Pearland ISD Board Meeting - June 10th, 2025

001I'll call this meeting of the present Pearland independent school district board of trustees to order on June 10th, 2025 at 5 PM. Let the record show that a quorum of board members is president 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 five, five, one. Let the record show that trustees Johnson, Stuckey, Scheffler, Carbone, Weimer, and Carter are present this evening. All right, we're going to get started with the Pledge of Allegiance, a prayer, and a quick message. Father God, thank you for being here with us tonight. Please give us all the wisdom and discernment we need to make wise decisions that are representative of our community and that make you proud. Lord, we thank you

002for being in the midst of this meeting, and we thank you for the first responders and the military overseas that protect our freedoms. Please be with us tonight. In your name we pray. Amen. All right. Each month we rotate board comments where we each have an opportunity to welcome our community into our meetings. And tonight happens to be my night. So welcome to summer and welcome to the June 2025 board meeting. We have lots of big changes to discuss on the agenda tonight. And I offer each one of you an opportunity to stay and discuss those or hear about those discussions with us. The legislative session just concluded and there are some big things coming our way. A few things to highlight that we're really excited about is our ability to compensate our teachers with

003especially veteran teachers with a hefty raise. And so that's very exciting. And so we appreciate the legislative session for the support that they have given us to support teachers. We're going to be discussing some concerns and I think there's going to be a concern for everybody in the legislative session that's just passed. There's something that's going to frustrate everyone here when they when the state government takes over local control and makes decisions for us. It doesn't always reflect what our community looks like. And so As always here in Pearland ISD, we welcome your voice in these decisions. Please come talk to us. Know that tonight is a starting point for these discussions. We are a problem-solving school district. Just like I say in my own family, we are a problem-solving family and we have a

004problem-solving superintendent. So where we can, we're going to make this reflective of our community every chance we get. But some of this is just laws that are passing that we're going to have to abide by. whether we like it or not. And so that's not always a fun place to be, but I think it's better when we're transparent about it and when we have open conversations up front. And so I wanted to offer that opportunity tonight. Also. I wanted to thank everybody for a great school year. Our teachers, our students, our families came together and 2024-25 school year was one for the record books. And we're starting to see scores come out of it that show that on testing, but we've known that well before now because of the amount of students we've seen walk

005across this dais in celebration, the amount of teachers we've gotten out to see in the public, the amount of money our education foundation has been able to give to support grants and innovative... ideas in our schools. And so I think each one of you that are here in this room tonight for the impact that you've made and making Paraland ISD, building Paraland ISD proud. And just before I conclude tonight, I just wanna offer a personal point of privilege and say happy birthday to Catherine and Claire, my twins at home who turned nine tonight. So thanks for offering me that opportunity and thanks again for being here tonight. All right, we're gonna move on to... Board recognition where we get to celebrate our students. So I'll meet the board up front and Dr. Berger. Our Dawson

006High School training program had a historical year. as they qualified for state for the third consecutive year. This team was made up of the seven returning team members and six additional new students. Four seniors, three juniors, three sophomores, and three freshmen. The back-to-back TSA TA state champions had major targets on their back as they competed for the three-peat. This year the TSATA state competition had the most qualified schools attend with 24 total schools. Our defending champions were successful in the skills portion as they placed first with 47 out of 50 points allowing the team to finish third overall at state. This is the team's third consecutive appearance at state. a first for Dawson High School athletic training program. Here to introduce the trainers is head athletic trainer Christina Fry and Josent Everhart. First up we

007have Layla Groves, Kate Gulledge, Myla Jabbar, Mustafa Manomwala, Janavi Merchant, Haile Pamoja, Katie Roth, Andy Sellers, and Jada Sese. Congrats to our Dawson High School athletic trainers. Okay, next is Sablatura Middle School's sixth grade team who recently claimed first place at the International Future Problem Solving Competition in Indiana. The competition. brought together bright young minds from across the world to tackle pressing future issues through critical thinking, innovative collaboration, and creative problem solving. The championship team includes, and feel free to bring your certificates up, Lydia He, Clara Hong, Annabel Yang, and Gloria Zeng. The team was coached by Cassandra Maldonado and Linda Ketterer. Congrats to this amazing group of girls. We're going to get the teachers up here. You're welcome. I love it. Okay, congrats again. This concludes our recognition for the evening. Let's give our

008honorees another round of applause. All right, 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 5, Chapter 551, Texas Government Code. The superintendent will present the boards. We'll present the board's consideration or discussion the following matters. Section 551.071, 072, 074, 076. No voting will take place in closed meeting. Any action the board wishes to take as a result of discussions in closed session will take place after the board reconvenes in the open meeting. It is now 5-12. We accept and approve the superintendent's recommendation to name Veronica Rodriguez-August principal of Magnolia Elementary School. Second. Ms. Rodriguez-August, would you like to have a moment to say a few words? Yes. We have a motion

009by Scheffler and a second by Stuckey. Any further discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 6-0 with Trustee Murphy absent this evening. Thank you, Ms. Guzetta. and grateful for this opportunity. I'm really proud of Magnolia and I hope to do amazing things with the staff, the teachers, the community. So thank you again for trusting me to be its next principal. Dr. Scheffler, you have one more motion for me? I do. 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 Johnson. Any further discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 6-0 with Trustee Murphy absent. All right, we are going to open a public hearing

010for the notice of intent to apply. Oh, yes, we need to do public comment. My apologies. Caution. Okay, we are moving into the public comment section of the evening. 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. Patrons addressing items not listed on tonight's agenda will also be heard. Because of topic posting requirements of the Open Meetings Act, board members will not ask any questions of the patron and will not answer any questions posed to the board by the patron. No action can be taken on any issue presented during the patron comment segment of the board meeting. Patrons addressing the board will be notified when they are approaching the last 30 seconds

011of their allotted time to speak. This evening, we have Ms. Christine Scruggs. Hi, Ms. Christine. Thank you for being here tonight. Is this loud enough? Or, I don't know. Can you hear me? Okay, can I start? Okay, good evening. My name is Christine. Some of you know me as a neighbor or friend. Some as the former Pearland Band Booster Club president during the Rose Parade. My sons graduated at the top of their class with vice presidents of the band or presidents of the band. We're excellent musicians, making Allstate a total of four times. I'm here today to talk about the devastating effects that THC, the main psychoactive component of cannabis, has had on our family. A family with no mental health history or diagnoses. My son did not start using THC until after college graduation

012at the age of 22 and adult. Within eight months, he was using every day and was addicted. He developed symptoms of psychosis, which are delusions, paranoia, and hallucinations. We forced him into dual diagnostic treatment. He was diagnosed with cannabis-induced psychosis, or CIP. He worked through a program for eight and a half months. His therapist told him he's lucky not to have converted to a long-term diagnosis such as bipolar, schizoaffective, or schizophrenia. This can happen to anyone, no matter the age, sex, or race. You do not have to have predisposition to mental health illness for that to happen. We are seeing thousands of cases nationwide due to the supercharged potency increase in widespread availability of THC products. The THC industry has done a phenomenal job of spreading their rhetoric claiming that these substances are non addictive

013good for anxiety depression, etc These are false claims This is an addiction for profit industry that has no concern for the negative consequences of its products. What used to be 2% and 3% potency in the 60s and 70s is now averaging 18% to 23% potency, with vapes and other concentrates going over 90% potency. They are addictive and causing symptoms of psychosis. In 2023, 19.2 million people in the U.S. had a cannabis use disorder driven by these products. This spring on Walks in My Neighborhood, I have found five empty packages, THC packages. The vapes are 80% potency. Their wrappers are littering our neighborhoods. Their contents are addicting millions. For the past two years, I've emailed Pearland ISD about getting a great educator, Laura Stack, from Johnny's Ambassadors to educate our kids about the consequences of THC

014use. In 2023, I got no reply. In 24, I was directed to look at a link to Bacoda. KDISD brought Laura to two of their high schools last September. Because of my continued advocacy, Laura offered to present for free in Pearland, which she was not taken up on. Pearland ISD students and families deserve the best education on this topic. I've been educating and advocating for legislative change to close the loophole allowed by these products. I would encourage you guys to be a lifesaver, learn as much as you can about the dangers of THC, and then support legislation and education that saves lives and futures of Texans. I have a lot more to share, but I only have three minutes, so I thank you for your time. And I have one of these for each of

015you if you'd want to take one. Thank you for being here this evening. All right, at this time, we're going to open the public hearing at 6.02 with a notice of intent to apply and opportunity for public comment for the 2526 Federal Entitlement Block Grants. Dr. Berger? We have Donna Tate here who is over all of our grants and the wonderful things that we do. So we are going to open and close the hearing on this, our notice of intent to apply for these block grants for 25-26. We do this every school year. Each June, Parallel and ISD applies for eligible federal entitlement block grants, the ESSA Consolidated, IDEA Consolidated, and Perkins V. And so if you have any questions or concerns, Ms. Tate is here. All right, I'm just calling for anyone in the

016audience that would like to speak or have comment about this public hearing. All right, hearing none, we'll close this public hearing at 6.03 p.m. Thank you. Thank you. All right, now moving on to the consent agenda. We have items A1 through 9. Any issues that need to be pulled this evening? All right, hearing none, I'll call for a motion. I move to approve the consent agenda as written. Second. I have a motion from Trustee Scheffler and a second from Trustee Carter. Any further discussion on this item? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 6-0 with Trustee Murphy absent this evening. The next item up on the agenda is the designee for the delegate or alternate to the 25 TASB Delegate Assembly. Yes, ma'am. This is the first regular Board

017agenda item. Every year we have to designate a delegate and alternate for the 2025 TASB Delegate Assembly. This year will be taking place in Houston at the George R. Brown, so not that far to travel. Last year we had Ms. Weimer as the delegate representative and Ms. Francis as the alternate, so we asked the Board to deliberate and select a new or reappoint the same delegate and a new alternate. Thank you, Dr. Berger. With my appointment to the TASB board, I'll automatically be a part of the delegate assembly this evening or on during the upcoming TASB conference. And so I'll be taken out of the running on that one. I'd like to nominate Sean. I appreciate that nomination. However, this is a really important delegate assembly that's really going to shape the future of the

018TASB. They're redoing all their strategic planning and this is really gonna shape the future of TASB and I'd like to have someone that Would be interested in really engaging and participating in this activity I volunteer Thank You miss Weimer And so if we want to appoint Sean as the alternate I'm more than happy to do that Well, would anyone else be interested in being the alternate? Does that sound interesting to any of our new board members or? I'd be interested, but Mr. Murphy has more experience on the board and maybe with it being so important this time, maybe have him be the alternate. And this would just be if Ms. Weimer was not able to attend for some reason. Ms. Weimer represented us well during the last delegate assembly. And if she's interested, I would

