School Board Meeting - September 5, 2017

001Good evening. The board now reconvenes this meeting of the Plano ISD Board of Trustees in open session at 7 o'clock p.m. on September 5, 2017 at the Plano ISD Administration Building. I'm Missy Bender, President of the Plano ISD Board of Trustees, and on the board's behalf, I wish to extend a warm welcome to all who are present and to our web and video viewers. We will conduct our meeting focusing on the district's two major goals. Number one, ensure continued improvement in student learning. And number two, ensure efficient use of resources. Let me start by introducing my fellow trustees and staff. Seated to my left are Dr. Brian Bingley, our superintendent of schools, Sarah Bonser, our interim deputy superintendent, Nancy Humphrey, board secretary, and trustee Tammy Richards. Seated to my right, our Board Vice President David

002Stolle, Trustee Greg Meyer, Trustee Dr. Yoram Solomon, Trustee Angela Powell, and Executive Assistant to the Superintendent, Board of Trustees Denise Gillespie. I would also like to introduce and welcome our two new cabinet members. Please stand so we can all see you from behind. Dr. Beth Brockman. Our Assistant Superintendent for Employee Services, this is her first meeting with us in this role. And Dr. Katrina Hasley, our new Assistant Superintendent for Academic Services. So we welcome both of you to our meeting. Now at this time, Trustee Angela Powell will share an inspirational message. Ms. Powell. Thank you, Missy. Let us recognize the moment of silence to keep in our sincere thoughts of all those impacted by Hurricane Harvey. As the floodwaters start to recede, we will truly see the magnitude of the damage and the long process

003of recovery will start. There is no textbook way to respond to disasters of such magnitude, but there is one thing which is always necessary, love of neighbor. Ronald Reagan once said that we can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone. Over this last terrible week, we have seen this philosophy in action as neighbors help neighbors and strangers help strangers. We must likewise help those communities impacted by Harvey and those who have come to seek shelter in our area. We must also consistently show the same spirit to our students, teachers, administrators who rely on us for guidance and support. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Powell. Now our student greeters, located I think to my left, are going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. And greeters, if you would please come to the front of

004the room to lead the pledge and then remain here until prompted to introduce yourselves to the board. After the introductions, then you'll be free to leave. So come right up here. 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. So would you all greet us and tell us your name and where you go to school. Hi everyone, I'm Zoe Barth. I go to Plano Senior High School. I'm the captain of the Plano Junior D.T. and I would like to welcome you all. Hello, my name is Jamie Friedman. I am the captain of the Plano West at Plano Senior High School. Hi, I'm Kinsey Holstead, and I'm head captain of the Plano East Cheer. Hi, I'm Abby

005Dalton, and I'm the captain of the Plano East School of Music. Hi, I'm Emily Lavia, and I'm head captain of the Plano West Cheer Team. Hi, I'm Lexi Anderson, and I'm captain of the Plano West Royale. Thank you so much for coming today. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. I hope all of you have a great season and a great school year. Thank you. Thank you. And now we'll move to the recognition part of the agenda. Carl Oliver, our Assistant Superintendent for Government, Community, and Planning Initiatives, is made aware of student guests prior to the meeting. Ms. Oliver? Do we have any student guests this evening? I have not been notified of other guests attending. I would like to tell you before everybody is gone, although I think they have exited, I wanted to

006thank Susan Hayes, the coordinator of special projects, for helping us to assemble our student readers tonight and those getting recognition. So thank you. We appreciate that. It's great to see students. Absolutely. Keep reminding you why we're here. And we're proud to spotlight the program this evening. So let's give them one more round of applause. Ms. Bender, could we ask that item B actually be pulled from this evening's agenda and likely that we'll bring that back in the October board meeting, the PTA recognition. So we will bring forward the PTA recognition at a future meeting. We also have a special announcement of achievement tonight. The board would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Plano East Senior High School Band, which has been named the 2017 Earl D. Irons Program of Distinction by Phi Beta

