2025-09-15 Regular Board Meeting

001mic check one two audio check audio check mic check miss cantu would you like to do a mic check with your microphone yes can you hear me yes we can thank you so much thank you good evening everyone this is the regularly scheduled meeting in the san marcos cisd board of trustees welcome tonight is september 15th at six o'clock in our central offices we're gonna get right into the agenda because we have a busy one i'm calling the meeting to order We have a quorum. We have six board members in present, and I believe we have one member attending on Zoom. I would like to introduce our principal from the high school, who's going to introduce our high school student, who's going to be reciting the pledge this evening. Good evening, President Halsey, board members,

002and Dr. Cardona. It is my honor to introduce our student from San Marcos High School. This is our ninth grader, Emily Lopez Villapando, and she will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state under God, and indivisible. Thank you very much, and thank you very much for a great start to the school year. We appreciate your work And now we're gonna move into public forum. We do have a number of speakers Registered to speak I'd remind everybody that you have three minutes, please. There's a clock up there Please make sure you introduce yourself

003before you speak and the first speaker is Ryan Patrick Perkins That's fine at the podium, please We don't do though. That's the way City Council handles it, but we do all of our public forum here. Can you hear me? Yeah, good evening trustees In 2021, Ryan Perkins, 727 West Hopkins Street. In 2021, I wrote in support of Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos. Thank you for your bold decision at that time. I returned tonight because the property behind Centro still represents an opportunity for preserving and restoring community trust. I recognize that what is before you tonight is one bid from a private developer and a letter of intent from the city of San Marcos and Hayes County. A letter of intent is not yet a bid, but it is a clear signal that our public

004institutions are willing and ready to keep this property public hands. That opportunity deserves your serious consideration. This land is not just a real estate asset. This land was acquired with public funds for educational purposes, and it sits at the heart of one of San Marcos' most historic and significant neighborhoods. When urban renewal displaced homes decades ago, what we lost was not only buildings, but neighbors, affordable housing, and living heritage. Now that the central office is gone, you once again face a choice. Repeat mistakes or begin to repair them. The 2019 City of San Marcos Historic Resources Survey recommended protecting historic schools and culturally significant sites like this one. We know what happens when that advice is ignored. The former Lamar School campus sold in 2014, correct me if I'm wrong on that date, and is

005a cautionary tale. A site that served as educational for over a century has now sat vacant for over a decade. That decision fractured our community, and some trustees here tonight were part of the board that voted for that sale. The last development proposal Faced significant pushback and was overwhelmingly denied in 2017 the lesson is clear Once the land leaves public ownership. It is nearly impossible to find an outcome that honors history education or neighborhood needs I Understand the district's financial pressures and they are real and they reflect decades of state underfunding But let's be honest, even if the property were to pay even if the property were to be sold for three million dollars As has been suggested, it would not come close to fixing the systemic inequities in San Marcos schools or the budget

006shortfall. Selling to a developer won't solve any problems. What it will do is permanently erase the chance to create a cultural heritage plaza, a public space for field trips, cultural pride, and neighborhood identity that will benefit students and residents of the city of San Marcos for generations. Trustees, you are stewards not only of our schools, but of our shared history. Please choose transparency, accountability, and community ownership. Support the city and the county's intent and give this land the chance to remain in public hands. Don't let Centro's block become another Lamar school. Vacant, divisive, and a missed educational opportunity. Keep it public for the community. Thank you. Thank you. The second speaker is Dr. Ana Juarez. Dear Board of Trustees, thank you for providing the city and county with some time to put together a bid

007to purchase the historic property. Now I ask you to accept their bid and work with them to honor the desires of about 1,500 people who signed a petition to support the city and county purchase. The community has clearly indicated we do not want the property to be developed for private profit and control. Developers have no obligation to the public. In fact, they have a fiduciary duty to their investors. Unlike our elected officials, they are not required to be transparent or accountable to the community. According to Matt Lewis, the bid from Simple City Design includes a six-month exploratory period with the option to back out in exchange for some funds now. They will rely on tax-funded TERS monies to subsidize their development. On top of that, there do not appear to be guarantees that they will

008finalize the purchase, nor that their development will honor the history and culture of the property. Given that we are a poor district and all public schools in Texas are in dire straits, we recognize that this is a tough decision and it is your fiduciary duty to maximize the price of the property. However, you also have a broader obligation to serve the best interests of students and their families. The city and county's plan will prevent gentrification of the neighborhood, maintain much needed affordable housing, and create cultural pride for Mexican American students. Research has shown that cultural pride can increase educational success. This block has housed Mexican schools for at least 100 years and continues to be the heart of the second earliest neighborhoods. It is still vibrant and surrounded by Mexican churches, restaurants, bakeries, and a

009funeral home. But local Mexican-American history has been severely neglected and undertold. Our earliest neighborhood, centered around the old jail on Fredericksburg, was destroyed by urban renewal in the 1960s. The second earliest includes the ISD's property, but a large part of the neighborhood was destroyed by an urban renewal project in the 1970s. Thanks to elected officials from the city and county, you can transform the place that originally segregated and marginalized Mexican-American students and families. Please work with the city and county to preserve the sacred ground of memory and culture. Keep public land public. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next speaker is Tommy Perez. Good afternoon. More of trustees. My name is Tommy Perez, and I'm here today to ask you to please vote yes and accept the offer that the city and the county

010has made for you so they can purchase the property at Lee Street. This is a petition to preserve the land that has history and sentimental value for us, the citizens of San Marcos. Please don't sell it to a developer. We don't want to see another building there. In the last few years, we have seen buildings that it doesn't represent what San Marcos is. So we're asking you to please vote yes and sell this property to the city and the county. Don't sell it to someone who's going to build something there for profit. THE SCHOOL ALSO CAN BENEFIT FROM THIS PROPERTY IN THE FUTURE IF YOU CAN WORK WITH THE CITY AND THE COUNTY TO CREATE THERE SOMETHING THAT BETTER SERVES THE STUDENTS AND THE COMMUNITY OF SAN MARCOS AND PRESERVE THE CULTURE AND THE HERITAGE

011OF THE MEXICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY. I HOPE THAT YOU WILL AGREE AND VOTE YES. Thank you all for your attention and for your vote. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next speaker is Susie Carter. Well, I have a handout for the board in case I don't get to everything. May I give this to someone? I'm Susie Carter with Moms for Liberty. I'm a former elected official teacher and professor of biology and microbiology. My questions for you, which I know you can't answer to me, but you will to the children and yourselves, is why are you allowing pornography or the smut genre in the schools? Why do you provide books to the children that are not allowed in the Texas prisons? Many of the books on your reading list depict how to do unhealthy and unlawful

012things, such as addictive drugs, incest, sex with a minor, bestiality, necrophilia, torture, and murder. One of the examples is in your library. It's called The Kingdom of the Cursed. It's very painful for me to read these things, and I think it's painful for you to listen, but the worst pain of all is what it does to the children. So that's why we have to do this. This book contains alcohol, animal cruelty, assassinations and murder, orgies, death, drug use, torture scenes, violent scenes, purient behavior, profanity, rape, sexual assault, self-harm, sexism, and voyeurism. And some of the things that it says is, The table was not covered in food or wine. It was covered in lovers. Some were engaged in acts I'd never dreamed of. On one end, a woman lay naked, her legs spread wide as

013a man poured a trail of chocolate sauce over her breasts, down her stomach and across the apex of her body. He tossed the jug aside and dropped to his knees and began feasting. There was no romance, no seduction, only pure animalistic hunger. Not that the woman seemed to mind, my attention darted to the opposite end of the table where a young man lay with an arm bent behind his head, watching as his partner sucked whipped cream from his arousal and another lover entered her from where she was bent over. My face flamed at the erotic scene. Before I learned that pride wasn't my intended, Wrath had mentioned his brother inviting lovers into our bed. and now I understood what he meant. This is a scene from hell where this woman goes to do whatever. Nakedness,

014people seeking sexual pleasure no matter how much I kept trying to move past it. The mortal way of thinking of them as wrong and shameful kept creeping back in. They kept shocking and embarrassing me because deep down I still worried about being ruined by human notions of scandal. Most of all, I kept worrying about what others would think. Enough. I had had enough of falling back into old fears. I strode over to the table and dipped my finger. Can you wrap up? The bottom line is, this is in your San Marcos High School library, and it's teaching children to do things that are illegal, and to think of them as normal, and to think of them as okay, but they're illegal. And they're illegal because they're unhealthy. and the children are being taught to be

015unhealthy. And this does diminish their brain. It creates an addiction. I think we're at three minutes. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next speaker is Anita Asinette Collins. Please do try to keep your remarks within our three minutes. Hi. Anita Asinette Collins at 923 West Hopkins. I want you to imagine a day in the city of San Marcos 100 years ago. when the only school that Mexican children could attend was the Mexican school, formerly known as Southside School, on the block where Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos is now located. The adjacent blocks included three Mexican churches and a Mexican lodge that then became the beloved Los Angeles Funeral Home. The block on which the school was situated once housed historic homes and another Mexican church. The parcels eventually became the school playground and

016held portable classrooms when the Mexican population grew. It is also important to note that the school is one of only two properties in the city where Mexican-American history has been recognized by a Texas historical marker. The parcel is still owned by the San Marcos CISD. and is in one of the neighborhoods designated by the city as a Mexican American and indigenous cultural heritage district. This land is not just a parcel. It was our elders' playground, the heart of the neighborhood, and the pulse of Mexican culture. As a member of the Council for the Indigenous and Tano Community, we have interviewed several of our Mexican American elders who attended Southside School in the 1950s. They told us that they didn't always have chairs, and if they did, it was an apple crate. The students mainly spoke

017Spanish, and the teachers were mandated to only speak English. Please imagine learning in that situation. The Mexican students were required to repeat grades and stay inside during recess. It wasn't unusual for Mexican students to be 12 years old in the first grade. Some of those who were not discouraged went on to graduate when they were in their early 20s. Selling this parcel to the city would be a significant step towards redressing the hushed history of neglect and marginalization of Mexican Americans. So now you have a choice. You can sell this parcel to the highest bidder, most likely a developer, who will promise to honor the history and culture of this historic property. but has no obligation or guarantee to do so. This would be a tragic loss to preserving the heritage of our local Mexican

018American and indigenous communities. Or you can accept the bid from the city and county to buy this parcel so the site can become an educational resource, a source of cultural pride, But most importantly, fill a void and allow this parcel to be the location of a public plaza for the historic East Guadalupe neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next speaker is Bonnie Wallace. Thank you. For whatever reason, the buzzer isn't going off, so I'm going to stop you. I'll stop at three. I'm Bonnie Wallace. Thanks for letting me speak. I'm here today to talk about your library content. If there's any children in the audience, it would be... profitable to remove them. I am talking to you about a book that's at San Marcos High School. It's called Identical. And It

019is prohibited to Texas prisoners due to the graphic illegal sex acts described in it. And I will start on page 150. Daddy burst through the door. I closed my eyes tight, made myself no more than a shadow. Something about him was different. He didn't want to find me. I cracked my eyes just a slit as he sat on Kaylee's bed. This is about two identical twin sisters at age nine. He smelled a brute and wild turkey. I love you so much, my little flower. Daddy needs something from my girl, my sweet rose. Will you give it to me? What did he want from Kaylee? She laid her head on his chest. What? I want you to see something, something that proves how much I love you. This is only for you, Kaylee girl. He lifted