019make a motion that we continue with that delegate representative with Mr. Murphy being an alternate. All right. I move that we approve that slate. Second. All right, I have a motion by Trustee Shuffler and a second by Trustee Stuckey. Any further discussion? All right, hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries six to zero with Trustee Murphy absent this evening. All right, next we're moving on to the consideration and approval of the employee compensation plan for 2526. Dr. Berger. Yes, ma'am. So we have had two budget workshops, and as we went through both budget workshops, we were saying what we knew at the time with current funding and current law, everything could change. Well, guess what? Everything changed. So House Bill 2 was passed. And in passing that, I believe

020just today or yesterday, it was signed by the governor. So this will be our funding for public education for the next biennium. In that, there was a teacher retention allotment that was created and added. to House Bill 2 and our funding mechanisms. And what it did is it set up allocated money for teachers' years of service and the amount of compensation they are designated to receive. So teachers with years three and four years of service or experience get $2,500 on top of the compensation that they received this year. Classroom teachers with five or more years of experience get $5,000. So two to three years teachers, that's a 3.7% GPI based off of the control point. And for five plus year teachers, it's a 7.3% GPI off of the control point. In-house bill two, that is

021where it stopped for teacher compensation. They did some other allotments. They did an ABC allotment and an auxiliary retention allotment that gave us some money for compensation for everybody else in the organization. But House Bill 2 focused on teachers. So what we did, what the business office did, what HR did was we went back to our budget planning sessions, the amount of money that we had allocated, the amount of money we were receiving, and what can we do to make sure that all of our employees get compensated. So what we are asking the board tonight to consider for approval for compensation for 2526 is to do the $2,500 for the three to four years teachers and the $5,000 for the five plus year teachers, but also a general GPI 3% increase for all other employees.

022So I'm curious. With the funding here, they're talking about adding $2,500 or $5,000 per teacher. That's not usually what we talk about when the state is funding the school district. We're talking about per student. So how does that work out? Do we send them a teacher count and they reimburse us for this? Yes, sir. So to work through our PEIM system and how we have our teachers categorized in the system, it has to be a classroom teacher. So we have some employees that are on a teacher pay scale, but... They're what we're commonly calling non-teacher teachers. And that's not to be disrespectful. It's just how we say it because they're not a classroom teacher, but they're on the teacher pay scale. They do not get classified for this 2,500 or 5,000 because how we code

023them in PEMS and how it's reported to the state, they would not be in that bucket. So as you know, in our funding with our attendance, we do beginning of the year and we do middle of the year and we do end of the year and we have settle up. That's how we believe this funding will happen with teachers. They will track it along the school year and based on how we input things into PEMS, they will settle up with us at the end of the year on the amount of money that we need based on the law and the legalities of this bill. So do they have that funding equation already mapped out or is this just the bill is here and then they're gonna figure out all the details? The bill is here.

024We believe based on what we're hearing from TASB and what the business office has done and what HR has done as far as following up as best that we can, we're pretty confident that this is exactly how it's gonna work. That they're gonna use the PEIM systems and how we categorize our teachers and classify them and then we will get funded based off of this. Both the runs that have been done, the TASB run that has been done as well as the state run that has been done. allocates the amount of money that we believe is appropriate that aligns with the teachers that we have classified in these positions to meet the threshold of these compensations. And just be specific, the fold-in teachers that if you are in a classroom, then you're categorized as a

025classroom teacher. Yes, ma'am. Like, for example, we have some of our instructional coaches that are here at CNI. They are on the teacher pay scale, but they're not classroom teachers, so they would not receive the $2,500 or $5,000. The other thing is in House Bill 2, they only did experience three and above. They did not capture our one- and two-year experience teachers, so if we only went with House Bill 2, they would not receive any additional compensation from the state. So that's why we went back and did the 3% GPI to keep it comparable to what is happening for the other teacher pay scales. So with the workshops that we did on the budget, I'd refresh my memory. What were we thinking? We figured a raise in there. What was the absolute dollar number that

026we were thinking for that raise that would come out of the general fund? I think that was 2% district-wide. Yes, sir, we had 2% built in. Feel free to give me while I'm getting to the pages. So for the budget workshop number two, where we were doing the 2% GPI across the board with the equity adjustments, the total of that was $4.5 million. And then we proposed the possibility of doing a 3% GPI across the board, and that would have been $5.9 million. This says that the total increase for all district employees would be eight point four million dollars in base salary compensation But part of that is going to be made up by the state and part of this comes out of our general fund So I'm trying to figure out the breakdown there

027and how this compares to our workshop So so the breakdown there is once you pull out the teachers in that all of your classroom teachers your three to above experience, which House Bill 2 is gonna take care of. To the tune of just, I think it was $5.8 million, almost $6 million that House Bill 2 will give to us. We are looking at about 2.4 million in compensation that's coming from the general operating budget. Okay, so then that, correct me if I'm wrong here, that then is less than what we were budgeting coming out of our general fund, so it's actually a savings to us and the teachers get more money. Yes, sir. And the staff across the board gets more money. Just trying to put that into words to crystallize, you know, I think

028that, I mean, that's half. If we did a 3% increase, that's half of what we had been budgeting coming out of our pockets and the state making up the rest. Yes, sir. How we had it before, if you remember, I kind of had that running spreadsheet on budget two where I said, if we do a 3%, because we have done 2% for the last four years. We haven't done really a bigger than a 2% in a while. If we would have done a 3% off of current funding without House Bill 2, we would have been $2.4 million in deficit doing that. Now with House Bill 2, we have teachers getting 3%, 3.7%, 7.3% GPI, and then all of our other staff still get a 3% GPI with adjustments, and we do not have that projected

029deficit. I think that makes that makes great sense I mean you could make the argument and have the conversation about could you do more since we were already projecting to have the deficit I think that that's probably That'd be foolhardy at this point if we found a way to kind of get flat that to me makes sense So let's can we have a conversation about more? Not in the person it may be in the salary increase, but dr. Berger Can you talk a little bit about insurance changes and what we expect our insurance? impact to be on our staff. So anybody with insurance, if you're in the insurance business, I'd love for you to explain it to me, but every year our premiums seem to go up. So this year, we are projected or have

030been told that we will have an increase of our premiums on average about 7.6%. We have different levels of coverage throughout our district, and so 7.6% increase is about where that falls. So if you take our Tier 1 primary care coverage with TRS Active Care, an employee only will pay $36 more. An employee and spouse will pay $97. An employee and child... is expected to pay $61 and an employee with family is expected to pay $122 on that primary active care TRS level. Is that per month or? That's per month. And so overall that increase of that 7.6% on average is what we're expected for that plan. So what would be the average increase in percentage to the salary? With the, well, 3% versus the? What's a $36 or 97? What's the average increase? Of

031those three? Well, you're talking about it as a percentage of salary, right, of take-home. So what chunk are they losing? Yes. I mean, would it be basically a break-even with a 3% salary increase in comparison to the insurance change? Well, you have... So many different job families and so many different salaries if you just want to talk about teachers because if you take a 3% of a custodial salary that is a different increase amount than a 3% of a teacher's salary at one year which is 2050 dollars a 3% of a custodial salary would not be 2050 dollars so the impact on an auxiliary staff member as opposed to a teacher as opposed to a principal Would all be different varying percentages. So what's 2050 divided by 12? 170. Okay, so if they were a

032family that's taken a $122 increase on insurance, they're only seeing an increase of about $50 a month. Yes, ma'am. So I think that the question that comes up every year is what do we contribute to insurance benefits? Currently, we contribute as an employer contribution $337. And the uptake rate of that? Is about 60%. We did a pretty big insurance jump was that last year wasn't it that we did the ratification of that? Yes, sir. We did benefits and compensation last year and this year our plan was to do compensation and stipends So I guess the opportunity is that we do have money left in the budget because the state came in and did these big raises for other job classes that if we wanted to be creative this would be an opportunity to do that

033or we can reserve the right within our We need to add it here where we would have a one-time allotment or the possibility of a one-time allotment later It is built into this motion and budget item The one thing I would hesitate on and the one thing that often comes up is that insurance if it's a 60% take rate and we do that, then we're leaving out 40% of our employees to where if we do have the financial wherewithal and stability and confidence that say, like we do sometimes around November, we say, hey, we would like to do a one-time payment, that covers 100% of the employees and does not become a long-term sustainable or unsustainable increase to our budget. So I'm kind of flashing back to our conversation a month ago. So I said

034that it might be foolhardy, but... We were also looking at our fund balance has gotten to like 147 days or something. I didn't look at the report for this month, but where are we at right now? Actual year end estimate is 144. That's a lot. And I mean, if we've got, if we already had that deficit kind of built into our budget, that sounds like we could potentially do a 5% across the board and we would wash with the budget that you were estimating as of the last workshop. But then if you project forward House bill 2 we think we have a handle on for the next fiscal year But as I gave you the three-year projection for 27 projected budget. We're back into a deficit So we always feel that way three years out.