007Mu, International Bandmasters Fraternity. Presentation of this award will be made to the band director in December. We're just letting you know now what you have to look forward to in December. The Plano East Band program is under the direction of Avelio Villarreal, with the assistance of John Brennan and Lee Redfern, and is part of the Fine Arts and Special Academics Programs Department under Director of Fine Arts Kathy Cuttis. The Plano East Band notably also received the Sousa Foundation Suddler Flag of Honor in 2016 and the Suddler Shield Award in 2013. Please join me in applauding this award-winning program. Now we'll move to the regular public comment portion of our agenda. For the public comment portion of our agenda, the board has public comment cards that are accepted from 6 to 7 p.m. Cards are not

008accepted after 7 p.m. and are not transferable to other parties or speakers. All cards were collected and given to Carla Oliver, our representative of the communications department, who will present the speakers during this time. Ms. Oliver, do we have any speakers for public comment? We do have one that is an agenda topic. Okay. So before we proceed with the gender-related topic of discussion for public comment tonight, there's some language that I'll read first that will guide this part of the agenda. Pursuant to board policies BED legal, BED local, and BED exhibit, the board may place reasonable restraints on the number, length, and frequency of presentations, so long as it does not unfairly discriminate among speakers based upon their viewpoint. The board is not authorized to discuss or act on the public's comments or complaints if

009the subject is not on the agenda. If a member of the public or the board inquires about a subject for which notice has not been given, the board may only make a statement of specific factual information, recite existing policy in response to the inquiry, or refer the person to a staff member for more information or assistance. If the subject of the public comment is already on the agenda for the meeting, the board may invite the speaker to stay until the board reaches that topic on the agenda. 30 minutes have been allotted to hear persons who desire to make comments to the board. Persons who wish to participate in this portion of the meeting shall complete the appropriate public comment form before the meeting begins and indicate the topic about which they wish to speak. No

010presentation shall exceed three minutes. If you are not finished speaking at the end of your three minutes, I will interrupt you so that we can move to the next person. Divigations of more than five persons shall appoint one person to present their views before the board. And finally, pursuant to Texas Government Code Sections 551.074 and 551.0821, the board will not permit the presentation of personally identifiable information regarding a student and will not discuss the appointment, evaluation, employment, reassignment, duties, discipline, or dismissal of a public officer or employee or to hear a complaint or charge against an officer or employee. pursuant to Texas Government Code Section 551.074. Should a speaker wish to address one of these issues, they must do so through the appropriate grievance policies, which are FNG local, DGBA local, or GF local. We

011can now pass out the test, because we're going to have a test on all of that. Let's see what we all remember. Okay. Ms. Oliver, would you please call the speaker to the podium? Of course. Please forgive any mispronunciation of names. Would Michelle Rowletter, our row leader, please come forward to this podium, and I'll hand you the mic for your comments. Okay, so while you're moving to the podium Nancy Will you keep the time for three minutes? So what Nancy will do quick? Okay, a little nervous. So I'm sorry. It's okay Okay, I I'm just I was at the board meeting when you did last semester when you discussed the changing the calendar So I'm I am sort of against rolling back to the date earlier. I've been here In planning for a long for

01220 years. I've been in PISD parapro ten and we started right when they did change it to being the last week in August. And it's been great for us. And I have reasons are this. I have concern. One is August being the hottest month generally except for this year. And the impact it has on teachers and students, especially when you're talking elementary school, being able to go out for recess. Also, I've picked up at elementary school for the last 10 years at 3 o'clock and it's really hot and there's that. Okay, then also the impact, I have a student who's in band. So the impact on earlier starting dates for band football and other sports. I'm also concerned, originally it was changed by the legislature because of the economic impact. and I haven't heard a

013lot of discussion about I haven't personally you may have discussed it when I wasn't here but if there if there's been an analysis of the impact on our local economy and if there has many been any analysis of the impact on PISD budget of keeping the school open in August instead of May then also I was wondering, I know that talking about the even split semesters and is there evidence out there that says it's better for students to have that? And if you do have that, I'd love to see that published for the community to see. And then also, if there's been any discussion of whether it would be better to add minutes to the day instead of rolling back the start date. All right, thank you. Since this item is on the agenda, you'll

