Pearland ISD Board Meeting - May 13th, 2025

001approval for compensation for the 25-26 school year. And then due to all the expected changes from the legislature and the unknown, we're going to have a second board meeting on June the 24th to adopt the budget as best as we can based on the information we have. That is the last possible day that we can adopt the budget based on current law. And so we have pushed to that date. So once again, we'll have two board meetings in June, and then we will have a board meeting in July focused on strategic planning and any further information, then we'll adopt the tax rate in August. Speaking of the 89th Texas legislature, so House Bill 2 is kind of the funding bill that is out there that the House has said that they want to increase the

002basic allotment. If you recall in school funding, the basic allotment is just that, the basic allotment that all other allotments are billed off of. It has been $6,160 since 2019. The House Bill 2 has said they would like to raise the tax rate in August. So that's the basic allotment that we have. And then we have a $6,555 increase in the basic allotment. So we have to raise that to $6,555, which is an increase of $395. Not where we need to be, but we're not going to turn down an increase in the basic allotment. As the basic allotment is increased, all other allotments connected to that also increase based on the WADA. Part of the bill, House Bill 2, 40% of that, because of a previous House Bill 3, they've increased that, has to go

003to compensation. So that has to go to teachers, librarians, counselors, and nurses. And so 75% of the 40% increase has to go to compensation. And so with all that information, they do runs. So when the bill is pushed out, what they do is call a run. So they look at all of our student demographics, our taxing rate, our taxing entity, and try to figure out if the bill passes as proposed, how much extra funding will we receive as a district? There are two runs that we pay attention to. The Moak and Casey run, and then the TASBO run. The Moak and Casey run, and then the TASBO run is what is pushed out by the House, and the TASBO run obviously is something that we also pay attention to, because that's an organization that we

004are involved with. So you can see the two different runs have two different numbers. The Moak and Casey run, based on House Bill 2, would give us an increase of $8.9 million in our overall funding from the general fund. The TASBO is $11 million. What we are going to talk about, if I talk about any of House Bill 2, we're going to land on the conservative. We're going to land on the conservative. We're going to land on the conservative side. I'm going to speak to the Moak and Casey. I'm going to use that number for any projections or any talk that I give about the Texas legislature and any changes that may come. And so if you have any questions about that, I'll be glad to answer those, but I am waiting for final approval

005from the Senate and the House as they come together. If you do not follow the wonderful game of the Texas legislature, the Senate has an entirely different idea of how schools should be funded. They do not have a desire to increase the basic allotment. They do not have a desire to increase the basic allotment. They do not have a desire to increase the basic allotment. They would like to push it all into compensation for teachers as well as an increase to TIA. So the Senate and the House have to work out their differences for us to determine what we actually will receive. This is just kind of an overview. We've done this several times of the situation school districts are in for projected budgets. As we have always said, our community has supported us due

006to the previous passing of the and the bond. We have been able to be very frugal and conservative in our budget and have not had to push out a budget deficit. We have been able to be very frugal and conservative in our budget and have not had to push out a budget deficit. But you can see from Aldine all the way to sokuro ISD, there are projected budget deficits up to $50 million, all the way down to an $8 million shortfall. So all school districts are struggling with the increase of what everything cost and trying to keep up with competitive compensation. This year kind of goes over our fiscal year budget challenges, goals, and potential opportunities. Our challenges, as we've talked about is the uncertainty of the state and federal funding. As you know, at

007the federal level, the Department of Education has been Our challenges, as we've talked about is the uncertainty of the state and federal funding. As you know, at the federal level, the Department of Education has been education is being dismantled. We are unclear on the funding that will be coming from the federal level and we receive a small percentage from the federal government for our overall budget, especially related to our special populations. We have declining enrollment, which we have tracked. We have always put up how our number of kindergartens that are enrolling is lower than our number of seniors that are graduating. We are continuously pushing out there to make sure that everyone knows that we are a competitive district. It is your child, it is your choice, but Pearland ISD is that choice. So we

008are open for business. The rising personnel cost for salaries and benefits, as I said, we want to remain competitive. The increase in special education needs, as enrollment is declining, our overall special education population and emergent bilingual population is increasing. So it's kind of ironic that we continue to ask for additional personnel to service these students with more needs as our overall enrollment is declining, but that is the rationale for that. Inflation, as everyone knows, is going to be going up. We are going to have to do a lot of work to get funds. There's definitely uncertainty about that. Some of our budget goals, obviously, is to ensure compliance and to align with our strategic plan, to make sure we have great compensation, to ensure the board's goal of a fund balance of 95 days, and

009then an allocation of any surplus, 50% of that, to the capital renewal plan to make sure that we can sustain our facilities where we need them to be. Some opportunities that we have, you know, we're focusing on the capital renewal plan, and we're focusing on the capital renewal plan, and we're on, we're not resting on our laurels, we want to make sure that we are effective and efficient, is staffing optimization, looking at our energy and operational efficiencies. Outside of payroll, our utilities is probably our second highest cost, so we want to make sure that we are optimizing how we're using our utilities, our water, our power, and those costs. Technology optimization, facility use, and rentals, that is something Mr. Plumbo and his office is reviewing and looking at. We want to make sure that we

010are partnering with our community to make sure that every opportunity for donations or increased revenue streams that are alternative are used. So you've seen this trapezoid slide a few times. This is where we compare our revenue assumptions with our expenditure assumptions. As has been stated, student enrollment projected for next school year is 20,668. That is an enrollment projected drop of one hundred and seventy four students. And so, So we've looked at trends across the year with our demographics and our enrollment, and that is our projected decline from current year. Average daily attendance, the budget has been based off of 95%. As you may be aware, we talk about student enrollment, but we do not get funded on that 20,668. We get funded on 95% of that because it's based on the average daily attendance of

011our total enrollment. Sometimes that's a discussion that the Senate and House are having. Are we going to move from an ADA funding to an enrollment funding? I think that discussion has died, and we will remain in ADA funding. The net taxable values are there, as well as the taxable value growth. If you compare this to the first budget workshop, those have declined. This week, we received our first preliminary appraisal values, and the trends that we were tracking had us at a growth of about 5%. That has declined. We're at a growth of about 3.28%, and so our net taxable values have declined. That's important because it impacts our compression rate for taxes and how that works. It also impacts our Tier 2 funding formulas, and so there's a lot of differentials that happen when that

012taxable value changes. It will change again before we get to final taxable values, but this is where we are now, and so we are adjusting everything to current knowledge. And then the homestead exemption of $100,000. Before I leave the assumptions, I would like to make some disclaimers. On the ADA, we are constantly pushing, thank you, Ms. Weimer and the Lady Lions, our attendance, our ADA to get students to come to school. It's not just for money. The more students are coming to school, the more they are educated, the more they are learning and growing, the more they are connected. But also, it is about funding. If we can increase our daily average attendance by 1%, it's about a million dollars extra in our funding. So just 1%. So if we can go from 95% to

01396%, that's an extra almost a million dollars or more in our general operating fund. If we can get back to pre-COVID numbers of 97%, that's $2 million or more. And so it's very important that the average daily attendance is monitored, supported, and encouraged. The other thing that's kind of an unknown that's coming out is the homestead exemption. There is a bill for an increase in the homestead exemption to $140,000. That has not passed yet. So we are not including it. We are not including that. But we do anticipate it to pass. And we have to make sure when they pass that $140,000, if it does, that they also have the hold harmless provisions in there. The hold harmless provisions allow us, once they do the homestead exemptions and all the ramifications of that, if the

014school districts lose money because of that, if they didn't change it, they hold us harmless. So they make up the difference for a little while. If those provisions are not in the homestead exemption when they raise it, we will lose funding. And so we have to make sure and watch that as the bill comes out. On the assumptions, this budget assumes that we will do a 2% GPI across the board. And just for clarification, that 2% GPI is off the midpoint or control point, as it has always been. We also assume a 5% salary savings is factored into the projections. If you remember, we've tried to shore up our forecasting. There have been times in the past where we would forecast a $12 million deficit. And then at the end of the year, we would

015have the magic money and have an $8 million surplus. Well, a lot of that was built into the budget due to salary savings. We budget 100% of the salaries, but based on vacancies and absences and different things, we don't always spend 100% of the salaries. So our business office and our CFO have tracked those trends, including this year. We did 3% last year with the budget. But based on our trend this year and previous years, we believe we can do a 5% to make sure that the projection we're giving you is more accurate to what the final will be based on salary savings. We have in here stipends. This is based on the compensation that we will bring forward in June, the first meeting in June. Last year, we did a good salary increase and

016equity adjustments. And we told you that we would like to come back this year with a salary increase and look at stipends. Many of our stipends have not been looked at for decades. And so we want to make sure that we are competitive with our stipends. HR has done a wonderful job of reviewing all those and comparing with TASB and our neighboring districts. And they have come to a number of 300. And we're looking at $110,000 for increase in stipends across the board. Again, this has not been approved. This is something we are bringing to you, but we want to show you to it in the budget so you have an idea if you do approve it. We also have in there the equity adjustments that would come with a 2% GPI. And that comes

017when you do a general pay increase. Sometimes there are some job families that have inequity. And so those are all looked at. And then we do equity adjustments to make sure that we are pushing the employees where they need to be. A large portion of that is related to the GPs. And then we have the teacher pay scale to make sure that our teachers with a 10-year or more experience are getting enough of a pay raise because we kind of get truncated when we get in the higher experience levels. And we want to make sure that they are being paid accordingly. And then on this board meeting, we have additional personnel requests that is pending. And that's in the amount of $448,000. And then staff projections that you approved last board meeting in the amount

018of $665,000 are all included in this budget presentation. Any questions? Okay. Talking a lot. Good? All right. This here is just an idea of the projected tax rate as we know it. It's comparing what we have in 2025. And then what we believe with the current net taxable value that this is what the compressed rate will be. And so it is set up in the legislature and the rules that any time every year when our tax values change, our overall tax rate changes. Not because anything you do, but it is automatically compressed by the state of Texas. So what they do is they set a maximum compressed tax rate. They multiply that by our current property values times our WADA and divide it by our future property values times our WADA. And that sets our

019compressed tax rate for our M&O side. And so that is what is forecasted for the 2026. You can see that we dropped 0.193 cents in the M&O or in the tier one compressed tax rate. Then we have our tier two pennies. That comes from our VAT. We have maximized all our tier two pennies. We will not ever come back for a VAT unless they increase the threshold that we can go get more pennies. And so you can see the overall tax rate projected for next year is $1.1157. This is actually a board agenda item today for us to discuss and approve pushing that out because there are timelines and expectations and legal requirements that we have to post that to make sure that we can approve it in the future. And what the board item

020will ask us to do is. We can approve this amount. We can go under it, but we can't go over it once we post it or we have to repost it. And so that's board agenda item B3 in the regular agenda. Yes, ma'am. Sorry, I did have a question from the last slide. I had forgotten. Did we we have had a recent increase in the homestead exemption, right? I know there's another one. Last election there was a constitutional amendment. It went up to $100,000. So what was the financial impact to our district? They had hold harmless provisions in that. They had hold harmless provisions in that. And so it helped us not lose the money. But there is talk if they raise it to 140 that they would remove those hold harmless provisions. So there's

021discussion going back and forth between the House and the Senate. We are hoping that they keep those in there. But if they pull them out, we have to be ready for that. Thanks. And this here is the three-year outlook. It's looking at our 2025 estimated actuals, our 2026 projections, and our 2027 projections. These are projections. So just like everything I said, anything that comes to mind, we're going to be looking at the changes in our property values. And as I said, anything that comes out of the legislature or what changes in our property values will augment these a little bit. So on the revenues, if you go back to the first budget workshop and this budget workshop, we've actually had an increase in our revenues. And that is related to the property value change. Because

022the property value change affects the tax rate that we were using on the first projection for the budget workshop. It also affects the tier 2 funding formulas. And so very complicated process for tier 2 funding. And the formulas. But there are worksheets provided to us through region 4, through TASB, through our organizations to where when we plug in whatever tax rate we were using, whatever our enrollment, whatever our property values were, and it reaugments for our tier 2 funding. And so that's where those revenue increases come from. Something that I need to make sure you understand about that is that may change as well. Right now the tier 2 funding with the allotment for a golden penny and the allotment for a copper penny is going to be a little bit different. Right now. The