035I mean that's kind of that's where I start looking back at this, and I know two is doing a fantastic job. We're forecasting things differently than we ever have, and I don't want to knock that, but it does always feel like once we actually reach that horizon, we don't actually find the doom and gloom that we've kind of worried about. And I do think that you want to budget cautiously, but three years out, that's a whole other legislative session from now. So I don't know that I'm... It's actually two years out. We have this fiscal cycle and then next year before the biennium. I'd like to point out that sometimes when we have projected a lot of doom and gloom, we have actually, the reasons that we have not seen that doom and gloom is

036not because magic money showed up, but because we had the Vader and the Bond. And the Vader is something that we can't do again. It's not possible. So if we get down into a situation where we are $7 million short again, then what are we going to do? You know what I mean. Correct. We do not have that lifeline of Tier 2 funding. It has been maximized. And that Tier 2 funding through the new legislation has been capped, and those adjustments are not coming as they were because the $55 BA increase that has been passed through House Bill 2 is coming from the Golden Penny allotment and not from a true $55 to the BA. I think the one point that I took out of your comments from earlier is that we're still very much

037waiting for the dust to settle about these legislative actions. And we really don't know exactly what that bottom line number is going to be. Even the draft that was given to us today, the one pager is a real good estimate, but it's, I think behooves us that we have to approve this tonight. The concern that I have is about the reoccurring stability of being able to carry that 5% increase over time. I want to see it fleshed out. Like get Sundy to put together some spreadsheets and look at that as to what that looks like over time. Who does the fund balance? I think the fund balance is... is incredibly high. We've talked about in the past, what's the minimum that we want? Do we need 90 days? Do we need 120 days? We're at

038144. We've never talked about that much. So maybe- No, but we've also talked about wanting to reimburse the capital improvement plan so that we don't ever have to go for a bond again. No, we need to do that. And so if we can take half or a large chunk of that and put it over into a capital improvement plan to prevent having to go out for a bond- four years from now. No, I'm not fighting on that. What I was gonna say is that in this motion, we already have, what we've done in the past is around December, talk about the bonuses, it's a non-recurring payment, but maybe this year Santa Claus can be extra generous. You know, if we're getting there and it's kind of like, wow, you know, we're in a really good

039spot, we kind of understand how this funding mechanism is gonna work this year, but... If we find that we're in that position, it does, it needs to enter that conversation again next year when we start talking about how do we renew contracts. We have not kept up with the stresses that have hit families because of the cost of living. So I just want to make sure that we're trying to keep pace as best we can. And when the coffers are growing, and we're not a for-profit entity. Nobody takes that home at the end of the day. It sits in an account. It gets invested. It generates a return for the school district. But that's growing. And it's kind of like, well, people could use that money. So I want to make sure that conversation stays

040where it needs to. Yes, I agree. Front of mind. I think that if we add something to the agenda even now for November and make sure that it's there, that we're attending to that after the dust settles of what this budget actually looks like. I like the idea of a one-time payment, a generous one-time payment if we can get there versus committing to a reoccurring cost right now. we need more data before we commit to that anyway. I think the 3% is kind of a layup just because it already shores up the budget more than we already had kind of thought we were gonna do. So I don't know if anyone else has any thoughts on that. I've talked enough. All right, if not, I move that we approve the compensation package as presented. Actually,

041I have a question about stipends. Yes, ma'am. Sort of clarify. what exactly they are for people who are watching. When we say we're increasing our 54 stipends, what do those stipends do? Yes, ma'am, so the stipends are broke down. We have several different stipends and the expert is Dr. McGrew. But what happens is we have not reviewed stipends in probably 10 years or more across the board. And so different districts have increased stipends and taken stipends. So TASB does a study for us both on salary and on stipends and then we do a district cross comparison what's local to us to figure out. What needs to move that's not moving? And so in breaking down the stipends, we have fine arts stipends that are being adjusted. We have the majority of them are academic stipends.

042And that deals with team leads on campuses or department chairs or honor society or robotics or some of the clubs that get the stipends. And then we have a few athletic stipends that are being adjusted. And then we have some programs that are cash for college that are being adjusted. And then we have some district stipends that are directly related to special programs. Teachers that serve in BSI classrooms, which are Behavior Support Intervention classrooms, our PEARS classrooms, our PPCD, and then our dual language area. And so... Those stipends are the ones that are being adjusted based on the work that HR and Dr. McGrew did with her team to figure out over the 10 years, where did we fall behind and where do we need to elevate to make sure that we are competitive to

043the market? Thank you. I just, thanks. I just had someone ask and I knew that I could not give a very fleshed out response. Right, and so sometimes when we talk about stipends, people only think about coaches. So your athletic coaches are getting more money. Actually, our athletic coaches are the smallest portion of these stipends that are being adjusted. Most of them are the academic. If people are worried about athletics, our cheer sponsors are getting a stipend. Our football assistant coaches, girls soccer coach, and tennis boys and girls is being adjusted at the junior high level. All of these are at the junior high level except for high school cheer. And then most of the adjustments in Fine Arts are junior high level and a few of the high school dance and choir. Did I

044miss anything, Dr. McGrew? All right, we had a motion on the table. I'm looking for a second. Second. Second. All right, I have a motion by Trustee Scheffler and a second by Trustee Carter. Are there any further questions or comments about the compensation and stipends adjustments? All right, hearing none, we'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 6-0 with Trustee Murphy absent. All right, moving on to discussion of the 89th Texas Legislative Session, Public Education Bills. Dr. Berger. Okay, this is a little bit different. And through conversation with Ms. Carbone, the president, I asked if we could put this discussion item on here. There are hundreds of bills that have been passed from our 89th legislator that deals with public education. And there's some rumor and speculation and ideas about what they

045are and what can happen in our coming years. This is the first slate of bills that I think we need to talk about. And really, we're just discussing it. So I would like a little bit of... of just not discretion, the word I'm looking for is runway to go through these a little bit. So board, what you have is in your packet, you have. information kind of outlining these bills, not the bills themselves, but outlining what's in the bills for the ones we were discussing. Plus you have an entire packet of all the update bills that we have through the legislative session that have been passed out and are either on the governor's desk or have been signed by the governor. And so the first bill, if you saw... the wonderful video that was out

046there that we put out there to have the discussion about compensation. But House Bill 1481, otherwise known as the cell phone bill. I guess I could say better known as the student personal communication device and not necessarily cell phone because it is all encompassing. And so what House Bill 41 does, it is effective immediately. It is going to require school boards to adopt and implement a written policy prohibiting students from using cell phones, tablets, smartwatches, radio devices, paging devices, or any other electronic device capable of communication while on school property during the school day. This is a law. This is not Pearland ISD saying that we want to do this. This is the state of Texas that says you're going to do this and now you have to figure out how you're going to make

047this work. So we are waiting for TEA to publish a model policy, but they may not publish this policy until late July or early August when school's already about to start and then we're going to start school and then we're going to have to restart school when we decide to adopt this policy. So my goal is for us to have this conversation in July when we have our board meeting, we adopt with better information from TEA our policy so our parents, our teachers, our students, our community know what to expect when school starts. So we have the opportunity to either pass a policy that says cell phones are banned from being on school property during the school day. or we have the option of passing a policy that says we have to have a method

048of securing a personal communication device of a student while they're on campus during the school day. I also wanna highlight that it is part of the policy we have to pass. The board has to determine what the discipline infractions will be when or if a student violates whatever policy we pass. as well as the policy allows for exemptions, medical exemptions, IEP exemptions, and 504 exemptions, meaning if there is a health plan, an accommodation that is needed through an IEP or 504, a student having a personal communication device is exempt from this policy whichever way we go. So lots of communication about this, lots of comments on the video and Facebook post of different ways, community members saying, great, I didn't have a cell phone, they don't need a cell phone, to other ones concerned about

049the safety and welfare of their kids. I do want to let you know that that is number one prominent for us. All of our classrooms, thanks to technology and thanks to our bond, now have cell, not cell phones, have classroom phones in the classroom. We did not have those before. We now have hard phones in the classrooms so students or teachers can use them either for rapid response or security needs or just communication in general. Doesn't take the place of the phone, but I just want to throw it out. to the board, House Bill 1481 and discussion for your thoughts, how you feel, where we may go. Again, I'm not asking you to make a decision, because we do not have the model policy yet, but I think it's important we start having discussions for

050transparency for our community about where we may land on these items. Dr. Burger, can you give some examples when it says that we must secure the phones, what that actually might look like? I wish I could. So there are different ideas about what that means. I have actually asked the Commissioner of Education, can you define that for me? And they said, we will later. What does it mean to secure? So if you are following Friendswood ISD before this law was passed, they moved to what's called a young. case. And so what that is is it is a case that has a magnetic locking system to it. Students put their phone in that case and they press it close and it locks for the day and they carry that around with them. So they can't access

051their phone but they have their phone. And then throughout areas of the building there will be magnets that they can then unlock the case as they are departing the campus and then access their phone. That's one version of it. Some other campuses, what they're doing, they are purchasing what they're calling cell phone lockers, either for the office or for classrooms, to where students lock them up when they arrive on campus and then get them when they leave. Other ideas are that they are secured in the students, they're turned off and secured in the students' bag or backpack. purse, not on their person. So the definition of what secure means has not been passed down in the model policy, so we're a little bit shooting in the dark on what that truly means or what's going

052to be required. Did this House bill include funding from the state for these mandated, if we have to go to a secure, do they include the funding? No, sir. And we did investigate the yonder pouches or similar. There are other vendors that are for it. And so I contacted them and I have them in my office. For Pearland ISD to do the yonder pouches, junior high through high school, it would cost us over $400,000 to implement that logistically. Yeah, no, I was pretty sure that they weren't funding it on that end. And it doesn't, when you talk to Yonder, what about staff support for this? I mean, how much are we looking at when you're talking about a high school campus? If we went Yonder pouches. What does it look like from a staff support

053to make sure that this is properly done as they enter the campus? Have you all looked into that part yet? We have the logistics of it and what it means. So we're going to, if we were to do something of that nature, we would hand, we would basically check out to the student the pouch. Here's a $30 pouch that we're checking out to you that you're now responsible for. So if you lose it or misplace it, it's $30. And so you're responsible for replacing that. And then the logistics of how does that work on a campus? So you take Paralympic High School where there's 3,400 students. How do we make sure? make sure that all of the kids have their pouch, have put their phone in the pouch, have locked the pouch, don't have their

054own magnet to unlock the pouch and access their phone. And ultimately, I don't care how we shake this out, it's still gonna fall on the onus of the classroom teacher. We can have the greatest policy, we can have the greatest logistics, we can use those pouches, but at the end of the day, it's the classroom teacher that's still gonna have this logistical concern. Yeah. Here's another issue I see with all of this, and I'm not here to just complain and not have solutions, but I don't know what the solution to this is. What do you do when kids just go, I don't have a phone? I don't need to lock it up because I don't have a phone. I left it at home. I didn't bring it. My parents won't let me have one. And

055of course, they have a phone. It's in their backpack. And so now we're going to send how many kids to detention every day or whatever our chosen form of discipline is. So that's not even, that's just something to consider. I actually had a quick question, though, which is tablets are on here. Don't we have one aren't tablets are window one devices for the elementary school students school issue devices are exempt Trustee Johnson. Did you want to finish up you sure? Okay, no problem So I would I would say you know No surprise I'm an advocate for this right like I love this idea and I wish we'd done this sooner I think there are other school districts that have done it well I know the biggest concern is this turns teachers into policemen You know

056I've got a police phones now in addition to educating your kids in addition to teaching them all these other things and managing a classroom With that in mind You know there's a college campus. I think it's the is it Montana, I think it's Montana Catholic University or something along those lines. They don't allow any personal communication devices on their entire campus. That's administration, that's teachers, that's everybody. And the students that go there report that when they're seniors in high school, they have a lot of trepidation about that, like they're really anxious about it. But pretty much every senior that gives a speech at graduation or that you talk to when they're leaving that campus says, that's the biggest blessing I ever got in my life. I had to actually live life. I had to go

057meet people and talk to them face-to-face and all those things. I am a big fan of leadership by example. And if we're implementing this, I would like some conversation given to the idea that this should also apply to the grownups on the campus, especially maybe not the entire campus, but in the classroom, in the hallways, in the cafeteria, in any of the kind of general. student spaces. Maybe your principal needs hers in her office. Maybe the teachers in their lounge. You know, we can exempt some areas. But if you've got phones in the room, if you've got an office that answers incoming calls and they've got teaching aides that are, you know, sitting there ready to run messages back and forth the classrooms, hey, let's go back to 1990. I'm perfectly fine with that plan.