014be, you know, I hope you can stay and listen to the conversation. And I've made notes of the items that you mentioned. I know she's not noticing that I'm talking to her. But I will try to get your questions addressed. Okay, we'll now address the consent agenda, which includes personnel recommendations, minutes of previous meetings, bids, purchases, and construction items. Are there any requests to remove an item or items from the consent agenda for further discussion? Do I have a motion to approve as presented? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. All right, item 8A. This is a resolution adopting a 2017-18 tax rate. At this time, I'll invite Steve Fortenberry, our chief financial officer, to present information about the proposed tax rate, and I'll

015just recognize that this will be the last time that he will present this kind of proposed tax rate in Plano ISD because he's announced his retirement. So, Steve, make it a good one. Thank you. This makes about 31 or two of these that I've done. I'm a lot older than I look. And I look pretty old. I look pretty old anyway. This is always a favorite part of the job too, with the proposed tax rate. I would like to walk you through, this is pretty much the culmination of the budget process for 2016 and 17. Back in May we published the notice on the budget proposed tax rate. We held that hearing which was required by law on June the 6th And at the June 6th budget we adopted the June 6th meeting we adopted

016the budget Actually, that's a typo. It should be for the 1718 budget We did wait as we always do until July 25th or thereabouts when we received certified values Up until that point we've been using preliminary projected values from the appraisal district. We sold our bonds on August the 3rd. As you recall, back in June, we discussed what we would do with our bond sale, and it was decided we'd keep the tax rate for debt the same as it has been, maximize our bond sale in order to take advantage of low interest rates. And so we did that on August the 3rd. So following all of that summer activity, tonight is the night that we do ask you to adopt the... tax rate for 2017-18. And the proposed tax rate for next year is the

017same rate as this year, both for the M&O and INS. The maintenance and operations rate that we proposed is $1.17. The INS rate is 26.9 cents for a total of $1.439. There we go. This gives you a historical perspective of property tax rates. We start with 06 because that was before the tax rate compression when the state legislature changed the funding law and bought down the tax rate. Back then our total tax rate was over $1.73. That was phased in over two years, so you see a small drop-off in 07 and then a larger drop-off in 08. So we rocked along. Pretty much with the same the same M&O rate we had a bond election in 08 and that we did phase in an increase in the rates temporarily there for debt service in 2014

018we had our tax ratification election so you see a increase from $1.37 to $1.45 that's been our peak since 2007 and we lowered it slightly and 2015 and 2016. This will mark the third consecutive year if you adopt the rate as proposed tonight that the rate has been $1.439. The taxes on average residents will go up until last year because of that drop off in the tax rate from 06. Even though the average price of a home has gone up substantially, the amount of taxes paid on that average residence were actually less until 2017 than they were in 2006. This year there's growth of almost $370 in the taxes on the average residence. charged by the school district. As we get into this a little bit more you'll see that the vast majority of that

019in fact 317 of the $370 increase is actually the recapture payment that we have to pay to the state of Texas. Steve can I ask you a quick question? Sure. What is that average residence value for this latest year? The market value of the average residence is $361,600. and then the homestead exemptions and other exemptions for the few that might have disabled veteran and so forth, that exemption average is $38,000. So the net taxable value for the average residence is $323,621. Thank you. But the market value is $361,634. Thank you. As everyone knows, the prices have really gone up in the last four or five years. With our rate, we still rank next to the lowest in Collin County. And so we show a chart here from high to low. And that's assuming we don't

020have the average home price in each one of these districts. So we just said, what would the taxes be on a $250,000 home in each of these districts with the standard homestead exemption? And so despite the increase, we still are the next to the lowest in Collin County. One question that we always are asked, even when I go see a doctor, he asks me with all the growth in property values, why can't you lower the tax rate? I say with all the growth in your insurance, why can't you lower your rate as a doctor? And then I hope he's not performing surgery on me after we're finished with that. The short answer to that question is recapture. And we've discussed that repeatedly at these meetings, but for those who are tuning in for the first

021time, it's always good information to know. This chart shows three different tax rate scenarios, and we're really just focusing on the maintenance and operation portion of the tax with this slide. If you start on the bar chart on the left, for the year that we just finished, fiscal year 17, The M&O rate was $1.17. We collected for M&O purposes a total of $516.9 million. $413 million of that stayed here in Plano to help fund our budget. The other almost $104 million went to the state of Texas as recapture. For next year, if we keep the same rate as we're proposing, we do get a slight bump, about 1.1%. in that red portion which we get to keep locally. So that goes to about 417.6 million. But the recapture portion goes up by almost 51 million