023allotment for a copper penny are scheduled to change in House Bill 2. They're going to lower the golden penny funding and they're going to keep the copper penny about the same. So if that passes as is, this revenue number will also change. So as you can see, there's many variables in what we're doing, but we are bringing it to you as we know it. On the expenditure side, you will notice the large decrease in the other financial services. We're going from 8.6 million to 589,000. And that's just because we have a great financial system. We have a great CFO and a community. Not sure. We do have those things. But the reason that is, is if you'll remember, we refunded ourselves $6.1 million from the one-to-one. We pushed out from the general operating fund to

024get the approval so we could get them. But then we refunded ourselves from the bond. Well, that's a big portion of that 8.6. We're not going to have that in 2026. We're not refunding ourselves again from the bond. So that's why that is gone. And the other thing that has been reduced are the number of leases. And our subscription-based information technology arrangements, or SBITA. They pronounce it, but I don't pronounce it well. We had a lot of leases that started in 2025 that are not starting in 2026. So therefore, that's another expenditure that is not happening. And so that's why that is decreased by that amount. So, Dr. Berger, the change in expenditures from 2026 to 2027, what's driving the increase in expenditures there? What's driving the increase in expenditures there? What's driving the increase

025in expenditures there? For the overall expenditure line where it goes from 218 to 223? Yes, sir. That's just projecting inflation and any type of extra costs. We're tracking a 3% for tariffs or any of those. And so we're really just spitballing what that may be. And also you have to look at that, any pay raise increases, we always build in the 2%. And is that not built into the 2026 estimated actual? Never mind. No, it is. But you also have to realize we took an additional 2% out in salary savings. And that's a big difference. We took an additional 2% out in salary savings. So that's kind of a delta that happens there because I had that same question when we were reviewing it. I was like, well, if we're giving a pay raise increase

026and it's a 2%, how are we spending just about the same? And it's that expenditure of that 2% that we're pulling out in addition as well as some of the savings that we've looked at across the board. And none of these numbers are inclusive of TIA and what comes in and what goes out? A little bit, but not, we don't necessarily know what we're getting in 2026. We know that we're getting. For the TIA payments, I believe that we are depositing the money that we think we're getting to pay out teachers in our geo and that will go out and it's not tracked. But we get a 10% administrative cost of about $155,000. That's what we got this year. We'll have to determine how much we earn next year to figure out what that 10%

027is. Mr. Rueger, can you, on slide 8, can you tell me again why on the savings side, I'm sorry. Okay. On slide 8, were the 8.637? Yes. Okay. So, why, if we're doing away with the lease and reducing that expenditure, we'd show it as a income, a savings of income of other sources and uses instead of a reduction in expenses? And two stepped up because of the question, but if you remember in our GASB accounting rules, we have to do that. We have to show it on both ledgers, the revenue and the expenditure. Okay. So, it's just a GASB thing. Okay. I mean, I understand why we're doing it. We're doing away with the lease. So, we're going to save that money. So, it's, okay. So long as it's a GASB thing and not just

028the way we're showing it. As Tu says, that accounting voodoo we have to do with the leases and the SPDA. And for those listening and paying attention, the GASB are accounting rules that are passed down to us that we have to follow through all of these processes. On this one, it's revenues by major category. It breaks it down from tax collection, investment earnings. Obviously, our investment earnings, we're predicting that the market and everything else, we're not going to earn as much as we're going to. We're not going to earn as much as we had in the past. Local revenues and then the foundational school fund, that decreases obviously enrollment coming down. And again, this is based off of current law and not anything that House Bill 2 would pass. TRS on behalf and then other

029state revenues and federal revenues. I like to highlight the federal revenues going from a million to $332,000. If you've heard about the decrease in SHARS funding, that's that. So, that is the federal government that has cut our SHARS. That unit is $315 million. That unit is $910 million. That unit is $613 million. And then, you know, the district budget is $149 million and $828 million. It's a pretty big budget. It's a budget that goes through December and December, there's a $132 million. So, we're going to have to put a recovery measure in. That figure shows the impact of the government. We're going to have to make that VAT and that VAT and the VAT and, you know, the VAT and the VAT and VAT and VAT and VAT and all of those things. And, you

030know, I'm not going to go through that, but I think you're in the 부분. either they've stayed the same or decreased. Some of that is related to the cleanup that we've done on some of our line items, also related to our leases and that we talked about earlier, about the $3 million that is coming off the books. But if you'll look at the contingency, the $7.6 million, what our business office did is they've tried to clean up our overall spreadsheet. We have so many accounts and so many numbers that are floating around there. Sometimes money gets lost. If you don't do a better job of consolidating. So they have looked at all the accounts where there has been contingencies built into the accounts in smaller numbers. They've also looked at accounts that have been dormant

031for a while and they pulled all of it. So we didn't have to go find, because it was always difficult. I'd always ask, well, how much money do we really have? And they would have to go look at a thousand accounts to try to manufacture that. So they have gone through and pulled all that money to one contingency. So we know this is the money that we have that is in addition, to everything else that we've allocated to. That doesn't mean this is free money. This is money in case we have a catastrophic disaster. If we have HVAC that fails, if we have a roof that fails, if we have emergency expenditures, or we have costs that come in or are increased with the tariffs and everything we're projecting, we are budgeting one number, not

032knowing what the cost may be in two months, six months. We've had costs that have come in that have doubled from what they were previously. So while that number is there, it is truly a contingency for those issues. But it is a better job that we have done so we have a cleaner picture of what our overall budget is. This here is other financing sources. When we sell property or we have transfers in or leases, and that transfer in is that one-to-one repayment from the bond. That's why we won't have that again. And you can see where the leases and the ESPEDA, where it goes from the 2.2 to the 534, that's what we've been talking about. And the sale of property, you may be asking, well, what do we sell for $172,000? That was

033the text dot. They're expanding in front of Jameson. They took a little bit of Jameson, and the price for that was $170,000. So that's what that is. That will not be reflected in 2026. The 54,000 is we have auction. We have items that, you know, we can't just dispose of or get rid of, we auction them off. And this has been the trend of how much we get from that auction once we auction off equipment and furniture that we no longer need in the district. This here is the fund balance report. And so from the 2026, we have a $170,000. And this is the estimate. And this again is the estimate. We have not come to final. Sometimes the budgets that we give, say we give a campus $500,000 in their budget. But through the

034years, they don't need to spend all of it. So they may leave $40,000 in their budget. What we ask the campuses not to do is when it comes to this time of the year, don't just spend it to spend it. Spend it on what you need. If you don't need to spend it, we will pull it back into the general operating fund, and we will repurpose it where it's needed. So sometimes that's what funds the general operating fund. So sometimes that's what funds the general operating fund. So sometimes that's what funds the general operating fund. Or the fund balance at the end of the school year. Not all the money is expended. But also this $10 million is a moment in time. It's right now. It's going to fluctuate. When we get to the year

035end final, it may go up $2 million. It may go down $2 million. So just be aware that number will fluctuate. On the 2026 projected, right now based on current law and everything that we've told you about and all of our assumptions, we are looking at a $1 million deficit budget. And so you can see that. You can see the differential there. And then for 2027, and again, that's shooting in the dark, that's a $7 million deficit budget forecasted. And then what we have here, our next steps, approved compensation. We will have a large conversation about compensation. That will be on June 10th. We'll have a public hearing and tax rate and budget adoption on June the 24th. Again, the reason we're doing that is that it is the last possible day we can do

036that. And we want to make sure we have all the information as clarified as possible from the legislature. Then we have final steps. We have the final certified values, tax compression rate, end of July, and tax rate adoption in August. I know it's a little strange, but it's just how it works. We have to adopt the budget before we adopt the tax rate. Now, one thing, and this may go over like a lead balloon. So in your packet, you have a sheet that looks yellow and white. It's an Excel. It should be in the back of your book, the little funding book you have. It should be a one pager. And so what I tried to do, and this may be as it is called, sometimes I do a brain dump. So what I tried

037to do was show you what ifs. So right now in the budget, we have a projected 2% GPI across the board. Our projected budget is a million dollars and some change. If the board said, hey, what would a 3% teacher raise do for us? So to go from a 2% to a 3% is $960,000. That would make our projected deficit $1.9 million. Well, what if we want to do more than teachers? What if we want to do administrators at 3%? Well, that's going to cost us 337. So you can see that would be a 2.3 million. Well, what if we want to do support staff and auxiliary? That would bring us to an overall projected deficit, if nothing changes, of 2.5 million. But when we do an increase from 2% to 3%, the amount of

038equity adjustments we would need decreases. So that's the 150 positives. So the adjustments would actually be less. So when we talk compensation, we're talking about the $2.4 million deficit. So what if we went with the what ifs? If the board says, what would a 3% GPI for all employees look like? It would be a $2.4 million deficit. So then I went with the what ifs. What if House Bill 2 passes as proposed? Well, that's $8.9 million for us on the conservative side. That would give us a budget surplus of $6.5 million. Well, what if we got our ADA increased by 1%? That would be an additional $1.2 million. So we would have a budget surplus of $7.7 million. So if the board decides to do a 3% GPI, and I'm not saying you will, or

039some variation of that, and House Bill 2 passed and ADA increased, we would have a budget surplus for the 25-26 school year. But Dr. Borger, what I understand, if the House Bill 2 passed as proposed, then 40% of that number would have to go to teacher compensation, which would be well above the 3% that you've added above? No, ma'am. Okay, what would that number be? It would work into our current salary compensation would fit the model of the 75% of the 40% going to teachers. So HR has worked it out to where the 3% in adjustments would meet that threshold. So if House Bill 2 passes as we hope that it does, then we would probably go at three, the recommendation would come in somewhere around 3%, not the 2%. Yes, ma'am. Okay. If the

040board was like, regardless of House Bill 2, we may want to do 3%, we would be at a $2.4 million deficit. If all the other things happen of the possibilities, I wanted to show what, as of right now, I have no idea what all that is, as of right now, that's what our projected surplus would look like. Do we know, so when you talk about that, do we know, like, if the bill passes, and the way that we allocate the funds, meaning, okay, right now, if we were at a 2%, we would be at 3%. If we were at a 2% midpoint, and we were going to pay teachers, let's just call it 2 million, right, and then the House Bill 2 passes, are we able to allocate 40% and do the math to where

041what we were already going to approve would go to teachers so that we are able to increase 3% or 4%? Does that make sense? No, sir. Okay. Can you show the money the way you've spent it, in such that if you were already going to approve 3% and this bill passes, can you use it in the dollar form, not a percent form, to where the percent that the state requires is allocated to the teachers, and then the rest gets allocated out so that we are able to give a higher raise? Well, depending on how the bill is passed, because what I want to make sure is when it's passed, if we do a 3% before it's passed, what I don't want to have happen is the bill passes, and it says, great, you did a

0423%, but now you need to do 75% of 40%. I want to make sure how the bill is written, if we do a compensation package before it is passed, we're allowed to use that compensation package for the 75% of 40%. I want to make sure that's possible. If that is possible, what we are doing would meet the threshold that we would be required from House Bill 2, so the extra money we would be getting, even though we made the compensation before the bill passed, it would fill the bucket of compensation. If that's what you're asking. I think maybe Sean's saying can more than 40% be allocated? Oh, yes. If we did... 100%. That is the minimum threshold. We have to do 75% of 40%. But let's say the board is like, look, we're looking at

043this, it's possibly projected a $6.5 million surplus, we want to do 5% for teachers. The state doesn't say you can't do more, you just can't do less. Okay. Does that also, I guess, I haven't read HP2, I mean, I have read it, but does it allow for incentive, meaning it has to set aside funds so that once it passes, we could do a one-time payment? Right. So like around Christmas or whatever we come in with it. Right. The one-time payment would not be affected by any verbiage that I'm aware of in House Bill 2. Right. Or does it have to be given in the form of salary, is what I'm saying. So we did 3%, we said, okay, basically, if HP2 comes in, we can turn around and give more, we can set that aside

