. We commend these teachers for their dedication and for the meaningful impact they make in their classrooms and across our districts every day. Taylor Norris, Erin Wonders, and Sean Dunn. Tonight we have with us a group of individuals who completed our distinguished Pearland ISD aspiring administrators program. Participants were nominated by their campus principal or program director to take part in a multi-session program focused on becoming an administrator. Each session was specifically tied to district strategic goals that align with Pearland ISD's mission, vision, and core beliefs with measurable objectives across four key priorities, including students, staff, community, and finance. Please

014join me in welcoming our future leaders. From Alexander Middle School, Jarius Roman. Also from Alexander, Tony Slavik, trustee. From Cockrell Elementary, Laura Perez. From Dawson High School, Mackenzie DeVille. Also from Dawson, Melissa Wiseman. From Jamison Middle School, Gabrielle Finney and Deborah Holmes. And Carla Hopkins, Renee Huss, and the last Jaguar, Emily Lissy. From Lawn Elementary, Rosa Barrera. Yaresi Hernandez. From Massey Ranch Elementary, Leasia Teeluxing. representing Multilingual Programs, Perla Maldonado, from Pearland High School, Casey Kimball, from Junior High South, Beatrice Angulo, from Rogers Middle School, Maria McAfee-McCardle, from Silver Lake Elementary, Ana Salcedo, and from Special Programs, Crystal Pugh. From our administrators, teachers, staff, and the community, we take this moment to thank each of you for your hard work and for helping us to build Pearland Proud. That concludes board recognition. Now we're moving to

015the public comments portion of the meeting. This is the portion of the board meeting where the board receives input from patrons. Each person who addresses the board will have three minutes to speak on his or her issue. Because of topic posting requirements of the Open Meetings Act, board members will not ask questions of the patron and nor will any answer, nor... will not answer any questions posed to the board by the patron. No action will be taken on any issue presented during this patron comment segment of the board meeting. Patrons addressing the board will be notified when they are approaching the last 30 seconds of their allotted time to speak. First this evening, I have Ms. Liz Sitta. Welcome, Liz. Good to see you. Hi, good afternoon, friends. I feel like I'm talking to my

016friends. My name is Liz Sitta, and I am a proud class graduate, Paralympic High School class 2002, mother of two, a beautiful child that's in the audience from Sablatora Middle School, and a Turner College and Career High School junior. In addition to that, I'm a local business owner, and you might see me working for Commissioner Stacey Adams. In addition to that, I serve as the vice chair for the Brazoria County Child Welfare Board and the chair of the Texas Regional Council of Child Welfare Boards, which includes 13 counties, including Brazoria County and our surrounding Harris, Galveston, Fort Bend. We're some of the largest ones in that consortium. The purpose of me coming today, I come once a year, and it's always with, like, terrible news, and I hate it. to do that after all the

017wonderful news and seeing all those smiling faces, but it's the reality of the world we live in. And I come with Brazoria County stats. So Libby, can you pass those out, please? I come with the stats for Brazoria County for our fiscal year is from September until August, but the numbers are up until March. And what you'll see is... The number of intakes for March is 242 cases of possible child abuse for Brazoria County. For 2025, we had 534 confirmed cases of child abuse in Brazoria County alone. Unlike last year where we had fatalities, this past year we did not have any. We are blessed in our community to have two pinwheel ceremonies that have already occurred. One that you can see at the Pearland Police Department that is hosted in collaboration with the Brazoria

018County Alliance for Children. And then the one that is in the field between Casa Ole and Regents Bank. Again, each pinwheel, each ribbon represents a child in our community. So I'm here to have those uncomfortable conversations. One in four girls will experience abuse, while one in six boys will experience abuse. And that comes in all sorts of emotional, mental, physical, sexual, and they could be two or three at a time. So I implore you, I know that you're doing God's work, and I thank you for your service, but just join us, walk alongside of us as we continue advocating and raising awareness. On a lighter, happier note, I am wearing blue today, but I am green with envy as Alvin ISD has added flag football to their sports. Would love it for Paralympic ISD as

019you have a couple of flag football players in the audience. So thank you so much. For being here tonight. All right, and now I'll call to the mic miss Michelle Rubio Miss Michelle Rubio Thank you for being here this evening Absolutely Mr. Stuckey was so nice. He introduced himself to me. I was like, I don't know how this works. What do I do? He's like, well, you just do it. We don't want you to be mad. I'm bringing something up later. We are glad that you're here this evening. Don't be nervous. None of us bite. It's all good. No problem. So I'm Michelle Rubio. My children are currently in kindergarten and second grade. My kindergartner has a dream teacher. She loves school. My second grader, he has a reading language arts teacher who's absolutely amazing.

020However, the behavioral distractions from their peers has been an absolute shock. And as much as I would like to keep their innocence at five and seven years old, I know that there's teachable moments that we just have to kind of work through. And I keep saying, you know, school is for learning. Let's keep on focusing on feeding our brains. It's going to be okay. Let's work through this. But then I also think, what are we actually feeding their brains? There's Pebble, iCode, Prodigy, Bottle, iReady, PBS Kids, Renaissance, and that's just what I asked my kid what he did on Friday. And so that's a lot of apps. That's a lot of online time. And we're talking early elementary school kids getting five hours of core instruction outside of lunch and specials and all of that.

021Our campus actually has a rule that students must complete 30 to 49 minutes of iReady a week. And if it's not done by Friday, the consequence is running laps during recess. A federal class action lawsuit was filed December 2025 for curriculum associates and the maker of iReady, violating student data privacy laws and selling student information without proper parent consent. It was published March 30th that there's no actual peer-reviewed evidence that iReady actually works. And our district just spent $163,584 on this program in this last year. It's taking away from their actual teaching time from an actual teacher, a human, a real qualified teacher. I think it's just a matter of time before we start to truly realize how much more harm than good all this tech is doing for them. Kind of like how Fountas

022and Pinnell was found not to be teaching kids how to read the way that we thought that it was. And we're going back to science of reading and phonics. And speaking of, this change happened right before my second grader started kindergarten, and I was told the teachers didn't have the materials needed for the curriculum switchover. They didn't have the proper decodable readers or the Elkonin boards needed to help teach the kids. Three years later, our PTA just funded the new readers for our campus. And as of this last week, they were still receiving and fulfilling requests to help fund the O'Connan boards for the teachers. That $13,614.50 spent on iReady for just our campus, that there's no proven evidence that it's working, could have been spent on those materials proven to teach kids how to

023read. We have some of the highest taxes in the nation and families such as mine are willing to pay it believing that our kids are going to go to the best schools. We are going to get the best education and they're going to succeed in these best schools. However, having to privately fund those basic reading materials for five and seven year olds over three years makes families question if it's the right place. When I learned of the kids not having the books and materials they needed, I got involved where I could, but I'm asking you tonight to just kind of consider that maybe I ready pebble. iCode, Prodigy, Bottle, and all the other things they're doing isn't the best anymore. Maybe we need to go back to basics of paper and pencil and real books,

024real books. The scorecard. I have a few minutes, a few seconds remaining. We started a little bit behind. Okay, thank you. The scorecard with the staff satisfaction being discussed tonight talks about the low confidence response to student behavior, and I'd be willing to bet that state parent confidence is low in that area, too. Can we just consider that maybe limiting the technology in the classrooms could possibly improve the student focus, the behavioral issues, and the motor skills improvement that they need? And I understand that we're not going to solve this overnight. We didn't get here overnight, but I'm just asking if maybe we could have a conversation of just getting back to basics and... seeing if that could improve things overall, the behavior, the education, everything, and getting rid of all the tech, and just

025getting back to the human one-on-one that I feel like they need. Thank you so much for being here tonight. Really appreciate the comments. Ms. Rubio, can I ask you one question? I know we can't dialogue, but if you would, will you send me an email to my district email? If you would, I'd love to stay in contact with you. Is that okay? Yes. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much for your time. Yes, shufflerk at Paraland ISD. Thank you. All right, thank you. All right, Dr. Berger, we're going to move to the budget workshop. And so we're going to open the budget workshop at 5.38 p.m. All right. It is that time of year we begin budget planning. So this is workshop number one. As you know, school board, we will go through workshop one,

026workshop two. We will look to adopt the budget, and then we will look to adopt the tax rate. Workshop one is always our best guess estimate on where we will land. We will go through the calendar on this, and we will come back next board meeting to go through more details as well as work through compensation. So when looking at planning for... The budget the first thing we will look at is school funding in our current climate So we know in the 89th legislator a lot of things were pushed out there that you know There were billions of dollars given to public education and we should have all the money that we need in funding Well one there was more money given to public education Two, it doesn't cover all the expenses and costs like

027many times that we get funding from the state. House Bill 2 did give us the teacher retention allotment, which gave us some teacher raises depending on the years of service. It did not cover all teachers. The board, fortunately, in their wisdom, did cover all teachers when we gave those GPI raises. But that came through our 199 and not through the teacher retention allotment. We also have the support staff retention allotment, the basic cost allotment. But what you'll notice is all these allotments and the increased funding is not flexible. It's not like the basic allotment where we can determine by local need where the money goes. This money is tied to specific allotments, specific non-discretionary spending. The basic allotment was only increased by $55, which does not cover inflationary needs since 2019. The district still manages