020her gently, set her down on the bed beside her. Then he opened the snaps on the fly of his flannel pajamas. It stood up, stiff as a stalagmite. See how much daddy loves you? Show me how much you love me too. Touch it. He closed her hand around it. I know it sounds bad, but I wanted to touch it too. I didn't know what it meant, only that it made Daddy happy. I wanted to make him happy too. That's right, that's right. His voice rocked in rhythm with his body. Oh yes, my Kaylee loves me. My little flower. When Daddy finished, he burrowed his face into Kaylee's hair and wept. Confused at his tears and at the sticky stuff icing her hand, still Kaylee pleaded, don't cry, Daddy. What's the matter? Didn't I love you

021good enough? Page one. Page 238. Daddy had been back to Kaylee for lollipop licking many times. She had a vague notion that it was wrong, but she wasn't sure why and didn't know who to ask. They'd probably be jealous. That warm summer night, she slept in a thin white nightie. Nothing more, nothing at all under. Daddy crept through the door to the side of the bed, stood looking down for a very long time before stirring her with a volley of kisses. Page 393. Kaylee was used to Daddy's visits, but that night she too felt something different in the air. Rage, lust, sorrow, perversion. There was nothing gentle about how he threw back the covers. Already naked, he pushed Kaylee roughly to one side, flopped beside her. I could tell she was scared. This wasn't our

022Daddy. This was a demon. His evil, hard and sharp as steel. as a steel blade ready to slice into her and it did. His attack was brutal, bloody, wordless, except for vicious, shut the fuck up at her pitiful scream. A please, no, please, daddy, no. Why are the minds of hardened criminals better protected than the minors in your school district? I would like to... Go back to previous Policy that we've had where we've asked people to state their name and their address I'm sorry that I was remiss and not clarifying that at the beginning of the meeting and the next speaker is Richard Scarborough for you Richard Scarborough one nine nine one eight would walk Lane in Humboldt, Texas I'll take it. Thank you. I Am a minister by calling I've spoken in literally hundreds

023and hundreds of schools across America. I had a football background, had the misfortune of playing the old Southwest State University, which was made up of those who had flunked out at University of Texas, the same size, the same veracity, and we little football players from East Texas couldn't quite keep up. But I've admired, let me back up and say this. I admire you because of what you're doing. You were all elected because you ran on a platform that you love the kids of this school system, and you've invested time and a lot of money to be in the position you're in, and I commend you for that. We're here, some of us from out of town, because we want to help you. It's our belief that a lot of these books, you're not aware, are

024in your schools. But the book that I've handed out to you, it's beyond understanding what girls are made of. The content of this book, by the way, is about a young lady who's having, she has fantasies of having sex with Jesus. And it's an instructional book on how to do it. Some of the things are so profane that I'm not going to read them. But you can read them if you like. They're highlighted. You'll run across the passages that are so vulgar and filthy. You'll know why I didn't read them publicly. But I want you to know that we're not against you. We're for you, as long as you are for the students. I don't think any of you who are adults would come to a town named for St. Mark. and want to infiltrate

025the school with filth and pornography that's not legal to be shown in our prison system. We can furnish you with a dozen books like that. But this one in particular is so ungodly. It says the book contains explicit sexual nudity and sexual activities, controversial religious commentary and profanity. My life has been committed to encouraging students to fulfill their... their natural abilities and and and be a success in life and I've spoken as I said Thousands and thousands of students across this country with my football background I travel with an all-american from from Texas Tech and it opened doors everywhere for us to speak to these kids We never found teachers or administrators that wanted to corrupt the kids But sometimes I wonder and here's how I feel about this. I'm so convicted that I have

026calling on my life to stop this filth and pornography that if you don't take the option you have as a leader in this community to get it out, we're going to do all we can to get it out. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next speaker is James Barnes. Thank you. Please make sure you say your name and your address. James Barnes, I'm 8819 Atwater Creek in San Antonio, Texas. I too here am to address some of the school books in this school district and like the previous minister said, we want to help. Bring awareness to these problems. I'm actually addressing a book that is in two of the elementary schools right now It's Travis and Rodriguez elementary school. It has explicit drug sexuality suicide gun gun violence anti-christianity racial divisiveness

027and just the language is horrific now this is in two of our school elementary schools and and one middle school and I'm just like starting off on page six. It talks about I'm just gonna read this out. It says Merry Christmas. Yo, man I don't celebrate white Jesus no more. He shouted. This is the holiday of the oppressor There's no place for that in any of our schools I know we might have different opinions But we lift and we do not oppress and this is just this is that itself is wrong Speaking into our elementary schools. I think it was page 76. I saw let me flip over real quick that was talking about gun violence and it's just It shocks me that we're putting this before our, I have five kids, and this is

028shocking to me that we would continue to do this, especially with our current society. So I know that we do want to do things about this. Let me see, 76, Harper and Gali's crew. had even made a stupid music video rapping about how they were going to shoot up folks they had beef with. Is this what we want our elementary school children reading? I can guarantee you, I don't want my children reading this. I don't want my grandchildren reading this. And I know you don't want your grandchildren and your children reading this. So, you know, I'm just trying to grapple why this is a problem. I find this kind of a little bit silly. that we're actually having these kind of conversations and that we're having to have ministers of the word come and say,

029hey, come on, can we stop this? I mean, we're at a point now we've got to figure this out and we've got to figure out a way that makes sense. We don't want to come in here as parents speaking down to you. We want to say, how can we help? We don't want this in our schools. We don't. And we will continue to show up until it is removed from our schools, and we'll continue to be polite about it. And I think today we have quite a few people here. There's other school districts dealing with the same exact thing, and it will continue on. Because, in fact, I guarantee you, I feel like this is a season where a lot of people are going to show up and say, hey, enough's enough right now. Can

030we do this better? So, you know, we've got... 20 seconds here. So this is just a plea for our children that I could go on and read you 20 other things that are just absolutely appalling to me as a parent that this would be available to a third, fourth, or fifth grader, let alone a high school. I don't want anybody thinking that Christmas is a pressure. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next is Colby White. I can't read the handwriting. It's Wiltsy. Thank you. All right. Well, good evening. My name is Colby Wilsey. I reside in Corpus Christi, Texas at 7929 Vishal Drive. And I'm with Citizens Defending Freedom, and I'm here tonight as well to address one of the many sexually explicit books that are found in the school libraries in your ISD. Currently,

031the book I'm going to be referencing is called Tilt. It's written by Ellen Hopkins, and it is filled with pervasively vulgar language, drug use, graphic sexual content, and I look no minor. child should have access to this type of book and the stuff that's in this book. And so I'm just going to read an excerpt. I've given you 11 pages full of content from this book that if you want to, you know, I caution you if you, if that's your cup of tea, you know, but you can go back and read it and see what's actually in this book. But I'll, I'll read from, from this excerpt. That's better, he says, pulling me to him for a kiss. He tastes of weed and alcohol, but I don't care, and I give him as good as

032he gives me. His spare hand lands on my exposed thigh and starts to creep. He pulls me into his lap, licks down my neck to the curve of my shirt. Take it off, he says, and if he has hypnotized me, I do exactly as I'm told. Quickly, his hands work the hooks of my brawl, and before I can even think to say no, my entire upper body is bared. That's it, my pretty little girl. And though I want to say no, I can't. It feels good. Great. Amazing. Beneath my skirt, I feel him grow hard against my thin barrier of my panties. I like how that feels too, but I'm still not ready. Stop. And he mumbles, why? Why are you all innocent? Now his lips move an inch or so higher and he starts

033to suck softly at first and harder. It's crazy good and it makes me moan, but then he tries to slide down my panties and I know I can't. Not yet. I have my period. It's a lie. But he can't know that. And it's better than saying I'm too young. He stiffens, stops, and then he says, we can do something else. Then he lifts me up, undoes his zipper, and this is no movie zipper. This is no movie. When he frees his erection and shows me exactly how to use my mouth to get him off, I wish I could say I don't like it, but somehow I do. And it goes on and on and on, and it talks about that this guy He wants to be patient and he's pursuing this girl. It talks about

034how he enjoys the hunt. He likes to conquer these young women. It's obvious that this is a young girl that's underage and this is a perverted individual in this book that likes to go after young girls. And I would just say that this is not educationally suitable for students at any grade level in school. It's not. And instead it undermines the moral and emotional development of our youth. So I ask you, if you truly care about protecting the children entrusted in your school district, and I believe you do, as Dr. Scarborough mentioned and as this pastor mentioned, I believe you do. And so tonight you have an opportunity to do the right thing, is to honestly look at your library and remove this material and protect the children of this school district. Thank you and

035God bless you. Thank you very much. The next is Steve Seha. Sorry, I'm not familiar. But I am Steve Say. I'm a pastor from New Braunfels, 770 Barbarossa, New Braunfels. And, wow, we've got some work to do, board. We've got to really get these books out of the schools. This is horrendous stuff. This book is called Living Dead Girl, and this book contains sexual activities, including sexual assault, battery, nudity, violence, including a child abuse. suicide drug use is prohibited in the prisons and this book is in the San Marcos High School due to the graphic sex acts it's prohibited but man what you know I'm pleading with you we're seeing the devastating results of what we're doing with our kids we're seeing that we lost a man this last week, right? I'm not going to

036go into that, but I'm saying we are grooming these kids and they're rising up and they don't know what's what. And, you know, I can read some of these. You pulled your skirt up to your waist, arms resting by our sides, palms up, open good, he says, and lies on top of you, heavy and pushing, always pushing, good girl, Alice. Look, and I can go on and on about some of these things, and you guys can read that. But here's the thing. This is what's happening. I'm going to read you. I'm a pastor. I'm going to read you some Bible. Is that okay? It says, For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural

037relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. We have to get back to the Bible. Look. The Bible is the, when our founding was started on biblical principles. This is a tragedy. What we're giving and feeding our students, I'm asking you as a board, you got to pray and seek God and sit in your secret place and ask him. We got to get this stuff out. We're going to have devastating results, more and more devastating results if we don't pull this out. And I know I was going to read more of this. I don't want to. I don't use those words. I have five kids, and I have four grandkids and two on the way. And

038I'll tell you what, I keep them close. They're all homeschooled because of this. We have to keep them out of the schools because of the books in the schools and the morality. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next speaker is Mike McFarland. Thank you. Thank you, Board. My name is Mike McFarland, 4639 Corona Drive, Corpus Christi. I too am with Citizens Defending Freedom. The handout I just gave you is for the book, The Lovely Bones. And once again, just to reiterate what others have said, this is prohibited to Texas prisoners, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. But yet it's allowed in San Marcos High School. And this book is about a 14-year-old girl who watches her family and friends from heaven after she is brutally raped and murdered. It contains profanity, sexual

039activities, sexual assault, sexual nudity, violence, alcohol use, and suicide commentary. And I just don't understand why we can rob children of their innocence. I'm a father, I'm a grandfather, and I just found out I'm going to be a great-grandfather. And I do not want my... kids and grandkids to read some of this. On page 13, you'll find, you're very pretty, Susie. Do you have a boyfriend? No, Mr. Harvey, I said. I gotta go, Mr. Harvey. This is a cool place, but I have to go. I don't know why you think you're leaving. Mr. Harvey made me feel icky now that he was blocking the door. Mr. Harvey, I really have to get home. Take off your clothes. What? Take your clothes off, Mr. Harvey said. I want to check that you're still a virgin. I

040am, Mr. Harvey, I said. I want to make sure. Mr. Harvey, please let me leave. You aren't leaving, Susie. You're mine now. Mr. Harvey started to press his lips against me. They were blubbery and wet, and I wanted to scream, but I was too afraid and too exhausted from the fight. Don't, Mr. Harvey, I managed, and I kept saying that one word a lot. Don't, and I said, please, a lot, too. Franny told me that almost everyone begged please before dying. I want you, Susie, he said. Please, I said. Don't, I said. Sometimes I combine them. Please don't or don't please. Please don't. But he grew tired of hearing me. He reached into the pocket of my parka and balled up the hat my mother had made me, smashing it into my mouth as he

041kissed his wet lips down my face and neck and then began to shove his hands up under my shirt. I wept. I began to leave my body. I wept and struggled so I would not feel. He ripped open my pants. He was inside me. He was grunting. I was the mortar. He was the pestle. Mr. Harvey made me lie still. We lay there with our bodies touching, and I shook as a powerful knowledge took hold. I knew he was going to kill me. I did not realize that I was an animal already dying. Why don't you get up, Mr. Harvey said as he rolled to the side and then crouched over me. He brought back the knife. Thank you very much. The next speaker is Shannon Ayers. Thank you, sir. Tell me you love me.