044in the budget. The compensation piece, as I read it, would have to be salaries, not a stipend or a one-time payment. Right. Then it goes back to Amanda's question, once we find out, could it retro back to, you know, what we approved in a 3%? That's what I want to make sure once the bill passes that we, I don't want to be caught in a situation where we do a compensation and they say, that's great, but you got to do this much more. And then we're not in a surplus, we're in a deficit, because now instead of giving a 3% for giggles, we give a 3%. So we gave 6% because of the law. And I'm sure I danced all over that incorrectly and Dr. Dahlkamp is squirming in her seat. But what I hear

045you saying is if we, and we'll know more probably by next Tuesday once the Senate hears that in committee. I am hoping. All the information that I have from other superintendents and from chiefs of staff in the office is that there's a lot of movement happening behind the scenes and that later this week, they will either hear it in committee or they will send something out or early next week. And so I'm very positive that we're going to hear something. So we have a little bit of time left to make this decision. Oh, yes. I am hoping by the time we come to June, we will know what the rules are. And so we will have a clearer picture and when we come to June for compensation, we can say these are the rules and

046this is what we can do and this is what we propose. And then the board will determine what they feel is best for compensation. The other pieces of that that are out there that are not related to House Bill 2 is the safety allotment. And then the one piece that's in House Bill 2 is the special education level of need funding. So it changes the levels and tiers of student funding so that helps us out. And so obviously the safety allotment is a standalone bill that I'm waiting for it to be heard and passed out. That's the one, $30,000 per campus and... Raising the amount to $14 per kid or $15 per kid. Yes, sir. And again, we would like to use that to where we could have armed personnel at all of our campuses

047and we would not have to have an exemption. from the safety requirements. One last question on the... On page 10, the 176, 280, is that with 2% built in? The salaries and benefits? Yes, sir. All that is with 2% built in. That's already 2% built in. Everything you see is based off of current law and with 2% built in across the board. 2% GPI as well as the equity adjustments and the stipends. Any other questions? All right, Dr. Berger. I think we're good. I think that's a good budget update. Thank you, sir. I'm trying to decide. We're gonna take a short recess and reconvene at 5 p.m. We are reconvening this meeting at 5.02 p.m. and I'm going to give the floor over to Dr. Chris Schuffler to do our opening remarks this evening and

048invocation and pledges. I would like to start with a short prayer. This is one that my kids really loved this Lent and every time I say it or hear it, it just really convicts me in my heart. I think anybody who's chosen a life of service like an educator would really identify with this one. So in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy. O divine master, grant that I may not be a burden, but that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood

049as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen. So I want to start, this is different. We've never had this opportunity, I think, before. But I want to thank Jenny Francis and Amanda Kuhn next to me for their time on the board and the service that they've given to our school district. And with that, we will also be welcoming our two board trustee elects, I guess, or trustees elect, which is Jim Johnson and Daniel Stuckey. We'll be swearing them in here in just a little bit. So thank you, gentlemen, for stepping forward and running a good race. And we look forward to welcoming you to the

050board. As Dr. Berger alluded to multiple times, he kind of stole some of my thunder from my remarks that I had here, the budget discussion that we had with the board. And it's an ongoing process. We're trying to get this thing nailed down. And the legislature, just so everyone knows, they've introduced 1,200 bills related just to education. And our administration and the board and our legal and everybody, we have to keep up with all these things. And it's a constant moving target. Of those 1,200 bills, around 500 of those would directly impact the way schools are funded. And it takes funding to run a school district. Like, it all starts with revenues, and from those revenues, we get to build programs and everything else. So when he says it's a moving target, I mean, it

051really is just a big, tangled mess. Some of the bills get more headlines, and they're more notoriety to them and more likely to pass. But there's a whole bunch out there that we don't even necessarily bring up. They're not just looking at funding. They're looking at things like safety. They're looking at discipline in the classroom. They're looking at mental health. They're looking at mental health programs, which is something that we've heard about quite a bit. They're looking at mental health. You know, Senate Bill 2. Everybody, huge headlines on that one, starting the ESA program. And so we're all looking to see how that gets rolled out. But what about House Bill 1481? You know, I don't know if anyone's tracking that one, but that one would ban all cell phones and devices on campus. You

052know? And I know that our administration is looking at it. I might find a little support for that one, kind of in my heart, just a little bit. So education is still a really hot topic. There's no end in sight. Everybody was campaigning on it this last campaign season. You know, are you for the governor's plan? Are you against the governor's plan? Are you for public schools? Are you for ESA? And it's just such a mess. And it is very hard. I mean, everyone up here is a volunteer. And we try to give this 100% every chance that we can. But that attention is limited. We're just admittedly divided. We have families. We have jobs. We have other duties that also have to happen and demand our attention. So it's hard to keep track of

053all these things. It's also hard to know what our constituents are really looking for unless we hear from you. I know our representation in Austin, you know, Representative Berry and Senator Middleton want to hear from you. I know we on this board want to hear from you. It is a moving target. And we do everything that we can with the, you know, the knowledge that we have in the moment to try and do what's best for our community. It does change every two years. And so it is difficult to keep up. But we do appreciate when people bring things to our attention, help us keep a kind of a finger on the pulse of what's happening. If you have concerns, they need to be our concerns. But we don't always know what it is that

054concerns you. So please, thank you for the grace that you give us. Thank you for understanding. And help us to make good decisions. Help give us that feedback that we need. Be vigilant. Vote in your state elections. Vote in your federal elections. But vote in your school board elections. The more local the government, the more impact it has on you. And we are all seeking change. We are all seeking to benefit the students of Pearland. And we appreciate you all being here tonight and the support that you give us. So thank you. Thank you, Dr. Scheffler. And with that, we'll move to recognizing our retiring board members and welcoming our new ones. Dr. Berger. So I'm not going to talk about budget. Dr. Scheffler mentioned it a little bit. All these are volunteers. If you're

055a volunteer in a school, if you're a watchdog, if you're on PTA, if you're on a booster club, you know what it means to volunteer. You know what it means to give your time and your resources and your energy. And these members up here do it every day. You see them once a month. I hear from them and work with them every day. We're called a team of eight. Because as a team of eight, we work together for the best interests of the school district. And I said this was kind of a sad day for me. Because I have two of my team members, two of the people that have supported this district and beyond that have supported me as the superintendent in what I believe is the right direction that we need to do

056for all kids. So I get to stand up here today and say thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your dedication. Thank you for your support. And thank you for everything you did to push us to be better for all the kids in Paralympic ISD. All 20,000 students are impacted and affected by their decisions. And the time they gave up as volunteers, we cannot pay you enough. But we would like to give you a little token of gratitude. So if I can have Ms. Kuhn and Ms. Francis come up. We have a spade, a crystal spade. In appreciation for your dedication and service to the students and staff of Pearland Independent School District, we just want to say thank you, Ms. Francis. And so for the last time, we want to thank

057you. And we would like to take a picture with our outgoing board members. Mr. Stuckey, if you could take your seat. We will take family photos once we swear all of them in. All right, Mr. Johnson, if you could raise your right hand. I, Jim Johnson, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the duties of the Office of School Board Trustee for the Pearland Independent School District of the State of Texas, and the State of Texas, and the State of Texas, and the State of Texas, and the State of Texas, and I will do the best of my ability to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this state, so help me God. All right, Ms. Weimer. All right, raise your right hand. I, Nanette Weimer, do

058solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the duties of the Office of School Board of Trustees for the Pearland Independent School District of the State of Texas, and the State of Texas, and the State of Texas, and I will do the best of my ability to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this state, so help me God. So definitely a welcome to our new and a congratulations to our returning. Our team of eight is full. At this time, we will have Mr. Stuckey and his family. We'll take photos if you ever want to. All right, Mr. Johnson, if you could raise your right hand. Mr. Stuckey and his family will take photos if you ever want to come up in the middle, and then we'll do Mr.

059Johnson and then Ms. Weimer if we would like to get together with Ms. Weimer. Now we're moving to our favorite part of every board meeting, which is our student recognition portion of the meeting. All right, good evening. At Pearland ISD, we have endless reasons to be Pearland proud. Tonight, it is our greatest honor to recognize achievements that fill us with pride. Parents, please stay with us until the last honoree is recognized. If you are unable to stay until the end of recognition, we ask that you please exit quietly. Photos will be available for download on the district Flickr account later this week. This rodeo season, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Agricultural Education Committee hosted a third-grade creativity contest. Out of 10,000 entries, only 200 were selected. Pearland ISD had three students who were in

060the top 200 winners. Out of around 7,500 entries, the third-graders are C.J. Harris, who also the student placed in the top 10 category, Magnolia and Silver Lake Elementary. Congratulations to Magnolia Elementary's Abby Raymond, to Silver Lake Elementary's Sridharan Chintu, and a huge congratulations to C.J. Harris Elementary's Elaine Nguyen for being named one of the top 10. Here to join our budding artists for a photo is the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Agricultural... Oh, there she is. Agricultural Committee member Jordan McKendree. Come on up, Ms. McKendree. Out of over 30,000 entries from talented young Texans across approximately 130 school districts, Pearland ISD proudly saw 13 artworks selected for their prestigious auction. Showcasing this exceptional talent within the district, here to recognize our student artists is Fine Arts Coordinator Victor Raygoza. Dr. Berger, for the proceeds. I'm

061sorry. This year's auction marked several historical firsts for Pearland Independent School District. For the first time, all three high schools made it into the auction. Additionally, two artworks from our junior highs made it, one from Junior High West and one from Barry Miller. In addition to that, Kathy Shee from Dawson High School has achieved a remarkable feat for making the auction five years in a row. This is a feat that has never been done before at the Houston Rodeo. The students' exceptional talent and dedication were reflected with the impressive auction results, bringing in $372,000. The following students will be recognized for their auctions and their amazing artwork. Vanita Holder, lot number 76, auctioned off for $10,000. Lot number 57, auctioned off for $22,000, from Dawson High School, Ruti He. Lot number 55, auctioned off for

062$14,000, from Dawson High School, Faith Gwin. Lot number 54, auctioned off for $19,000 from Turner High School, Vanessa Cantu. Lot number 45, auctioned off for $22,000, Emma Chen from West. Lot number 41, auctioned off for $32,000. Lot number 41 auctioned up for $32,000 from Dawson High School, Jack Liu. Lot number 24, premium class champion, colored drawing from Dawson High School, Ruby Thorn. Lot number 22, premium class champion, Junior High, auctioned up for $35,000, Ha-Eun Joo. Lot number six, painting class champion, auctioned up for $50,000, Shion Joo. Some of our artists were not able to make it. They have AP exams, so I wanna apologize for that, but please join me in congratulating these students and their amazing art teachers, Krista George and Gabby Flores. And since we have Mr. Ray Goza here, I'd like to

063invite Dr. Berger up to the mic and turn our focus to a special fine arts event. Mr. Ray Goza, if you can come up, please. Everything you saw here from the students begins at the home when there's talent, and then it goes to the teachers and they help nurture that talent. But all of that program, all of that impact, all of that success, has to start with motivation, have to start with a priority and purpose. And in Pearland ISD, the visual fine arts, what you see student representation here, with the Rodeo Art and every other, and then with Big Art Day, if you haven't been to Big Art Day, it is a community celebration at Pearland Town Center of everything fine arts in Pearland ISD. And when I tell you, and he'll say no, tell

064you it all begins and ends right here. This is the passion and the purpose of Visual Fine Arts and Pearland ISD and I just want to say thank you. All right the Pearland High School Welding Program is celebrating a significant victory as its team earned the grand champion title in tier one of the industrial craft competition at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. This prestigious achievement marks a significant progression for the program which secured reserve grand champion in tier two during its inaugural participation last year. Here to recognize our grand champions is Walker Rose. Thank you. Julian Cisneros, Bryson Flanagan, Brendan Gordon, Owen Gray, Liberty Guza, Michael Middleton, Jude Monkos, Travis Pinnica, Matthew Shanks, and Garrett Cloud. And just a shameless plug we have a podcast Building Blocks podcast. The episode was just released Tuesday