028through salary increases beyond state funding to maintain equity across all staff, rising operational costs and district priorities. And Pearland ISD is not alone. You can Google search, you can look in the newspaper if you still get one, or you can look on any Facebook page. You can see realities across the state of Texas. These are just some. You can see Austin ISD has a deficit budget projected of 181 million. Clear Creek, just next to us, has a projected deficit budget of 27 million. Fort Bend at 55. Houston ISD is closing 12 schools. Judson ISD is closing campus. Leander has a projected deficit between 6 and 13 million. Northwest ISD is projecting 5 million after. doing cuts and Round Rock ISD also is projecting a deficit budget. I am not painting doom and gloom. I'm just

029painting the reality of the situation. Fortunately, because of our great board and the support of our community and our wonderful business office, I am not coming before you today to say that we're going to be projecting these large deficit budgets. What we have done in Paralympic ISD is we've been proactive. We've been very strategic with our resources, our planning. We are facing similar pressures as other districts. We do have declining enrollment. And not only do we have declining enrollment, we have to make sure that our ADA continues to uplift and gets to that 97% strategic plan target that we want because all funding, majority of it, is driven by attendance and not enrollment. We have rising operational costs. You look around and drive around. You look at the gas station and see those gas numbers

030go up. They're going up for us. Everything that's hitting your household is hitting public education, and we do not have more funding coming in to cover those operating costs. We also have, like I talked about, the limited flexibility under the funding that was increased, and it goes directly to targeted allotments and not where we may need it. But still, we focus on three things, financial stability, competitive compensation, and student outcomes. Because we believe one and two lead to three, and three is the number one goal for our district to make sure that our student outcomes are taken care of. So when we are planning the budget, these are our proactive and strategic responses. Looking at the funding elements we have that impact us, like we talked about, it's enrollment in ADA. And we've talked about

031this. It is not a secret. Pearland ISD has declining enrollment. And you wonder, you know, Pearland ISD is an A district, one of very few in the state of Texas. By any degree, we are one of the best school districts in the state of Texas by all rankings. So why are we declining in enrollment? That's something that we have to figure out. Is it the impact of school choice and ESA and vouchers? Is it the impact of charters? Is it the fact that we may have a different birth rate than previously in the state of Texas and the nation? Well, we have to determine because since 2023 projected to next year, 2027, we will have decreased 900 students. That's impactful to our budget. That's impactful to our programs. That's impactful to our planning. From 2022

032to 23. to 25-26, we lost about 637 kids. And often the board looks at me and says, well, Mr. Berger, if we're losing kids, why aren't we losing a lot of staff? Because at the same time that we lost those 637 kids, we increased by 147 special education students. We accept all students, but sometimes students come with needs that require additional staffing, additional supports, and so therefore the math doesn't math, as I've said many times. While enrollment is decreasing, the needs of our students are increasing. This slide is a common slide that you've seen in all your budget presentations going back to the previous CFO. This compares our graduating seniors to our incoming kindergartner. The top blue line is our graduating senior class and our projected senior class. And you can look at that, and

033it seemed to be pretty plateaued. We keep a good high school secondary enrollment. Where we struggle is in the elementary and lower grade levels. And so you can see the differential there of 690 projected for 2027 between the seniors going out and the kindergartners coming in. Again, that could be attributed to low birth rates. Smaller kindergarten class sizes are related to that. Aging communities in Pearland ISD are not moving out. New families are not moving in. The price of homes in Pearland kind of keep new families out a little bit. And portions of Pearland are zoned to neighboring districts. The opposite side of 288, we look at all that housing development out there. That is Alvin ISD. That is not Pearland ISD. And so again, these are areas that impact our funding and our planning.

034What else attributes to that is property values. You have your certified net taxable values and your T2 certified values or your enrichment values. You can see that they continue to increase and common thought would be, well, as our property values increase, the school district should be getting more money. Well, that's not how it works. As we've talked about often in school funding, the size of the glass of funding is set by the state of Texas. Regardless of the property values or the local tax base, as much as it increases, we have a capped funding from the state and local values. And as the local values go up, the state contribution goes down. And it is not a one-for-one. So if the local contribution goes up by five, it doesn't mean the state values go down

035by five. Many times the state values go down quicker than the local values recover. Either that's related to funding recalculations or miscalculations, as some of the TEA news has been recently. It's also related to our enrollment and our WADA. And what I mean by WADA is our weighted average daily attendance. A student is a student in the classroom, and we treat all of them the same. But the state of Texas realized that some students have more need than other students, and so there is weighted funding for certain students. So where the enrollments drop, if they may be in a special education category, an emergent bilingual category, a low-suites economic category, they have different weighted measures. And so as that enrollment changes, the local fund driver changes and the funding source changes. This kind of breaks

036it down for you in numbers. You can look at the 2025 actual, where we have our Tier 1 and Tier 2 funding. If you remember, the Tier 2 is related to the golden pennies and copper pennies. When we pushed out the Vader, that's what we were looking for, is making sure our local funding sources could be maximized as much as possible, and our community supported that. We are fully funded at our Tier 2. We have as many golden pennies and as many copper pennies as we can receive from a vote from the community. So you can see 25 actual, you can see 26 projected, and you can see 27 projected. When you look at the Tier 2 funding, if you'll notice, we are getting a lower yield on that Tier 2 funding. So when we

037first passed them, we were getting $20 million. 2026, we're getting 19.6. 2027, we're projected to get 19.1. So as these funding revenues change, adjustments have to be made in our budget and our planning and our projections. This is important as a breakdown to where the money actually comes from, local revenue versus state revenue versus federal revenue. The local revenue is 36.87% of our 26-27 projected budget. Local revenue is the primary driver by property taxes and directly impacted by state legislation. Recent increases to the homestead exemption to $140,000 for homeowners and $150,000 for seniors and individuals with disabilities. has had a direct reduction to the taxable district value and thus our funding. Also, state revenues are 62.71%. Changes in state funding formulas and assumptions continue to directly impact the district budget. State funding is designed to

038balance differences in local property wealth by adjusting the state share. Based on student characteristics, in 26-27, increased property values and ongoing adjustments to state calculations, particularly within the Tier 2, can reduce and has reduced the district state aid, even though we have continued cost and rising operational needs. And then the federal revenue is .42 of our budget. Federal funding for the 26-27 school year reflects a return to baseline levels, with revenues primarily coming from ongoing formula-based programs that supplement local and state funding. The federal right now is a little bit of an unknown. A lot of things going on in our federal government, and one of those is the Department of Education and those funding sources. We believe, we know what the federal funding will be, but as it has changed in recent years, we

039believe it may change again. So this is a projected but kind of an unknown right now. And the reason I went through these is to make sure that we explain this local, state, and federal because it's related to our audit process. All right, budget development. So what we're doing right now is budget workshop number one. This is where you receive kind of the initial introduction to where we are projecting our budget to be. In May, we'll come back for budget workshop number two. We'll dive deep into compensation. You know, our employee compensation, employee pay, is about 86% of our total budget expenditure. And so that's a big mover and lever for our budget. We'll publish our public notice and hearing. In June, we'll come back and we will talk about the tax rate. We will

040not approve the tax rate at that time, but we hope to adopt the budget. And then July and August, we'll come back and that's when we'll make sure we get our maximum compressed tax rate from TEA and we'll adopt the tax rate. So that's kind of the schedule and timeline for everybody that is out there. Basic assumptions under current law, and we say current law because we are still learning current law, to be honest with you. Lots of things came out of the 89th legislator that TEA is still working through in developing our summary of finance, and honestly, we are working through the best that we can. We are making revenue assumptions. Once again, student enrollment is on the decline. We are projecting enrollment of 20,298. We are using an ADA of 95%. Yes, our

041strategic plan goal is 97%. We are not there yet. So we don't want to use an average daily attendance that is a goal and not a reality when we're doing the budget. Estimated net taxable value will be $11.3 billion. Taxable value growth will be 3%. And again, the homestead exemption of $140,000 and $150,000 do impact us on the revenue assumptions. Expenditure assumptions is, this is what the board will determine. GPI of a 2% or a 3%. That is ideas and models that we'll bring to you for staff compensation, but ultimately it's the board decision and vote in May that will determine that. Salary savings, the business office looks at our salary and goes through it. Throughout the year, there's vacancies and positions that aren't filled, so we do develop salary savings. And so we baked

042in a salary savings of 1%. and then equity adjustments and additional personnel that has been approved by the board and how it impacts our budget assumptions going forward. So we're going to look at three budgets. Yes, ma'am. Can you tell me what each percentage point is worth for average daily attendance of the amount of money? I cannot right now, and I don't know that we would have that. I can get that to you. Okay. Thank you, sir. I could guess, but I would probably be wrong. No problem. If you'll share it up later, that would be great. So we will go through the general fund, we will go through the food service fund, and we will go through the debt service fund. So in the general fund, you can see the 2025 actual, the 2026

043estimated, and the 2027 projected with a GPI of either 2% or 3%. Again, I am not predicting. That's what the board will go with. We're just giving you a preliminary example of what that may cost and the impact it will have on the budget. 2026 is our current year. So in closing out our current year, we are projecting a fund balance or a surplus. So with transfer out going to the CRP and also then a budget surplus going to the general fund, we are in a strong, good standing for 2026. Going forward to 2027, if the board was to pass a general 2% GPI for all staff members, that would land us almost at a perfect balanced budget. It's not going to even zero, bless you. If you've ever worked with our budget, there's an