058And I think you will eliminate a lot of distraction from not only the students, but also from your staff. I remember my questions now. I should have wrote them down the first time. I apologize. Dr. Berger, what is our current policy on cell phones, tablets, smartwatches for the district? We currently do not have a policy. The board has not passed a policy. We have procedures at many of our campuses that if we don't see it, we don't take it. Right now, our campuses try to enforce during instructional time when that is happening. There is some nuances to that where some teachers allow it more than other teachers. Headphones, smartwatches, earbuds are readily available and allowed in many classrooms. What this law does is it removes the discretion for all of that. Whether we ban them

059or secure them, they are not allowed anywhere unless you have those exemptions that we mentioned, which were medical and IEP or 504. Thank you. And the last question, this bill does not clearly define school hours yet. So it's, I mean, we don't know if it's, if there's a football practice at 6 a.m., do we have to secure them then? Does it start when the bells ring? Do we have any clarification yet on what is defined on school hours? My understanding, because actually when we visited the Capitol both times, we spoke with the author of this bill. And their interpretation is school day. And to them, school day was when the morning bell rings to when the dismissal bell rings. So all during that time, whether it's classroom or hallway or lunch or whatever, you cannot

060have access to your phone. So I asked the question as we develop policy, the riding the school bus to school, it could potentially be allowed, but then if we do allow that as we develop policy, we'd have to have those processes in place to secure it as the students enter the campus or adopt a policy that takes it before and after school because if we bait them from the campuses or go that route and we don't secure them. Then we also have the policy that takes it above what the state's doing because we'd have to ban them on the buses, we'd have to ban them after, we'd have to ban them as a student travels for a band concert, all those different extracurricular activities because if not, they're gonna be on the bus with it

061and not securing it before they enter the campus. Yes, sir, logistically when we say we're going to ban it on property. it comes under those concerns. It comes with some of the concerns if you read the comments from parents that, you know, my child, we may change pickup times or pickup locations or we may change that they may have to go home and take care of their siblings or even logistically just on the campus, we have coaches or fine arts or clubs that use GroupMe or SportsU or communication devices to communicate about practice times or workout times or meetings and expectations. So there are lots of things that we're gonna I have to look at holistically of how do we change this environment while at the same time supporting the concerns of our community for

062safety or being able to communicate when they're not during the school day. And sorry, my last comment, Dr. Scheffler, I would just disagree. As we develop policy, I think our professional teachers or professional staff, I would trust admin to come up with some discretion on that end, but they're doing their duties and I don't want to see a policy take it to that level, but that's just my personal opinion. And we have had conversations because we've talked about this is what about the staff? So if we're telling the student, you need to make sure you're not distracted, we need to make sure that during instructional time, our teachers are not distracted, our administrators are not distracted. But I will tell you as the superintendent, I would not be able to do my job without my

063phone. It would not be possible. But I do agree with you. We need to have some nomenclature or conversation of... when we are instructing and it is during that instructional time, we don't need to be on our phones being distracted either. Well, and I think you just lose credibility. I mean, it's not necessarily of them being unprofessional or anything like that. If, okay, your kid's homesick and you want to be able to check your phone to see how they're doing while you're doing your job and teaching all that, I completely understand that. I just also know that we have alternative communication methods. Like, they've got their email open on their computer at their desk. It's not that they're unreachable. We have so many you've got these slack channels that can it just pops up a

064message on your computer that can be sent from the office There's so many ways that you can instantly communicate with a teacher without them having to have their device in front of them because to me that's it's kind of a certain level of hypocrisy. Obviously a superintendent, you're all over the place. There's no doubt that you've got to be able to be reached wherever you're at doing whatever, all hours of the night, emergencies, fire alarms, roofs caving in, all those fun things, but that's not our standard classroom teacher. We know where they're at and we know how to access them if we need them. I would like to say I think it would be bad for employee morale and when it comes to leading by example, I totally agree and during... instructional time they shouldn't

065have shouldn't be doing it, but they're adults and You know I'm pretty sure we all teach our kids that sometimes adults have privileges and An access to things that the children don't and I don't think that's an unheard of concept in a school So I would be opposed to that but what I wanted to ask was how does friends would execute this? They haven't started yet. They're starting it this year And so I've communicated with Mr. Rohr, superintendent over there, and gonna visit with him. I actually have the Yonder cases in my office. I think the price point of $400,000 for us is difficult to swallow for this. It's one of those things that let's see how it works over there before we jump into $400,000 and decide what we wanna do as a district.

066What the board is gonna have to determine once we get the model policy is do we want to have a ban policy? or do we want to have a secure policy? And then once we get the model policy, what does secure mean? Regarding the secured policy, the $400,000, is that, you talked about if they lost it, the parent or student would have to pay that. Are we allowed to potentially charge it up front and say our policy is you have to have a secured device if you want to have that opportunity, you have to pay the upfront cost of it. And so we're completely reimbursed on that. And there's, if you want that as a parent, you can pay that fee to get that pouch. And we're constantly reimbursed that opposed to, hey, if you

067lose it, You have to pay for it, but if you want it from the start, you have to pay that fee at the beginning. So are you saying that we would have kind of a hybrid policy that it's either banned and you can't have it or you have to secure it, and in order for you to have your phone and secure it, you have to pay $30? If not more to cover the cost plus the magnets, just, I mean, are we allowed to do, can we adopt a policy like that potentially? I would be hesitant on that because anything that we require... We normally are not allowed to pass that cost on to the student. We would have to research that a little bit. And then you have the issues with low socioeconomic and the

068price points that we do with those and the reimbursement on that and how that would work. I will tell you right now, after a couple pickups of a cell phone, we have it in our policy that we charge $15. That right now is a bone of contention with our parents that you are charging me for something I own. So why are you charging me the $15? So the $30 upfront cost could be a... but it's definitely something we could look into. Because as I said, we'll have to bring this back to you in July, because I believe that's when we'll have the model policy and better information. But definitely these are ideas that I am taking and will research, and that's why I want to have this discussion. Sorry, my last question. We have to

069adopt a discipline policy for a violation. How... strict or what are the parameters on that discipline policy? Could it be detention? Could it be? give somebody a high five on your way out and that's the discipline for violating it. Just curious how. It could be anything that the board allows that falls under Chapter 37 that is allowable consequences. I would say for the classroom teachers, it would need to be a very strict enforcement. It would need to be a very strict discipline. The first offense could not be a warning. The first offense would have to be a very strict consequences because what we don't want to do is do all of this pomp and circumstance and then we're still forcing the teacher to do what they're doing now and police it without any support. So

070we already have a ban on vapes and anything related to a vape. even if they are caught with the charger of a vape, how effective has that been? Have the teachers had to expend too much time on the policing of this? How has that affected? Because if they're already looking for vapes. Vapes, phones, you know, it's six of one, half dozen of the other. Most of our vaping we've installed in some of our junior highs and all of our high schools in the restrooms. We've installed the vape detectors. So the teachers don't police it too much. It's the administrators when they get those notifications that they police that and investigate that. There are occasions where vapes are used in the classroom. But that's just another example of although they are illegal and they are banned.

071they are still brought to school. And so we have to enforce that. So a phone is not a vape. Not the same level of concern, but now that it is, according to the law, illegal to have on school campus or unsecured on campus, we have to police them in the same manner. which is a little harder. Say, for example, because we've talked about all these things, say, for example, at Dawson High School, we have Eagle Hour. Eagle Hour allows kids to kind of unplug from the academics and the stress, and so some of them play games on their phone, or they listen to music, or whatever it may be. That's no longer allowed. There's no exemption or caveat that we can say during this time, you may have your phone or your device. So but

072I mean how often are we having teachers having to send kids for discipline for picking up vapes? I don't know offhand from the classroom, but I will tell you right now we have students teachers sending students to the office for phones Of course, and more kids have phones than use vapes. So I'm just thinking if it's already prohibitive that we're picking up all these vapes and it's sucking up teacher time, how much more teacher time is going to be sucked up by policing this phone situation? And I understand the value of not having the phone in the classroom. Absolutely. It's just... Sort of a puzzle as to how to execute it. Yes, ma'am And that's why I want to have this discussion and part of it is it depends on what we do as a

073board a team of eight how we communicate it to our Community how our community supports us because it is a law that we are gonna have to abide by and have structures and logistics in place That support our teachers because what we don't want to do is what the state did is pass a law or pass a policy with no rhyme or reason and pass it down and we're making these decisions and just passing it down to the teachers. Trustee Stuckey, did you have any comments that you wanted to? Well, I would agree. I read through the policies and had a couple of concerns just to point out. Number one is eliminating distractions in the classroom, from my experience, is a huge deal. I know it was a battle seven years ago, so I imagine

074it's gotten only worse as more technology is out. A couple of concerns. Mr. Johnson brought up a... A good point about students arriving on a bus or from an extracurricular activity or leaving with that extracurricular activity. I thought of the student that may drive to school and have an after school job and need a cell phone to communicate with parents. Are they leaving it in their vehicle during the day? How are we, are we gonna increase security in the lots to ensure that we don't have people just running around seeing if doors are open and seeing if they can steal a $1,000 cell phone? So that was one concern was just banning them from the campus. A couple other concerns that I had are just, you know, there are workarounds for it, but a lot

075of the extracurricular activities now use GroupMe, SportsU, other communication avenues. Are they now, are the coaches and directors now communicating directly with parents? or instead of the students. And let's say that there's a rain and Coach Whitaker, Coach Myers decides to cancel track practice for the afternoon. Are we going to announce that, expect the kids to hear that, and then have a line at the classroom phone? So the goal is to eliminate distractions, but now we've created a massive distraction in the classroom because parents need to notify their, our students need to notify their parents that. track practice or something has been canceled. So those are just concerns that I have. And I know that we don't get a choice and we have to work through it, but I just wanted to point that out.