065and we are highlighting this welding program. They did a great job. While they're walking away I would like to include that Garrett Cloud was actually one of three students at Pearland High School. He was a student at the University of Michigan. He was a student at the University of Michigan High School who competed in the Project MFG National Welding League and he is moving on to the national finals. He is in the top 25 of 350 students across the United States and has a chance to win $10,000. Students enrolled in Pearland Independent School District and San Jacinto Community College Dual Credit Cosmetology Program recently showcased their exceptional talents at the SkillsUSA Texas College Post-Secondary Competition held in Corpus Christi. To honor these students please welcome CTE Coordinator Mandy Saravarkis and Miss Guidry from San Jac

066College. For barbering we have gold medalist Olivia Infante-Owens. She'll be representing us at Nationals in Georgia this summer. We have natural hair care gold medalist Alaysia Diggins. Silver medalist for t-shirt design Ani Alviso Murillo and she will also be representing us at Nationals. Theatrical makeup silver medalist Gaby Marquette. Theatrical makeup gold medalist Abby DeLeon. And bronze medalist in cosmetology Alyssa Gonzalez. All right these three Oilers have had remarkable seasons this year and each of them finished this year with a school record. Their hard work commitment to excellence and dedication to this team has paid huge dividends in their individual success. Please welcome Coach Evans to introduce our Oiler athletes. Thank you Dr. Dogg-Kemp, Dr. Berger and board members. Our first member is Zoe Woods. She runs the 400 meters. She was fifth at state with

067a time of 54.84 and has a school record of 54.22. Next up we have Joshua Shelton. He runs the 400. He was fifth at state with a time of 47.09. He also holds the school record of a time of 45.93. And we're missing one. The student-athlete who's playing in the football game tonight, Caleb Sagnes. He ran the 200. He finished eighth with a time of 21.34. And he owns the school record with a time of 20.73. All right. In absence of Coach Brego for Dawson High School I will be honoring his student athlete. I would like to recognize Kylie Herpin. She is the the only second freshman thrower in modern Texas history to qualify for the state track meet in both shot put and discus throw. Kylie went on to finish second in shot put

068and third in discus. These accomplishments are unprecedented as no other female freshman thrower in modern Texas history has scored more points in a single state meet. Kylie ends the season as a top-ranked freshman thrower in the state and in the nation for both shot put and discus throw. Up for her next the AAU Junior Olympics and the USATF Junior Olympics. Congratulations. The Pearland High School cheer program has achieved outstanding success during the 2024-2025 season marking a year of significant accomplishments and recognition. Here to recognize the team is Coach Struthers. Sorry about a little cold here. First up we have Jordan Barrera and then Sage Boyster, Paris Castro, Kenley Conley, and then Jordan Barrera. Ava Consoli, Maren Davis, Annalise Dennehy, Megan Elledge, Emma Forrest, Jackson Fricking, Gracie Garcia, Jacob Gearing, Ruby Gilbride, Saoirse Gilbride, Ava Gonzalez,

069Nolan Harris, Genesis Jaramillo, Christian Kirkland, Mia Laureano, Abigail McGinn, McKenna Miley, Morgan Pace, Elias Parker, John Trae Reid, Jordan Skimmins, Sydney Seabach, Alyssa Binable, and Julia Wach. Class of 2022! Alright, everybody. One, two, three. Good job. Alright, everyone. Please go ahead. Go ahead, Colin. Alright. All right. At this point, we will now move to our community recognition. We have some outstanding employees and community members here that we would like to recognize. To do that, I would like to invite Dr. Franco to begin this presentation. Good afternoon. Today, we gather to celebrate a significant achievement, the completion of English as a Second Language ESL courses by a remarkable group of adults through our partnership with Brazosport College. First and foremost, I would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Dr. Franco for his support of this

070program. I would also like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to our proud superintendent and the entire school board for their support in helping our department establish this collaboration with the college. Your commitment to enhancing educational opportunities for our community is truly commendable. I would also like to thank the Brazosport College Adult Education and Literacy Department and applaud the dedication of our employees and parents. These individuals have devoted five hours each week for 14 weeks to improve their language proficiency. Their commitment to personalization, personal growth and education is inspiring and exemplifies the values we hold dear in our community. As we recognize our accomplishments today, I encourage each one of you to continue this path of language learning. Remember, every step you take in improving your language skills opens new doors and opportunities in your personal

071and professional lives. At this time, I would like to invite one of our accomplished students to share a few words with us. Please join me in welcoming our very own Maribel Gonzalez to the podium. She will be sharing her message in Spanish and then in English. My name is Maribel Gonzalez and I have been working for the Pearl District for more than 17 years. I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who has helped me in my journey of learning English. Your support has really opened the doors for me. I have had a great time in my ESL classes. I have taken a lot of dedication and worked hard. But I was able to achieve my goal and finish this program. On the way, I was able to meet many incredible people. Working

072with my teacher was especially fun. She made learning much more interesting and enjoyable. I have learned a lot and I want to motivate everyone to continue studying English. It is such a beneficial skill that can really help you in your daily life. Thank you all for being here today. Thank you for being here today. Hello everyone. My name is Maribel Gonzalez and I have been working for the Pearl District for over 17 years. I just want to take a moment to talk to thank all of you who have never come alone and helped me learn about learning English. Your support has really opened a lot of doors for me. I have had such a great time in ESL classes. Thank you very much. It took a lot of dedication and hard work, but I was

073able to meet my goals and finish this program. Along the way, I got to meet so many amazing people. Working with my teacher was especially fun. She made learning so much more interesting and enjoyable. I had learned so much, and I want to motivate all of you to keep studying English. It's such a beneficial skill that can really help you in your day-to-day life. Thank you all for being here today, especially my children, and for being part of this wonderful journey we made. Thank you so much. Maribel is definitely building Parallel and Proud, and we're so excited for her. I am delighted to share that we had 61 adults complete the course, a dream that became a reality through our partnership with Russellsport College. So thank you. At this time, we will begin our recognition

074for all the students who were able to be here today. We did have a few. We had a few that had to step out because they have their students have programs at school. So students, please come up as I call your name, and you're going to line up on this side. Maria Abarca-Paredes. And that's my mom. Elizabeth Aguilera. Elidia Alfaro. Veronica Aranda. Ana Paula Biancarelli. Mayra Cardona-Gonzalez. Brigida Chavez Sanchez. Claudia Cruz Herrera. Maribel Gonzalez. Tatiana Guimaraes. Juana Mesa Santos. Maria Ramos. Blanca Sanchez Sandoval. Blanca Tejada de Martinez. Last but not least, Maria Uvalle Campuzano. Want to have them come here? We look forward to our continued partnership with Russellsport. We're excited that they will continue, and we will help them recruit more students to benefit from their program. So at this time, we're going to

075begin our recognition. And this time, we're going to, if Russellsport team and anybody from our department, if you could come, and we will gather here quickly for a group picture. Yes, I'm coming. All right, at this time, we're going to have our Pearland Parks Department and EDC representation here for your presentation this evening. Hi, Ms. Carey. Great to see you. Hi, Mr. Buchanan. Good evening. Thank you all so much for the opportunity to be here this evening. You caught us by surprise. I thought we were going to be just a little bit later this evening. My apologies. We are trying to give you an opportunity because that way, when we go into exec session, you don't have to wait for us. So we know that you guys have a lot you've got going on as

076well. So if it's OK with you, we will. Absolutely. No, we appreciate it. Thank you so much. So we're here tonight to talk about our Parks, Recreation, Open Spaces, and Trails Master Plan. Our master plan is a five-year plan. Well, it's a 20-year plan that we update every five years. And this plan is developed with a large amount of community and stakeholder feedback. And we wanted to spend some time with you all this evening just hearing your feedback because I believe that the work that we do in Parks and Recreation helps to support your students and the families of the students in your schools. And so we want to be that extension. We want to make sure that during the summers and in the evenings that we're doing the right things for the right reasons.

077And so your feedback is very, very important to us. Here with me this evening, we're going to be talking about the parks and recreation. We're going to be talking about the parks and recreation. And so here with me this evening, I have Matt Buchanan, our Economic Development Director. And then our consultant that's working on the plan is Baxter and Woodman. Aaron Tooley is our project lead for that. And he's going to walk through a very brief presentation. And then we'll get into some questions where we can hear all of your feedback. For being here this evening. Sorry to catch you off guard. But thank you for going by the fly and getting it taken care of. Really appreciate you. Thank you very much. Again, my name is Aaron Tooley. I'm a planner with Baxter and

078Woodman. we have the good fortune of working with the Parks Department and the PEDC on developing this very ambitious and exciting plan for Pearlands Parks. With all of our plans, we always have, as Carrie had mentioned, a very rigorous and robust public engagement program. So over the last couple of months, we've been having multiple meetings with departmental officials, small group listening sessions, we've been attending board meetings of the PEDC and their prosperity implementation committee meetings, as well as we've been doing pop-up events at various community events around Pearland. And these will continue over the duration of this planning assignment, which should last through probably January of 2026. We have chosen to, and let me back up and say that I had the, also the good fortune of working with the Parks Department, and I'm very

079grateful to them for their support and their support and their support and their support and their support and their good fortune of preparing the city's last Parks and Recreation Master Plan about five years ago. Since then, we've changed the way we organize our Parks and Recreation Master Plans. So we're really focusing on developing specific chapters for each of the Parks Department's offerings, Parks and Recreation Parks offerings. This is a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department compliant plan. And so with that, we're going to be working with the Parks Department on developing a plan for each of the Parks Department's offerings. We are required to conduct several different assessments that they would like to see in all of their master plans, particularly a demand based assessment, which looks at how much public engagement there was during the

080whole planning program, a standard space assessment, which really looks at the geographic distribution of the City's parks as they're spread across the city. And then a resources-based assessment which basically looks at all of the other open spaces we have, which is a tool that we use to move around the campus. spaces, areas that might contribute to supporting parks and recreation development within the city. We're also developing a conditions-based assessment where we're looking at all of the city's parks and the condition of their facilities and equipment. And that will then be turned into a GIS-based asset management program. So the parks department will be better able to manage, update, replace their parks facilities and equipment on a scheduled basis. We're also developing, which we're very excited about, what we're calling an inclusivity-based assessment where we're really

081looking at how inclusive are the city's parks and how can we make them more inclusive to serve all ages and all abilities and all disabilities. We will be, and I'm just introducing this now, but I'll mention it momentarily, but we are evaluating nine open space areas to see how they might support the needed park facilities and athletic fields, those kind of things on behalf of the parks department. And one of the things we want to talk to you about is five of these properties are owned by the PISD. So that's the PISD. That's what we're really interested in how we might work with you in developing these properties, potentially. We're also looking at passive recreational enhancements to the Shadow Creek Ranch Recreation Sports Facility, how we might provide additional open space and recreational programs for

082the NAP activity center. And then we're also conducting a fairly thorough and rigorous operations program. We're also looking at how we might incorporate more sustainable and resilient best practices, but really focusing on expenditures, staffing, generated revenue, maintenance, best practices, et cetera. In a recent 2024 community benchmark survey, the PEDC looked at all of the different benchmark communities that the city uses to compare itself, the city to other similar cities. And I'm sorry, one of the headings is shifted over to the right too much, but we were looking at different benchmark communities and how much park acreage and the percentage of that park acreage to the total city area these different benchmark communities have. And so you can see that Pearland, unfortunately, is at the very bottom of the list. And then we're looking at the

083other two, the PEDC, and the City of Omaha with only about 547 acres of park land. Now, the, and it's kind of an unwritten policy right now, but the parks department does rely on a lot of the homeowners association parks to fulfill a lot of the demand that some of these other cities would not necessarily be doing. But so one of the things we're trying to do based on the recreational needs of the communities, is to ramp up or boost the amount of park land acreage within the city to support, again, the demand, not only the current demand, but also future demand for parks and recreation. As we recognize that we see parks as an integral piece of infrastructure, just like utilities infrastructure, transportation infrastructure, parks are critical as well to improving and maintaining that

084quality of life. But also the economic impact. And so we're looking at the PEDC. And then we're looking at the PEDC. And so we're looking at the PEDC. And we're looking at the PEDC. We're looking at the PEDC. And we're looking at the economic well-being of your community. So I was going to, sorry. So I was mentioning the evaluation of nine potential park sites. How we might, how these sites might fulfill the demand that we're seeing for recreational improvements, et cetera. Five of these sites, as I had mentioned, are owned by the PISD. And you can see them listed 1, 3, 5, 6, and 7 on this map. on this map. And then I'll just go through these very quickly. The PISD's 45 acre site at Liberty Drive and Broadway. There's potential for of course