044ebb and flow. Don Marshall, old school CFO, Dr. Dahlkamp reminded me of this. He would always say, $3 million one way or the other is a balanced budget because when everything gets settled up, that's kind of the delta of how things go back and forth. So with a GPI of 2%, we would project out at a perfect balanced budget. With a GPI of a 3%, you would look at a deficit projection of 1.3 million. And so that is what the general fund balance would look like. Projecting out reality for 27-28, the year of all changes in public education. While we are in good standing now, and we believe in 2027 we can be in good standing with a 2% GPI, or if the board wants to push it a little bit more, we will be

045in good standing for 2027. But when we get to 27-28, 28-29, we begin reentering a larger projected deficit budget. So we, as a district, next year, have to take a hard look at staffing. We have to take a hard look of enrollment and ADA and how do we increase our revenue? How do we combat this? And we also continue to have to take a hard look at our program priorities. We have lots of great things in Paralympic ISD, but as that budget starts to get tighter and tighter, we have to look at where can we cut if we need to that has the least impact on the classroom. And so those are conversations that will have to happen moving forward in 26, 27 for the future years of Pearland ISD. Looking at the food service

046budget, you can see here that the food service budget is strong, but we are moving towards a structural deficit. You can see there the net change for 2027 with a 2% GPI and a 3% GPI. It shows a deficit of $500,000 or $540,000. This does not reflect later in this board meeting. There is an agenda item to discuss meal pricing. What is happening is operational costs for food service continue to go up. but we haven't changed meal prices since 2014, 2015. So even though we are charging the same price, the cost of that food continues to increase, and that's why you see this structural deficit that is occurring. Other things the food service department is looking at beyond meal prices is participation. We have a new director of food service. She is bringing in new

047menu items. She is taking feedback from the students. She's readjusting some of the cafeteria models to encourage. Food participation. People will go, students will walk through the line and go, oh, I want to eat that as opposed to I have to eat that. And so we are working on making sure that the menu is improved so that we can get participation up as well as she's looking at operational costs because the increase, if approved, of the meals will not cover all of the structural deficit that we may incur. And then the last piece of it is the debt service fund. The debt service fund is obviously where we pay off our bonds and our debt and our INS tax rate. You can see that we are building our fund balance going from 31%, 36%, 37%.

048So we are sound and stable. But there are tight margins, so we'll continue to watch this. But the debt service fund paying off our debt, we will continue to be able to do that without any problems. So next steps are the estimated certified property values that will come in April and May, budget workshop number two on May 2nd, where we'll look to approve compensation, public hearing on tax rate and budget adoptions in June, final certified values in July, tax compressing rate at the end of July, and then the tax rate adoption in August. Questions, comments, concerns? Lots of information. This might be. I'm just curious because I've got a question in a candidate forum. What do you think your estimation is that if we will ever be a recaptured district? I do not. Our local

049property values would have to get so high and because we're built out, there's not enough residential space or business space for us to reach that level. Just wanted to point that out that we are not in that situation for anyone who thinks we might be. For us to be a recapture district, that slide where it's local, federal, and state, that local value would have to be over 100%. Any other questions from the board? Dr. Berger, I know that one of the big changes that is coming forth in the next year, I think. is change to the way we get funded for special education services. Do we have a grasp of what that looks like yet? Yes, the funding based off of need, of the student need, as opposed to just general special education funding. Those

050are coming, but the metrics of what those funding allocations will be has not been established yet. So that intensity of services model could potentially increase our budget line item. Yes. Or would the federal funds then decrease? No. Or we would still get the same federal funds and we would get additional funds from the state? Yeah, the funds are related to the title funding system, so it's not really connected to the special education population on a one-to-one. So it's very possible that the special education intensity of service funding will give us some increased funding. It'll be very similar to our safety allotment. While it increases, it does not cover all of the need. Sure, like an unfunded mandate, basically. Yes, ma'am. Underfunded. Underfunded. Are there other allotments like that that we expect to come online in

051the next budget cycle that we haven't seen in this first year of the biennium? There are a couple, but most of them are currently in the summary of finance, and the allotments are taking place and being verified this year. Okay, so there's a few pockets, though, that may offset some of the budget findings that we have right now. And truly, that will help, but it's all related to enrollment ADA, the students that we have coming in. right ship our enrollment. It doesn't matter what the allotments are because we don't have the kids to go into those. And then the other part is our property values. So as you know, we discussed our T2 values and the situation we went through in March to where we were at $130 million in state aid and then it

052jumped up to $141 million and then it dropped down to $122 million. A majority of that was related to T2 calculations and the frozen levy. And so based on... That sporadicness, we have filed a property value audit. The business office in their wisdom said, let's do this. And so if we can right-size that as well, that will help with our funding. Okay. Will we have any, we probably won't know about intensity of services model till well into the school year. Well, we're hoping we can get it this summer. Okay. And then are we having, what kinds of discussions are we having about the enrollment piece? Well, one is we are an open transfer district. So Dr. Nixon and Cabinet, we discuss every week what are the transfers look like. We have two versions of transfers.

053If people don't know, we have an internal transfer where I don't want to go to the campus that I'm zoned to by attendance. I want to go to a different one for whatever reason. That doesn't increase our funding because it's just internal. Then we have the external transfer that comes in. And so we're figuring out ways that we can. better sell Pearland ISD to push out there in a, I wouldn't call it a pilot program, but there is a Massey Oaks neighborhood. I think that's the name of it that was built. That's an Alvin ISD. And Dr. Nixon and her team said, well, why don't we send out some postcards to that neighborhood because we have schools right next to them. Hey, Pearland ISD is open. Do you want to come into our school district

054if you meet our qualifying? And that's been successful. So we will continue to replicate that. Our communication department pushes out. your student, their future, your choice. That's a program that we've pushed out, and so we'll continue to expand that to figure out how we can get more students into Pearland ISD. Mr. Berger, how many transfer students do we have? Total? 1,400. And that rate's never gone up, is that right? It stays pretty steady. I'm talking about the cost, the $50 or whatever. No, for external, that's 1,400 total. Right. Yeah, it's almost, it's like 60-40, 60 internal, 40 external. But no, it's a $50 basically processing fee for an external transfer, but we've never raised that. We've had conversations about it, but I don't know if it's contrary to what we want to do. If we

055raise the fee, then do people go, well, I'm not going to apply because now you're charging me more money. One other question, as of today, competitive-wise on teacher salary, are we competitive with surrounding districts? Just in looking forward. We have the goal to be in the top quartile. We are not there. But are we competitive? Yes. Well, an interesting tidbit, I went to the Gulf Coast Area School Board Association meeting last week, and there was an HR. training or whatever. And the lady from TASB was talking about that there are a lot of districts across the state that because we're having to carry the cost forward that the state mandated in the $5,000 increase that were given to teachers, a lot of districts are not able to maintain that and they're not giving increases. I'm

056sorry, was I wrong in that? No, no, no. Oh, okay. We had a conversation about it. What you're talking about is the teacher retention allotment. And so I was confused at one point that we got the $5 million to cover all our teachers for this year. My thought was we wouldn't get that $5 million next year and we would have to absorb that $5 million. That's not the case. We still get that money. Where we get hit is the GPI. Because that $5 million bumped up the median, then any raise is more expensive. Well, and now anybody that hits that five-year mark also is eligible for that five-year. Right, but then the state funds that. Okay. But then the talk was that there are districts across the state that are doing no... equity adjustment. I

057mean, no. Just locally, I had a Galveston superintendent meeting, and they were discussing that they may be at a zero. Yeah, I think there's going to be a lot of, so I think that gives us some room to make up some of that ground this year because of where we are financially that other districts are not going to be in the position to do. And based on our strategic goal, just we're going to be transparent with everybody I sent to the board, if we wanted to hit this, it would cost us this much money. And it's an impact that maybe we can't afford because in perpetuity, we've got to continue to do that. Well, and that's also one of the reasons we pushed TIA. That's one of the reasons we had three national board certifications

058here. Those all come with additional funds and stipends that are outside of this budgeting process, right? Correct. There are incentives. It doesn't cover all teachers because we're still working to expand TIA. And you have that dichotomy like our public... comment stated about I-Ready. Well, I-Ready is one of the modules that we use for TIA. So, you know, it's kind of like, well, we only get teacher incentive allotment and TIA is used to get teacher incentive allotment. If we're going to move away from that, then... We've got to redo teacher incentive a lot, man. It's almost like Mike Marath wants us using more technology or something. Who knew that the guy who lettered in high school football without ever setting foot on the field because he wrote a computer program that predicted what the other team

059was going to run, they lettered him for that because it helped their scores. But, yeah, no, he's a computer guy. He wants us using more technology. But also, oh, the... The state is requiring and we're moving towards a restructuring of how we do exams, whether it's smaller measurements more frequently throughout the year. They're pushing out the beginning of the year, the middle of the year, and the end of the year. And that will start in the next year or the following school year after that? Next. I'm sorry, 27? Next year. So, and we still don't have 27, 28. Everything in the world in public education changes in 27-28. And I'm not exaggerating. Every time we're in a meeting, if a change is coming, it's 27-28. So, but there's no indication yet if I-Ready is going