076Trustee Stuckey, I just would add on that, even with a secured phone. the students would still not have to access. So we'd still have to find a way for them to allow when we unsecure the phone so they could contact those parents. Because we wouldn't say track practice is canceled, all 20 students unlock your phone right now and you can, I mean, we could adopt a policy that allows that, but then it's just gonna be a distraction. And Dr. Berger, I'm not hearing that we've had major concerns here at Parallel and ISD. but this is a pure example of the state getting involved with our local district and implementing a law that's gonna cause more confusion, more heartache for our parents when it hasn't been, it's been a distraction at times in Parallel and ISD,

077but this isn't something we went to the state and said, hey, ban cell phones and make it difficult for us to secure them and help us do that. That wasn't something we asked. It was pure the state getting involved and making decisions for us here in Parallel and ISD. And I do not want to misstate or misrepresent. If we had a boardroom full of teachers, they would tell you this is a good thing because of the distractions that phones are, because of the distractions that headphones are, because of the issues that they have with possibly cyberbullying or video things they shouldn't be videoing. So a teacher will tell you, however we can make this work to where we can teach without those distractions, let's make it work. We just have to figure out how to

078do that. All right, I just wanna give opportunity for everybody. I have a lot of thoughts about this, but I'm trying to make sure everybody's had a chance to be heard before I dive right in. Trustee Weimer, Trustee Carter. My last point I'm gonna say is that I do think banning them entirely from the campus is gonna get more pushback from parents than a secure situation and neither are ideal, but I think we're gonna have a lot of parents. really push back on them not being able to bring a phone to school, at least in the high school level. Thank you. Trustee Weimar. Well, I was gonna say a few things, but I know that Mr. Berger's great with communications, and I know that we're saying definitely, I know that parents are hearing this, but

079we wanna make an effort when this occurs, as you mentioned, the sooner the better with this policy, or guideline, or whatever we're gonna call that at that point. Will it be a policy? It will be a board adopted policy. So with that policy, however, and I agree that time needs to be on instruction and I know that. Phones are a big distraction for kids and so we do need them on that but I think you're still gonna have problems with They're gonna show up and the teachers are still gonna have problems picking those up and that kind of thing But I guess anything towards that is going to be better for academic success So we may have to even try some things like you said and have some conversation So I look forward to that

080on the bus thing. We're saying well on the bus they could use it and that's not the beginning of the school day. However, with discipline, once they're on the bus, they can be disciplined. So I don't know the difference there with that starts the school day. And that is the one thing about the law. There's a minimum threshold, but the board can always do more. So if the board says that the school day starts when you enter the bus, that could be the policy. And I also wanted to point out, and I apologize, Madam President, but I wanted to point out that we're talking about cell phones, but a lot of these students, myself included, and most of us up here, wear Apple Watches or have other devices. Sometimes, though, you know, that's an easy

081fix. Go buy a different watch. You know, you can go to Walmart and get one for $10, I guess, if you wanted. I do think that that is another thing for teachers to enforce because that is an easy thing to overlook. Hey, I locked my cell phone up, but I'm wearing my Apple Watch. Well, that's against the law, so now we have to enforce our discipline. Yeah, I don't think you're gonna find a solution where you can eliminate them from campus just because our kids go everywhere after school, before school, all that stuff. That's not, it's just where's the money come from to find some kind of secure way to do this that can't have a workaround. You know, how... It's all gonna depend on the definitions the state gives us. What do you mean

082by secure? Great, let's work on that. Thank you guys. Mr. Estes, I have some questions for you. Thank you Just to start with I concur with a lot of comments that the board members have already made Just to give direction from my thoughts I'm very much on the bandwagon of secured devices rather than ban as dr. Berger We've already talked about in our discussions I think if we're banning cell phones were setting kids up to not be truthful with adults in their environment from the very get-go and That's counterproductive to everything that we're hoping to create in our students By saying we're gonna ban devices, we know that they're important to parents. We know that some students have to have them for a variety of reasons. So they're gonna tuck them in their backpack. And

083even if we agree with those things or not agree with those things, those cell phones or devices are going to be there. And so why not set up a policy from the very get go that doesn't make them lie to us. So I'm very much on the secured device. I'm personally against the pouches. I think they're a waste of money. I think that when we set a standard and we set a rule, I've seen time and time again where our kids rise to that occasion. And there's always going to be deviations from the norm and students who don't abide by policy. But on the large part, I think when we set the bandwagon and we set the threshold, kids want to do well and kids want to perform and they want to follow the rules.

084Will all the population of kids do that? No. So I think if we say backpacks off, then a large population of our kids are going to have their cell phones in their backpacks and off. However, I think our kids are really smart and I think they're very innovative beyond what we even realize. And I'm beginning to learn by having these conversations with parents and with students that they're already finding workarounds for this because there are classrooms in our. in our district that have already implemented this policy. I am not gonna see your cell phone when you walk into my classroom. So what do they do? They open a word document and they share it with each other and they type into this word document and have communication all back and forth, whether they're in the

085classroom or in another classroom, it's an open word document. Am I accurate here? That's just one of the. Easier examples. Yeah, they just say they're very intelligent is Almost an insult. They they go so far beyond intelligent. It's ridiculous. We have some incredible kids and Hope they use their powers for good So the questions I have for you, mr Estes surround the technology of the cell the phones that are in our classrooms now and then the technology on the school issued devices and then do you have any realistic expectation of the cost that if we have an uptake of devices, what that would cost? So kind of go in linear order. What opportunities, because from a parent perspective, I have a second grader who emails me. I mean, she's figured out how to use her

086email account. And I think it's very... much an opportunity for parents to communicate with their kids. But what I've noticed with her communicating with me is that she might email me in the morning, but I might not get that email until after the school day is over. Can you tell me a little bit about the technology piece about how emails are streamed? Is it by grade level? Is it by device or? There's no. There's no control over that. No control is in limiting them or only sending them a certain time. It all goes through Microsoft's Exchange servers. Sometimes there can be a few seconds to a few minute delay. If there's attachments, scanning for viruses, those kind of things can delay it for a few minutes. But there is no difference on a kindergartner versus

087a 12th grader versus mere use in an email. It will go at the same rate. get held up in like a virus scan or something like that. I mean, again, individual emails, sure. My admin last night submitted an email that didn't come through. Two or three from before and two or three after all came through. One didn't because it got caught by a spam filter. So you can have random examples like that, but in general, no, they should all go through within minutes. And then the cell phone usage or the new, Phones that we have in the classrooms. Can you talk a little bit about their functionality and how we're implementing those? All right, so it's it's all based on a it's Microsoft teams Everybody's familiar with teams. We used it during the pandemic or

088I say we I wasn't here at the time but before that For classroom instruction like a lot of things like our financial systems and skyward There's different modules to it including a communication phone module. So we added that on enabled it for everyone And you don't do it just through the computer. You can. You can do it through the computer. You can have the app on your cell phone. Or you can just have your standard old-fashioned phones on a desktop. Those phones are actually Android devices, no different than an Android phone. But they act just like a standard phone. Pick it up, get dial tone, push the buttons, and go. We go through a standard phone company out in the world that processes the calls in or out. And those will be one per classroom.

089With a modular device kind of on their desk like a traditional phone would look right exactly the same And if any of y'all have seen any new ones like on dr. Burgers desk or in the admin desks the ones in the classroom be slightly different We went with a model that does have physical buttons on there We didn't want kids, you know, especially your younger ages to figure out touchscreens and I say figure out they probably know better than we do But we didn't want them to have to figure out how to dial 9-1-1 in an emergency. It's Large buttons easy to use very simple What about teams like messaging? Can a parent have access to a team's account at home and be able to message their student in the classroom environment? I do not

090believe that is allowed. There's ways. Like, so us as adults, I believe that could be done. I do believe we have that messaging completely shut off. I'll confirm that, but I'm pretty sure we do because we try to lock down all of that. Any app that we find that allows unfiltered communication between kids or out, you know, inside or out. So that one should be. Locked down. In fact, even amongst themselves, the only way they're able to communicate inside teams is in a team that is set up by a teacher for their classroom. So I guess that answers the question there. If they go into a classroom that's been set up, classroom team set up by a teacher, they can communicate among themselves within that application, but not just random messages back and forth. So

091if we had a coach that was trying to message out about a change of practice time, a change of... something bus time or something like that, theoretically they could set up a group of team members and use that group to chat via Teams. Yes. Okay. But the Canvas student would then have to be on their computer logged in. Sure. But then could log in later and pick up that information just the same. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about blocked apps? You talked about those that we exchange, so like a Facebook Messenger would be out of the question, an Instagram, a TikTok, all those kinds of websites that are readily used by our youth would be banned from a district-issued device. Yes, a district-issued device or any device on our network that is

092using our internet. We block it at the firewall level, so it's kind of double-banned on our... on these devices. That way, if they take one of our devices home, even on your home internet, those same applications would not be allowed to be used. But if you brought a device, which I want to make sure to point out, based on the earlier part of this discussion, the bring your own device policy is pretty much gone with this new law. We will not be able to support any more bring your own device from students. We have to cut that off. Which means there's an uptake in the number of devices being handed out which we are currently buying enough devices one per student But devices do die Either on their own or get broken which means in

093addition to the 400,000 you're talking about for these bags There's gonna be additional costs on Student one-to-one devices as well So one of the things that I've heard of concerns of parents is that some teachers have embedded cell phones into the curriculum and into the kind of integration of how they go about doing things in the classroom environment That some of the research sites that they need to like research things in the classroom are blocked on our district issued devices do we have a plan of attack for ensuring that we have equal access to resources that students need that they would have been using their cell phone for, but that now we need to find another avenue to create that opportunity? Well, hopefully those instances are rare and few and far between. We do have

094a process. Any teacher can bring any. any application, website, anything else, if it is currently blocked, they can bring it to us to review. It's a very fast process. It gets turned around very quickly and can be opened up if it is appropriate. And if it's not, it stays blocked. Or if somebody brings one they're worried about, we can then block it. Policy would say they're not supposed to try to go around that with cell phones. The cell phone policy would, of course, take care of that. And the same with if you had a laptop that had 4G, LTE, any other. on technology that would also block that. But we already have that policy where they can get, they don't have to go around the process is my point. They can just bring it to