085a trail that then links to Independence Park below. There's a small four and a half acre PISD property right by Shady Crest Elementary School. The 61 acre Veterans Sports Complex. The 16 acres very close to the Pearland Parkway traffic circle. And then the 40 acres of PISD owned land at Cullen and Broadway. So these are open spaces that we're very interested in speaking with the PISD without meaning to sound presumptuous at all, but how the Parks Department might partner with the PISD in fulfilling some of the needs of the community. So we do have several questions here that perhaps if time allows, we can discuss some of these questions now, or if you wanna have time to think about questions and we can come back and discuss later. But essentially as per the fourth question,

086under what conditions would the PISD allow their real estate holdings to be developed into parkland? I think that's kind of the bottom line that we're interested in. And then also when it comes to various demographic and enrollment trends that you all are seeing as the Board of Directors, what should we be considering and how should this factor into our considerations when it comes to planning for your community's parks and recreation facilities? From an equity and access standpoint, are there barriers that prevent students or families from accessing park amenities, or recreational programs? And how can we better work together to make sure that we can alleviate those barriers for the betterment of your students? And so with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you all might have at this time. All right, we're gonna

087open it up for questions. I have a question that's probably more for you, Dr. Berger. Do we get income when, say, the YMCA uses the elementary school fields, or the public schools, or the public schools, or the public schools, or the public schools, for soccer games and little league games? Outside of the afterschool programs, if they rent the facilities for extracurricular activities, sports or whatnot, we do. There is a rental fee in process. So I guess my concern would be, will we lose out to the Parks Department on those kinds of rentals in the future? The land highlighted is not developed land at all for any of our schools, or not fields that are used or rented out. These are just plots of land or green space that we take care of. No, I know,

088I mean like, for instance, my son's soccer team practiced at Challenger. And so if there's a park right there at Cullen and 518, if it's less expensive, or I don't know, are we going to lose that opportunity? I'm sure Ms. Capers could speak to it more, but there are more people needing fields than we have fields available. So if we did have a partnership, or there were fields available, then we would have a lot of money. So I'm just wondering, if you could just give us a little bit of a summary, of how more fields develop, there are more people needing a field. Yes, excuse me, yes, that's absolutely true. From what we see day to day in our operations, we can't meet the demands that are coming to us. And with the spaces that

089the school district has as well, there's just not enough for our community. In addition to the master plan, we've done some other studies that show that. And then looking at some of the properties like Shadycrest Elementary, right now there's a large section of property at Shadycrest that's not developed. And if there is potential for partnership in a property, like that, we might be able to address some of those needs and make it beneficial for the school to use during the day when it rains a lot and it's standing with water for several days. So those are the opportunities that we're looking at. That's kind of my question is, what are you proposing? Like are you saying, we as the park department, we want to buy land from the ISD, or we want to sign a

090lease and have it for an amount of time, or we want to partner and the ISD retains ownership, but we'd like to put park equipment on that. Like what's your vision? So I think right now we're still in the early phases of this master plan. And one of the things that we hear a lot when we develop our master plans as well, you have all of these great ideas, you heard the community, the community needs these things, where are you going to put them? And so as we start developing the strategies and recommendations for the plan, then we'll be able to start having some more conversations in regards to those things. But I think all of that is on the table. I think there's some properties like the Shadycrest Elementary property that that might be

091some type of lease property or joint interlocal agreement for developing on that type of property. Other spaces might be something that one, another thing that we hear is the space for practices. We have fields that have really nice turf on them and you can only use them for permitted uses. And so where can families go out and practice or a coach that wants to get in an extra practice for the week, where can they go? And so some of those fields might not be developed at the level that a competition or a tournament field would be developed at. And on those types of the areas next to the recreation center and auditorium, those might be a great location for that. That for the next, and I'm just throwing out examples, so please don't hold us

092to any of this. But for the next maybe 10 or 15 years or 20 years if the district doesn't have any intentions of developing that space in that interim time period, then we could build some of those practice type fields in those spaces. So there's a lot of different conversations to be had and to answer your question. And I think we're open to a lot of different partnership potential or opportunities. And I know with if we talked about private sale, because we've had developers approaches about some of these properties where they can buy it and put commercial buildings or whatever on it. But private sale, we have to advertise and then we have to solicit bids and all that other stuff. There's a whole legal process. But how does it work if it's another government

093entity? Well, it depends on what agreement we land on. If we land on an interlocal agreement like we have currently with the fields next to the rec center, then it's just something we approve through the board. But if we're gonna do a lease or a sale, there are different steps that we have to take. Ms. Capers, can you talk a little bit about what community demand is? What is the community? What are the needs that the community is looking for? What needs are unmet currently in the community? And so I can speak a little bit to that. But then Mr. Tule has also had the opportunity to sit in multiple stakeholder community or multiple stakeholder meetings. The athletics is one that rises to the top of the list. We need for more athletic field space.

094The need for more inclusive programming. That has been something that has come up a lot. I'm trying to think of some of the other examples that we have. Well, there's a big demand for a lot of the, what we call helix sports like BMX, mountain biking, skateboarding, Frisbee golf. A lot of those less popular sports, but there's still a significant demand for those. Trails have been very popular, very hot topic. So these, you're really kind of testing the water of what land is available before you develop the plan of what would go in those spaces is what I'm hearing you say. So it'll be twofold. We'll be looking at, you know, the plan will publish a list of all of the recommendations that we hear from the community. And some of those we'll be able

095to say, these would be good properties for that type of amenity. And then there'll still be a long list of recommendations in the plan that don't have sites allocated to them at this time. Well, and obviously the more permanent of a structure that's, like if you're talking about a skateboard park, there's a lot of concrete goes into that, right? So that can't be a green field that we're thinking about might have some potential use for the school district in the near future. Whereas other things, if it's just sitting fallow and open and we're having to mow it, there's probably more ability to have those kind of temporary fields, this extra practice fields that you were talking about. So yeah, a lot of malleability there. Yeah, I would definitely agree, depending on what it is that

096we want to build others, some of the sites would be more suitable for that. And just in the conversations, not speaking for the Board, with the private people that have come to give us offer to say, hey, we want to buy that 40 acres for $6 million and they've given us offer for every spot of land that we have, or as Ms. Carbone has mentioned, is there a way to get revenue over and over with leasing the land for a fee to where we do not lose the ownership of the land? Or as the Parks Department is saying, do we partner? The area by Shadycrest came up in our conversation of, if the parks could develop that spot of land and we could use it as a school district and then they use it after

097hours, so it would be the determination of what do we want to do with that land? Do we want to make money off of it? Do we want to have residual income off of it? Or do we want a partnership of interlocal agreements? So that would be something the Board would need to consider. On something. I was just asking if we had a great need for an interlocal agreement. I want to know what the advantage of that would be over say leasing, or selling the land. I'm gun shy on interlocal agreement because of the Natatorium and what we've experienced in the past. Well the interlocal agreement of that nature would not be a monetary thing. It would be that we share the space or we allow the Parks Department to use it very much like

098the fields of the Natatorium and they kind of take ownership of it. They do renovations and upkeep and all of that and then when that interlocal agreement ends, we re-look at it, renegotiate it, or end it. So there wouldn't be any money exchange there like the Natatorium to where that was really a lease or a payment. But for example, like at the Shadycrest, if it was an interlocal agreement and they developed that space, it would be a mutually beneficial plot of land to where the school could use it, the Parks Department wouldn't necessarily be there during school hours, but then the city community could use it outside of school hours. And I was gonna ask the question when you talked about HOAs. Do you count all the land that's in the area, the land that's

099in the area, the land that's in the area, the land that's in the area, all our green spaces or our playgrounds and our school parks in this percentage? In the number of acres, go ahead. The 500, what was it, 547, those are all city-owned, that's all city-owned acreage. Did that include any, like you said, HOAs? Like for instance, if you go out to Silver Lake and they have some really nice playgrounds, that area? It does not, but then I would say if you would look at all those cities, they're all gonna have schools. And they're all gonna have HOAs that have similar parks to us. So we can't let that make us feel a little better because we have schools and HOA parks too, because those districts, I mean, those cities all have those same

100things. So we're at the bottom of the rankings. And that's something I'd hope, that I think we've recognized as a community, we need to do something to improve the park system. Because if we have strong park system, we'll have strong neighborhoods. And if we have strong neighborhoods, we'll have strong schools. And all those things depend on one another. And that's what we're looking for to be successful as a community. And Tom Bass and Christia Adair probably fall outside of Pearland, don't they? They would, those are both Beharis County parks. Yeah, big parks, but they're right next to each other. With all due respect to the report, so I mean, some of the cities are located, and I know, I'm not sure if City of Pearland shows these cities, but some of the cities are outside

101of Texas as far as Tennessee and California. But I mean, one could almost, you know, I mean, I think there's a lot of cities of similar size that would show that we have more acreage of parks than they do. Sure, we chose these cities probably 10 years ago. We chose them, one, because they're all fast growth cities like we are. And then we chose most of them because they're aspirational cities, cities that we wanna compete with. We can find cities that, you know, are lesser, but we wanted to pick high caliber cities that we wanna compete against. Because we wanna be, you know, our goal and our strategic plan is to be the community of choice in the Houston region. So we need to be comparing ourselves to the best if we wanna be the

102best community. Then when you compare yourself to the Houston region. Hello, Mr. Murphy. Yeah, just real quick, piggybacking on Sean, wouldn't you then compare yourself to the Houston region? We do, we do. I mean, Sugar Land's on there. A couple. Missouri City, Baytown, Lake City. I mean, so there are, you want, it was a mixture of both cities within the Houston region and Texas, and then there are some national cities in there. My other question was, because you mentioned Shadycrest quite a bit. So could you give an example of for instance of what you would put there at Shadycrest? And then, you know, I know I've seen before, like people that do practice Little League on that property, whether they're approved to or not. So then are you displacing athletics that are already, you know,

103Little League teams and stuff that are already practicing on that property? And one of the reasons we picked that one obviously is if, you know, anytime there's any significant rainfall, that field in the back of the playground, the whole back of the school turns into a lake. So to me, we would be able to more highly utilize that area if we put some dirt work into it and drained it. I mean, it might not be anything that elaborate, but it would compliment those people that are already practicing there, but it could be soccer. It could be all sorts of multi-sports use. Yeah. No, that's exactly right. And a location like that wouldn't be for tournaments or game level play. It would be for the local users that are looking for additional practice space. Outdoor use,

104not like you wouldn't build a building? Wouldn't. No, I don't think that. I don't, we haven't had any conversations and I don't anticipate anything coming from the plan that would recommend something like that on that site. I think it's just providing more outdoor green space. Last question. Go ahead. So in the instance right now, if there's a Little League team practicing there and you come in and take that and redo it, who controls that? So like I said, do you displace those folks that are already there? I don't know if those people, if they rent those or they just show up. You know, we have backstops on across the street and then you have backstops behind you and we have backstops across the street, but I don't think any of those people reserve those. I

105think they just show up and practice. Is that an agreement with the Dad's Club and Little League that they designate fields or how does that work? Anybody who wants to rent a field, they go through Mr. Palumbo's office and then we have a process. But that doesn't mean everybody you see on a field has rented the field. Because you may have people out there that just said, hey, here's a greens piece we're gonna play. But then the people that rent it come up and say, no, I've got this reserve, y'all need to leave. Yeah, because I know for the Dad's Club, they each team has a designated backstop throughout the district and throughout the community. And so, yeah, we displaced some at Shadycrest. My question would be, what is our long-term plan for this land?