022from 103.9 million to 154.8. So the recapture payment for this coming year is almost 49% higher than it was in 2016-17. If we wanted to just collect the same, and actually we would like to just collect the same, 516.9 million. So if we were to do that, we could lower the rate actually by about 12 cents to $1.49. The total levy to the taxpayers would be the same as it was last year, but you see on the chart that we would still owe the state about 128 million, which means that... would actually suffer a reduction in what we get to keep locally of 28 and a half million dollars if we were to do that. So in a nutshell, that kind of answers a question of why can't we just lower the rate and the

023answer to that is because the recapture as our values go up, so does our recapture obligation to the state. Steve, what's year over year inflation roughly? Roughly 2%. I think it's range maybe from one and a half to two and a half, but it's pretty much in that 2% range. So with a 1.1% growth in what we keep here locally, we're not keeping up with the inflation. Right. Yeah, we gave about a 3% pay raise, basically, and the $4 million or so would not have funded quite half of that. This gives you a little bit of detail about how as our property values have gone up the recapture just goes hand in hand with it since 2014 and that was the first full year when we had the tax ratification election and our rate went

024to a dollar seventeen I use that year so that there's The tax rate has been the same in all of those years. So you get an apples to apples comparison. We've had an increase of 40% in our taxable appraised value in the district. So it's grown from $36.4 billion to $51.1 billion for this tax year. The M&O tax rate, as I said, has stayed exactly the same all five of those years. Basically as you multiply the tax rate times the value your M&O collections also increase 40 percent from 409.5 million to this coming year 572.5 million. So it's a 40 percent increase in the tax collections. As far as the amount that we get to retain locally, it's increased less than 11 percent over those four years so an average of about 2.5% per year.

025The two years, the early years, it did increase. In 2015, the state raised the basic allotment by $90. For some districts, that meant the state gave them more money. For Plano, it meant they cut back how much we had to pay them. And then again in 2016, the state increased the basic allotment by $100. They did not increase it for the past year and they have not increased it for FY18 and they are not increasing it for 2018-19. So we will have basically four consecutive years with no increase accounting for any inflation from the state in terms of the basic allotment. So the amount that we get to retain goes up by a little less than 11% over the five year period. Meanwhile, the amount that we pay in recapture to the state, I never

026understood until I watched a hockey game why y'all call that a hockey stick. But it does look like one going from the left to right. There's been a 384% increase in the recapture tax that we pay to the state. So it's grown from 32 million in 2013-14 to almost 155 million this current year. And our projections for next year are that it will grow to about 204 million, so another $50 million increase in 2018-19. So when you look at those last two charts, even if you assume over the last five years a roughly 2% rate of inflation, sitting at our growth is 11% so sitting right roughly at what inflation would have been over the last five years and the state's portion of our tax dollars has increased by 384%. This is really just another

027visual with that. If you look at the blue and the red areas of that graph combined that represents the total tax collections. from our taxpayers in Plano for maintenance and operations. And you can see that the blue portion that we retain did increase from FY14 to 15 and a little bit to 16 and then it's dropped back down since then. And meanwhile, the portion in red, which is the recapture portion, just continues to grow and be a much larger portion of the total. Another way of looking at that that I think is very interesting is how much of that $1.17 tax rate are we keeping and how much is the state taking? In 2014, of the $1.17, we kept $1.7.9, almost $1.08. The state took a little over nine cents. And kind of silently over

028the four years since then, the state portion has grown by over 22 cents, which means ours has dropped by over 22 cents. That's really what the taxparency effort was all about, was letting the taxpayers know that the state is taking a much larger portion of their tax bill each and every year. As far as the dollars to the average homeowner, another good data point. In 2013-14, the average homeowner in Plano paid $222 in recapture taxes, and for this year it will be $1,023, so an increase of over $800 in that period of time. So tonight, as we ask you to adopt the tax rate, you can kind of see the dilemma that we're in. Just a little bit of a... information on the state property tax code laws. There's four different rates in state law.