095us and get it approved. Okay, so what I hear you saying is that if I bring my own personal device and I log onto our network, all of those sites that are available and or blocked should be available and or blocked for me on my personal device the same way it's available on a district issue device. Today, yes, and in a couple months or whatever it is, you just wouldn't be able to connect your personal device to the network at all. You won't be able to connect your personal device? Yeah, that's, again, that is part of how we would enforce that ban. In addition to the bags or anything else, we will turn off the BYOD network. So if a student did bring a device in and tried to hide it, the network would not

096be there for them to connect to. Okay. The Wi-Fi network, right? The Wi-Fi network, right. But they could still use their 5G? Yes. If they have a device that connects to 5G, 4G, LTE, anything else, those could still work, depending on where in the building they are, of course. As I talked about in opening comments, I'm trying to be a problem solving board president and trying to think around ways that our parents can communicate things like after school changes and those kinds of things that don't require a instant gratification text message. Although that's what we've become accustomed to, I'm not downplaying the stress that that's going to induce by having a change of communication strategy with our students. But we do have the cell phones in the classroom with direct phone numbers. And we do

097have email that you can directly communicate with your student during the day. Although there may be some lag of there shouldn't be. But could be a few minutes. Or again, we can't necessarily control the email service on the other end as well. Sure. If AOL, Yahoo, you name it, whatever service you're using. I'm picking old ones that might have problems. Sure. If they have a problem. And not that I'm trying to create extra distractions by any means, but I'm trying to alleviate the main use of the cell phones right now that are causing distractions in the classroom or a whole host of other issues that are not emails. And so would it also increase in distractions by using email more readily? Probably. But I think there's some creative options about parents who are really stressed

098about cell phones and not being able to use them to communicate with their students. I guess that's my primary point here. With your email question, if a student's a fifth grader and they have that school district issued email, anybody that knows that email address can contact that student? There are limits on that. I have to look up exactly what they are. And the reason I asked it as a parent, I feel like when my son first got his email address, I tried to email him from my personal and it never went through. So I think I'd want to look at that on how, if that's a potential solution, how does that, what is allowed to be emailed to the students? Can parents do that or is there only within certain domains or approval process? Only

099outgoing because that's curious too. I can almost hear if Dr. Reeves is watching this at home, her screaming, Tom Paul, why aren't you remembering this? But yes, outbound is definitely allowed. I think it is inbound. I just don't remember if there's any exceptions made or we could allow for a parent or anyone else to be able to email in. But I think by default, it is all blocked. Again, with a few exceptions from teachers. Well, and if you're doing that, though, doesn't that open up a big security risk? You're bringing emails from someone, and parents' email accounts get hacked, and spam and phishing emails get sent out, and your fifth grader's not aware enough to know I shouldn't open this. Mom sent it to me, and it said open now, urgent. So they click on

100the links and all that stuff. And that's one reason not to do it. So do we employ, do we have some kind of like a... a pop-ups or a stickies communication program where you can instantly send a message to someone else's screen on their computer system? No, not that students have access to. What about on the faculty side? They don't have access, we do within technology have that. Safe and secure schools has something we can send out emergency messages to all the desktops, but we don't have anything right now that's. So no peer to peer like pop ups or anything like that? Yeah, we try to limit that as much as possible because there's just, they all use very similar technology. So if you allow one end, then others can get through. Speaking of things

101that go off, my watch is buzzing. I want to make sure Dr. Eason or somebody is not trying to tell me. You seem rather distracted, John. So I heard your comments. Students cannot receive mails from outside unless we've explicitly allowed it. So that is the official word. And that would be... I'd be concerned on how we adopt a policy that says each student can have these emails. So a parent has to submit something and say, and these four emails are allowed to go into my son or daughter so that we can communicate with them. And then it becomes just more of a distraction because we're approving, we're removing emails. You know, I go from Gmail to Yahoo and I want that one to go through to my son or daughter. Yeah, and that would become...

102virtually unmanageable because it'd be a very manual process. There'd be no automated way. So it would be 21,000 kids times however many parents or guardians or anything else we allow times, as you just mentioned, all the different services that would become. Well, it used to be all those last minute change of plans communications went through the office. You know, you called the secretary and said, hey, I'm sorry, I'm sick. I'm going to have to have someone else pick up my kid. And they, you know, told the kid and then knew where to go and all that stuff. I know that that increases the workload in those offices and they're already doing things. But, and that's just going to probably be the reality is that it has to go through a gateway and that's usually the

103front office. And then they figure out how to get the message to the child. This is part of where technology changes us. You're right. That's how it used to happen. We all become. Not just dependent, but it's changed us as a society to where that is how we operate. So it's hard to get people to go back. It's not impossible. It's very, very possible. It's hard to get an entire society to move back and get individuals to do it. But it changes us constantly. in little ways. Dr. McGrew will be at the next board meeting with additional personnel for each campus to handle incoming and outgoing changes of travel. I think one of my final comments is, I just. President Carbone, I agree. I'm in favor of figuring out what the secure way to, what

104secured on campus means for our phones. And I don't think we know exactly what that model policy is. Could it be turned off and in your backpack? Great. You know, it covers a lot of the concerns when students are leaving. Is there other possibilities with that and the gateway to get communication to our students? But an all-out ban, I just... I can't see how that's written in a way that from K through 12 meets the needs of our students and our parents. It changes very difficult. So I thought I would end on a positive note with a positive comment. I liked the comment about the, what was it, Montana Catholic University. I think that while it's something that we'll all have to adapt to and it's something that was put on us, I think that

105there could be some definite benefits with lack of distractions, maybe some more interactions face-to-face with our kids. And it could be some things that we see that are positive and we're dealing with kind of the tough stuff now and maybe we look back on this as maybe this wasn't that bad. Trustee Scheffler, any final comments? No. Trustee Weimer, any final comments? Trustee Carter, any final comments? No, I think I'm good. Okay. The only other thing I thought of when you guys were talking was there's been a lot of chatter online about, you know, this is just the final thing that's gonna push public school students out to private school settings and or charter schools or other opportunities. And I think the truth is, is that a lot of those entities are already doing this. LSA,

106I know for a fact is already doing this. There's co-ops down the street that are already implementing these kinds of policies. So I don't think, I haven't called Barry a Christian, but I'd be curious to know what private schools don't already have a policy like this in place. So I think in some regard, we're kind of behind that. I'm sorry, go ahead. I was just saying, there's also the reverse. There's some who are going. 10 times further than we're going diving all in on technology to an extreme level. I mean, you're right. There's some both directions. You're gonna find every variation out there. So I guess we don't have a choice in this. We're gonna have to adopt this in some form or fashion. And I'd like to try to problem-solve around as much as

107we can. And I need to correct the record. It's Wyoming Catholic College. Montana, Wyoming, you know, it's one of those up there. Thank you, sir. Can I add one last thing? I just don't want anyone to be surprised when the $400,000 and the additional dollars for one-to-one come along or anything else. I agree, there's no choice but to do this. And I do agree, Dr. Schiff and I have debated a lot of these things. I agree, there's definitely some benefits from this. There's no question of benefits. Cost is going to be the biggest negative. Because I've been working with one of the faculty over at John Dawson who started an eSports program and she's an example We have an eSports program there during the Eagle Hour They get together and they bring their own computers

108their own devices for doing some of the eSports gaming It has been growing and doing really really well they will not be able to do that. They could do it after hours, but would not work at all during the time they've been. So if we want to keep that going, there's another expense. So that's, I just want to point out, there's going to be lots of these little surprise expenses. It's going to be 10,000 here, 10,000 there. Eventually it adds up to 144 days of. You mean another unfunded mandate? Imagine my shock and surprise. I think John's telling us that he's going to use what we were going to use for teacher raises for. More technology. Now, that was just the first bill. And anyone that's here or anyone that's watching this live or anyone

109that goes back to watch this, I just want you to know that we are working through this. We're not coming with this is the answer. And you can see the nuances and the unintended consequences of this. But we are going to come back to the board in July, hopefully with a very thought out logistical process to make this happen. The next bill I'd like to talk about should not take as much conversation, but I just want to make sure that we're clear on this, and that is Senate Bill 10. And this is the bill that requires public schools to display a durable poster or a framed copy of the Ten Commandments in each classroom. If the poster is framed or copies are available, they must be donated. The law does not say that the school

110district has to use school funds to buy them. These have to be donated, and they have to be a certain size, which is 16 by 20 inches, and they have to be a certain scripture of the King James Version of the Bible. I know there was some concern out there that we were going to go out and buy all these and make this happen, but this bill is here, and the items have to be donated, and they go into classrooms only. You said has to be donated, but the fourth bullet point says allows but does not require districts to use funds to purchase. Correct, now if the board wants to make a decision to use budget funds to purchase these, that is allowable, but when I say they have to be donated, that we are

111not required to go by them. That is required to be donated, not required to be purchased. So I didn't know if there was conversation on that, but I just wanted some clarity on that for the viewing audience. And we still yet don't, or we don't yet have clarity on what... classroom means? No, any place that instruction takes place. There's clarity on what the classroom is. So a classroom classroom, a gym where PE takes place, an LGI where instruction takes place, most any place where we have students and instruction taking place at some point during the school year. And so we'll have a count of classrooms. Mr. Palumbo and all his greatness is working on that. Thank you. Senate Bill 11, this is another one that has people concerned, and that is it requires school boards

112to take a recorded vote on a resolution adopting a policy requiring every campus to provide a period of prayer. or reading of the Bible or other religious text. Now, we do not have to take a recorded vote on this until March 1st, 2026. Until we do take a recorded vote one way or the other of the policy, nothing has to happen. It's very similar if you remember when we had the chaplain bill. It's very similar to that process, but it outlines what the policy could be. The moment of prayer or reflection or reading of religious texts could be a designated time that could be before school or could be after school. There has to be designated areas where these processes take place, and there has to be communication with parents, permission slips, and understanding when

113or if the board takes a positive recorded vote or a negative recorded vote on this policy. Any comments, questions, concerns on this one? My only question is that as far as I know, the only religion that requires specific numbers of prayers at specific times of day would be... the Muslim religion, do we have students that have any kind of exemption to do those daily prayers or is it not an issue in our district? Campuses deal with it on an individual basis if there is a concern. Some of the prayer is exempt during the school day for some and then some are more devout and do ask for that time and so the campuses do work with them. Yeah, other than that, I can't see. a reason why we would take this on. But that's just

114my opinion. And so we do have time on that, but I just want, again, just some clarity, because a lot of this comes out and we see social media chatter. I just want everyone to know that this is something we will have to take a recorded vote on, but we don't have to do it. We have to do it before March 1st, 2026. Mr. Berger, we still have our moment of silence, though, is that not correct? Yes, we have the Pledge of Allegiance, the Texas Pledge, and the moment of silence. Trustee Stuckey, did you have a question? Dr. Burger, if we were to vote, I guess it would be a no on this. Does that preclude students from meeting on their own? Just it wouldn't be something that the school has adopted as a policy.