060to be on that list as a tool for those mid-year assessments. That is correct. But we have I-Ready approved as our TIA module. Right, right. I get that. I was just trying to think through. even if we needed to change, is there gonna be a need to change from TIA already, I mean from I-Ready already because of an assessment tool? Like will we, how am I wording this? Will we double up? Will we double up? We'll be doing TIA I-Ready, but then we'll be doing the TEA approved for. Yeah, we wouldn't wanna do that. We have to figure that out. Okay. So I was noticing something on your slide on slide seven. You know, we're talking about declining enrollment, but it's very clearly that that's mostly not our high schools, right? Like high school is

061still climbing, granted slowly, but we have more kids in high school than we did the year before pretty reliably every year. But the gap is getting bigger. So to me, what that says is that there's increased competition at the lower grade levels or our high schools are attracting people from out of district. Do you feel like it's one, both, the other? I feel it's both. There has been, as the charter and the private school continues to grow, the first attraction is the elementary grade level. And so we have always had a traditional to where private schools or charter schools would... Pull students up until about fifth, sixth grade, and then when you start hitting junior high, seventh, eighth, when you start getting into sports and bands and fine arts, the students come back to us

062in junior high and high school. So that trend continues. Well, but if they were coming back, like if it was just coming back, you would expect the green line and the blue line to be parallel. Like they would be gapped, but parallel to each other and both declining. Our high school population is still climbing though, right? So we do have more kids in the area coming into parallel schools at the high school level. Like I guess... I guess that's where the disconnect in my mind is, is like we're growing high schools. High schools are getting bigger. We're doing something different there. And it might not be us. It's just our community. There's probably, in my mind, I know we're about to open a new school just down the street from where I live. that's going

063to be additional elementary competition, additional choice and whatnot. And I think that that, like St. Helen Catholic School only goes up through eighth grade, and so then those kids have to come to high school. But they are opening a high school. Well, that was the plan. But I don't know if that's still pushing forward or not. But that's neither here nor there. But also there is, the transfers from out of district do come in our high schools. We have a wait list right now for both Paraline High School and Dawson High School. I guess that's the question though. What is the difference in service model for those that are competing with us? And is it truly a competition for those students or is it a difference of the cost of service or the cost of

064living in Pearland for a younger family? And I think it's hard to differentiate between those. But the other side of that is that I'm getting mailers at my house all the time for charter schools and homeschool networks. And so how are these people... getting my information that I have young kids at my home and then why can't we tap into that? I ready. They're being sued over it. I'm President Carbone. You can get demographic information. I want to piggyback off what President Carbone said about, you talked about enrollment, people using charter schools, but President Carbone was the first one to mention homeschool. And you sent us some data recently. Walk us through the, it seems like there's a heavy increase. If you look at the people that are transferring out of our districts, there's those

065who move out of the area. There is a percentage that are going to charter or private schools. But there's, what was it, over 1,000 students. over the course of what are the data showed that are moving to homeschool so uh what are we we pulled for this school year right 91 students there we go were with us and then withdrew and went to homeschool or they should have been with us and they went to homeschool and so i reached out to all 91 of them that i had contact information for and said one would you be interested in coming back either physical or virtual And two, is there something that we can do to help recoup you? And some of it was the curriculum. A lot of it was state-mandated testing. And some of it

066was that they had issues individual at a campus, whether it was related to student behavior or a teacher concern or transportation or any of those things. But homeschool has been a strong pull for students not to be in public education. Yeah, it was one of our larger areas. And thankfully, the state is just adding more standardized testing next year. They want four opposed to one. So just something to consider, I think, in our enrollment predictions on that end. TIA, we talked about this a couple months ago. We had the workshop, and you just mentioned looking at that. Can you give us a, is there any brief update on us moving towards more grades? And I know we've talked about the arts. We just heard how great our arts departments are doing. Do we have any

067additional information that could be reported either at this workshop or the next about the TIA options and us increasing those for our great educators? We have two experts in the room. Great. Yeah, the answer, the short answer to that is yes. We continue to look to grow and expand, but there are processes. I'll give Layla a five second chance to get up here and gather her thoughts as she goes through everything. We actually just submitted our expansion plan for the upcoming school year today. Layla sent the email. We were all really excited to have it. And that is the plan that she preliminary presented to you guys earlier this semester where she talked about adding grades that are using iReady. And so all of that has gone through as well as... starting to expand science

068and social studies. Now I'm going to let Layla tell you what goes beyond science and social studies because she does have an expanded plan. We don't publish it because with every added grade level and with every added subject, it requires it to go to DEIC first and we let them weigh in. But it also requires you guys to allow us to purchase tests in some of those categories. And so there's a little bit of a balance there, but I'll let her explain it better. Thank you. There are two areas that I wanted to just tell you about because when I came to you last time, we talked about adding grades five and eight, science, biology. We also talked about eighth grade social studies, US history. We also ended up adding AP US history, our dyslexia

069teachers and our ESL lab teachers in addition to those groups I originally presented to you. So as soon as we hear back from TEA, hopefully in May, that will be approved and then we'll be collecting data on those teachers next school year to be submitted the school year after so they can generate an allotment. We do have a drafted plan in place right now and I am closely working with all of the departments that lead our curriculum and working with those teachers to ensure that we have a plan in place to eventually add all of our teachers to eligible teaching categories. Again, it goes back to, of course, we don't want to just add assessments and over test our students. We want to make sure that there's something in place. That is valuable data for

070the teachers as we collect evidence of student growth. And as we work through that, we'll continue to share updates. And I will share an update with Dr. Berger so we can share that with you as well so you can see what that plan looks like right now. Do you know how many additional teachers that might represent those categories you added? I can get that number for you. Any other questions? I just had, I know earlier Secretary Weimer talked about, you know, our 2% GPI and how that compares to other districts. When we do this, are we, and I just can't recall, are we cross-referencing other districts and what TIA they are offering? So if we're trying to recruit an eighth grade U.S. history teacher, now that we're looking at TIA, and I know we have

071a job fair, plug for that coming up next week. 25th, I knew that was close. Giving those teachers the opportunity, yes, our salary might be X, but in our district, you would be potentially, if you meet the requirements, we're not promising that, TIA eligible. Are we benchmarking against other districts and then using that in our recruitment of high quality, amazing educators? We are. So every time our recruitment specialist goes out to job fairs across different universities. She has a flyer where she shares our eligible teaching categories so that hopefully can draw some more people in. Thank you. Coming back to the demographics conversation. If we're funded on enrollment, is there a plan to do more recruiting like what you said you're doing in that Massey subdivision that's right there? Are we going to expand that?

072Are we going to send out mailers to the people that we know are homeschooling and that are going to private or whatever and be like, hey, how about a free education at an A-rated district, one of the only in Texas, those kind of things? We do have plans for that. Like, for example, when I did that with the 91 homeschool students. I asked them if they were interested in a virtual program because that's an opportunity that we have now in the school district, and they were like, yes. And then the comment was, do I have to take the STAR? And I was like, yes, and they said no. So there's a roadblock there for some of that because you will notice several school districts in our area and the state of Texas are going to

073the virtual model because they are looking at it as a... business opportunity, that we can get more customers if we offer this virtual model. Well, the virtual model didn't work during COVID. We just had a speaker come up and talk about, well, being on the screen is not the best way for behavior and academics necessarily. So are we going to go to 100% virtual model to where you don't even have to be in Paralympic ISD? We never really know who you are, but we get state funding because we're educating you. That's something we have a philosophical problem with. And so you may be seeing that in some school districts and we're not going full board. We have discussed the idea of a possible virtual program for only in-house because we have some students that maybe

074anxiety keeps them out of public education and maybe they live with, they're in our school district, so how do we keep them in parallel in ISD? Or we have elite athletes that may be gymnasts or something else that have to travel and they can't. be in public education, but if we had a virtual program, they would still want to be part of Parallel and ISD. So that's a nuance that we are discussing that could help with enrollment, but we have to figure out what's the best way to educate beyond just, let's go get a number. Because that's also... folds into the accountability measures, right? I mean, we would still be responsible for successfully educating these students, not just them logging on and participating at some level. I mean, their metrics would still have to show

075growth. Yes, all the CCMR, all the growth, all the star accountability would apply. That's why some school districts like Dickinson ISD is going to roll out a 10 through 12. There's no state accountability in those grade levels moving forward necessarily other than CCMR because your STAR testing is over. And you can, there are some modules on the virtual side where you can get your CCMR through virtual school. Yeah, let's not do that. But when we're looking at enrollment and everybody's struggling to get kids, you're going to have that. I mean, I sat in a C&I meeting with all the C&I directors, very similar to Dr. Allen, and one of the people from a district said, we're not in the education business anymore, we're in the business business. And I was like, I never want to

076be there. Yeah, I'd rather see us consolidate campuses and do it just as good or better with fewer students if we had to, but it's a terrible thing to have to discuss. So, on that... development though they actually came to us when we when they built that and wanted us to zone that apparently and we declined we actually gave a portion of the right sea ranch development back so unless alvin isd wants to rezone it back to Pearland. Well, I think they built an elementary school inside the neighborhood. No, they have not yet. Not yet? No. We didn't have the capacity at the time, like with Magnolia Elementary and Massey Elementary right there, things like that, to take on those kids. I don't know if we still do that. And that's why, in the wisdom