029One that you hear pretty often and it really plays a more important role for the cities and counties. That's the effective rate. That's the tax rate that's necessary to produce the same amount of taxes as last year from properties that were on the roll in both years. So it excludes any new improvements and it ignores payments on new bonds. That effective rate for us was $1.333. School districts have another rate they have to calculate. It's a rate necessary to maintain the same level of M&O revenue. for pupil and to pay our debt service obligations. That rate's almost $1.41. Our rollback rate is $1.439. That's the actual rate from last year, and that's the rate that we're proposing tonight. Steve? Yes, sir? Just one point, too. The effective rate does not include the increase in recapture

030either, correct? That's correct. it acts like we're getting to keep all that and not send it to the state. Yeah, so if somebody looks at the effective rate and they say, well, just to make the same amount of money as last year, you need a rate of $1.33. I don't understand why you're not taxing $1.33. Well, the answer is because recapture is not included in this. Right. That's why we're different from cities. When people look at the effective tax rate, it's not meaningful here. I think a lot of our elected officials from other entities are starting to understand that, but they've dealt with just that effective rate. If their property values go up 10% and they keep the same rate, their revenue will increase 10%. And they keep it. And they get to keep it.

031And so they can drop their rate slightly, take credit for dropping the rate, but they're still collecting more money in many instances. We don't have that same option as school districts. As a school district, we don't have that same option. This is one of the most, now that I'm near retirement, I can say this is one of the most irritating portions of the law because it is so misleading. But you are required as you adopt the tax rate tonight, you have to use specific language. It was included in your board agenda item in the board book. Basically, as you make that motion, you'll need to say, I move that the property tax rate be increased, even though you're not increasing it. I move that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of a

032tax rate of $1.439, which is effectively a 7.95% increase in the tax rate. We tried to get that language changed in this session, but we're not successful. The resolution that you have in your packet has to include certain language and it has to be in a font type that's larger than the rest of the document. So you'll see that in your resolution. A big statement that says this tax rate will raise more taxes for maintenance and operations than last year's tax rate. And then again, I love this one. If the tax rate exceeds the effective maintenance and operations rate, you have to use the following statement. The tax rate will effectively be raised by 7.95% and will raise taxes for maintenance and operation on a $100,000 home by approximately $0. I just thought that was

033kind of a strange thing. You have to tell people to raise their taxes by approximately $0. on the $100,000 home. The website has to also include that language, so we'll be posting that later this week following the vote. And last but not least, Tax Code Section 2605B requires a 60% majority vote to adopt a rate that exceeds... the tax rate number two, three or four slides ago. That's the rate necessary to maintain the same level of MNO revenue for people in pay debt service. And so with that 60% majority requirement, there'll need to be at least five votes in favor tonight. So with that, we recommend that you adopt the resolution and the tax rates that have been proposed. Thank you, Mr. Fortenberry. Now I'd like to call upon Board Secretary Nancy Humphrey to read

034the resolution regarding adoption of the proposed tax rate. All right. Bear with me. Whereas on June 6, 2017, the Board of Trustees of the Plano Independent School District met an open session to hold a public meeting to discuss the budget and proposed tax rate for the 2017-2018 year, after which the budget was adopted. And whereas a tax rate for the year 2017 is required by the provisions of Section 26.05 of the Property Tax Code. And, whereas the total tax rate consists of two separate rates, a debt service rate and a maintenance and operations rate, and, whereas due to an increase of $50.9 million in state recapture taxes, the district finds it necessary to maintain the exact same maintenance and operations rate. the previous year in order to meet budgetary needs and whereas the district is

035nevertheless required by section 26.05 of the property tax code to state that and this is in all caps, this tax rate will raise more taxes for maintenance and operations than last year's tax rate, and the tax rate will effectively be raised by 7.95%, and will raise taxes for maintenance and operations on a $100,000 home by approximately $0. Now, therefore, it is hereby resolved by the trustees of the Plano Independent School District the tax rate for the year 2017. 2018 be set at a dollar forty three nine per $100 valuation and in parentheses that's a dollar seventeen designated to maintenance and operations and twenty and twenty six point nine cents designated to debt service the said actual rate being the same as previous year's actual rate and further that taxes are hereby levied on all properties