042Thank you, sir. He killed me. I appreciate it. That's your time. Thank you. The next speaker is Shannon Ayers. My name is Shannon Ayers. I'm from Frisco, Texas. I'm the Texas Education Director for Citizens Defending Freedom. At CDF, we fight for the protection of children and parental rights, and I'm here tonight because your district has become a case study in the failure of both. Despite pleas from a community member for months now, you have been sitting on a list of profane and indecent books found in your libraries. While you make excuses for not being able to act, Children are being exposed to graphic, vile, sexual content like what you've heard tonight. Since August, your excuse has been that you don't really know what's in your libraries, which is shameful, and that you've hired an outside

043company to find out. But you knew as of June 20th that Senate Bill 13 would take effect on September 1st. That gave you more than two months to prepare, and now 15 days past the effective date, you are still out of compliance. That tells me that this isn't a priority for you. In case you aren't aware, you not only have full authority to remove these books, you also are required by law to remove them. Senate Bill 13 explicitly prohibits profane and indecent materials in schools. You took an oath to uphold the law, and right now you are violating that oath. Additionally, in May, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Little versus Llano County confirmed library officials have the authority to remove these as well as any other books without violating anyone's First Amendment right

044to information. The court held that no one has a right to demand that libraries keep specific books. They stated, quote, that is what it means to be a library, to make judgments about what books are worth reading and which books are not, which ideas belong on the shelves and which do not, end quote. The court has also ruled that a library's collection decisions are government speech and therefore not subject to free speech challenge and further stated that when making those collection decisions, what quote, what the library is saying is we think these books are worth reading, end quote. So I ask you directly, is it your judgment that these books are worth reading by children? Is that kind of content crucial to the education of your students? Because that's exactly what you're saying to your

045community through your continued inaction. The books on the list that you were given are not borderline. They are so explicit, they cannot be read aloud in this room without shocking the public. They are mind-altering and soul-crushing for children. We are here tonight because you've refused to take action. As the Texas Education Director of Citizens Defending Freedom, I will ensure that your refusal to act is documented and shared with legislators, parents, and advocacy groups across the state. The law is clear and your continued delays are inexcusable and not just a failure of leadership, but a violation of your oath and a betrayal of the trust parents have placed in you. This isn't hard. Follow the law. community and now all of Texas is watching. Thank you very much. All right now we're going to move into

046the superintendent's report. All right Madam President, Madam President, members of the board, community members, good evening. First I'd like to call Dr. Kolop, our director of school leadership and our student support officer. Good evening board president Halsley, Dr. I'm Monica Valadez. I am the director of bilingual, multilingual services and community engagement. And so we wanted to take a little bit of time to talk about our ADA. As you all know, we are tracking it every single week. We report it to our superintendent, and he discusses it as well with his cabinet. I will say that we Currently, based on comparisons from where we were last year, we are up half a percentage point. We have several campuses, including Bonham, Crockett, Hernandez, Mendez, DeZavala, Goodnight Miller, and San Marcos High School that have. a better average

047as of this point right now than they did last year at this same point. We know that the ADA and attendance is a long game, but we are keeping track of it every single week and we are providing guidance to our campuses to help support attendance and the importance of our students being in our schools every single day. That being said, we do have our August winners, and that includes for, hold on, because we were going to do something a little bit different. So I asked for a little bit of grace here. Let me open it up. So we asked campuses to select a song that they could play while they come up to the dais and receive their trophy. And so our winner for... Good night, and good night is still selecting their song.

048So Mr. Mitchell said, okay, just select one. We're still looking at our song. So he's going to have to go with, hold on, hold on, don't come up here. You're going to have to dance over here. Sorry. Thank you, Dr. Valdez. I apologize. I believe that I skipped one person who was signed up to speak in public forum. Is it just one person? Okay. Mr. McFarlane, please come to the podium. Michael's phone. Oh, you spoke. Okay. I'm sorry. I thought it was number 12. Okay. You can come up here, and you'll be next. Well, I'm sorry to mess up that celebration, but the good news is I'm not reading from a book there. But I did have a statement. My name is Pastor Jim Davis. I'm a pastor at Grace Bible Church here in San

049Marcos. The U.S. A is number one in commercialized sexual exploitation. Our country has become the financial capital of the world in child pornography, child sexual abuse, and child trafficking. It is number one producer and consumer of pornography. The co-owner of Pornhub, one of the world's largest porn sites, is said to have an annual revenue of $97 billion. USA Today reports there's no denying that porn business is booming. One analysis shows that in 2023, the adult entertainment market was valued at more than $172 billion, with its growth expected to reach close to $250 billion by 2030. Most disturbing is the graphic promotion of immoral sexual behavior in our public schools through books in our schools, public libraries that are funded by our tax dollars. Many library materials in San Marcos ISD contain indecent and profane content,

050and I believe that much of this material is simply bait for the porn industry. Public funds have purchased books with obscene content and sexually explicit material for minors and hidden from appropriate oversight of parents and taxpayers, which hopefully the school library advisory council will address and remedy. All of these factors contribute to rob children of their innocence, to enslave minors to addictive sexual behavior, to objectify women and dehumanize sexual intimacy in marriage, to mutilate children's bodies with sex transitioning, and to denigrate the sanctity of those bodies made in the image of God, treating them as though they are disposable objects. The prophet Isaiah says, they display their sin like Sodom, they do not. Even conceal it, for they have brought evil on themselves. Please, on behalf of the children, don't do this. Don't allow those

051pornographic books in our schools. The Apostle Peter says he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter. So there's just so many reasons why we should not be doing in our public schools what's taking place here. And so please, on behalf of the young people and the next generation coming up, protect them from these things. I beg of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, I beg of you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. And I believe I inadvertently skipped one other person. Would you want to stand up and introduce yourself, please? Hi there, I'm Lynette Lennox. I live at 2821 Hickory Forest, Seguin, Texas. I'm here to speak about the book called The Haters, which is

052in Seguin High School. I'm sorry, San Marcos High School. I'm a 49-year-old woman and a parent and a grandparent, and I want to make clear. As an adult, I would never speak or even read this to you in public because it is so obscene and perverse and disgusting. But yet our children are reading this. Your children, my grandchildren, your grandchildren, they are reading this. I would never speak this way or even think the way these books portray. The content is deeply troubling, not just because of the language, but because of the underlying messages being presented to our children in the guise of education. That's the worst. These books are in our schools where they are positioned as learning materials. From my perspective, they go way beyond education. They are grooming our children in ways that

053are entirely inappropriate and ideologically driven. I ask you to consider if this is your children reading this or your grandchildren, what would each of you think? Would you be comfortable with it? Would you allow your children to read it? As school leaders and leaders of this town, you are entrusted with the responsibility of shaping the minds and the values of our children. With that comes accountability. And when accountability, like my good friend Michael Murphy says, accountability feels like persecution. But we're here to help you get this cleaned up in our school. I am demanding that these books be reviewed immediately and removed from our school system. Our schools must be a place of learning, not indoctrination. Thank you. God bless y'all. Please do the right thing immediately, effective immediately. Thank you very much. Okay, I

054apologize for that. Now, Dr. Cardona, we are going into the academic report. Just before we go. More than that? Yes. Okay. Go ahead. Just a couple things. So we have a couple of agenda items that I think are of community of interest. And so I'd ask for Maria Nella from Walsh, Miss Joseph, I mean, I'm sorry, from Walsh Gallegos and Mr. Alvarez, if they could come up to the podium so they can give us some facts about what the board is agendized to deal with tonight. Good evening, Board President, Board Members, Dr. Cardona, Marianela Joseph from Welch-Cayecos, one of your district attorneys. Do you have any questions for me regarding the action items for the real property? I can give you a brief explanation. I think a brief explanation would be appropriate. Thank you. So

055what we have now is district property that has been put up for sale following the requirements under state law to have a bid and notice. we have received one bid and we also have a letter of interest from the city and the county that have voted at their own respective meetings and they have sent a letter of intent to submit an offer in the near future. You don't have two bids, you have one at the moment and then the letter of intent will be to follow up with the city of the county to submit a form in the future. So can you outline just very clearly what actions we can take tonight and what actions we cannot take tonight? Sure. So you don't have an agenda item for any conveyance of property. So nothing, it

056is not in the agenda. properly for a disposition. It's too early for that. What you can do is consider the bid that is, the offer that is currently on the table. You can accept or reject or not do anything and continue negotiating with this specific offer. And you can also instruct and direct Dr. Cardona, Mr. Alvarez, and myself to continue negotiating with the city and the county based on the letter that they sent us. I think That's it for now. Thank you. I want to clarify that the bid that you have must be open for about 60 days. We're about 30 days in. So that's still in effect. And then Dr. Cardona and Mr. Alvarez can continue discussions with the city and the county as you direct them. Can we move on? Item 7A. Sure.