077of Dr. Nixon, she said, let's advertise to them. Getting to the weeds on page 19, which is actually the budget and the expenditures, we're projecting only a half percentage point increase in expenses across the board from 224, 224 million, 225. But there's eight areas you're actually projecting, forecasting us decreasing the budget. And you'd use the example of Round Rock ISD taking a 10% reduction across all areas. Maybe some guidance on why there's multiple areas, including structural leadership, guidance counseling, that we're actually decreasing our projected budget for 2027. And more importantly, security and monitoring services. We're doing half that, and that's an area. I know these are very detailed questions. So, expenditure-aligned item, I guess, particularly number 31, guidance and counseling, and 52, security. And if you go from the 20... projected budget to 2027, we're

078decreasing on those. So just some specifics on those line items, and then just helping me understand, I mean, everywhere else, I mean, it's a great budget, great kudos to the finance team for only going up a half percent on our expenditures, but eight areas are decreasing, and we talked about increased expenses, but we're decreasing in at least eight of those areas across, like, instructional leadership. Guidance and counseling, social work services, health services, extracurricular activities are all projected decreased budgets. As you said, those are very specific, and for me to pull all that information for you right now, it's something we can definitely bring in May to highlight where those decreases are coming from and why. There is a lot baked into each of those line items, and so we can break those down for you

079in Excel spreadsheets. And also, if you remember some of our budget amendments, the second page is a larger Excel breakdown of each funding code, so we can bring those to you. I know that's in the weeds, but specifically security is half the budget. As you call those out, that one security and monitoring services. Yes, sir. Yeah, I had the same question on line of expenditure item 52. Security and monitoring services is, and I'm sure you see it, it's 2.6 and 25 increasing to three and a quarter in 26 and then decreasing to 1.8 over the next 27, 28 years. So I just wondered if there was some clarification on why that is. I mean, I'm sure there's a reason. But I also had some questions on revenue item 5700, earnings from... Temporary deposits and investments,

080it is declining each year. I was wondering if there was some explanation for that. I'm sure also a good reason. And then item 5800, the FSP revenues, we see a big jump from 25 to 26, and then it decreases again back down to the 25 level in 2028. So I was kind of wondering why that might be. They're taking notes. Yes, that's fine. Just one more question going back to the previous conversation about kiddos and doing virtual or homeschool Refresh my memory about star you can't I mean students can opt out of star but we get penalized as a district, correct? Correct. You can It's a difficult question to answer because it used to be STAR was on one day, and if you didn't show up, you didn't show up. Now it's a window. So

081if you say you're going to opt out of STAR, you're going to miss a week of school not to be there. Or if you send your kid to school and you say, hey, my kid's coming to school, but they're not taking the test. Well, ultimately, they fail. And so then it triggers all of the requirements for a student that failed a STAR test, all the interventions and all, and then it hits our accountability. So there is no opting out of, oh, it's a wash, it doesn't count in our accountability, and you don't have any issues as a student. The state doesn't allow that. The state does not allow a parent to say, my student's not going to take STAR, it's not going to have some consequences for the student, and it's not going to have

082some consequences for the school district. They're still in our accountability. So if they showed up and they just sat there and didn't answer any, then they're going to be put into a remediation course or something like that because of the outcomes of that exam that day. Because the state of Texas law requires that. Okay. Thank you for that clarity. Yes. So all of these questions about page 19, I will do two things. I will give it to you in writing, and then we'll make sure that we have detailed information in the May to go over each line item that you mentioned. Awesome. Any further questions on this budget? Great discussion. Thank you, everybody. All right, so we'll close this part of the workshop at 6.23 p.m. Thank you, Dr. Berger. Thank you, business office. Really

083appreciate your work on this. All right, at this time, we're going to move to the consent agenda portion of the meeting. I am looking for, is anybody pulling any items from the consent agenda this evening? Mr. Murphy? Consent agenda one, okay. I think Dr. Berger answered my question, but just to clarify, could we pull item number seven? It's just a question that I had. Okay, one and seven. Anybody else? Oh, then that's item number two. Item two. No, he wanted to pull the minutes. I thought that's what I heard. He wants to pull the minutes. Okay, so two and seven. Can I get a motion for all items minus two and seven, please? So moved. Second. Motion by Trustee Scheffler, second by Trustee... Johnson. Johnson. Sorry. All right. I'll call for a motion. All those

084in favor? Motion carries 7-0. All right. So we're looking at item number two. Mr. Murphy. This is, I guess this is too, I don't know. This is regards to the iPad purchase. So my question is, I would be in support of doing away with a three-year AppleCare payment of $85,000. dollars in self-insuring because that the the three-year warranty on these ipads and we're paying 567 000 for the ipads themselves and then another 85 000 to for a three-year extended warranty so i mean the chances a percentage of these ipads having issues or damage and then you know we self-insuring and buying new ones i think would be less expensive I don't know if we could ultimately set aside a $20,000 budget to replace ones that are broken or not covered under warranty, but it's just

085such a large price for a three-year AppleCare warranty. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. Thanks, Sean. I had a question on that one just as well that you kind of prompted. Just the cases themselves, they're Logitech, and it looks like Apple quoted $99 per case. Just. I kind of looked and I know it's probably, I don't know what version these are, but the OtterBox and Pelican cases, which are pretty good ones, are around 70 bucks. Is there not a discount for, I mean, it's 1,750. We can't get a discount on those cases from Apple? They are discounted. These are keyboard cases. That's part of it. That's the biggest difference is the basic case would be less, but these have the keyboard built into them. Okay, that makes sense. So these are discounted. I do not know

086the percentage though. We should tell, but they're discounted. And AppleCare warranty, if anybody's not an Apple user, is pretty much a bulletproof service plan as well, right? Like you could drive over it with a truck and they're going to find some way to deal with it. Anything that happens to them. I mean, my point to that, Chris, is that the iPads themselves are $324. So if you took a percentage of them and drove over them, you could just buy a new one versus paying $85,000 to warranty all of them. That's true. Do we typically warranty? A lot of services that come with it, too. Yeah, we warranty everything we buy. It depends on the type of equipment, what size or the length of the warranty. So the Windows devices, we did a four-year warranty because

087those four years, what we've seen is something we're handing to students that they're taking home, that type of thing, four years seems to be outright. For staff computers, they last longer. It tends to be a five-year warranty, except for a desktop. That's with a laptop. a desktop computer, it has varied over the years between one and three. Depends on the current pricing, current funding available, but it's between one and three years. So this has been on previous bids for technology. We've bought and purchased extra warranties to cover that. So it's a fairly common that the board has purchased things with the warranties before. Yeah. Thank you. What percentage of the iPads do you think break down in any given year? I'd have to look it up, honestly. I wish I had. I don't have the

088number, but I don't. I can find it for you. All right. Any further discussion on this item? If not, I'll hear a motion. Move to approve. Second. I have a motion from Trustee Johnson, a second from Trustee Stuckey. Any further discussion on this item? All right. Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 7-0. All right, we're looking at item number seven. Mr. Secchi, I think you pulled this one. Yeah, and on this, I just, I kind of wanted to, Dr. Berger answered my question earlier today, but if we look at how the scores are evaluated for these companies, in this case on the... Reroofing of the parallel ISD campuses which was Rogers Shadycrest We had a total of nine bidders the top two bidders You know were the top

089bidder in this one was well above the others, so it wouldn't have mattered. But on the second one, the bidding of several other campuses, the top two bidders were a couple of points apart. So this might've come into play. I believe from Dr. Berger's response, there are a couple of things that we weight. Number one is price. It gets a total weighted value of 50. And then we looked at the experience and reputation at 18, ability to complete project on time at 10. The ones that I was kind of looking at were quality of proposers, goods and services gets a total of seven points. The safety record gets two and the warranty, responding to warranty only gets one point. All of the bidders that we invited to participate in this all got a point for

090response to warranty. But the concern that I had was if a a bidder on the second bid had failed to respond to any warranty requests across any other districts they would have still won the bid uh and with our evaluation method what was clarified and and then you know let's kind of explain for the public but we do have a um experience and reputation, which is references. So some of these things would have come up in that 18 point value. So they are being covered. And so I asked that question and it was clarified that that is kind of covered in those points as well. So we're adding an additional point for response to warranty or an additional two points for safety record and an additional seven points for quality, all of which would have

091been reflected in the references of those individuals or companies. And I also want to also clarify that we somewhat look at safety record as a pass or fail. If you respond and you meet the qualifications, then you receive a two. If you do not meet the qualifications, you're determined non-responsible and non-responsive. You're disqualified. I think the only concern that I had is I just wanted to clarify that which Dr. Berger did and I appreciate you guys. Obviously price is important. We want to spend money wisely but part of that comes with the quality as well and you know response to a warranty should it present itself and of course the safety of the company as well being on our campuses and around our kids. So I appreciate the clarification and just want to make sure

092that everyone was aware. Any further questions on this item? All right, hearing none, I'll call for a motion. So moved. Moved to approve. I have a motion from Trustee Stuckey. Second. A second from Trustee Carter. Any further discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 7-0. All right, Dr. Berger, we're moving on to consideration and approval of DOI amendments. Yes, ma'am. We are a district of innovation and actually we are in the process of renewing our district of innovation plan But I am bringing this forward as an amendment to our current district of innovation plan This amendment is directly related to the Texas Education Code 33.0 26 and 33.0 27 which is related to the acquisition and reconsideration of library materials. Currently, we know that we have a process