036now or here and after on the roles of said district for the year 2017-2018 adopted this fifth day of September 2017 by the Board of Trustees of the Plano Independent School District all right Thank You Nancy do I have a motion I move that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of a tax rate of $1.439, which is effectively a 7.95% increase in the tax rate. Do I have a second? Any discussion? Before we vote, I just jotted down a couple of thoughts that I want to share. The tax code language that Nancy just shared that requires... school boards to to you know convey to the public in this setting is necessary by law but it is not sufficient to accurately and transparently communicate the circumstances surrounding the unique requirements upon school districts

037for funding public education and the state's other funding of its state budget That's my comment. I find it ironic that we have to read all of that crap when we asked the state our state representatives to show on tax statements the difference between what stays here locally and what goes to the state in recapture. We got absolutely, not our local representatives, but the legislature in general, we got no help at all. They had no interest. They had no interest in putting anything on a tax bill that makes them look bad, but they don't mind passing laws that requires us to read these statements talking about tax increases that result in zero dollars staying in this district. In fact, Negative. Less dollars. Yes. Yeah. Less dollars. Well, one of the points that, Steve, you always eloquently

038say this, but, you know, you showed a slide that had five different years with a steady tax rate, but the amount we keep here from 2014 was about nine cents. I mean, sorry, goes back to recapture, is about nine cents. But in this fifth year after that, the 2017, We pay in almost 32 cents. So if you calculate that that's a silent tax increase of 22% The taxpayers did not vote on my commentary I You know as mr. Ford very pointed out. This is a this actually putting the budget to bed. So if I can end on a High note perhaps one thing I will point out for those who have followed low these many months You know, we in Plano ISD, we spend slightly more per student than the state average on instruction and

039instruction related issues. And we spend less in every other category. So you know we for the last few months when we use the term value it's typically been around property and I guess I want to end by also saying and by the way this budget Steve if I'm not wrong slightly increases the percent of dollars going to instruction very slight, but it yet again increases that so I guess I'll end by saying there's another point of value there and what we value is what we have to deliver for 55,000 kids every day. So thank you on behalf of many of those who helped make that happen. I've got two comments I'd like to make. First, although I'm new to this body, The leadership that we've gotten from Steve Fortenberry over the last 30 plus years

040has been fantastic. And so Steve, thank you for that and you will be missed. In terms of the tax rate, we all need to act. And I'm not just saying we as trustees, I'm not saying we as Plano ISD parents as I am, we as Texans need to act. Before the next session occurs in 2019, we need to be harassing, and I use that term deliberately, our representatives, our senators, our governor, our lieutenant governor, to fix this mess. Because that's what it is. It is a mess. When we have to raise taxes to cover an additional state payment, that's a state tax. Simple. And so we need to act. We need to be bothering them starting now, not waiting until, you know, the next session starts. We need to be on their cases. Okay? So

041I ask for your help in that, and I hope we'll have it. So that's my two cents. I'll get off my soapbox now. Okay. All in favor of the motion, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Okay, item 8B, 2017-18 district initiatives. Sarah Bonser, interim deputy superintendent, will introduce the discussion along with Dr. Bingley. I think he'll kick it off regarding the 2017-18 initiatives. Dr. Bingley. Okay, I'll kick it off at its very foundation, maybe. Right, Leslie? There we go. Let's go ahead. We'll start with... Really what's in front of us our mission obviously is to provide an excellent education for each student But embedded within the vision underneath that is really what that means for us, and I think that's pretty important Because when you look at that we talked about making sure that

042our kids can adapt they can collaborate they can Really be creative in their thinking We have always been a district that's going to be a whole lot more about more than just any one test score So what we'd like to do now is Bonser is going to share a couple of operational things that connect to our school board goals and then we're going to jointly talk about some of our district initiatives for the coming school year. Thank you Dr. Bingley, appreciate that. It's my job this evening to talk with you first about the two district strategic goals. One is about ensuring continued improvement in student learning. This is not a goal that's adopted every year by the board. These goals were adopted by our school board in 2013 and they remain in place for five