057Second. Are there any questions? Any discussion? Denial. Where is that denial? to decline the only offer we've received, which we were briefed on during closed session last month. Seeing no questions, all in favor of the motion made, please raise your hand. Opposed? That motion carries 7-0. And we'll go back to the regular agenda at this point. Thank you. Dr. Cardona, thank you. Yes, and the final item is really a report by Ms. Matyowski. I think some questions were asked at the agenda prep regarding ranking, grades, weighted ranking, and so we wanted to, as part of the superintendent report, describe the advanced academic offerings we currently have and how that reflects in GPA and or rank. Good evening Board of Trustees. Dr. Cardona. I think I might need to unplug something and if that causes alarms

058I thought that might get someone out here. Look at that threat. Yeah. All right. So if you need Greg, you know what to say. All right, so this presentation may look familiar. We went through it within the last couple years in our old boardroom. And it's just a reminder on this slide that when we talk advanced academics, we have two larger pathways, dual credit and advanced placement. And within dual credit, there's two pathways under that umbrella. We have our early college high school program and then our standard traditional dual credit that I think most of us have been familiar with. So that's just a visual to remind everyone of what's included when we say advanced academics. This table provides some comparison between these programs and I'm going to go row by row if you'll follow

059along. When it comes to dual credit, I mentioned we have the ECHS and we have standard dual credit. If you look at that partner row, when it comes to early college, we do partner with Coastal Bend College. That is our only ECHS partner. And our dual credit partner is Texas State. We used to partner with ACC. We haven't had that partnership for a bit. We're solely partnered with Texas State right now for our dual credit option. And then, of course, College Board provides guidance for advanced placement. When it comes to the coursework students in these paths, yes. If I could briefly interrupt you, I don't see this in my board book. Was it a supplement? When did I receive it? I don't think it's in there. Okay, and how long is the slide presentation roughly?

060Four. And does it include the information I requested at agenda prep about grade distributions on like-for-like courses? For what? Grade distributions on like for like courses. We're going to talk about the weighted GPA for this. I understand that. I think we all know that. I asked what the grade distribution was on comparison courses like a ECHS Coastal Bend US History course as compared to the grade distribution on APUSH, right? Where do those grades fall? What percent are As? What percent are Bs? And so forth. So for no sir for the purpose of this presentation does not include that information is that coming later? Yes, we will be getting that information today No, we will not have it for this. Okay. Thanks. You can carry on So for courses in ECHS, those courses are determined by

061Coastal Bend and our school district. Any course where there's dual credit, we do a crosswalk comparison to make sure that if the student's getting high school credit, they're actually learning the TEKS for that course in the college course. For our Texas State dual credit students, there's a menu of options. It's not unlimited. There's a menu of options. that they choose from. And then, of course, with advanced placement, there's 26 courses that College Board offers. As far as how credit is earned, at dual credit, with our dual credit pathways, if this college course, college developed, college monitored, college taught course is passed with a 60 or better, then the student gets credit at both the institution, CBC or Texas State, and here in our district. As far as advanced placement, in order for them to get

062credit for the high school course, this is a high school course, the AP version, you have to get a 70 or better to earn the credit at the high school. And as far as higher ed credit, you have to earn a three or higher on the college board exam. And even that is not necessarily guaranteed. So if you are a... biology major and you got a three on that bio AP exam and you're going to Rice they're probably going to make you take their bio class over because they want to make sure you're in line for their program so students do have to kind of know what college they want to go to and if they accept certain scores and certain exams from College Board As far as the weighted GPA, so remember we have

063the GPA that colleges see, which is just the number earned. So if a student earns a 92, that's what the college sees. But we do have weighted GPA for the purposes in-house of figuring out rank. And you can see all three options, we add 10 points. So a college is not going to see 102 for that 92. They just see 92. The weighted GPA is an in-house mechanism for us to figure out class rank. And then as far as the state's perspective on these programs and what they deem a student to be college and career ready, you can see that bottom row, what a student would have to complete in order to be considered CCMR and get their CCMR credit. So currently our graduating classes through 2029 are operating under EIC local. which we updated

064last month to omit some former graduating classes and we changed the word pre-AP to advanced. So our classes through 2029 are operating under that set of guidelines and rules. Our classes of 20 and 30, 20, 30 and beyond, we are anticipating possible impact from the commissioner's ruling that is due in December. And so that comes from SB 1191. So the state or the commissioner has been charged with developing a standard method of computing a GPA statewide all schools. The method must give equal additional weight to, you can see what's listed there, AP, IB, on-ramps, and dual credit. So whatever is created, it will have to be equal credit across those four programs. And as of right now, SB 1191 just says that the commissioner must give more information in December of 2025. So at this

065point, we're not sure how detailed that guidance will be. And yeah, we'll see how that goes and how it might impact our classes of 2030 and beyond. But that is our update regarding our advanced placement pathways and kind of about some of those little details of how they work. Any questions? Yes. Yeah. Senator Joukowsky, on item 8A that's on our agenda tonight, the current grading guidelines are up for us to approve. Under those guidelines, if a student makes a 90 in Coastal Bend U.S. History course, what will that average in for their weighted class rank as numerically? For their weighted GPA, they'll get 10 plus points, so it'll be a 100. But it would be rounded up, right, to 99, and then you add 10? No, I think you're thinking about when we used to

066get numerical grades from ACC, I mean letter grades from ACC, and we had to find a number that might match and then add more. So you're getting numeric grades now? We get numeric grades from Coastal Bend and Texas State. But not ACC? Not ACC. Not ACC, but we don't partner with them. We're still not. You can't take courses. Okay. That answers that question. Thank you to further clarify that then Anybody at this point our standard is what's being asked of the Commissioner that across the board? the weight would be equal for any dual credit or AP course correct. That's what we're functioning under right now. We currently weight them all equally at 10. Yes. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you That was all I had for superintendent's report. We will go back and try

067and pull the data that Mr. McLaughlin asked for which is the number of kids that took classes and what their grade distribution is. At this time I am going to read a proclamation this month. September is suicide prevention month. Whereas with September being recognized as Suicide Prevention Month, the National Suicide Prevention and Action Month Proclamation was created to raise the visibility of mental health and proactive suicide prevention resources in our community. This also includes National Suicide Prevention Week, beginning with World Suicide Prevention Day on September 10th. a moment in time in which we rally the public to create awareness of this leading cause of death and inspire more and more people to learn how they can play a role in their communities in helping save lives. We want to start the conversation, destigmatize it, and

068help connect people with the appropriate support services. And whereas, according to NAMI, CDC, and NIMH, suicide is the second leading cause of death among people aged 10 to 14, and the third leading cause of death among people aged 15 to 24 in the U.S. 46% of people who die by suicide had a diagnosed mental health condition. Whereas, according to NAMI, CDC, and NIMH, the prevalence of serious thoughts of suicide greatly impacts our youth in the U.S., specifically 11.3% of young adults age 18 to 25, 18.8% of high school students, and 45% of LGBTQIA in the U.S. Whereas San Marcos CISD places its full support behind the CORE4 partnership, City of San Marcos, Hayes County, Texas State, and the SMTX Mental Health Coalition, and its members who work in the field of mental health, education, and

069law enforcement. And whereas community organizations like Senecor Foundation, Greater San Marcos Youth Council, Hayes Caldwell Women's Center, NAMI, Central Texas, Communities and Schools of Central Texas, Hill Country, MHD, D-Centers, along with other organizations, organizations, local mental health providers, serve on the front lines and see the impact of suicide and work to reduce the stigma, provide resources, support and provide education to San Marcos CISD, the City of San Marcos, Hays County, and whereas we encourage all residents to take time to understand mental health. through education by actively participating in mental health first aid training, assist suicide prevention training, youth awareness of mental health training, and other opportunities to increase education and awareness in Hays County, recognize that we need to take care of our mental health while we take care of each other, and therefore the

070San Marcos CISD Board of Trustees do hereby proclaim September 2025 a Suicide Prevention and Action Month. And I want to, on behalf of the board, thank all of our service providers within the district, all of the partners that we work with throughout the community, and to thank all of our teachers, our educators, our coaches, our paraprofessionals who have gone through the mental health for youth training. We really appreciate that. I think that's something that we can really be proud of, and I commend that and encourage you to keep that work moving forward. Next, finance, please. Ms. Garcia. Can you all see it? Okay. Okay, so tonight I'm going to give a budget update on Where we sit, I wanted to start with an unaudited fund balance for 24-25. So, these are our preliminary numbers. We

071will have our final audit in November. I want you to notice here our original budget that we started in 24-25 had a deficit of the $17.6 million. We did pass the VADR in November, which would give us an additional about $2.7 million in revenue. So we were able to close that deficit to about $15 million. We put a lot of things in place last year, like the hiring freeze. I'm sorry, let me just read what I wrote here. We did a hiring freeze for non-teaching positions. We had multiple vacancies that remained unfilled throughout the whole year. We froze travel expenditures. We did a whole bunch of cost savings. And because of that, we are looking to end the year really at about a $3.8 million budget deficit instead of a $15 million budget deficit. So

072that is... good for us on fund balance. The previous year, you remember, we ended with about 17.9, which we had to take from fund balance. And so now we're looking at about 3.8. And again, we'll have final numbers in November of what that actually looks like. So moving into this year, that is a lot better. We're still not saving. We're still not putting money back in yet, but we are getting closer. So if we look at 25, 26, the first column is our original budget, our budget that we approved for this year, which is about a 6.9, I'm sorry, 6.5 deficit. The yellow column there includes the TRA and the SSRA money that we just received from the state, or we will receive from the state. So we still have the $6.5 million. budget deficit.

073The last column there is what I'm anticipating. So far we know that our certified values came in lower than our preliminary values, so we will lose a little bit of money on local taxes coming in. Don't have any answers on the unintended consequences yet. However, I have reached out to Mote Casey and they have let us know that they are working on it. TA is working on different models that they're submitting to the state to see which one is going to help these districts that are in that bind. And hopefully we will have a resolution that in the fall. So that last column there is just. a maybe. We don't know what's going to happen with that. The next couple of pages are the models that we shared with you last month on the different

074scenarios for increases. One, two, and three, they're still the same. That's exactly what we presented last year. I mean, last month, sorry. And then the final here is just has these models on the side there, what that would do to our budget for the year. And so, and then the last two pages, they're not on here, I believe are the teacher pay skills. Do y'all have those on your book? Okay, yes, are the teacher pay skills. So that's my update for today. Thank you, President Halsey. I have a question about Model 2, if we can go to that slide and put it up on the screen for the folks in the audience. Can you explain if approved at the 1% proposal just so I can make sure that I and my colleagues are on the

075same page? The estimated cost that we're looking at is the final column in red. Is that the second row from the bottom or the bottom row? So it would be the district expenses. And after we do settle up, the final, the $227,000 would be actual expenditures from the district. So if approved, this would cost us $227,661? Correct. Okay. Thank you. That excludes administrators, and that is why that is a district expense because we cannot utilize TRA and the SSRA funds. Right. But Model 2 doesn't increase those for a period of time. Yes. Okay. I just want to clarify now because you said that, Stephanie. Here I have a column that says general pay increase administrative professional at $148,060. So does that not reflect that they're getting something? It does. We cannot use the TRA, excuse

076me, for administrator funds. So does that change the district expense after TRA settle up then? No. Okay. So still 1%, 227,661 at 1% across the board for everyone that didn't get HB2 pass through funds. Correct. Thank you. I'm sorry, I have a question on the slide. Is there something under the hidden cell? Like, why are those blacked out? Because those didn't carry down. We just wanted to demonstrate the TRA and the SSRA funds carrying over. Because only certain columns are applicable to getting TRA and SSRA funds. Okay. Last question, Ms. Halsey. On Model 3, the flat 604, I have opinions and questions about that. What was the methodology of suggesting a flat 604, say, for, like, a custodian and a librarian, principal, et cetera, or whatever is captured in this proposal? So on our teacher