106Before we say it needs to be developed for parks, what is, we're doing our strategic plan right now, what has been discussed with these land, potential other uses other than parks? What have we discussed as a board prior to this? The only thing that we've discussed, because we are not growing enrollment, we are not looking to build any new schools. So we have no plans for use this right now for buildings for the district? As of right now, no. The only time we've ever talked about it was for profit due to budget shortfalls or needs that we have to get that one-time payment for what we could get for the land. And to piggyback off Dr. Scheffler, in all these empty fields, we're maintaining them at a cost to the district for mowing and maintenance

107on that end. Do we have those specific numbers? Could we find those specific numbers for those? Because that's 60 acres, three acres. That's a lot of land that we have. Some of it is not, I mean, it's overgrown areas. Yeah, the one at Cullen is, but not the one off of, the one by Descartes, the one by Shadycrest, some of those other lands, some of the area across from Lowe's there, the Parolin Parkway track. Some pieces of that Lowe's track, yeah. So one other thing that I know is gonna come up, because this comes up at the Parks Department, is there are facilities that are owned through the Parks Department already that are under lock and key. And so they're public facilities that people find frustrating because, man, how do I even get in there?

108I never see any teams on those fields. They're always locked up, nothing ever happens. And so has that been part of the conversation? Are these accessible fields or are these, we're gonna lock this down because it's gonna be really nice and we only want some people in there? Which field is that? Well, like at Centennial Park, for instance. You're 100% right. A lot of the fields that we have are by permit use only. And there's a couple of reasons for that. And some of them are the level of the playing fields that they're playing on and just the damages that are caused to them when they're left open. And second is the ability to actually schedule people because the demand is so high. Through this master plan, we've had a lot of the listening sessions

109and even prior to us starting this, we hear it all the time. We want a space that we can just take our family out or I'm a coach and I just wanna go get an extra practice. And so that is one of our goals of this plan is to make sure that that is highlighted as something that our community needs. And so we're still so preliminary in this process and we don't have conceptuals of what we would do with these different sites yet. And so I don't have that exact answer for you. If a recommendation came that we needed a larger, tournament level quality complex, well then there may be portions of that that are by permit only. There may be portions of that location that are open for public use. We're trying to do

110some of the things like that at the sports complex at Shadow Creek Ranch where we have both. And so that is definitely on our radar, but until we get a little bit further down in the planning process, I could say it could go either way. I guess I also have specific questions about the potential of the property off of Liberty Drive and Broadway. I see the main kind of desire for that property is trailhead or trail at this point. I mean, would it be possible or of interest that we look at the trail without the property usage in its own right? I mean, if that's a true desire of the city to connect those trails. Yeah, and I think, yeah, your frontage definitely there has commercial value. Obviously the trail goes down along there and

111then the city owns 14 acres there also. So I think there could be something where the city may be developed there for recreation. And then, you know, the back part of your tract is probably not as probably commercially viable. It's got a lot of depth there. So maybe something on the backside there too, and it's got access to the neighborhood. So I think there could be a concept where some of it's commercial and some of it's for recreation. And obviously it connects right into Independence Park. So yeah. We don't have a lot of fields though. That's, I mean, one of the things, if you think about fields, you know, we've got Hickory Slough now, got Centennial, and then we've got the Shadow Creek Sports Complex, but as a community, we have 130,000 people. We do

112not have a lot of fields. I mean, have we made progress in our fields? Yes, but for a community of 132,000 people, do we have a lot of fields? No, we would be very underserved from a softball, baseball, soccer, any type of space. We are very underserved. And, you know, I think that's what makes strong neighborhoods and strong communities is having a great park system. Well, and that's where my mind goes. Like if it's green space and you're just throwing up a backstop or you're putting some hash marks out or whatever, that's a very different conversation than, hey, we want to put a big concrete structure here and turn this into something different, so. I think it'll be a combination of both, but then I think you're gonna find people's expectations are, you know, everybody

113wants nice fields. Everybody wants lit fields. Everybody wants them to have good infields and outfield and stuff like that. So I think that's the trade-off there. What kind of quality are we gonna have? And the good thing is our residents are having better and better expectations. I guess personally, where I kind of fall on this, as a protector of kind of the district and the long-term plan of the district, that there are certain pieces of this that I could see like a partnership or it doesn't really devalue the land in and of itself to put a trail in, for example. But I've got to look at what's the monetary value of these tracts of land for the long-term betterment of the district itself. I mean, we're in no financial position with the state legislature and

114what they're offering for public schools that we can just, kind of give the land away sort of thing. So I think I like the idea of a lease. I think we've, Dr. Burger and I have talked about that for a while because it's an ongoing revenue stream that would benefit the district and offset some of our facilities cost in other places. But I don't know what the, I don't even know the next steps to do that. But that would be my kind of thought about this because then we would still, if there was a need down the road, have access to that land, should we need, or should there be a big sell come up that there's really a high value on that that would benefit our school community, that we would have options like

115that available. And so for whatever it's worth and if it's helpful to you, that's where my thoughts are on it. And I'm interested to hear the remainder of the board's thoughts as well. I tend to agree with you. Well, like that 40. Go ahead. I would agree with you as well. My thoughts are if the land can be developed, I would agree with you as well. My thoughts are if the land can be developed, in some way, like Dr. Scheffler was stating, it's not a permanent structure and we could use it in a partnership where you maybe lease it from the district so we have the revenue stream. But if the need comes up in the future and we need to either sell the land because of monetary reasons or we need to develop for

116a new school, then I think we need to retain that. I look at the land kind of what I think Mr. Johnson was alluding to is right now, it's an asset and we don't pay taxes on it, but there is a certain amount of money but there is a certain amount of money that we can use to develop it. that we can use to develop it. I think there's a certain leaking of funds, I think there's a certain leaking of funds, but it's not a lot. We've already got the equipment to be able to mow and maintain and all those things, but it just sits there empty and no one's using it. And so lease, I think, is a great idea if that's what the Parks Department's with and we're doing some low impact kind

117of construction on those properties. And at any point, we can exit the lease with due notice and just say, hey, that property's gotta be developed for a new bus barn or maintenance facility or we're selling it or whatever. But a lease can be anything from a dollar a year all the way up to a million dollars a year. Like all those terms are really negotiable. Or an interlocal agreement where it's even just, look, we think this is for the good of kids and that's what we're here to serve is children and we own this land that right now we're not allowing children to use. So if the Parks Department's willing to put facilities into that in the sense of they're gonna grade it, make sure it drains, put a backstop on it, or whatever it

118is, I'm open to that idea too because we're not losing anything. We still have the land and we can still sell it. We're just saying, hey, instead of letting it sit naked doing nothing, just chasing people off it when they go mudding or whatever, maybe it could actually have some benefit to the community until we need it for something else. My personal thought would be, I mean, I would like to see it taken case by case. For instance, I'll give you an example. If you look at the 45 acres, like Matt said, I wouldn't mind carving out the frontage of it to be able to sell it off to be able to collect some revenue, possibly to a developer, someone that wants the couple acres in the front, and then the parks can have the

119back. I mean, that piece connects all the way down to Independence. Not only that, it probably falls in the floodplain or flood zone back towards the creek back there. So many of the adjacent property across from it on Pearland Parkway has been proposed to build houses in that area. So having a park that backed up would complement. But again, to my point, I think you just have to look at each track of land that we have case by case. So my other question was, whatever happened with the Bo Jackson Sports Complex development, is that still on the table or is that kind of done? No, that's done. I haven't heard from them for a long time. Okay. Good memory. Your thoughts, Mr. Johnson, Ms. Weimer? Just taking gears a little bit and thinking beyond the

120actual district-owned properties. Just kind of how can we collaborate more together or what would your vision look like for, how can we serve your students more through some of our recreational programming? What are some of the needs that the district has had that you could see us potentially fulfilling? Or are there facilities that you have, say for example, tennis courts or district-owned facilities that we could utilize in the evening times to expand pickleball or some of the things that they have. I mean, I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. What are some of the things that the community is asking for? I mean, we rent out our facilities a lot because of the need. And so a lot of times, either for private lessons

121or tournaments like for the rig, we don't rent that out very often, but for track meets and little league football and those things. So I don't know that our facilities go empty very often. We are moving over to a new booking system and so we'll have better reports and understanding of the usage rate. And so maybe once we have a better understanding of that, just like you with your plan, we could have a better understanding of the usage rate. And so we're gonna have a conversation of, hey, the new tennis courts between junior high, east and west, they're not used ever on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So if you would like to work out an agreement or we could share usage of that for the community, we can. Because normally right now, when they're not

122being used by a rental, they're just using them for the community anyway. They go up there and play. We leave all of our elementary, middle, and junior high except for the track areas unlocked for our community. We just do not unlock our varsity sport, but we do have a lot of things that we can do. We do have a lot of places, just like you said, because of usage and abuse, and we don't want that cost to incur for us. So I guess I'm also thinking about the question you had about student need. And we definitely have a growing population of students with special needs, and we have a growing population of economically disadvantaged students, and we have a growing population of students who are English as a second language. And so one of the

123things I noticed, just like signing up my own students for different programming, I don't know that a family that has language barriers would be able to easily access how to even sign up, let alone affordability sometimes of some of the programming that is available. I think there's a large demand for elementary age programming, and the offerings that are available fill up very quickly. And so I think there's a large demand in that area as well, that's not affiliated with organized sports, that is just camps and access and all of those kinds of things. So I think at the top of mind are those kinds of issues that I see as need for our students or families across the district that we don't easily meet that need right now. Excellent, thank you. What about communication? Making

124your families and students aware of what we have going on. Do you feel like that is, that we're communicating with them well, or do you think that outside of the language barriers, that there could be some improvements there? I don't know how much, are you, you guys do peach jar kinds of things with the district? Yeah. Because I remember seeing some things that are in my age bracket for kiddos that came through school emails. But I think it's difficult because you have so many communication streams just about what's going on with your own kiddos in school. That I think it's, the overlap can be challenging of how to share your message and our message as far as out to families. But I don't know about communication between our two departments. I think that would have

125to be a Dr. Berger question. No, just thinking about that, I'd have to get with our communication department to see what communication we put out and what communication we share. I have no metric whatsoever. Yeah, no, I think we have a great relationship with your kids. Yeah, I think we have a great relationship with your kids. Yeah, I think we have a great relationship with your kids. We do work with the communication department and do work with them very, very well. I was just wondering if maybe you all are hearing, oh, we didn't know that Parks and Recreation existed or a perfect example that came up in another listening session is our financial assistance program. And a lot of individuals that don't know, that need financial assistance don't know about it or they won't ask

126for it. And so building those relationships to where you all know who might benefit from those programs during the summer or after school and can help connect them with that program, either through like a gift card of some sort or something like that. So. Do you have like, I mean, I don't even know this answer, a community relations kind of person at the Parks and Rec Department? Is that you? Yes, that is a lot of what? Yes, that is a lot of me. Our assistant director of recreation does a lot of that and also our recreation manager. Any opportunities that we have to get out and get involved, we do try to take advantage of those to share that information with the community. Cause I almost wonder if like folding into like a principal meeting

127or something like that, hey guys, did you know this is available for your students? It seems like the campus principals would have the better understanding or access of what students need that kind of. And also in that area for need, you know, our outreach department, our wraparound services. So it's definitely something we could discuss and figure out how to improve that communication process and information availability. Excellent. Well, this was very, very helpful and all of your feedback will be implemented into the plan. And this may, there may be some additional, you know, as we work on developing the plan, there may be some, you know, additional followup before the plan is finalized. The timeframe for our plan, for the development of the plan is 12 months. So our goal is to have final drafts ready

128to go in December and ready for adoption in beginning of 2026. So if y'all think of anything, you know, sometimes once we walk out the door, you're like, man, I wish I would have said that. Please send your comments to Dr. Berger and he can forward those over to me and we'll make sure to incorporate those. So if y'all don't have any other questions, I just wanna say thank you for your time. Thank you guys so much for coming tonight. Really appreciate the opportunity to collaborate more. And I think this is a good step in the right direction. So thank you for being here. Awesome, thank you. Do I leave this on or turn it off? You can leave it on. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. All right, we're gonna move into the public comments

129section of the board meeting. Let me find my little, 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. In accordance with state law, the board must prioritize the comments of those patrons who are addressing specific items on tonight's agenda. Therefore, it's important that each person who signs up speaks clearly and indicates the agenda item which he or she will comment. Because of posting topic requirements of the Open Meetings Act, board members will not ask questions to 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 this patron comment section segment of the board meeting. Patrons addressing the