043years. So one of the things that we've got in place this year to continue to work on that improvement in student learning is revision in our district and campus improvement processes. And you'll see that we've grouped schools a little bit differently this year for focused improvement efforts from the... departments at central office reaching out to support the campuses and their specific needs and resources and to support student performance in their academics. And so we have eight schools that we think need required improvement, 17 focused Title I campuses. 11 non-Title I focused schools, and that is based partially on their economic disadvantaged populations at the campus that are growing, not to the level of Title I, but certainly on the increase, and then our non-Title I schools. And we will be coming back to the board

044at the September work session, sharing with you more details on what those processes look like. Tonight is just an overview of the big ideas. The second thing is to ensure efficient use of financial resources and budgeting and so that our focus is putting our resources where they will do the greatest good. And so some of the key areas to touch on is that our finance department has been working very hard on the management side of our business operations to put together a fiscal procedures manual for the district. that we will be rolling out in short term. Again, always following our budget processes, planning and completion of bond projects on time. We've done weight room projects. We're working on reviewing and approving processes to ensure equitable staffing and allocation. then we're working on some new management

045oversight processes and workshops for the board in the areas of transportation and hiring processes and again we'll be coming back to the board with more specific action plans that will give details on some of these initiatives that are supporting the accomplishment of the district strategic goals So now we're going to actually move into the three major initiatives, district initiatives that we have for the 17-18 school year. I'm going to deal with the first two because they really are just an extension of what we have been working on in this previous year. And as Ms. Bonzer said, I'm going to go fairly quickly through these. for a couple reasons. First of all, the program of work for each of these will be presented to the board in the work session in September. But also in these

046first two, most of the things that you're going to see on the screen we did have conversation about in our board cabinet retreat, so we'll put them up there on the screen for our audience, but go pretty quickly through them. The first... initiative is to close opportunity achievement gaps through pervasive learner focus support and you can see we've kind of branded that commitment to equity logo here in Plano and it does involve equity resourcing programming and capacity development so we'll go to the list. All of these really we had conversation about in our cabinet board retreat. With the exception of the dual language model pilot, we are looking at potentially two schools who really do have a high ELL population and quite frankly in 17-18 it's a learning year to kind of plan for what

047a model pilot might look like and I'm not even sure in the work session we'll have it nailed down completely but we do want to move forward with a dual language model pilot. Which campuses are you looking at? At this time Memorial and Foreman. Yeah. So part of the goal will be to bring native English speakers there as well so they can gain fluency in Spanish. I think I should when we come back for the work session we can bring more information about that but I don't want to speak out at this point. We're not sure what the model is. So could I ask some clarity on that? When you come back at the work session are you going to talk to them? Will you be presenting a pilot ready to implement or we're going

048to study this for the year and come back next year? That's correct. But we didn't want to be out there doing it and not identify that we're working toward it. The next slide has a couple things. Who's driving that thing? Okay. Actually, the expanded staffing guidelines to ensure equitable... hard copy that really is you know we did add some resources some staffing resources to some of our challenge schools this is really kind of expanding into even a more formulaic approach to try to Not only strategically but have those schools be able to count on those those additional staffing Redevelopment of the district RTI process that really is just trying to be more effective at providing support for young people Prior to any identify an identification special education services it may not be necessary if we

049can be Do a quality work with our RTI process? An expansion of blended learning is really as you see when we You as the board learned about in the last work session our one-to-web one-to-web effort and our additional technology really does kind of give us the opportunity to think about expanding a lot of blended learning opportunities out in our schools so we added that to this Particular piece of it that you had we had not discussed that in the in the board cabinet retreat I would interject that I'm interested in all of these, but I'm particularly interested in the expanded staffing guidelines. I think we really need to be more systematic and scientific than we've been in the past. I look forward to hearing that presentation. Okay. And the second one is to really be

050that kind of learning mission-driven culture. And that really is all around our ongoing professional learning efforts, our innovation, our continuous improvement. And, you know, by innovation, too, part of innovation is pervasive innovation that occurs, you know, classroom to classroom. And so that's really kind of the culture that we've been attacking in this one. And again, we really did discuss most of these in the board cabinet retreat. The professional learning system really is emanating from that professional learning commission that we did begin last year in the middle of the year and will be finalizing its work throughout this year. One addition here is an establishment of a professional learning executive committee, which is really designed to be... some departmental individuals that collaborate and really connect around that notion of professional learning. And pretty much everything else