077pay scale, 1% of the market is 604. Historically, we've done a flat raise for our teacher step schedule, and that's the methodology we've used. And so just doing 604 for all of the other teachers who did not receive HB2 and then continuing that for all employees. So, sorry, I have additional questions, Ms. Huxley. So the 604 in Model 3. is more geared towards ensuring that the pay scales stay consistent. Is that what you're saying? No, we have historically done teacher pay as a flat increase. And so that comes out to 1%, that's 604. And that was just giving one flat increase to all staff. So that, okay. So removing all other staff. So just talking about... teachers. So model three would then increase my base teacher zero year hiring schedule salary by 604. Correct. If

078I went with option or model two, excuse me, whatever that 1% is what we would increase the zero year hiring. Is it still 604? It's still 604. Okay. Thank you. Those are all my questions, Ms. Hall. The next item is the approval of the consent agenda items. A, the approval of minutes for the regular scheduled board meeting on August 18, 2025, and the special board meeting on September 2, 2025. And B, consider approval of the budget amendments. I'll move to approve item 6A. Is there a second? I'll second that. Motion made, seconded. Is there any questions? Are there any questions? All in favor, please raise your hand. Opposed? That motion carries 7-0. Item 6B, consider approval of budget amendments. I have questions. Would somebody like to make a motion for the purpose of discussion? I'll

079move to deny item 6B for the purpose of discussion. I'll second. Question, Mr. McLaughlin? Yes. Have these already been purchased? They have not. They are waiting for action. But like at games, they all match, right? They do not currently, no. They do not? Or maybe they're just not all out there. I haven't seen multiple uniforms this year, so I didn't. There were multiple. I was at the game on Friday night, and there were multiple uniforms. This is to put all the varsity cheerleaders in the same uniform. Mr. Ardonda? Thank you, Ms. Halsey. I guess before I can feel comfortable voting for this, I understand that this is in response to board directive that was given at our last meeting. I guess now that we're approving this, I'm curious about just the method in which we

080got this cost estimate from a vendor. Obviously, $10,000 for uniforms. I understand it was by a board vote, but... I'm not doing that for band. I'm not doing that for choir. I'm not doing that for any other group. And again, I understand that this was by board action, that we feel like we need to be in, I guess, compliance or there needs to be uniformity. But I guess just tonight I can't in good conscience for this unless I have more information. I agree with Trustee Arradondo. While we did make a decision, I'm not currently of the mindset to approve $10,000 for new uniforms when we are currently in a deficit and everything else that's going on. I just feel like there's better use of that money. For this year, that's just... I don't feel like

081they're just glaring. I don't think they're uniforms from different years. It looks like it's just because at one point there was JB and now there's, you know, all just varsity. So I agree that I'm not looking to approve this at this time. Well, President Halsey, it's solely for this year. I mean, my expectation was, I mean, it's not like we permanently did away with distinction. Like, I think they'll probably run a cleaner tryout. We'll probably have two teams next year. And so 10K for, you know, one year just seems excessive. I don't know that having different uniforms has ever been a huge problem. I went to the regional. Final girls basketball game last year and there were three different uniforms and there were only five girls so And we've made it through worse. So I

082attend to tend to seem successive. That's why I'm a no Ms. Halsey. Ms. Arredondo. So this is related. So if y'all will just bear with me. I've had parents who have seen the board book, have seen this agenda item placed on it, who have brought, I guess, like anecdotal concerns about the way in which we facilitate or manage uniforms across the district. I'm not going to get into the weeds on that. But again, I've gotten some concerns from like middle schools about. reusing items that quite frankly I wouldn't reuse if it was athletic wear that somebody else wore. So if I can get some type of memo to understand how we manage uniforms across the district for all sports and extracurriculars, that would be super helpful for me if we're wanting to have this conversation

083like a holistic manner. In addition to that, I'm not too sure how many girls there are on the cheerleading squad. It was brought to us in executive session that some money had already been outweighed by these families. And this is a conversation we've had on numerous occasions. Like if I'm asking a student inside Marcos to participate in an extracurricular and that necessitates what I would assume is about like a $250, $300 uniform, that is of concern to me knowing that we have... I think it's like 34 girls in cheer, so I can do the math, right? And that is a pretty expensive cheerleading uniform. So again, it's about participation and removing those barriers. I'm glad this was put on the agenda. I'm glad we're having this conversation. But now my concern is, are we asking

084students and families to absorb this kind of cost? And I understand that there's fundraising and things like that, but... Again, this has me asking more questions than I have an answer to tonight. So that's why I am a no on this item. Any other questions? I see none. Ms. Cantu? Yes. And so if this is not approved, the girls do have some kind of uniform to wear. Correct. So they would, it was just, they were trying to make everybody look the same. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Seeing none. All in favor of the motion on the table, please raise your hand. All opposed? That motion carries 5-2. The next item is the item 7, items for action number 2, discussion regarding the 2025-2026 board meeting calendar to comply with the parental engagement policy.

085Is there a motion on that item? I do. Ms. Halsey, if you'll bear with me, I think we discussed this ad nauseum over the last two agenda preparation meetings. Can we, can I move and hopefully get a second from my colleagues to enact that committee to start fleshing out these policies? Yes, I will second that. Any other questions? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion to start a committee to put us in compliance with the Parental Expectations Committee? All in favor, thank you very much. That is 7-0. Please submit everybody. I think that we should, unless they have objections on this, I'm going to suggest that we do this in the way that we have done before, where every board member can designate somebody to be on the committee. If they would like to

086designate themselves, let me know, because we just need to make sure that we don't have more than three board members. But that seems permissible. I think we can work this out. easily i think and then if we have three members of administration and maybe a parent representative or two if we can find somebody or other who would be willing to serve that would be great so seven one each for a trustee three admin two parents two parents among the seven or in addition i i think in addition okay where will those parent appointees come from is that the district So the district will have five... So you as a board member can nominate yourself, or you can nominate a community member, or you can nominate a community member who's a parent. And I would like

087then... But just... Sorry. Yeah. But just to understand, seven appointed by trustees, five appointed by the administration, including two parents. Yes. Okay. Who are not employees. But if we have a second person show interest in our district who's a parent, we can pass that along to admin. Yes. All right. Okay. Okay. So please get me those names by the next week so that we can keep moving this forward. Discussion number three, discussion to appoint a member of the board to serve on the safety committee together with the board president. The background on this, Mr. Duvall, are you speaking? No. He's sleeping. Mr. Cleveland. Mr. Cleveland will explain the process. I am currently serving in my capacity as board president. In the past, I served with Ms. Cantu when she was president and I was vice

088president. I think that is something that's up to the discretion of the board, and so I just wanted to put it out there in front of everybody. But I think Mr. Cleveland will explain everything. Yeah, thank you. So it is a requirement through the Texas Education Agency that we have a district safety advisory committee. The committee is to be made up of a combination of community members via parents, teachers, as well as board of trustees members. The current requirement is to have the president of the board of trustees plus one designee. The purpose of the committee is really to oversee the safety program, give input from those perspectives as well. Some things that that committee is going to review this year will be safety protocols, basically just safety practices and procedures that we've established for

089our daily operations and functions, look at our emergency operations plans, go through project updates as well as with everything that comes down with house bill 3 and revisions uh to make sure that you know we're giving everyone honest uh updates on compliance but also to review any type of intruder audit as well as our district vulnerability assessment that's coming up in december so you don't have any questions questions on that i could be swayed if someone wants to serve i'll nominate you whiskey did you have a question When and where does this committee meet like how I'm so it's a quarterly meeting the next meeting is in October and We have a room reserved here at a central office So I'll get those dates out and that's actually something we need to update on the

090district website as well And I've said they're not longer no longer going to be on zoom We'll have the zoom link were required by law to have it just basically in compliance with the Open Meeting Act So that will be an option as well. Yes, ma'am Okay, so would anybody like to make a nomination for themselves? Okay. Ms. Halsey? Yes, Mr. Arnauto. I'd like to nominate Trustee Kaine to serve on this committee. Second. Ms. Kaine, are you willing to accept the nomination? Yes. Are there any other nominations? And let me just also reiterate that these are meetings that abide by the Texas Open Meetings Act. So actually, the whole board could be there because it's not a meeting of the board. So if anybody ever wants the Zoom link and wants to see or observe

091or participate, that is an available option. Any other questions, conversation? Seeing none, all in favor of Ms. Kane serving in this capacity, please raise your hand. Opposed? Thank you, Ms. Kane. Next, consider the resolution nominating candidates to the Board of Directors of the Caldwell County Appraisal District. This is, we have no nominations on this one. Okay. So we're going to skip ahead. I don't think that we have any nominations for Guadalupe. So the next one is consider a resolution nominating candidates to the Board of Directors of the Hayes County Appraisal District. Would somebody like to make a nomination? Can we nominate the person who's currently serving? They're already serving. Yes. Ms. Halsey. Mr. Arnotto. Thank you, President Halsey. This is a question for staff. Do we have a deadline of when these votes need to

092be cast, or what's that look like? Nominations. Okay, excuse me. Gotcha. Okay. So, okay. I don't know if there's, like, interest in this, but since we're not nominating anyone, is there? and I can put this in the form of a motion, but I'm just like workshopping here. Is there a way that we can reach out to like Hayes County or the city of San Marcos? Obviously they have more votes than us. So maybe if they have someone in mind, we can down the road support their nominee, but let's tell them that there's like an opportunity to combine votes to do that kind of thing. So. Mr. Villalpando. Staff just said Joe Castillo is our rep, but he's not up. He's continuing, so this is another vacancy. So I think our next, no, third Monday. Okay,

093then I retract all that, sorry. I guess we could do it during agenda prep, right? No. Never mind. I advocate against doing that. Just kidding. We could have a special called meeting. Okay. I'll stand down. So no nomination to be made. Moving forward. consideration and possible action on compensation for the 2025-2026 school year. Is there a motion on that item? Yes, Ms. Halsey. Go ahead, Mr. Arradondo. Thank you. Let me pull up my packet. I don't need it, actually. I move that the board adopt option 3, the 604 across the board general pay increase. At a cost of $286,000 approximately? Yes, ma'am. Is there a second? Second. Ms. Kane, are there questions or conversation about that? Mr. McAuliffe. So with any of these proposals, this is money we don't have. We're still very uncertain if

094we're going to be harmed by the current bill and see a reduction. revenues. And so this is a luxury we can't afford at this time. I think the employees of the district, no matter their station or position, would much prefer we remain solvent to pay salaries in 2026, 2027, 2028, then get a couple bucks in 2025. So I'm a no. Can I clarify? Yeah, can I? So the settle up, the unintended consequences isn't going to If it doesn't go away, they won't take money away. So the commissioner is trying to figure out how to get the full amount that was approved in the legislative budget board through with his power. So there's no money that we're going to lose. But we haven't yet seen them. Yes. It would just be an addition at a later

095date, potentially. I understand. But that's certainly not guaranteed at this point. Correct. We're still, after the administration took, from my observation, wasn't quite on the board for most of this, but extraordinary measures to make this budget as clean and tight as possible. So it's not like the olden days, like in 2020, where they project a deficit and then we end up with a big surplus. Those days are gone. So this is... 100% deficit dollars reducing, if enacted, reducing our cash position and our fund balance to even closer to the mark considered safe for carrying on operations. So if we continue to do this year after year after year, we'll eventually be insolvent and we'll have to make very difficult decisions as far as classroom sizes, even harder than we made this time. So it's... I