093to where every book that a librarian wishes to purchase must be published for 30 days, allow for public comment, and then it comes to the board in a rotation of those 30 days for you to approve every single title. And we've been through that conversation. We've talked to the board. The last meeting we had a conversation about workshopping this and options that we have. And so these next three items kind of detail options I would like to propose to the board. The first one is asking you to approve an amendment to the DOI that was approved by our District Educational Improvement Council, or DEIC, that we would add the fact that the board roles and the district roles changed just a little bit. It would establish and adopt policies governing library materials, the board would,

094including clear selection and criteria and reconsideration process. The board would still approve the system and standards for materials selected rather than individual titles. Meaning in our policy, the board would outline these are the library materials that we want in our libraries based off of policy, but we would remove the process of basically you approving procurement by each individual title. The board would maintain oversight through regular reporting on collections. There would still be challenges. There would still be availability for data trends. You would retain the authority to review specific materials or direct action when concerns arise. We want to make sure transparency is there. We want meaningful opportunities for parents and community to engage. We would not take the parent comment out of this process. We actually are trying to allow Fallout Destiny to increase our

095parent portal and parent controls. And so we will have a scope of work for that going forward. If the district DOI is approved, the district will implement board approved policies and procedures for the selection and review of library materials. We would utilize the professionalism and expertise of our certified librarians in this process. We would monitor library collections for alignment with state standards and district expectations, and we provide regular updates and reporting to the board. Ultimately, in a nutshell. What I am asking the board to consider and approve through this DOI amendment is we remove the process of the board approving individual titles in board meetings. And we allow the board to go back to the governance of policy. So if the board considers this amendment, the next one deals with a policy, EFB local. And

096the only thing changing that policy is what we're talking about right here in DOI. Then the third consideration is for committees. We do not have any current standing advisory committees for the board. That would allow the board to create a committee of up to three board members for a governance and policy committee. Then we would get together and decide what is the best policy. as far as governance, to give direction to our librarians and our schools and our district on how we want to move forward with this and remove from the day-to-day operations of the board approving individual library titles. So my request is right now that the board consider the DOI amendment that is listed here. It talks about... the Texas Education Code that we are asking to innovate. We are talking about the

097rationale for why we want to innovate and the innovation that we are proposing for the board. Pearland ISD will maintain board oversight, transparency, and parent engagement while shifting from title to title approval to system level governance, allowing for a more efficient, responsive, and educationally sound library program. Thank you, Dr. Berger. All right, I'll hand it over to the board. What kind of questions, comments do you guys have? Sounds great. Sounds good to me. Second. Clarifying, Trustee Carter, that was not a motion yet? No, just kidding. I'll make a motion to approve it as presented. Second. All right, I have a motion by Trustee Weimer and a second by Trustee Stuckey. Any further discussion on this item? I just have a question. So the governance or the policy or the attitude, whatever that's set by us

098as far as, or this committee we're gonna create? I'm sorry, sir, I didn't understand the question. So you say we will still have the oversight which is what we're here for the governance, but it'll be in accordance to Kind of how that's that guideline that we want to see correct within state law Yes, sir. My goal is is that if the board approves agenda item 7b1 Then we'll go into the updated policy. That is a direct reflection of your approval of 7b1 Then if you approve committees in 7B3, the Governance and Policy Committee will then review EFP local to add any specific guidelines or guardrails. Okay. So will we still receive, have to receive, this will do away with us approving every month anything, correct? The only thing the board will receive for transparency is

099through this process we will move it back to the district level but then we will give you reports on any public comments or any the books that are being approved for purchase. So basically to be back to a governance and report. Okay, like a written report not another report. Correct. Okay. But also if there's any whatever changes are made from the committee level to the policy, the policy will come back to us for approval. with the extra guardrails or whatever is decided at the committee level. Correct. We're getting a little bit ahead of, but when committees are done, up to three board members are on the committee with no power. It is basically just for planning and creation. And then once that is done in each of the three committees, the report come back to

100the board saying these are the policy recommendations that we're making. Then the full board takes a vote to determine if those policy recommendations will be approved. Thank you, sir. Trustee Johnson. did you have a question do you need a motion for the next three together or separate or all right so i have a motion and a second on the table any further discussion hearing none i'll call for a vote all those in favor motion carries 7-0 all right dr burger efb local So this is 7B2. So following the board's approval of the District of Innovation Plan amendment related to library materials, updates to board policy EFB local are necessary to align district policy with the newly adopted governance framework. The DOI amendment provides flexibility from certain procedural requirements in state law allowing the district to

101shift from title by title approval of library material to a system-based approach focused on policy criteria and oversight. So once again, these changes to EFB local that you are approving are only related to the decision you just made on the district renovation plan. If in the next agenda item we approve the committees, EFB local will be one of the items that the governance committee can review and improve or change if they choose to. Thank you, Dr. Berger. Any questions from the board? Just want to clarify, the committee would review and suggest changes to the board for a vote. In the future, yes, sir. And not just on this, but really a governance committee is good because we have lots of policies that come in, and a good review of all policies and procedures is nice

102for an advisory committee to guide the board. Perfect. I just want to make sure that everyone's aware those three people are not changing everything by themselves. On your red line, under recommendation and procurement of materials, where you red line librarians and other professional staff shall develop recommendation to be presented to the board, should that say the committee shall develop recommendation to be presented, or are we just going to red line it out altogether? This is just based off of the DOI amendment. Any changes that the committee makes, those changes will come in the future. This is just based on the DOI amendment. All right, hearing no further questions, I hear a motion from Trustee Murphy. Second. A second from Trustee Johnson. Any further questions? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor?

103Motion carries 7-0. All right, Dr. Berger, let's talk about committees. All right, this will be a little bit different for us. We've never had advisory committees on a board level that I am aware of. And so what I'm asking is consider on possible actions to establish board advisory committees. To establish board advisory committees to strengthen our governance, deepen our analysis of complex issue, and support informed data-driven decisions. A lot of times we get up here and we don't have time to really dive into the details, and these advisory committees will allow that. As Pearline ISD continues to navigate enrollment shifts, evolving legislative requirements, and increased expectations for student outcome, I believe there is a need for more focused board-level study and oversight in key areas. Under Texas Education Code 11.1511, the board may establish advisory

104structures to support the governance responsibilities and improve alignment between policy, practice, and outcome. And so the three committees that I am proposing is that we develop a rezoning and enrollment committee. that would review enrollment trends, evaluate attendance zones, develop potential rezoning scenarios and recommendations, and consider operational, academic, and community impact. The deliverables of this committee would be recommendations to the board regarding boundary adjustments and implementation considerations. The other committee is a policy and governance committee. This would review and recommend updates to all board policy and government practices, ensure alignment with state law, legislative changes, and district priorities, provide oversight for policy development, revision, and implementation, support clarity, consistency, and effectiveness. The deliverables for this board, once again, are recommendations to the board on policy updates, government practices, governance practices, and procedural improvements. And then the

105last committee that I'm asking the board to consider is the Student Performance and Outcome Committee. This would review district-wide student performance data, including STAR, CCMR, and other accountability measures, monitor progress towards board goal and strategic plan outcomes. evaluate effectiveness of district strategies and initiatives impacting student achievement, and identifies areas requiring acceleration, intervention, or systematic improvement. Deliverables, once again, would be recommendations to the board focused on improving student outcomes and ensuring accountability for results. So the structure of the all three committees would be, at most, there would be three trustees per committee. You would volunteer for this service if you want to be on a committee, and we would approve this by a board vote. The role is, and I want to say this again, the role of these committee is advisory only. They have no

106decision-making authority. Staff support, obviously superintendent and designees would be around for relevant department needs. Meetings would happen as needed in compliance with the Texas Open Meetings Act as applicable. And reporting would be regular updates and final recognitions to the full board. So there is a draft of changes to the standing rules that we have for the board. We would add these committees and the capability of creating these committees to our board standing rules. A couple questions. Specifically on two of the committees, rezoning enrollment, planning committee. There's some language in there, develop potential rezoning scenarios, recommendations, and I think it said boundaries too. In the path when we've had to rezone, Was it just three board? I mean, typically I felt like there's been more community input. I mean, walk me through what that looks like

107in that scenario. Because I felt like there was more potential feedback from our community on that. Or is it just three board members making a recommendation over to that? No, 100%. This is not the rezoning process. This is reviewing if rezoning is necessary. So if we in this committee determine that based on trends, we believe we need to rezone. then we would develop the rezoning process where we would go out there and get committees and community input and discuss with the community. But this is really just a planning phase of, is that the answer? We don't know if rezoning is the answer. We don't know if consolidation is the answer. It's being able to look at all the data at a board level and determine if that's the direction we want to go in. I

108assume that that was, if I read this from an outsider, I would just hate for future boards to potentially read that and think that they have. full authority because it says the recommendations of the board. That's how I'm reading it. It might be just a solo on that end, but I feel like it's good. The language on that one as I read it now is a little bit specific that they're giving themselves a little bit more authority. Though they, it says they just make recommendations that any zoning would just be three people. That's my thoughts. And under the Student Performance and Outcomes Committee. My only concern with this language is monitor progress towards board goals and strategic plan outcomes. I've personally really enjoyed our workshops and don't want to see those go away. And I

109don't want, I just don't want the information that we receive as a full board during those workshops to be less because the three board members that are volunteering on this committee are getting it in more detail and it seems redundant for them. So they're less engaged and it becomes, that's just. I hope that's not the goal, and I don't think that's the case, but that's just my comments on that one committee. I understand both of their purposes. I just don't want to see us get away from those, to me, impactful board workshops that we've done a handful of times on the strategic plan. And I appreciate that. We would not move away from the strategic scorecard and what we have done with the board. with our meetings and we'll have our next one in June.