115Because one of the things that I would see with this is there's a lot of work to do, paperwork for admin to get permission slips and set up rooms because I believe in the text, they can't be within hearing distance of each other. So there's a lot of logistical things that would play into this. Yes, sir, without a doubt there if we do approve this there would be a lot of logistical things But if we if we if the board does decide to do a no vote on this it doesn't change anything That's already we have students now that bring a religious text and read them on their own or have their own moment of reflection meditation or prayer That we do not interfere with whether it's before school at lunch during passing period or

116when they have quiet time in the classroom And they're finished with their work. We do not interfere with that. Don't we also have some clubs? Right? Yes. Meet me at the flagpole or... Yes, ma'am. We have Fellowship of Christian Athletes. We have the City Club. We have different denomination clubs that are in our schools. So if you were going to just tell us what this adds, you know, because right now it seems like it just adds a whole bunch of guardrails. It doesn't really add any capacity for students to gather and pray if they want to. What does this add? What it would add with the board making an affirmative vote is that you were telling us do these logistical things according to policy and assign rooms for students before school, after school, or during

117school, depending on what you determine, where they can have these moments. Is there an issue with several of these groups wanting to meet in the same rooms? I mean, is it currently a logistical issue at all? I cannot say that I've had one. complaint rise to my level or one that I know from the CLT that has rise to their level regarding this. Very similar to what Mr. Johnson said about the cell phones. We haven't had anybody say, do this, make this happen. No, I mean, just by reading through this. I could come up with a scenario where let's say there's a group of students that gather to pray. Someone says, well, my mom is sick, let's pray for her. And someone's walking by is like, oh, your mom's sick? Can I join in? Can

118I pray? It specifically says, no, you must prohibit a student or employee from participating unless the employee or parent of the student provides signed consent on a form. So if they didn't get parental consent, now that child is excluded unless. we don't approve this, well then it's anybody who wants to join can join. This seems like it just adds problems. It's not a solution to anything. I think they wanted to do something and unfortunately the law won't allow it to be written the way that they wanted it to be written. They still have to follow the respecting of... in a public school separation of church and state type rules that we've always had in place. And so I think it's pretty much symbolic. When we mandate it as a district, we have to put in

119those guardrails. When we allow students to lead their own prayer and meditation, that's their right. But you will see as we move on the the onus on parent rights parent information and parent approval Are throughout the next couple of bills that we'll talk about Any further discussions on SB 11? All right Okay Senate bill 12 is is a very what I would call an omnibus bill. There's lots of things in it. So if you read the actual bill, there's lots of details that we have to work through. So I'm just going to run through some of the highlights to let you know what's in Senate Bill 12 that we're going to have to pay attention to. The parent bill of rights, as it may be known. The first thing is in Senate Bill 12. We

120have to make sure that we are not infringing on the rights of any parent to direct the moral or religious training of their child or make decisions. They have the right to make decisions concerning the education of their child. Medical, psychiatric, psychological treatment. And we cannot infringe on those or withhold information on that. That's not something we try to do in public education. We try to be very transparent in this and share what that is going on. Right underneath that, how this was added in there, why I don't know, there is a facility report that we are now required to do as a school district. And lots of things outlined in there that have to happen. publishing the square footage of our schools, the capacity of our schools, the enrollment capacity of our schools, whether

121these facilities are empties, what they're used for, if they're leased or owned. And so we'll have to publish this on our website. We have a lot of this information already. It's just not housed in one usable format. Now we have to do it according to this law. What comes next in the bill are known as DEI duties. It prohibits school districts from assigning DEI duties to any person and requires districts to prohibit any employee, contractor, or volunteer from engaging in DEI duties on the district's behalf. And then it defines what DEI duties are. and then it also gives caveats of what they are not. And what they are not is anything that is teak space related. If we have instruction that is about race, gender, ethnicity, and it's in the teaks, that's still applicable. It

122does not ban us from talking about holidays or traditional monthly occurrences that we currently do now. It does not prevent us from reviewing data that is disaggregated either for behavioral concerns or academic concerns for improvement based on gender, ethnicity, or race. But what it does define as duties that we are not allowed are broke down in the bill. If you have a shout out when I go through these, just let me know. I just want everybody to be on it. And then right under that, again, I don't know if they played Mad Libs on the bill, is there is a trustee information update. It requires trustees information to be updated on our websites and submitted to TEA within 30 days of new members being sworn in. This is something Gina already does. Why it's in

123the bill, I'm not sure. Then right under trustees, it moves to social transitioning. It prohibits districts from assisting a student with social transitioning, which means the adoption of a different name, different pronouns, or other expressions of gender that deny or encourage a denial of a person's biological sex or birth. Slides that line right in there. So now we are prohibited from any of those ventures in the school and that you'll see throughout here, the board will have to adopt policy. that sets up consequences for employees or contractors, but we have no control over contractors, employees from participating in these events. And if they do and are reported on, the policy has to be in place on what consequences will be held. It goes on to talk about we cannot use the plan of innovation, the

124District of Innovation plan to get out of the shack. The School Health Advisory Council, we have a School Health Advisory Council. Dr. Nixon leads that. We have no desire to get out of the shack. We will continue to do that. It goes on to say that the board will have to have a parent engagement plan and a parent information plan that is adopted through policy or procedures. It goes on to talk about how we must post instructional plans and course syllabus on our website and have them available for all parents to review for every class of instruction that we have. And that is something Dr. Allen is aware of and is following. We currently have teacher webpages. We'll just have to make sure that they all have updated syllabuses and curriculum plans that are on

125them. Does that start at a certain age group? Every classroom. It states every instructional classroom, every teacher. So PPCD to transition center. Parent information and consent is listed in here in several places that we are not allowed. are prohibited from denying a parent access to any of the records that are health related, mental, emotional, physical health or well-being, that we have to have consent if we are looking to impact or affect any of these, which we do a lot of the times anyway, especially in our special programs, our 504 programs, our counseling programs, we get parent consent before we move to that. There is a misnomer or an idea out there and maybe it happens at some point school districts do these events without informing the parent. That is not something that we try to

126practice in, but we have to make sure that we have policies and procedures that are very well communicated that allow for parents to have control of these issues. Then there's a large portion of the bill that talks about how we need to update our grievance policy, and it goes on for a number of pages. We will get these from TEA, and we will make sure that we update our policy as they are given to us. And then the last part of the bill talks about how the human sexuality instruction that's required in the TEKS now has to be an opt-in instead of an opt-out. It prohibits instruction, guidance, and activities or programming regarding sexual orientation or gender identity. And then it also prohibits school districts from authorizing or sponsoring a student club based on sexual

127orientation or gender identity. So we'll have to do some update in some of the things that we do and some of the information going out to our campuses to make sure that these events are not taking place. Another thing they added in here, for any school club, it requires school districts to obtain parental consent for a student to participate in the school club or sponsored activity before they can participate. So for example, if you're at a junior high and you're walking around after school and the chess club's going on and you want to jump into the chess club, you can't until we get your parent consent or permission. So this will be a bunch of communication that will have to come out to our parents. And then it also has to have a requirement for

128at least two opportunities for an in-person conference during each school year for each parent and their child's teacher. So a lot of things in Senate Bill 2, an amalgamation of parent rights, communication, and restrictions that we now have to start rolling out. I'd just like to say that as much as they claim to care about public education and our teachers, this is putting a whole lot more on the teachers and a whole lot less trust in our teachers. And it makes me very sad. I have great faith in our educators in Pearland ISD, and so it makes me sad. And we have talked about that. I mean, one of our strategic plan goals, which we'll bring to you in July, is about the connectedness of our students. And so as we are trying to get

129our kids more connected and more in tune with our schools, some of the procedures and processes we're going to put in place are going to do the exact opposite of that. I wonder if you could have like a general... At the beginning of the school year when we're all filling out all those forms and stuff for our students and everything, just have a form that goes out that says, hey, just generally are you okay with your student participating in on-campus clubs and events? Or even list them out if you had to, but just yes, I opt in anything they want to participate in. And we have talked about that, the wonderful back to school registration that you have to do, the enrollment you have to do when you have to click all those forms and

130a lot of times you just initial them and don't read them and don't realize what you clicked. We've thought about putting them in there, but then we've had some pushback that it kind of defeats the purpose of the. proactive, blatant parent engagement process to where if we kind of slide them in, then they may say that, you know, I didn't know it was in there. And so we are waiting for TEA to post these requirements for us, but we have thought about that. Because like it... Eagle Hour at Dawson or Barry Miller Bobcat Hour that they have, all of the clubs and organizations, or even at Pearland High School, most of our campuses that are junior high and high school, the amount of clubs and organizations that are sponsored and put on for our students

131are numerous. And so to get an individual parent approval for each one can become tedious. But I like the idea of what Dr. Scheffler is offering because I don't think that a lot of parents realize the vast opportunities available on each campus. And if we were forced to list them out and say, you know, I give permission for my child to be involved in any one of these clubs and list all the clubs, I think it's an easy way to bring awareness to those. opportunities that we don't currently, I mean, unless you're talking to your student, you may not be aware that all these things are available. Right, what we may be able to do is list all the clubs we currently have sponsors for at each campus and make it kind of an opt-in.