096know everybody likes voting for raises, but we have to do it from a place where we can afford it or we're doing the employees a disservice to give them $604 this year and then next year say, good luck finding a new job. I don't think that's fair to the staff, and so I'm a no. Can I say something? No. On this, please. I mean, we're not debating. No, no, no. What I need to say is the SSRA money has not been distributed. We need to know how that needs to be distributed. The TRA, which was the money that was the $2,500 and the $5,000, that is out the door. We have that in. But we do need direction on how much the SSRA needs to come. flow out. So either we're doing a 1% or

097we're doing a 604. What are we doing? Because we do have to pay that out. Now, we do not have to pay administrators because that would come out of fund balance for sure. But we do need direction on the SSRA money. I understand, but that doesn't mean I have to support this motion, right? Well, we need to know what we need to pay. I mean, there's other options is what I'm saying. I don't understand what this is adding. Can you clarify then what the bare minimum is that we need to do tonight? So we need to know for everyone except administrators, which would exclude all of central office principals, assistant principals, I believe, excluding them, SSRA will cover all the other employees. So we need to know what that payment is going to be. Would

098it be a 1%? Would it be 604? And which slide shows us that option? Those are the two, yeah, the two and three models. There's three options, one, two, or three, right? That's what's in our board vote. So model one has a $0 cost to the district, which is the one that doesn't include any of those administrators you just listed. Central office, principals, assistant principals, anybody else? I think that's it. Ms. Lopez? I'm comfortable with that. I think that I agree with Mr. McLaughlin to a degree. I think that for myself, the safest bet is going to be to distribute those funds to the teachers and the absolute administration at this point. That's the way I'm going to, I would suggest going with option one. So I'm going to be real transparent here. I don't

099think that I've ever voted against a pay raise. I can't remember having done so. And I am. Not going to vote in favor of option three tonight regretfully, but I'm afraid that if we start Spending money that we don't have right now that next spring we're going to be in the unfortunate position We were last spring and having to lay people off and I want to try to keep as many of our staff members in their positions as we can so I Until we know exactly what the state is going to do. I just can't in good conscience move forward with that But I will say that when we see what the state is going to do and when we understand where our actual budget projection is, I would like to revisit this. And I

100think that we have that opportunity. But at this point, I'm regretfully unable to do that. Ms. King. I made the second so we could have this conversation. And I agree. I would love to give all of our staff. much better raises, honestly, but I'm very torn about adding anything to the deficit that we've already, we're kind of stuck with. So. Other questions? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion on the table, please raise your hand. All opposed? Is there another motion? Ms. Halsey? Mr. Arnado. I'll make a motion that we approve model two, the 1% general pay increase for staff. I'll second that motion for the purposes of discussion. Ms. Garcia, can you please? explain exactly then with model two that is at a cost of $227,000 to the district and how does that

101disperse to whom and how much how does this work So that would be, as in your board book, where it says yellow for the non-teacher professionals, that would be providing all of those a 604 increase to use our SSRA funds, which were given from the state. And then for all other pay grades, a 1% increase. So for your hourly employees and for your professional employees. Ms. Garcia said professional employees. That would come out of the general fund. Again, I approve for the purposes of discussion. I'm unable to support this, though, for the aforementioned reasons. Any other questions, conversation? All in favor, please raise your hand. All opposed? That motion is denied. One to six. Is there another motion on the table? Do I understand that we need to choose from one of these? Is that

102staff's direction? So I'll move for the purposes of discussion that we approve option one. I'll second. Yeah, my understanding is that because we have pass-through funds from the state that aren't entirely designated as like the teacher pass-through funds were specifically designated there was a formula that was given to us and we had no control over that. It's my understanding that with this fund these funds from the state we have to give them to staff but we have a little bit more discretion over how they are distributed. Is that correct? So I do it so if we pass option one in our board book, how will those funds be distributed? So for the teacher step schedule that'll be non-professional teachers receiving this 604 just group I could have sworn we did that last month did we

103not only that far only the teacher retention and shipment allotment those are the only ones you all have to designate and tell us directly how you want to use your SSRA funds and so that pot of monies would have been be used for your teachers who are not on the HB to pay structure got it thanks for the explanation so In layman's terms, who are those people in our district? Your instructional coaches, your ARD facilitators, your speech language pathologist assistants, and your registrar nurses. Okay. So that's the proposal, but do we actually have any discretion over, can we? Sorry. And your teachers at step one and two. Okay. So there's a pool of money that is designated, but. I'm confused as to whether or not we actually can designate it to those people or that's

104already predetermined. You can designate it how you wish. If you can give it to all those that we just pointed out or you could give it to one set. Okay. So this is the administration recommendation that it be divided evenly among the people that were just mentioned, correct? Yes. Mr. Arredondo. Thank you, Ms. Halsey. Looking at page eight of our board book, the model one, 0%. So on non-teaching professionals, you go all the way down to the final column. It says estimated total increase is 25,473. How many non-teaching professionals do we have in the school district? 30. 30? And then administrative professional? We do not have that at the top of our head. Can we is there someone who can do like the math subtracting teachers minus? Everyone else minus everyone else I can start

105talking and like filibuster for y'all while I do the math I do have a Question for whatever staff is not running those numbers right now for me So what about hourly employees, so bus drivers, child nutrition employees, things of that nature? How are they compensated in Model 1, the 0% increase? Model 1 would be no increase to our hourly employees. So would that need to be a separate vote, or is there a reason why this isn't included in these proposed? I understand that we're dealing with pass-through HB2 money. But based on, I guess, again, my assumption, and you know what happens when you assume, that we were going to take action on all employee categories tonight. Whether that's to take no action, obviously that looks like the way things are going, but I'm just curious,

106is that supposed to happen separately from this? You could take action on auxiliary staff. But we don't have any slide with any calculated numbers for that. We do not. On model two, it does indicate clerical professional and auxiliary. Those two columns there, if you chose to just provide those groups on model two. Which I could just do simple math and say 99,791 plus 95,393, correct? Correct. But is that $604 or what is a 1% increase? It's just 1%. of their median pay or whatever. Of their midpoint. Midpoint, excuse me. I'm even more confused jumping off what Mr. Ardondo said because on this administrative professional, the adjustments on all models is the same amount. So like the $604 is working out to exactly what the 1% is. So unless that was the basis upon which you

107calculated the 1%, I don't know how that would happen. So on model one or model two and on model three for the adjustments, those are recommended adjustments for those on the professional pay grade for positions who were once a teacher and who have moved into professional capacities that with HB2 would be making less in their current positions than on the teacher. Then if they had stayed on the teacher scale. Correct. And is that the full set of administrative professionals receiving the 72,968 in Model 1? Correct. So those are just like the instructional coaches? So Model 1 does not give an increase. They would be lagging. Well, the adjustments are the same. I thought you said the adjustments. I'm sorry. Yes, you're correct. I have another question. Go ahead. The models that have clerical professional and

108auxiliary, that's just because, I guess, under this hypothetical scenario, we were pulling out a fund balance, correct? We were like, if we go over what the pass-through funds are in Model 1, everything else is general fund obligation, correct, from us, local revenue. Can these dollars go to clerical professional and auxiliary, or is it? For the SSRA funds? Yes. Yes. We can utilize our SSRA funds for... So I'm very... Ms. Halsey, I'm going to make a motion that we postpone this item to be last on tonight's agenda because I have some things I need to work out on my... That's my motion. I'll take that as an amendment or whatever we need to call it to push it down. Okay. That would be great. I would also like to know when we resume this conversation exactly

109the funds, how much we're talking about. I understand there's the explicit pass-through funds, but I want to understand what this pool of money is. OK. Thank you. We'll move that to the end. Next is item seven, academics that consider approval of the grading guidelines. Those are as presented earlier. I still have questions. I'm going to make a motion that we approve them. Seconded by Ms. Kane. Mr. McLaughlin? Okay. Let me find where I wrote my notes. Okay. So this is in page 93 of our board book. And my question for administration is, let me get to page 93. I didn't know we were moving this quick. Did this change, page 93, specifically on the... dual credit and ECHS alternate grading system. I see now there's a division between incoming freshmen where we're treating it as

110an average of 75 if they got a C to the kids that are young older than the freshmen. who were treating it as a 79. What do we currently do right now without adopting these? How do we, what do we do with a letter grade that comes with no number? So basically right now, we, the timing is such that when the letter conversion chart was being discussed, there was still the potential for an ACC partnership that would require a letter grade conversion chart. Since that time, we do not have a partnership with ACC. So in the current system, this is actually almost a null and void because there is no letter to convert. So we currently, for 25-26, if the grading guidelines would be approved, would simply say they would be continuing with what 24-25

111was, and there is no circumstance in which we would do a letter conversion. So because we're a college board, excuse me. Coastal Bend and because we're with Texas State we will get the grade that they get and we'll use that number. I understand that. But we'll still have two sets of kids where this will matter. First, we'll have this year's seniors, for instance, that are already going to have ACC courses on their transcript that they took before the partnership ended, right? So when they have a B, how is it treated right now? If it was already taken, it would have been on the previous system. So the B, I'm double-checking myself, but yeah. I know it's on the previous. I just don't know what the previous system was. Yeah. That's what I'm asking. Give me

112one second here. See, they're not listed in the 25-26 grading guidelines because they've already happened. I would need to reference the 23-24. I'm sorry I don't have that answer, but I just need to refer to it. It was whatever system it was on when they took that class. So I would just need to go back and find what that was. The second group of kids would be a student that transfers while in high school. They went to Hayes High School. They have ACC courses. You get their incoming transcript. They're going to be a senior. They've got all these letters. You're going to follow this. By what's passed to deal with them? That's a great question. We actually checked on that with our registrars and our PEMS people. When we receive a transcript from another school,

113we receive the transcript for what the school did. So, for example, if a student went to Hayes and during their time at Hayes took a class at ACC, they got a B, Hayes did whatever it is they did to that B, and then they put that on the high school transcript, that gets sent to us. That's what we give. They could give us their ACC transcript, but it wouldn't change anything. You won't recalculate it. You're just going to take whatever number was at their high school. We take the system that they earned in the school they were attending at the time they earned that credit, yes, sir. Okay. And so the weird, again, the timing issue is. We're just simply saying we'll move that we'll take the 24 25 grading guidelines make them the 25

11426 grading guidelines We would we have some we've actually worked on we have that committee I think we mentioned last month about with some parents and some teachers To kind of at least begin the discussions that many of you brought up so you kind of brought up some things that you want us to address and Look at so we've at least begun that conversation So we're not waiting for that Commissioner ruling to begin that so those conversations have begun We'll take that information along with whatever we get from the December post from the commissioner, and then we'll be looking if there are any other substantial changes. It would be in the 26-27 guidelines where we say, okay, now we know what the commissioner wants. We've had the committee's talk. We'll reconvene that committee to discuss

115some of the things the board has presented, some of the things that our teachers have presented, and there could be some potential changes in 26-27 for sure. Okay. Well, thanks for the answers. eager to see the distributions I requested, but I have enough information to support this. I don't know that we want to hold it up. They're getting grades right now. Any other questions? All in favor of approving the motion made, please raise your hand. Mr. Arradondo, I can't see. All opposed? That motion is 7-0. Next is to consider approval of 2025-2026 Student Code of Conduct. Is there a motion? I move that we approve the Student Code of Conduct as presented. I'll second. Motion made and seconded. Are there any questions? Seeing none, all in favor, please raise your hand. Opposed? None. Thank you.