110These committees are really more to get in the nuanced data and the nitty gritty and work through things. Very simple apropos the i-Radio conversation that just came up. Well, let's have a conversation about that. Let's look through the data. Where we can't necessarily do that in that detail in a board meeting setting. And again, it's not to make any decisions, whether it's on rezoning plans or changes to policy or student performance and outcomes. It's not like these three members are going to get together with Dr. Allen and they're going to rewrite all curriculum based on what they want. That is not the case. It's really just to allow us at a board level governance. to get into the details a little bit more outside of board meetings, but everything would come back and report to

111the board and the board vote would be for any changes that happen. Motion to approve. I have a motion by Trustee Murphy. Second. And a second by Trustee Stuckey. I have one further question. Do you want to go ahead? I would hate to say that I had a follow-up question for Dr. Berger, but there's only been a motion and a second, so no additional questions for me now. President Carbone. There's still additional questions if you'd like. Can we commit to having minutes reported either in the Friday updates after one of these committees is held so that the rest of the board can kind of have a purview of what the committee discussion was? So you're asking for minutes from the committee advisory to the board before a board meeting? I don't know what the... No,

112I'm just asking to clarify that. 100%. Okay. It wouldn't even have to be on a Friday recap. It could be after the advisory committee meets. Okay. Either way, I just, and some function. And for transparency, we can post and share to the community. I think that would be awesome too. So I just had one question. You've said several times that it could be up to three board members on a committee, but all the documents, the attachment and the agenda items say it will be three on the committee. So is it up to three or is it three? Well, in hindsight. I wanted three on each one, but then when you do the math, we have three committees, then somebody would have to be on two committees, and somebody may not want to be on two

113committees, so that may be an adjustment that we need to have. I would propose that we amend it to say up to three. Before Nan left, she said she'd like to be on all three, by the way. I think Crystal also just volunteered a minute ago. I'm just proxying her wishes. And Trustee Murphy, you're the one that wants to be on zero, is that correct? I'm already on the safety committee. That's not one of the advice. Well, I have to ask if Trustee Murphy wants to amend his amendment to include my recommendation or if we're going to vote on that one and then have to make a new one. I would amend my motion to approve this agenda item as presented with the change of up to three trustees per committee. I'll amend my second.

114All right, so I have a motion by Trustee Murphy with amendment of up to three trustees and a second by Trustee Stuckey. Dr. Burger, the question I have is do we need to identify who's on what committee now or do you want like a sign up genius or how do you want that to go? Ultimately, if y'all would like to think about it and we can bring back up, if you want, in May for you to volunteer and approve to be on those, or if y'all feel comfortable now saying, I volunteer for these and we do that through a board vote. I think that would make a lot more sense just because we're about to have an election and so you never know, we could end up with two new board members. Great point, Ms.

115Carter. So we can bring that back up in May so that way if we do have two new board members, then they can be part of the committees. So think about what committees you want to be a part of. I know Mr. Murphy's on all three, so realize there's only two more spots on each committee. I was getting them in my motion that said if Crystal was on all three, she has to take the minutes. So moved. And I do want to say, I know we're about to take a vote on this. I think this is another good direction that the board is volunteering to go into. The fact that we have more conversations outside of just board meetings to where we can get into the data, where we can get into the nuances and

116we can bring in staff members and have conversations. And again, I want the public to know this is not to hide any board action. No decisions will be made in any of these committees. And as Ms. Carbone pointed out, we will post all minutes and all reports will come back to the board before any vote or changes are made. One last clarifying, you said subject to open meeting records, would public be allowed to come? How's that, where does this fall in that area? Are these going to be public meetings like this and live streamed or are they behind, can the public attend these subcommittees according to the policy here? They can but ultimately we would do them at times maybe the public would have to be here because they wouldn't have to be after hours

117but their Transparency is welcome, but obviously we're gonna post the minutes so the transparency will be there for them. Just clarify. Thank you. And will we get overtime pay? You will get the same pay you currently get. That's a big goose egg, sir. But I also appreciate moving in this direction too. Through the leadership TASB and now the director position on TASB, I've heard long talks about committees on other boards and how they are participating in that way to strengthen what they're doing in an overall board meeting. And so I think this is a good move for us and allows us more depth as board trustees. And so we have a motion and a second on the table, and I think it's time for a call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries

1186-0 with Trustee Weimer leaving a little bit early. All right, Dr. Burger, we're going to talk about food service. Yes, ma'am. This is a consideration for changes to the board policy, CO local, as well as pricing adjustments for food service. As you heard in our budget workshop presentation, meal prices in Parallel and ISD have remained unchanged since 2014. Over that past decade, the district has experienced significant increases in food costs, labor, and operational supplies. The Texas Department of Agriculture currently recommends a lunch price of $4.01 to ensure financial sustainability of school nutrition programs. What we are asking is the board to consider a price increase of roughly 25 cents per meal. Our current lunch prices are $2.50 for elementary students, $2.75 for middle school students, and $3 for junior high and high school. Our current

119breakfast price is $1.45 for all students. Food service is recommending the increased prices that you see in the chart. Along with these menu prices, we are asking the board to consider a policy revision to CO local. Board policy CO local to reduce the allowable charge period for students with insufficient meal balances from 10 school days to two school days. This change is intended to reduce excessive student meal debt accumulation, improve the district's ability to recover unpaid balances, and maintain responsible financial management in the child nutritional program. The financial impact of these decisions is estimated to be about $185,000 annual increase in revenue from meal price adjustments and a reduction in outstanding unpaid meal balances. When would the two-day change take effect? Immediately? We would not look to do that until the next school year. Okay.

120So moved. Well, I have a zero issue with the increase in prices. I mean, it's been 12 years. I do have some concerns about going from 10 days to two days. I would rather see 10 days to five days and then next year we come back and adjust from five to two. Parents are busy and I think we need to kind of, for lack of a better term, train them. I know for School Cafe can send you an email. You can set School Cafe to read. reimburse your account like if it gets below a certain amount so that can be set up but that's not always something that a parent can do we've got a lot of people in our district that work multiple jobs and maybe our paycheck to paycheck at times and i

121would really hate to see a forgotten email or a struggle from somebody financially that results in a child not receiving a good lunch I 100% agree with that. I was going to suggest the same thing. As a parent who was not great about always checking my emails, I would hate for my, especially a little kid, to get turned down and say, here you go, here's your poopy and J, because it's embarrassing. And so I don't want the children to have to suffer for the parents' mistakes, and I do think that you're right. Training the parents might be helpful in this situation. concur with that. I think 10 to 5 would be my sweet spot and then move from there once we're there. What is the amount of money that we're carrying in unpaid 10-day over

122balances? It varies day to day, but around $10,000. Okay, so I was on the fence between going down to 5 or possibly just leaving it at 10. I mean, I understand the concern there about wanting to collect, but in my mind, so just today, one of my employees was talking about how he went to a gas station. He was on his way to go pick up his daughter who he had visitation with, and he promised to bring her some Cane's chicken. And so he went to the gas station first to buy a few dollars in fuel, ran his car, went to get the chicken, and his account was empty because the gas station placed a hold on his funds in excess of what he purchased. And he's paycheck to paycheck, just like 80% of the

123country. So he was... stressed out, seriously stressed out that he wasn't gonna be able to feed his little girl when you know the one chance he gets to see her. And I just know that so many people are paycheck to paycheck. Most people that are working day shift jobs get paid every two weeks. That's ten school days and ten days for that struggling family might be the difference between my kid eats this week and it might not. I'm kind of okay with carrying ten grand on the books if that means those kids get to keep eating until mom or dad gets another check. And Ms. Edwards can clarify. Just because a kid may go over the insufficient fund balance days that we determined doesn't mean they don't get to eat. They still get an alternative

124meal. Correct, yes. We give them either peanut butter and jelly or a cheese sandwich, and that's at no charge to the family. Is it that and all the other things that come with the meal, or is it the peanut butter, jelly, or a cheese sandwich? And a milk. That and a milk? Yes. Okay, yeah, but all the other kids have the craisins and the fruit and the dessert and all this stuff. Yeah, I get it. Mr. Plumbo, excuse the kids. Just something I would say to consider is that when we go to 10 days and parents have accumulated that, that bill can be pretty high, especially when you have multiple kids in the family. And so part of what we're trying to do is be a little bit more proactive in engaging those families a

125little bit earlier as well. And so we're going to still work with the families that may be in need, but just keep that in mind as your consideration because that is something that... we have a family that maybe you got three kids you may be closer to 100 150 in debt and you got to put money in the account to keep moving forward right and so that could be a substantial burden for them as well so part of the day reduction is for us to be engaged with them a little bit earlier figuring out sometimes supports they may need so how much work would it add if we maybe if we did go to five days if if we were to keep it the max would be 10 days but at five days that parent

126has to take some action to re-up Like we need an extension on the grace that we're allowed. Or would that be, I know administratively that adds another layer, but. it allows them to maybe ask for five more days to keep going. We currently work with families. So once they get communication from us at that 10 days, if they say it's Wednesday, hey, I don't get paid till Friday, we will work with them and we won't restrict that student. We also will work out payment plans with families. So if they only say, hey, I can pay $10 this week and then next week when I get paid, I can pay off the rest of the balance. We work with those families as well on a case by case. I think what they're trying to do is