132I opt-in to all or I opt-in to all except this one. I don't want them to be for this club and they can let their child know that, hey, you can be in all these clubs, but you can't be in the Mr. Burger fan club. So everything else you can be in. And so that's something we could do. That would be an easy. Form for parents and like you said it would also let them know I even know they had all these clubs you need to go do this you need to go do the programming club with a stem club or the arts and crafts craft club well the only the only trick is gonna be now you have to define you're not signing up for these like we're not telling you that you're committing

133your kid to show up to chess club or to you know music club or whatever else so this is just permission should they want to and there's a communication barrier language barrier is gonna be a Charlie mess the code word for that. But anyway, it'll be a lot of fun. Good luck. Yes, sir, we are excited. And again, this is just to bring awareness that one, we are looking at these and being very thoughtful of how to communicate it out, but also the logistics behind it. Speaking of logistics, the two opportunities for in-person conferences during each school year, what are we doing right now? Is there a requirement right now? And what does that look like? How is that going to cut into potential instruction time and planning time that we give our teachers before,

134after? Do we have any clarification yet on what that actually looks like? And do we have to offer two times or does the parent have to get two times? I mean, I know these are new, but I'm just curious if there's been any further dive. yet from that one. There hasn't because my confusion on that is right now a parent can meet almost as many times as they want to. There's not a limit. I mean, I myself as the superintendent have met with a single parent two or three times. And so... I don't know if when they roll out the TEA, if they're gonna give us, it has to be one in the first semester, one in the second semester, but our teachers currently now have conference periods. Some of that is for planning, but

135some of that is for teacher meetings. And does the meeting have to be face-to-face? Does the meeting have to be a virtual? Can it be a hybrid? Can it be a phone call? What does the meeting consist of? Is it... So no, we don't have any specific details from TEA, but right now we have nothing that limits the amount of availability a parent or a guardian has to their teacher or to their counselor. Well, and that also brings up, like this might be, it's going to be hard for an elementary teacher to implement, but you imagine that at a middle school or a high school when you have 100 or more kids under your discretion, how does that even functionally work? And I will say that. There's a difference between providing the opportunity and requiring

136the meeting. There are many parents, I was one of them, as long as my kid's behaving and his grades look good and we don't have an issue, I don't really need to meet with you. You do your job, I'll do my job. But if you start forcing parents, hey, we need to have two meetings, parents are busy, parents have issues, they don't have a concern. So I think it will be the opportunity as opposed to the requirement. So the language isn't clear? What you have before you that I'm reading from is a summary from an organization. The actual bill, when you read into it, we are waiting for the policy from it. There's a little bit more detail in the bill, but it does say the opportunity for two meetings. And then the last one

137I just want to cover over that I know has some consternation is Senate Bill 13, and this deals with our libraries. Just some of the things I want to highlight for the board is we are waiting for some details on this, but one of the provisions of Senate Bill 13 is there's two options to create a local school advisory council. And what the local school advisory council is, is they are board appointed and they are kind of the first line of review for library material, either purchased or donated or challenged. And they advise the board on actions to be taken. the local library advisory council can be proactively created by the board or the board can wait until 10% of the district students or 50 parents petition for the board to make the local library

138council. But the one thing that's very important for the board and our librarians are concerned is now every library purchase has to come through you. So if our librarians right now are trying to order books for the start of school, the process now is the list of books has to be posted for 30 days to the public. If there is a library review council, they have to then review the books. make recommendations to the board, and then the board has to review the books and the recommendations and comments from the library council, and then you have to make board action to approve the purchase. That took the timeline from a librarian getting books at the start of school to the librarian maybe not getting books until the spring semester. So is that a what it

139is once a book is added to the list are they allowed to purchase it? Or does every time a book is Read going to purchase it again the same novel does it still have to go through that process every time I read the bill and ISBN number anything with the same ISBN number they can have as many copies of as they want I think as long as it's been approved. As long as it has been approved and hasn't been challenged or concerns with the library council if it has the same ISBN number. But what we have found out from Dr. Allen, I was unaware, that the same title book could have different ISBN numbers. So it depends on what vendor you're getting it from, what that ISBN number is. So while we may have Dogman

140from one vendor that has this ISBN number, and we want to order the next Dogman from a different vendor that has a different ISBN number, then it has to go through the process. I love that you went to Dogman. My kids go to Dogman. That's where they run to in the library. This is a more rigorous process than what we do currently for curriculum. for books that we teach from, right? Like, we're going to sign off on book orders for what our curriculum materials are going to be. We have not looked at any of those. We just say, okay, the educators recommended these. It's what they say they want to teach from. Great. Let's move forward. But now every one of these books, you're saying we're going to have to review a list and say

141yes or no on each particular book. I am not saying that, sir. The state of Texas is saying that. Rather than relying on the recommendations of master's level library science educated professionals. I'm not going to pretend there haven't been some bad decisions made in some libraries that have made the news, but it's just going to be a very rigorous process. We do have a school challenge. that we approved, that was again last year, wasn't it? Where we went through the whole process for how people can challenge books that they don't think belong in libraries. It gets reviewed by a committee. That committee originally was supposed to be mostly educators, but we said, no, we need parent and public involvement. We revised the committee makeup. And now that process exists. But in addition to that, we're

142also now going to have to do it on the front end. No, sir, that process goes away and this process replaces it. So how would somebody then challenge the inclusion of materials in the library? Is that not even an option anymore? It is an option. And so what happens is TEA will adopt a form that's universal for a challenge. And so the same process will happen that if somebody wants to challenge based on the new definitions of why a book can be challenged that are contained in this bill, it kind of goes through the same process. But now it is reviewed first by the Library Advisory Council, if there is one appointed. which is a majority of non-educators, is a majority of parents that is appointed by the board, and then their recommendation comes to

143the board to determine if that book should or should not be removed from circulation. The new stipulation now in the law is where before if a book was challenged, it remained in circulation. Now if a book is challenged, it's removed from circulation until the challenge is determined. How does this apply to classroom sets? Like a teacher purchases their own books, they have them in the classroom. Are we going to have to go monitor each? book purchased by a teacher or given to a teacher in their classroom sets that go through the same process? The only place that this bill addresses a classroom set is if a book is challenged, then all the classrooms have to be notified that this book is challenged and must be removed until the challenge is resolved. And if the challenge

144results in that book needing to be removed from circulation, then it also has to be removed from the teacher library sets. Is there kind of a window moratorium if you challenge a book, it passes and it's elected to be kept? When can the next challenge against it be issued? Can they just keep tying it up or is there a window where it's safe? There is a two-year period. So if I challenge a book, if I challenge Dogman. and everybody says no, Dog Man is good, I can't then challenge it again next month. It's a two year window. Once a challenge has been done, the Library Advisory Council and the board determine that the book meets all qualifications and can remain on the shelves, then no one can challenge that book again for two years. I

145just wanna offer that I think going forth with the Library Review Council, I personally think we should move on that as a board before waiting for a group of 50% or 50 parents to petition for this. I think it just sets up our community to create division and create. contention about something that we can be proactive about. I don't think we have anything to hide. I think having another layer of parent oversight and participation would be of benefit to us. And so I just wanna throw that out there as my thoughts on this particular issue. I see what you're saying about not wanting to stir up, get a whole bunch of people fired up to sign a petition. I understand that, but I feel that given that we have never had any book challenges in

146our district, I don't think that... I think it's a vote of lack of confidence in our professionals to preemptively create a library committee. I think it's highly insulting to the professionals. And so I'm just gonna go on record and say that I am completely opposed to adopting this library council unless we need to. Obviously we have the choice. We can decide who goes on this council, but we're still picking people that are not educated in this. over our own hired professionals. And I feel like it's a real vote of lack of confidence for them to make that preemptive move. You may have more insight into what the buzz in the community is on this kind of thing already. But, you know, my... what I hear and what I see, even on very public pages and

147stuff, is very little discussion about this particular topic. I know it's in the news all the time in other districts, but in our own particular district, I don't think. It's a gamble I'm willing to take and maybe I'll be wrong and I'll apologize if that's the case, but, and obviously I don't have the final vote, but you know, I'm just going on record to say, I'd like to consider the fact that preemptively creating this committee. Sends a really bad message to our librarians. That's interesting because I thought of it from the very opposite perspective I thought it would give an inside view to our community of a reflection of What an awesome job our librarians do do and it's almost like an ambassador group for our librarians that show Because I don't see that this

148committee would get that much work I mean and so I think from my perspective the way I was thinking about it was more of a Ambassador group than it would be an adversarial group Maybe so, but I have been contacted by more than one of our librarians about this and I will say even without a librarian Advisory Council Nothing the librarians proposed to buy will be bought until this library Advisory Council makes the decision so That is still taken away from our librarians and it has to be posted right for 30 days So, I mean, the public does have access to what we're looking at. And so, you know, as far as me as a board member, I know I'm going to have to review it. But also, I have a lot of faith in

149the professionals. And so I'm probably going to go on their recommendations unless something jumps out at me. It's just horrific, you know. But I truly do trust. There are some of these books that, like, have been available in our online libraries. that we have access to that aren't necessarily curated by our librarians, those may have issues, but I have not heard of anyone complaining about anything that's been on our shelves that's been chosen by our own professionals. I have concerns about a few of the books in our libraries right now. I think we have some public comment to the same effect at our last meeting. Our last meeting, that was an outside group, not from this community. But nonetheless, I appreciate the comments that you're making, and I appreciate where you're coming from. So I

150don't negate any of that. But if you have a concern, how come you haven't filed a challenge? I've been working through the process of what that takes and what that would mean. I'm trying to read through the bullet points here. I probably want to read the actual bill itself, although I'm sure it's, how long is this one? 1481 was only two pages, and that was about my limit. But I want to read this bill and see kind of what it gives to the board, and then what. Which bill is that, sir? The library bill. It is six pages. That's not bad. Yeah, I'd like to read it in its entirety and look at that, because I'm not sure that, I mean, I understand the public wants to have, that committee and set it up. We

151could decide how many people are on it. We could decide who's on it. Like, I don't have any concerns about that at all other than it kind of just gumming up the works of the process. We're already gonna review all materials that are put forth, and that's already the public having purview over it since we're elected representatives. So, you know, I... I'm not opposed to doing it, but at the same time, I don't feel strongly that we have to preempt it and push for it because there is already going to be, other than the librarians who are curating the collection and putting forth their recommendations, there is now going to be public input from the people in these chairs. All right, any further comments or questions on this bill? Why did these always look like

152they were typed on a typewriter or a word processor from back in the day? Well, I did use the draft function on my printer to save ink. That's what they look like. Mine look the same. And so I do appreciate the board allowing me this opportunity to bring this forward. I know it's a little bit different. I will bring more forward. And what we will do is we will publish this summary of bills for our community to follow. And when I say, I mean, there are many that we have to... to go through and figure out the impact that it has on all different levels that affect the board, that affect curriculum, that affect maintenance operations, that affect transportation, that affect safety and security. And so we have to make sure that we are up

153to date on these. We will lean on Ms. Dawson, our legal counsel, to make sure that we are following everything that we need with TASB and policy. And so we will continue to bring updates to you, but I just wanna make sure that we are communicating with our community. And I will put out more videos. not to elicit more comments, but I definitely wanna make sure that we are aware of what may be coming our way. Thank you, Dr. Burger. All right, so we're on to administrative reports that are here for your viewing pleasure. And without further comments, we are adjourned at 7.50 p.m. Thank you, guys.