116Next, we'll move into operations. Mr. Sandoval, consider impossible action to accept the SMCISD administration building project. Okay. Before Greg Hummel presents, I'll just make a motion to accept so we can have this conversation. Motion made. Seconded. Would you still like for me to run through this presentation? Yes. OK. If I can get it up on the screen. There you go. OK. Thank you. Good evening, Board President Halsey, Board of Trustees, Dr. Cardona. Just before you vote on this item, which I think you already did, but we want to provide you just a brief recap of the project. And what I'd like to do is just take you back through the process, which started probably even way before May 2021. I got here in May 2020, and I know there were some discussions with Dr. James

117Barton about a new administration building. But in May of 2021, we did agree to bring on Stantec as the architect. In October of 21, we formed our first central office committee, and we had our kickoff meeting where we talked about planning and design. In August of 2022, we took it out to bid, or we decided that construction delivery method would be the competitive seal proposal. And then in January of 23, we signed a contract with Noble Construction as the general contractor. We started construction in June of 2023. In February of 24, the board approved the build out of the learning center and the boardroom expansion. And then in January of 2025, we started business here at 1331 Highway 123. We did have some challenges. If you all recall, we got this down to the slab

118and we also kept the ceiling deck. Once we got into it, we had to spend some money on additional support for the building. So there was a lot of work that was done on the structural side. We also... tied into existing plumbing which goes towards Goodnight Middle School and we ran into some problems once we got into the building but we corrected those. We went further down and we jetted lines and we also replaced lines and we've seemed to have got that under control. We haven't had any issues since the first month we moved in. HVAC, we did have some challenges with HVAC on the equipment, compressors, and the controls of the systems, but we have since corrected that as well. We haven't seen any work orders come through. I think for the most part,

119everything is comfortable. We also wanted a clear distinction between the public space, which would be the learning center, and our workspace. And so we had access points that required badge access to be able to, if we ever do rent that out to the general public, they will not be able to come into our workspace without the right access. And then, of course, we were waiting on the city of San Marcos to grant us approval, and we needed 70% coverage on the vegetation, which is out here in front, and we've accomplished that. So we do have all the... all the certificates from the city on this building. A couple of comments on the signage. We did have an error in the plaque. The plaque is hung right now, but there is a couple of misspelled words.

120So that new plaque is coming in mid-October. We are talking about wall graphics. We still want to do some wall graphics along the Learning Center wall and out in the general work area. And then as you'll see this evening, you probably saw a temporary sign that said boardroom and then also out in the learning center. These are temporary signage for now, knowing that there could be some naming opportunities in the future. So we didn't want to invest the money yet until we decide what we want to do with that. So the next couple of slides are just photos. This is what it looked like before we, if everybody recalls, this is what it looked like before we started construction. And then that is what it looks like today, along with the entrance. That's the backside

121of the building facing Goodnight Middle School. And then that's what it looks like today. That was a building that we demoed, which is now a parking area. And then, of course, school fuel, that area where that garage door is, was our district storage facility. And then that's what it looks like today is now school fuel. This is the inside as you could tell it was a and I think Andrew and justice for time He's still coughing to this day for taking these pictures. But anyway, that's what it looked like today and or yes That's what it looked like back then. I mean the building was in bad shape obviously But then that's what it looks like today. And really, this building, there was three goals in mind with this building when we started the design,

122and that was space, right? If you all remember over off of Mill Street, we were basically on top of each other. We got space now. We wanted meeting space. Meeting space was important, and we accomplished that with this project. We also were looking at storage, and we've got good storage for everything that we tend to keep. that's just a cop a picture of the cubicles and then that school field space which is very large and gives them the space that they need to operate and then finally the last photo and I guess I'll just end this by you know this is certainly a team effort from cabinet who was sitting on some of those initial meetings to some of the staff at central But two individuals I do want to recognize in their teams, and

123that's Greg Hubenak in technology. As you can see, all the technology that goes into this, Greg's team not only was on the front end on the design of it, but also during construction, and then once we completed it, making sure that everything was the way it needs to be. And, of course, my good buddy Richard Duvall in the maintenance team. Richard worked hand-in-hand with me on this project. And one thing that he and I both agree on is having our maintenance team involved during construction because when all is said and done and the contractor is gone, we're going to maintain it, right? So it's important that our people are involved so they can see the work that's going on so they can recommend the changes that they see that we need to make. So I

124hope everybody enjoys this for a lot of years. Thank you. Thank you. Before you go, Bernie, I have a question. It's not really related to accepting the project, but since you just spoke about it. Is School Fuel on a $0 lease, or how mechanically are they there? They are on a $0 lease. But it's a written lease between the district and the entity? To be honest with you, I don't know. You can tell me later. I was just curious from my other life. Thank you. Mr. Mc, Mr. Arradondo. Thank you, Ms. Halsey. I just want to circle back. I know we had had this conversation, I think about a year or so ago. I am interested in district launching the committee to possibly consider the renaming of the boardroom. I know we talked about that.

125I know we took action. I know we appointed representatives. And so, you know, here we are a year and a half later. My fault for not following up, but I hope we can move forward with that sooner rather than later. I appreciate that. I think coming out of tonight, we're going to have several committees that need to start meeting immediately. Any other questions, Mr. Arradondo? I just have one more comment. I know when you, like, GPS this location, it kind of takes you to a couple of different places. Although I might not have agreed with the folks who were here earlier tonight who've now left, but I saw a lot of them parking behind Goodnight Middle School and walking over, obviously walking over the landscaping, and there isn't like a delineated walkway. So one concern

126that someone trips or falls trying to get here if they park somewhere else. So I don't know if there's a need for additional signage at the bus entry between Goodnight and Central Office or what that looks like. That's not my wheelhouse or forte, but I hope we can do more to provide some type of directional signage or education of how to get here. But other than that, thank you, Mr. Sandoval and team, for delivering this project. I just want to say that I know that I have been skeptical and critical about this project from the beginning, but I wanted to say thank you. I think that you've done an exceptional job. You've exceeded my expectations, and I'm very happy with this, and I think it will serve our district and our students and our staff

127for a long time. So thank you. All in favor, please raise your hand. Oh, yeah, this came. Sorry. Sorry. I would just like to suggest and hope that when you consider whatever's going on the walls that it comes from our student population. Okay. Anybody else? All right. All in favor of accepting the project, please raise your hand. Opposed? Abstaining? Yeah, I'm going to abstain. I didn't vote on any of these things, and I'm not going to get caught on the way out. Thank you, Mr. McLaughlin. The next item is considered the adoption of the resolution to identify hazardous conditions within two miles of the school campus. Ms. Halsey, I move that we approve. the document reflecting hazardous conditions within school areas. Second. Motion made and seconded. Are there questions? Do we need to see a

128presentation? I think we've covered this previously. Any questions? I do have one question. I live along 123. I listen to my neighbors complain about 123, especially near the high school and Bowie. And I'm just wondering if we are working on exploring putting a school zone down 123 in that area as well, like we have in this segment, even though not all those schools are technically on 123. I wonder if that would provide a little bit more safety for our students. I watch the cross-country students run across 123 every morning, and I'd love to continue to watch them safely run across 123 in the morning. I agree. It's it's difficult for us. We're working with TxDOT. We're not working with the city on this stretch of road and so We have reached out for the last

129three years. We've also had some assistance from the city But I think what's really triggering it is technically there's no actual school on that section of 123 and so feet are being drug on higher powers that I do. I wonder because I've driven by Canyon Lake High School, which has parking lots along a road that has the school zone in much the same way that our high school parking lot is right there. I don't know all the intricacies. I know we're dealing with TxDOT instead of the city who might be more willing to help. If there's anything that the community can do to support this, I know that I have a bunch of neighbors who would be happy to help. Awesome. I will definitely reach out to you when we continue to fight with TechStop.

130Since it came up, this is my 13th year of having a cross-country runner at the high school. I don't know what that means, but I really think that that's a two-fold issue. First, There's nowhere for them to run and I don't I know we're gonna get Potentially some bond money at the end of this but while we're building the natatorium I mean it looks like there's like some room you could do something over there I would be excited about options for that and second for crossing 123 no matter how fast they're going it would be outstanding to have a pedestrian overpass when I was in Vancouver last summer at least everywhere so i'm sure they're expensive but they're not cost i mean they're not They're not ridiculously expensive, and it's a lot better than a

131tragedy someday with a student heading back to Bowie or heading to the high school. At whatever speed we ask them to go, they might disregard it, just like they disregard that light. So I don't know mechanically how we get that approved by TxDOT or what partners we need from the city or county, but if you all find that out, we're probably the people to try to find those partners. Absolutely. I do want to make sure to note that we don't condone any crossing on that part of 123. We do provide bus service for those kiddos, except for cross country because that's extracurricular outside of route time. So any students that are crossing during school times, they do have a bus available for them. I think that's true, but I also, I mean, I really like

132the idea of the overpass, too, because, I mean, at the football game two weeks ago, there were families and people crossing there, which is great. I think encouraging people to walk from the neighborhood is super, but it lets them make it safer for them. I do have a question, though. It does seem to me that we're building a sidewalk out in front of the high school. It looked, when I was doing drop-off the other day, like that space is dug for that? That is correct. On Rattler? Yeah. That's correct. So will that go all the way around? Will it go around the corner? It'll go to the end of Rattler, to the corner of Rattler and Old Bastrop. And it'll run all the way into the guard shack entrance. Okay, but will it turn the

133corner and go back to the natatorium? It'll go back towards the natatorium. Okay, so that's good, because that provides more. Space because I see that also the mountain bike kids out there all the time So, mr. Adana, yeah, I just want to add to the chorus of my colleagues And in addition to that whether it's a pedestrian crossing obviously, I know we don't encourage folks to cross there But there is a crosswalk. So just based on like pedestrian philosophy. If there's a crosswalk, then clearly I'm allowed to cross there. Or so I would assume. But in addition to that, I understand that doing those types of investments could then affect our hazardous school zone calculation and reimbursements. And the only reason why I say that is not to say I'm not in support of this.