130board will be notified when they are approaching the last 30 seconds of their allotted time to speak. All right, so first up this evening, I have Ms. Jennifer Hill. Ms. Jennifer Hill. All right, just one more time, Ms. Jennifer Hill. All right, seeing no movement, I will move to Ms. Kelly Williams. Ms. Kelly Williams. Hi, Ms. Williams, thank you for being here tonight. Thank you. Good evening, my name is Kelly Williams. I'm a Pearland ISD parent. I have three kids, one at home, and one at home. One at Dawson, one at Berry Miller, and one at Rogers. I wanna start off by saying that this is all positive tonight. I'm not coming to complain. I'm just coming to give, kind of like highlight my experience with our libraries and our librarians. I've been a library

131volunteer in the district for years. My kids all started in kindergarten. I had a weekly library volunteer spot at Silver Lake, and now I volunteer at Rogers and Berry Miller just as needed. It's less as they get older. But because I've spent a lot of time in the libraries, I just wanted to come, and I'm glad you said, you know, parents, share your thoughts. I'm here tonight. And just share what I've seen. Things are going great. I think we have fabulous libraries, fabulous librarians. Like the teachers in the district, they really care about our students, and you can tell just from the things they're doing. I've had two separate conversations with librarians this year. When they've talked to me about how much they're spending, how much time they're spending reading the young adult books that

132the kids are interested in. And one of the librarians told me that she would expect them to be a librarian. And she's a librarian. She's about 4.30 in the morning. So she can read before school and get time in, because they really want to be able to relate to the kids, know what the kids are interested in. And when I heard this, that to me is like, it takes a village, because I mean, I have kids in band. We are busy, we're tired. I don't have time to read all these books. And it's, I know that the libraries are totally professional, the librarians managing things so well. It's also not just about the books though. I know the libraries are safe spaces for the students. You know, my family's in this like junior high, high

133school time period. It is emotional. And I love that they have the library to go to during the day. This is a place where kids, if you need to be out of the high school cafeteria, you can go to the library. And the librarians are providing this because they have kindness, they have compassion, and they have openness for the students. I know that there's support. Dr. Burger, I saw your video, you know, library week, checking out the books. I love it. I just wanted to come as a parent and as a volunteer and say the parents are supporting the librarians. They were supporting the schools. We're so thankful for them and all the work that they do for the students. And I was gonna wrap this up and say like, oh, see you next fall,

134have a great summer. But my son, my middle son is actually doing his Eagle Scout project right now for the Carlston Library. When he contacted the school and said, what can I do? They said, talk to the librarian. So our family, I guess, is like all in year round this year. But we're really happy to be a part of the district and get to do this. And thank you for all of the work that you do. Glad to be a part of the team and have a good evening. Thank you for being here tonight. Very good. Well, now we will convene into exec session. The Board of Trustees of the Parallel and Independent School District will now convene into closed meeting to discuss the following items posted on our agenda as allowed by Title 5,

135Chapter 551, Texas Government Code and Education Code. The superintendent will present for the board's consideration or discussion of the following matters. Section 551.071, 072, 074, 076, and 082. No voting will take place in closed session. Any action the board wishes to take as a result of discussions in closed session will take place after the board reconvenes in open meeting. It is now 634. Technology War Room, can you come log in, Mr. Johnson? Board will reconvene in general in open session at 8.06 p.m. No action was taken in closed session, but I will take a motion. Second. Second. I move we accept and approve the superintendent's recommendation for employment of personnel as presented. Any further discussion? Hearing none, oh, I'll take a second. Sorry, thank you. Second. All right, I have a motion from Trustee Scheffler

136and a second from Trustee Stuckey. Any further discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries, seven, zero. Another motion is- I move we accept and approve the superintendent's recommendation to terminate the classroom teacher probationary contract as presented. I have a motion. Second. And a second by Trustee Johnson. Any further discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries, seven, zero. All right, moving on to consent agenda. Are there any items to be pulled from consent agenda this evening? We need to still take action on one more closed session item. Oh, do we have another one? Yes. We have a slate of officers. Oh, my bad, thank you. Right. Thank you, Mr. Newly Appointed Vice President. So we have a slate of officers, including Ms.

137Nanette Weimer as secretary and Dr. Chris Scheffler as vice president, and I will maintain the president role, assuming all those in favor, or I'll take a motion. I'll make the motion that we approve. Second. I have a motion by Trustee Murphy and a second by Trustee Johnson. As presented. Any further discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries, seven, zero. All right, so thank you, Vice President Scheffler, for that addition. All right, now we're moving to consent agenda. Any items to be pulled from consent agenda this evening? Hearing none, I'll call for a motion. No, there was one, sorry. All right. Here's my notebook. It was the Lamar University item. All right. Consent agenda number seven, so. I'll make a motion we approve items A1 through six as presented

138with pulling seven. All right, I have a motion by Trustee Murphy and a second by Trustee Johnson with consent agendas items one through six. I'll hear a vote for that item. All those in favor? Motion carries, seven to zero. All right, Trustee Scheffler, Lamar University. Yeah, I read through the item. I just wouldn't, I wouldn't, I'm not sure what we're providing. Like what interaction do these, are there student teachers coming over? Like what interactions do they have with students? I will defer to Dr. Dahlkamp. She has a great explanation. So we have individual memorandums of understanding with several universities in and around our part of Texas. This will make number nine, I believe, for Pearland ISD. What it allows us to do is it allows us to accept their student teachers into our campuses for

139what we typically would know as the student teaching semester. And we are only taking on as many student teachers as those that select us. So a student teacher, in most cases from Lamar University, probably graduated from a Pearland High School. They are then attending Lamar University to become an educator. And then a lot of them come home to do their student teaching. So that's usually the pipeline that we end up with the most. And Lamar University is just another university that reached out with regards to us taking on their clinical teachers. Yeah, the wording that you just used, clinical, that was the thing that really jumped out at me. I wasn't sure if these are student teachers or mental health professionals in training or what it was. So these are student teachers in a classroom

140being instructed, us perpetuating the profession. Yes, the student moved, the state moved away from the term student teacher a few years ago because they look at student teaching as a multi-phased opportunity. And so they go through clinical rotations, if you will, like the medical field, but not really. That answers my question. Thank you. All right, any further discussion on that topic? Hearing none, I'll take a motion. I motion to approve the item as presented. I have a motion by Trustee Scheffler and a second by Trustee Secchi. All those in favor? Motion carries seven zero. All right, Dr. Burger, we're moving on to the regular agenda, approval of College Board Advanced Placement exam payments. Yes, ma'am, this is an annual board item that we bring before you. As you know, Pearland ISD students participate in Advanced

141Placement exams and there is a fee for that. So the fee system is broken down as well as the TEA reimbursement and our subsidy of these. There was a breakdown of all the expenditures for this. The total request is not to exceed the number of 523,972. That is broken out into student contributions, district contributions, and total rebate as broke down that was sent to you. The district contribution for the subsidy is $145,129, which has already been budgeted and is reflected in our current budget and proposals that have been brought before you. And I have Dr. Nixon here if you have any questions for details. All right, any discussion on this item? I just wanted to point out that do not exceed is for 530,000. I think the current is 523,972, and there's five more. There's

142some straggling things coming in, so. You are correct, Mr. Schelke. That is to make sure that we have that $7,000 for anything that's coming in late. And if students take it late, if they miss it, that's going to be on the student to pay. However, the total amount comes from Pearland ISD, so it won't be any additional funding from the district. Any further discussion? I've just always wondered, what happens if we don't approve this? I mean, it's money already spent, so it's just kind of weird, but Berger has to do it. He has to write a check. It falls back either to the students or we stop doing this moving forward. But we should definitely pay it then. All right, I'll take a motion. So moved. I have a motion from Trustee Scheffler. Second. Second

143from Trustee Murphy. Any further discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. Motion carries 7-0. Thank you, Dr. Nixon. All right, Dr. Berger, approval of emergency procurement due to immediate need. Yes, ma'am. This is based off some emergency issues or immediate needs that we have to not interrupt life safety procedures or logistics of the campus. This involves elevator rebuilds at Dawson, Pearland Stadium, and Searcy, and also fire alarm systems at Rogers Middle School, Pace, and the weight room at West and East. So what we're asking the board to consider, in accordance with Texas Education Code section 44.031H, we are able to have the board approve a bypassing of standard competitive procurement procedures, which is the request for proposal process. And the reason we're asking for this is due to the timeline and need to get

144these things done during the summer months. And if we go through the formal process of procurement, we will miss that window. And therefore, we will have life safety and logistical issues and operational concerns for the elevators, as well as the fire alarm systems. We can only replace fire alarm systems during the summer when the school is vacant. If we do have to replace a fire alarm system during the school year, it is a safety concern, and we also have to work with a fire watch system. While we are asking the board to consider approving not doing the standard procurement RFP process, it does not mean we did not go out and get quotes. The quotes were provided for you on the elevator rebuild. It's a little bit different on the quotes because they are TK

145or ThyssenKrump elevators. And so those are the preferred vendors due to warranty and service. We get quotes from Otis elevators to say, yes, we can work on those. It's not recommended, but we can. All of those quotes came in at a higher rate than what ThyssenKrump offered on the elevators. And as far as the fire alarm system upgrades for Rogers Middle School Pace and the weight room, you can see the breakdown from ESS and Wilson, which are the preferred vendors, and Firetron and Pyrotec systems. And you can see that ESS and Wilson came in at a reduced rate. Thank you, Dr. Burger. Any discussion on this item? Do these elevator contracts, when we have to get them out and done by the start of school, is there something in our contract that states, as far

146as billing or anything, that if they don't complete in the specified time, as far as the dollar we're charged, does that make sense? Yes, sir, are you saying that if they don't finish by August 1st, then there is a re-release? Is that a rebate or a retribution or something that we get from the company? I think he's asking about liquidated damages. Yeah, I mean, is it anywhere in our contract that they have to be completed by? We have an anticipated date, but we do not have liquidated damages or any of that in the contract. We do anticipate, and Mr. Murphy is here if he'd like to articulate more, but we do anticipate that they would be completed by the time we are requesting. Mr. Murphy. And I would just like to say, Mr. Murphy, and

147the fact that he is walking to a microphone makes our district a better district. Welcome back, Mr. Murphy. We're so glad to see you and so glad to have you. It's gonna be about a two, two and a half to three week repair, is our estimate, per elevator. Now, it depends if they put one, two, or three crews on the job, but they'll be finished in the summer timeline. Have you back, Mr. Murphy. Yes. All right, any further questions, questions or discussion on this item? All right, hearing none, I'll take a motion. So moved. Second. I have a motion from Trustee Murphy and a second from Trustee Carter. Any further discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries seven zero. Dr. Burger, consideration of the public meeting date to

148discuss the 2526 budget and proposed tax rate. Yes, ma'am. As you are aware, during our time here, we just had a call. budget presentation we did bring up the compressed tax rate and this is a consideration for the board to approve Tuesday, June 24th, 2025 as the date to hold the public meeting to discuss the 2526 budget and to publish the required notice with a proposed 2025 tax rate of $1.1157 per $100 evaluation. As we talked about, this is what we are predicting to be the maximum compressed tax rate as we went through the budget presentation and what we are saying by the proposed notice is that that will be the high end of the tax rate. We cannot go above that, but we can go below that if it is compressed even further. And

149that tax rate is a decrease of? I believe it was 0193. Thank you, sir. A motion to approve the meeting date. Second. I have a motion by Trustee Shuffler and a second by Trustee Carter. Any further discussion on this item? Hearing none, we'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 7-0. Dr. Burger, approval of workers' compensation insurance. Yes, ma'am. We are asking the board of trustees to approve the awarded RFP process for the workers' compensation and insurance coverage to TASB risk management services. We did go through a formal RFP process for this and followed all procurement guidelines. In the packet, there is the bid analysis that goes through and I'll also provide it to the board. The initial pricing and the best and final offer. And as noted by this, the company

150that we are asking to be awarded, TASB Risk Management Fund, did not come in as the lowest, best and final. There is a differential of about $10,000 between TASB Risk Management Fund and USI Southwest. But based on the entire bid analysis and the service provided by TASB and our relationship, that is the company we are asking the board to consider and approve for the workers' compensation insurance coverage. Thank you, Dr. Burger. Any further questions or discussion on this item? Hearing none, I'll call for a motion. So moved. Second. I have a motion by Trustee Murphy and a second by Trustee Weimer. Any further discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 7-0. Dr. Burger, consideration of approval of additional personnel. Yes, ma'am. This is the second consideration of approval