127that instead of... going two weeks and all of a sudden they get that alert and it kills it. It's trying to like, okay, they're just, I think, trying to alert them earlier so that you can put a plan in place. And that's feedback we've gotten from families. So we reach out to them. And when a student is restricted, we also notify the principal. And so sometimes those families, they're at $50 and then they tell us. well, I can't pay off $50. I could have done 20, I could have done 10. So the idea to limiting that to two days was to make that just a little bit easier for families. But I guess if you're gonna do the work at two days, if we're already working with families and extending it beyond 10, then we're

128probably gonna keep working with families and extend it beyond two. It kind of makes it feel like what's the point of us making this policy if we're already kind of deciding how much we're gonna be willing to work with parents. I mean, if the whole purpose is to say, well, after two days, we need to be talking to the family, make sure that they know they're accumulating a debt and that they'll pay that, we could do that with any policy, I would think. So we begin communicating with families at two days and then we continue to communicate with them. The way the board policy is written is we're not able to restrict the meal until it gets to the 10 days. So they just kind of build up that balance. So we do have students

129that owe 50, $60 at the end of that 10 days. So you're saying you don't want the kid to keep digging a hole that the parent can't get out of. Correct. Okay. How many kids are we talking about? How many kids do you think are on restricted diets or restricted meals? I'd have to look. I don't know off the top of my head. You think double digits, triple digits? Oh, yes. I would say triple. And how many are we getting complaints from that the money, the budget that they've set is too high and too much to pay? Not that many. We typically don't get responses from families. Our typical, when we restrict them, we usually get a payment right away, is what happens, I would say, probably 80% of the time. I would say another

13010% of the time, we just never hear from that family, so we don't know what happened. Maybe the student was packing their lunch and getting a lunch, and then they finally got cut off and they just eat their lunch from home. We just don't know what happens. And then the other 10% are the families that we work with. We also are in situations where once we restrict them, the family then applies for free and reduced lunch. And then once they're on free lunch, that balance just sits there. It's like many of these families, if they're getting to a point where they can't pay for that, they probably would have qualified for free and reduced lunch anyway. And that's part of our initial communication. So once we get to the two days, we reach out to

131them, we tell them how to apply, and we continue to do that. So is that why you went from 10 to 2 is like you really want the trigger, you want the alarm bells going off right out of the gate so you can figure out what this family needs? Does us trying to extend that to five days, does that handicap you in any way? Does that accomplish your goal? That would, yeah. I don't like seeing that we have students that owe over $100 currently just because it's gotten so out of hand. So just to see those numbers much smaller for those individual families. I've also been a kid on the receiving end of that and I have vivid memories of it. So I am, it really has my heart strings on this particular topic. And

132so I'm confident to go with the rest of the board. I think five. I think cutting in half, I mean, that's progress, right? I mean, if the board wants to go. So then I would amend my motion for the price changes and to go from the 10 days to five days. A motion by Trustee Murphy and a second by Trustee Stuckey, but a question by Trustee Johnson. Yeah, just, sorry, I stepped out. Price increase, see if we're here. What about for our employees? Was that discussed? If they're purchasing lunches or meals from the cafeteria, do they do that? And what are their prices? And are we proposing them? For cafeteria employees or for district employees? District employees, parents buying, or they do, one, if a, to. Trustee Scheffler's comments, somebody comes in with their kid,

133what prices are they paying? Are we proposing an increase there? And also for employees, if they're buying lunches and breakfasts, because I think some of them do from our cafeterias, are they seeing an increase as well? So the rates for adult meals for both visiting adults and teachers that work on the campus is set by TDA, and that's adjusted annually, and it's based on the free rate of meals. It's based on the reimbursement, so it's about what we receive in reimbursement for students on free lunch. It's currently $5 for lunch. Thank you. All right, any further questions on this item? All right, hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? All right, motion carries 6-0. Thank you guys so much. All right, Dr. Berger, we're just looking. The last item on the

134agenda is the budget amendment number six. Yes, ma'am. This information, as we've brought to you before, is just when we're doing a budget amendment and settling up. As I informed you, our last budget amendment, we took all of the TEA miscalculations and changes to T2 funding as well as the frozen levy, and it brought us to a deficit budget. We also discussed in our budget workshop that we had filed, the business service office had filed for a property value audit for this year. Well, we had done that previously for year 21-22, and we did that in year 23-24. I believe. And that came back and TEA said, you know, you did this audit, you're correct, we owe you a little bit of money. And so we have $4.7 million that has come back to us

135in the foundational school fund program from the property value audit. And therefore you can see the offset of that from the last budget amendment to this budget amendment. which brings us from a deficit budget of 3.1 million to a net increase of 2.2. And that's function 5812, magic money. So I guess my question is, what is the difference in this audit in comparison to the calculation error? So there was a calculation error about appraisal values. Yes? And then this is different how? Like, is it different years that we did this audit of the money? Like, how does all this work? Well, we're currently doing a property value audit request this year based on these property values. When you talk about the swings that we had in March, and I think that's what you're talking about,

136the swing from $130 million in state aid to $141 million in state aid was an error. So it's kind of like a... A blip. But we never had an adjustment, a budget adjustment for the 140. Right, because business office knew that was a blip. But when they reduced it back down to $122 million, that's when the TA set it up and the comptroller set it up and said, this is what it is. And so that's where our budget is currently reflective of. But the business office says, based on these changes, we want to do a property value audit for our T2 values to figure out if TEA can review them and figure out, just like they did on this one, if they've made a mistake. that property value audit is deemed as verifiable, then we

137may be able to get back another $3 million off of that audit. Are you talking about when the state didn't want to certify our rolls a couple years ago? Is that the thing that you're bringing up? I'm just confused about this infusion of money. Like the timing of it is they're two separate. Okay, completely. Can you explain it to me please? So the property value audit happens. We actually enlist a law firm to assist us with that. They check prior years to determine that, oh yes, our roles that got certified that year had any, whether they had any fluctuations, whether property values were continued to be. negotiated between homeowners and individuals and businesses through the state to determine that we actually got the appropriate amount of funding relating to those audit values. So this correction

138is from year what? 2022, tax year 2022. Yes. So you might have said that. So then the error that happened in March. was a review of 2025 numbers. Correct. It is current year. And so there could be adjustments from 23, 24, and 25? So we do enlist those services, and they do happen in a delayed form because all of the negotiations. So if you are disputing your own property and home value for this year, technically it's tax year 26. So we have to wait for that year to close, all of those negotiations to fall out. Yes, we agree that your property is valued too high or too low, whether you win that dispute or not, all of that has to essentially shake out. And we enlist, like I said, that additional law firm to come

139in years after to check to make sure. receive the appropriate amount of funding from the state. So remind me how frequently we see additional infusion of money as a result of these kinds of audits. So almost annually, but the amount fluctuates quite a bit. Like what is the fluctuation? I think we've seen almost as... Like $11,000. Yeah, from $11,000 to... So obviously not dependable resource of funding. Well, and then the thing that happened in March when they changed their funding formula, like they re-evaluated the formula, and so the values didn't change. It was just the way that they calculated how much they were going to give us, and that kind of went up and down. So that's what you were saying is that it almost washed out, right? Like you had this weird, you arrived

140at the same number, but it was a different number. Okay, so we have this motion. Did anybody make a motion on this? I don't remember. So moved. Have a motion by trustee Sheffler and a second by trustee Stuckey any further questions on this item Thank you ladies All right hearing none. I'll call for a vote all those in favor motion carries 6-0 with trustee Weimer out this evening All right, so we're gonna move into it. Does anybody have any questions on any of the administrative reports? Hearing none, we're going to move into closed session. The Board of Trustees of the Pearland Independent School District will now convene into a closed meeting to discuss the following items posted on our agenda this evening as allowed by Title V, Chapter 551, Texas Government Code and or Education

141Code. The superintendent will present for the board's consideration or discussion of the following matters. Section 551.071, 074, 076. No voting will take place in the closed meeting. Any action the board wishes to take as a result of discussion. in closed session will take place after the board reconvenes in the open meeting. It is now 7.11 p.m. I think all staff is free to go except for Dr. Dahlkamp. Thank you. Test, test. The board will reconvene in open session at 8.10 p.m. No action was taken in closed session. Do I have a motion? I move we accept and approve the superintendent's recommendation for employment of personnel as presented. Second. I have a motion by Trustee Scheffler, a second by Trustee Carter. Calling for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 7-0. I move we accept

142and approve the superintendent's recommendation for the contract renewal of district and campus educators as presented. Second. Motion by Trustee Scheffler, second by Trustee Carter. I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? 1 abstaining. So 6-0 with 1 abstention. I'm sorry, what? OK, I just didn't see. Jim Johnson abstaining. All right. I move we accept and approve the superintendent's recommendation to propose the termination of four probationary contract teachers as presented. Second. Motion by Trustee Scheffler, second by Trustee Johnson. Calling for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 7-0. I move we accept and approve the superintendent's recommendation to propose the non-renewal of two-term contracts as presented. Second. Motion by Trustee Scheffler, second by Trustee Johnson. Calling for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 7-0. All right, with all that done, meeting adjourned

143at 8.11 p.m.