134I just want us to all be cognizant that if we lose funding to provide transportation. I would be interested in staff calculating that into the overall budget. I know our neighbors up the road and I got to get a dig in because of how frustrating it is to watch them. But they've said because of changes in state law, they can no longer provide bus service. And that is a lie. They are choosing not to provide bus service because they've lost reimbursement of those routes. So as we make these decisions and have those conversations, know that I better not hear that from staff saying we can't provide a bus route just because we lost reimbursement of those funds. So what's good to know or interesting to know about the transportation allotment or transportation funding from TEA

135with hazardous route services, we are only allowed to claim up to 10% of our total overall mileage. So let's just say we ran an average of a million miles for the year of 2030. We would only be able to claim up to 10% of that for hazardous mileage So if you have more than that 10% of hazardous routes You're only getting reimbursed for up to 10% of it I hear you, and it's just under the assumption that if we are getting reimbursed for this area, given 123 and the safety issues, I'm fine with pedestrian improvements, even if it does change our calculation. But again, as I've watched our neighbors up the road in Hays say, oh, sorry, we can't, we are legally bound to not provide a bus route that is not accurate by any

136stretch of the imagination. So again, as we improve this, look forward to that. also willing to fund it locally to keep our students safe. Awesome. Questions, conversation? Seeing none. I just want to say thank you for all the work you do. I've said repeatedly that I'm so glad that this is not stuff that I have to figure out. Thank you. Again, thanks for a great start to the school year. All in favor, please raise your hand. Opposed? That motion carries 7-0. Thank you. At this time, I've been advised by our council that I need to move item 11C up for action now before we... Take a motion on moving into closed session. So that item is 11 C discussion action regarding the retention of independent legal counsel to advise the board regarding the recommendation of

137the board's designee in the matter of San Marcos CISD versus Anthony Williams pursuant to section 21.207 B1 of the Texas Education Code. So moved. I'll second. Any questions? Any questions? Concerns? Seeing none. All in favor please raise your hand. That motion also carries 7-0. And then I am going to move that we take a brief adjournment, and then we reconvene in an executive session in six minutes. So can we just move to adjourn into executive session? Yes. I'll also move. Second. Motion made. Seconded. Any questions? All in favor, please raise your hand. Thank you. All right, it is 927. The board is reconvening from closed session to take action if necessary on items discussed in closed session. Item A, discussion and action to accept, reject, or modify the board designee's recommendation in the matter of

138San Marcos D.I.S.D. versus Anthony Williams pursuant to section 21.207B1 of the Texas Education Code. Is there a motion? President Halsey? Go ahead. Thank you, Ms. Halsey. A motion to accept the board designee's recommendation in the matter of San Marcos CISD versus Anthony Williams. Is there a second? Second. Motion made and motion seconded. Are there any questions or any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion as presented, please raise your hand. All opposed? Abstaining? One abstention. Thank you. The second item is discussion and action to non-renew or renew the term employment contract of Anthony Williams. Is there a motion? President Halsey? Yes. Thank you, Ms. Halsey. A motion to approve the non-renewal of the term employment contract of Anthony Williams. Is there a second? I'll second. Motion made and seconded. Are there any questions

139or any discussion? All in favor, please raise your hand. Opposed? Abstaining? Thank you very much. Now at this time we are going to move back into the item that we had tabled for the end of the meeting which is the consideration and possible action on compensation for the 2025-2026 school year item and item 7 under items for action number 7 7 Ms. Halsey. Go ahead. Thank you, President Halsey. So I'm under the assumption that Mr. McLaughlin's original motion still stands. Obviously, I motion that we postpone this item until the end of tonight's agenda. And so taking up that item again, I am going to ask if Mr. McLaughlin is amenable to a friendly amendment that would, if you'll give me one second, disperse The administrative and professional amount in option one, the $119,301 across the

140following three employee categories, administrative professional, clerical professional, and auxiliary. So just to clarify, that would be option one, except taking that third row. It'd be spreading it equally across every employee in all three of those categories. So essentially dividing 119,301 by all three of those employment categories. I'll accept the amendment to my motion, but there was a second. Also accept. I'll accept it. Okay. So can you just clarify for that? Can we get the slide back on the, please? Are you asking me, Ms. Halsey? I want to see this slide, and I want to clarify. So it will go just to those three categories? Yes. As of right now, there are $119,301 encumbered for administrative slash professional. Yes. So I don't know how many positions there are, but for the sake of argument, I'm going

141to say 10, right? So instead of dividing the $119,301 by 10, say as you add clerical, professional, and auxiliary, we are now dividing it by 100. And so that $119,000 is going to be divided equally if this motion passes. across all of those employment categories equally. Which effectively means administrative professionals as well as hourly? Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. Are there other questions on that? Can we share an update prior to the vote? Yes. Okay. So after talking to both HR and finance, I put together a summary to better explain what everything looks like. So currently we have a bucket of money, and that's the support staff retention allotment, which is SSRA. That bucket of money is $284,572, which is the pass-through money. Okay? And so looking at employees who have not received a raise as

142of right now, we have 211 teachers who are one to two years, 132 aides. These are all approximate numbers. 356 auxiliary staff, so an equivalent of around 699 employees who have not received a raise. So if we use that bucket of money distributed evenly to those 699 employees, they would receive a pay increase of approximately $405. That's spread out evenly. Yeah. All right. If the only group that would not receive a raise would be 200 employees who are considered administrators or fall under that administrator scale. Alright, if you give them that same 405 raise it would cost the district around $81,000 so you can give every district employee a raise and it would cost $81,000 again The SSRA money cannot be used for that 200 admin group that would come out of district expense I

143just wanted to throw that number out there just for your information So you can give every employer raise in that category and it wouldn't cost the district any money. It would be the pass-through money from the SSRA. So I just wanted to put that all together because I think sometimes all the numbers, all the people get confusing. I wanted to provide that summary to better explain it and I hope that helped a little bit. Thank you. Yes, it does. Personally, I prefer that. Route if we do the teachers the aides and the auxilary staff It doesn't cost us anything. I don't think I'm okay with taking a leap into any extra money right now as much as I'd love to but I think that my focus is more so on the teachers the aides and

144the staff that has not received a raise already and We appreciate our administration all of those professionals, but right now if this doesn't cost us anything That's the route that I'm comfortable taking So just to clarify at least what my assumption is, we are still staying within the Model 1 0% that is still a zero cost to the district. We're just taking that third administrative professional category and splitting it equally across three categories versus the one. So there's still no cost. And I appreciate the clarification, Andrew, but what I'm, I guess, working with here, because it's not in the packet, is what's in front of me. I'm comfortable voting on that with those calculations in front of us. This other money or whatever that is, like if we got to come back in October, we

145can come back in October. But I'm going off of what the models are in front of me. That's the way I understood your motion. Okay. Thank you for the help with the clarification. Any other questions? Are we ready to take a vote? Just to clarify. Yeah. Just to clarify for myself before we vote, the distribution would be. equally under to all including administrative and professional yes so again taking the 119 301 and whatever that number is across all ftes for those three categories so dividing it by 688 or whatever mr put on this just said so i don't need the number andrew i think thank you though but again just we're dividing it across all of the FTEs across those three categories. Just to clarify, we have to spend the $284,572. That's the pass-through money.

146And so that's where the confusion, I was confused as well, sir. So that's where I want to just be clear that the pass-through money we have to spend is a $284,572, just to be clear. Where is that on this sheet? So if you look right here on Model 2, the bottom or where it says support service retention allotment go all the way down to the right-hand side the last column it's at 284 572 so that's why I wanted to clear that up is that's the amount of money we have to spend it's the pass-through money it's not district funds general fund so what I'm telling you mr. Arredondo is that you have more money to distribute to our employees more than 119 so I guess then What is frustrating for me as a trustee is

147my previous two motions, including Model 1, that talks about $227,661. There's just a lot of confusion up here of what I can actually spend, correct? So in that, I'm still going to go off of Model 1 because that's the motion, that's the second, that's what I'm amending. Can I just add the money that you're talking about, Denise, to the 119.301 and then divide it across the three categories? Right, for a total of the 284. Is that what you're saying? Yes. Yes. And that is still a zero cost to the district proposal. Your administrators can't use SSR money. Administrative personnel are not administrators. Right. That's what he's proposing. So to be clear, on these graphs, what we're taking out with this proposal, the 284.572 is any adjustments made. So on these documents, the Model 1, the

1480%, where you see administrative professional adjustments, that is adjustments to current employees who are on the administrative professional pay scale. So anyone getting a raise if model one is approved right now without the amendment of dividing it Are any administrators in this room getting a raise there will be some employees on the administrative professional scale in this room Not in this room. No, so it's not so certain I guess what I'm confused on is y'all are talking about we can't pay administrators I get that but that's not even what we're talking about right now so Again, I hear you say I can't spend the $232,000 or whatever that is. So, again, I guess I'm still looking at Model 1. I was looking at the $119,301, but if you said there's more money there, then add

149that to, if that's okay with Mr. McLaughlin. If it's not, that's fine. We can do that separate, but add that to the $119,301 and still divide it equally across the three categories. I don't know if that is acceptable to Mr. McLaughlin. I'm happy to have that conversation. I guess I don't have a clear understanding. I thought I had a clear understanding. I'm thinking less than I do. But I understood the adjustments column and the general pay increase column in Model 1 to be money we're spending. So that would be $169,000. And then I'm told there's actually a bucket of 284 that's available. And so am I reading that right now? So I've underspent by the difference between 284 and 169. So I've got $115,000 more than what Model 1 provides. is not spending all of

150the $284,000. We need direction from you all. That's why we're asking you all. How do we disperse the $284,000 for SSRA? Why don't we give that direction and then have it come back? I mean, we're already over, right? And I don't want to have an unintended consequence of, oh, we did that on the fly. Somebody got $20,000. Like, I don't, you know, good for them. But I'd rather it be a little more fleshed out so that we all know what we're voting for. Agreed. Okay. Is there a deadline on? Issuing this money out? I don't believe so, but TRA started in September. Which is attached. Our teachers are receiving that HB2. It's already attached to their pay. It's just the other teachers, right, that are anticipating or asking what's going to happen with their pay.

151Do you need more time? I mean, is what we're saying clear to you? If you are not telling us exactly how to use the $284,000, then we need more time. What I'm understanding is that I think where we are is that we would like to spend the $284,000 evenly among all of the employees who are not already receiving a raise through the teacher pass-through. So the one- and two-year teachers that didn't receive a raise, the SLPs, as well as the hourly, as well as auxiliary, as well as administrative professionals. except for those 200 employees who are currently categorized as administrators. Correct. They are accepted from that total pool. Is that not what you presented us? Yes, ma'am. Divided evenly, because we cannot pay those administrators out of that pool of money. Yes, ma'am. So to

152clarify, the 284, 572, there's 899 employees who are not receiving a raise. Of those 899, 200 of them are admin, so exclude that group. so 699 are employees who are not receiving a raise but are eligible to receive this money through ssra right so the total bucket is 284 572. if you divide that money by the 699 employees you're roughly giving 405 dollars to each of those employees yes the ones who are eligible to the ones who are eligible to receive that is what i believe the most terrible star But I believe that's what the motion represents. Well, let's just vote the motion. And I think we all then are in. So we're done with it. I mean, they've got enough direction. And if at some point in the future we can look at providing

153additional raises to some staff who've already received raises and or staff members who haven't, I think we would like to put that on the future agenda, but not tonight. I think the only thing is your motion only. It only talked about the $119,000. I'm going to argue that my amendment for 119.301 divided across three. I'm going to argue that my 119.301 is now the 280. 284.572. The available SSR, I think the available SSRA money will be distributed evenly to all eligible 699 employees. Yes. Excluding admin, if that's the route you want to take. Correct. Right, because they are not eligible. Motion made. So I'll accept that amendment as revised. I will second it. All right. Any other questions? All in favor, please raise your hand. All opposed? Okay. Thanks, everybody. Is there a motion to

154adjourn? So moved. Motion made by Ms. Kane, seconded by Ms. Lopez. All in favor, please raise your hands. Thank you, everybody. We appreciate you.