151for additional personnel that we're bringing for the board. And we're hoping the final for the 25-26, but enrollment trends will let us know. Previously, you improved based on class counts and student enrollments overall. What we're bringing for you today is a little further removed from the class, but has to deal with students that are being enrolled. The positions that we are asking for is an ELPAC facilitator due to our increased caseload for emergent bilinguals, ARD facilitators for our increased caseload for special education, bilingual diagnostician, which is both of those. We're having an increase in emergent bilingual as well as an increase in special education. We need the services of a bilingual diagnostician to perform all of the assessments. We are asking for four bus monitors. What the bus monitors do, special education students that need

152special program transportation, they need a bus monitor to help monitor and take care of those students. So as the special education population increases, the need for transportation of those students increases and that's why we're asking for the bus monitor. And at the top of the page, we are asking for a teacher service coordinator. This is the position that I mentioned about the TIA where we get 10% of the administrative cost returned to us. We are needing someone as we want to expand the TIA program to help run that as well as run recruitment and retention efforts for our HR department that meets our strategic goal and our goal to compensate competitively our teacher workforce. Thank you, Dr. Burger. Any further discussion or question on this item? Will that coordinator fall under HR department? No. Yes,

153sir. All right. I make a motion to approve the agenda item as presented. Second. I have a motion by Trustee Murphy, a second by Trustee Weimer. Any further discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 7-0. All right. The last regular agenda item, discussion of capital renewal plan and the approval of priority projects. Yes. This is just a reminder. We do have a capital renewal plan and we have reworked it to be for the next five years. And what we do is we take all of our operations and facilities, we take our auxiliary department, we take our athletics, our fine arts, our CTE program, and we map out capital renewal needs projected for the next five years. And that is funded through surpluses from the budget. So it's self-maintaining

154so we can be sustainable. What happens the first phase of this every year is we bring the agreed upon priority list to the board for approving the priority list. It is not approving all of the purchases or the amounts. These items will have to go through purchasing and procurement process. We are only asking the board to approve the priority list so then we can go out and do the procurement and purchasing process and bring those individually back to you for approval if they meet the requirement of threshold. And I provided the list for you of the areas and it goes through transportation, grounds, operations, warehouse, maintenance. Fine arts, athletics, and construction. And then we have the list of the areas that we approve. So we have athletic, CTE, and campus requests. There was a board

155comment about the campus requests that we can discuss. I also provided you with a list of the campuses and the projects that they are requesting. The reason the campus requests these projects is they do not have the funds in their campus budget to handle some of these requests. They range from replacing classroom chairs, cafeteria tables, improving sound systems in the cafeteria or the gym areas, or security measures that they are asking for. And so I opened this one up. You can see it. for the board to discuss this priority list and ask for you to approve it as presented. Thank you, Dr. Burger. Any further questions or conversation on this item? We won't see a list like this, the items that were other than what you've e-mailed us. Correct. So those are the items that

156you're asking for? Or those examples? Are you talking about the campus request? The campus request. Those are the items that we are going to go for. There were more campus requests and we went through the list and fared some out. Some were able to be covered by other funds. Some were eliminated entirely because they didn't meet our needs or what we thought was important. And so we narrowed these down. And so these would be the items that if the $300,000 threshold of the priority list is approved, it would not exceed that amount for these items that we're asking for. So you had said that these aren't necessarily the prices, but what you just said was the price would not exceed what's here. So is that why an amount is listed? Is because? Is that your

157max spend in that area? Or why is there a dollar figure column? The dollar figure column is because based on our quote and our trends, we believe that'll be the max price. We are hoping that it comes under that. But we put that so we have a budget amount as we ask for. Because there is limited funds in the CRP, I do not want to exhaust all of it. So on the priority list, we put the prices on there that we believe, based on quotes and trends of the market, that it'll meet. I'm sorry. But for these items, like the transportation restroom building, we believe it'll be $115,000. And if you're aware of the transportation, that entire restroom building needs to be replaced. So we will have to go out and procure this. It may

158come in under that. If it comes in over that, we still have to bring it back to you and say, we thought it would be $115,000. It came back at 127. What would like two pallet jacks for $70,000? You know, $35,000 pallet jacks. So it's not the pallet jack I'm envisioning, I'm certain. What is that? These are electronic pallet jacks. Yeah, but even motorized electric pallet jacks. I don't know. There are just things on here. Hey, how come Dawson Drumline gets $30,000, but PHS Drumline gets $40,000? That's based on the fine arts projection, the needs of those campuses. It's also the size of those schools and enrollment of those programs. Yeah. Is there, to channel my inner Jeff Berry, is there a aging report, because what's not on here are the things that I would

159consider major CapEx type things. We need to be planning for a new roof. We need to be planning for a new floor in a gym or whatever else. Other than the floor replacement in the dance room, most of these things are ancillary on, you know, and not those kind of items. So is that in conjunction with this somewhere? Yes, sir. It's in the bond. So we are fortunate that many of those large capital items were in the bond, and that's why we went for the bond because we would not have been able to cover those things. In the five-year plan moving forward, there are some roofs that are allocated in sequential years, either next year or the year after that we would bring forward that were not captured in the bond. Very similar, the five-ton

160HVAC units, the seven that are there, they were not captured in the bond because they're actually units at the maintenance operation facility, and they weren't at a school. And that's why we didn't put them at the bond. So the bond has helped us, if you will, to make sure that those ancillary projects allow the CRP to answer the call for some of those where previously we wouldn't have been able to. So just to make kind of a statement, I guess, you know, the whole reason my concern with the campus request is I just want to make sure that, you know, like I said, we're in a better financial position we've ever been. And, you know, we, in the spirit of the capital improvement plan back when we kind of put this idea in motion is

161so that for that particular reason, you know, for buses, for things that break down, you know, we've got to have that savings account. And I think we've been a good steward of the taxpayer money of moving money to the capital and then, you know, trying to pay for these things. So I just want to make sure that we don't, you know, as we're in a good financial position, get away from things that we intended this money to do, such as maintenance and repairs and mowers and things, and get into where we're buying things that we'd like to have, you know, for whether it be new technology or things like that. So that's my concern. As long as we're, you know, being a good steward of keeping, again, with the replacement and the capital improvement, things

162like that, and not getting into where we're making new purchases, because we can do that from, you know, possibly what we have in the general fund. Yes, sir. The list that we received was much longer than this because it was a lot of ask, wants, maybe not needs. And so we go through that. We met three times with either the CLT members or the members, directors of those departments. The entire capital renewal fund right now is $5.7 million, and we've narrowed it down to $3.9 million. And again, any surplus that we have this year, we told you it might be 10. If we take two away from it, it's eight. $4 million would be transferred over to CRP. So we're trying to keep it a healthy fund because I do know in future years, we

163will have those items that weren't covered by bond, which are roofs or other HVAC issues or buses. In the process, I did ask Mr. Kemp, Mr. Kopp, on the buses, do we need to increase the number of buses we are buying to increase the turnover of our fleet? And he said, that's not a good idea because then it puts us in a problem of, if we buy too many at one time, then we have to buy them again. And so he prefers the timeline and system he has for replacement. One other question, speaking of $300,000, what is a softball batting cover? The Dawson softball batting cover. Have you ever been to Pearland High School to see the softball field? Many, many years ago. Okay, so what it is, it's a batting cover. There's a batting

164cage and it has a cover. It's a metal structure that's opened and has nets all around it and allows for batting practice or pitching practice. So this isn't like an on-field cover. This is actually an entire cage system that you're looking for. Yes, sir, right next to the field. Dawson High School does not have one. Pearland High School softball does. Pearland Baseball got one, and the bond. Pearland Baseball does not. And so athletics is trying to make sure that all the programs have the same facility space, and so this has been approved and requested. Okay, so it's batting cages for the softball team at Dawson. And it allows them to do things outside and in. Two things that I'm curious about. So most of these items won't come back again for our approval because they

165don't meet the threshold of the $100,000. So essentially when we approve this list tonight, we're basically saying, we're gonna go out and purchase these items. Okay. The second thing is that this sort of compliments the bond projects. I really appreciate the list and the spending pieces. It's kind of a separate report later, so I guess I can just pull that and talk about it. But I'm curious about timelines for the bond projects that we have done. Is there a list that I can find anywhere that tells me kind of where we're moving towards what projects we're prioritizing on the bond next? Yes, ma'am. I send that list to the Bond Oversight Committee, I'll be happy to send it to the board. We have our first year completed that we've worked on. Some of the items

166we had on the bond did not meet the timelines due to some issues that we had in our maintenance and operations department and Mr. Murphy not being available. But now he is back and as he said, he's getting it back in line. And so we have our year one completed and then we have our year two forecasted that we're working on and I will share those with the board. Awesome, thank you. Awesome, thank you. All right, any further discussion on this CRP item list? Last one. When do we plan to move funds from our budget excess this year? At what meeting would we be doing that? It'll be the final, and so that will probably not be until August. It's going to be towards when we close the year, so probably like around October-ish before

167we can move the money from general fund to the capital renewal because we have to wait after the audit. Yeah, and so in that conversation, I know we've always kind of snowballed like it's 50% or so or whatever, and I know that can be adjusted, but is there anything else on the radar that we might have another list where we could say, oh, we need to either do more or less or whatnot? By that time frame? Yes, sir. There is a five-year CRP that's been updated. I'll resend that to you guys on Friday so you can see what the next four years we have planned out. All right, great questions. Any further discussion on this item? All right, hearing none, I'll call for a motion. So moved. Second. Motion by Trustee Weimer, second by Trustee

168Johnson. Any further discussion or questions? All right, hearing none, we'll call for a vote. All those in favor? Motion carries 7-0. Okay, so the last few items on this, the administrative reports. We've talked through the parks plan already. These are typically items that if you have questions, we can pull them, but they're usually for the board's reading pleasure to be updated on specific things. I guess I kind of, Dr. Nixon, are you still looking? Would you mind just for the benefit of new trustees, kind of just review the shack? How would you get things done? Did you just want to read out on a map? Yeah, I mean I think that's a good point. So the first thing we did was we got some kind of guidance from the school health advisory Council or the

169school health advisory Council and talked a little bit about that so they have some knowledge of it. Yes, I'd be happy to. So we have our school health advisory Council, they're made up of a parent representative from each campus. So the principals will send me those names. We also have several community members. We have some that are medical doctors. partners that we use for our wraparound services. And so we meet four times a year. The goal of that committee, like I said, is to focus on the health and wellness of students. We have a district wellness plan, and that's something that we review each year. At the beginning of each school year, in September, when we have that meeting, I give a survey to our shack to find out what it is that they're really

170interested in. This year, we had the biggest things were our mental health of students. We also had concerns about technology and how parents can keep their students safe in terms of technology. We also spent time with our wellness plan, and we also talk about school safety. So it depends each year kind of what's happening, what the topics of discussion are, but it's a committee that both provides us input as well as we try to provide some educational opportunities. A lot of the parents that are representing students are students that are in the school system, and they're in the school system. So we try to provide some educational opportunities. A lot of the parents that are representing the campuses are part of the campus PTA. They all have like a health and wellness officer, and so

171they'll take back a lot of times the information that we share during shack to their campus PTA meetings. So it's a way to share that information. Each year, they also, now that we provide fentanyl prevention, I guess you would say training to our students, the shack is who we propose that to, and they approve if that fentanyl, they believe it's appropriate to share with students. And so the shack is something that's required by state? Yes, ma'am. By Texas Education Code? Yes, it is. Okay. Yes. And we record, we do an audio recording of those, as well as posting the agenda and the minutes from each of our meetings. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Do you guys have any questions? All right. So the next thing, thank you, Dr. Nixon. It's a quarterly investment report for

172your viewing pleasure, an interim financial, statement that takes you up to date of where we are financially, purchases over $50,000, and then the bond interim report. So as long as there's no questions on any of those, we will adjourn this meeting at 8.37 p.m. Thank you, guys.