051up there were things that we had talked about in the board cabinet retreat. As a good segue into the next section, which Ms. Bonser will deal with, and that is a new one that we've added since the cabinet retreat. related to special ed but you'll notice in the intentional pathways for professional other staff we really want to look at ways that we can maybe do a better job of supporting the growth of our own people in some of those critical need areas and certainly special education is one of them so with that I will turn it over to Ms. Bonser for the third Initiative which she has been working tenaciously with consultants as well as some of our own people. Thank you, Dr Bingley. Finally the third initiative for this year is the newly added

052special education initiative and our goal is to provide specially designed programs and services in order to provide an excellent equitable education for every special education student and the four primary areas that we are filtering through is the creation of a strategic plan, equitable and effective resource allocation, capacity development of our staff, and then an intense focus on our behavior classrooms. And so in the work session to come, we'll be giving specific action plans related to the areas that you see on the screen. You heard in the previous work session a more detailed staff training plan that will continue to evolve throughout the year. We're already in plans with our consultant on our strategic plan first steps, especially in the area of the behavior classrooms. And then we're working on our staffing models, additional procedures and

053training, our adult transition facility that's opening. We're finalizing the programming and the needs for that facility and we'll be bringing that to you this year as well. And then we're continuing to work on curriculum access and best practices for academic achievement specifically for our special education students. And so we'll look forward to bringing the action plans related to special education to the board as well. Can I ask a quick question? Of course. On that Adult Transition Center, are we still going to use Project SEARCH? That is a part of the programming, and Sandy's nodding her head, yes. But they're also looking at what expanded programming and services we want for the kids who will be served in that facility. I think Project SEARCH is defined a lot around the hospital arena, right, and usually, and

054I think that's who really has supported that work here as well. But in the Transition Center, we're going to have a variety of occupations. So as we've mentioned, really the district plan of work around all of these things, we'll dive into it pretty deeply in the September 19th work session. You know, I guess I would suggest that if you look at this and even when we talk about on the 19th, what strikes me is the two words excellence and equity kind of permeate through all three of these initiatives. And I think that's... probably by design. So with that, given the fact that we're going to really walk through a lot of the work plans coming up in the work session, we just simply would ask the Board of Trustees to adopt the three district initiatives

055for the 17-18 school year as you see on the screen. So this is an action item for the Board to consider this evening. Following the plan of work, I believe the intent is to also then, I don't know Sarah if you plan to reveal at that time or at a future point, the reporting system that will accompany the progress of each one of these items over the course of the year. So we won't wait until the end of the year to find out how the progress is. We'll know on a certain structured basis. each one of these in a different time frame? Yes, what we're working on with the cabinet and the department teams is that as they're creating their action plans, they're also creating how and when they will report. And so it could

056be at a work session, it could be in a board update, or it could be at a board meeting. And they're setting those time frames for reporting, and then we'll create a master communication plan for all of the strategic initiatives and board goals. Okay, very good. also I'll just mention since it's going to occur to work session the format of our work session is going to modify slightly it will be in this format because there's been a law change that says if you must take action in a work session it must be taped and so forth so our systems are built for this structure so we will be convening in this structure from this point forward As of Friday last week. So do I have a motion to approve the initiatives as presented? I move

057that we approve the initiatives as presented. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. So every year at about this time, appointments are made to serve... We make appointments of community members to serve on five board advisory committees. Those are career and technical education, diversity, school health, special education, and gifted and talented. This evening we are in your attachments. There is a list of those names that have been submitted. There might be a few additions to occur after this. If you happen to know now that you might have an addition, I'm happy to modify the list presently so we can get that done because a couple of these committees, I'll say the Special Education Committee and the Health Committee will be meeting between now and

058October. So if you happen to have someone that would potentially serve on one of those and you haven't given me a name already or you have availability, these are three-year positions. I will make one comment regarding that. The Council of PTAs, we've agreed that there will be on each of the five advisory committees someone from the Council of PTAs. There's a little bit of a disconnect there because the Council positions are two-year positions. Okay. So we may need to revisit some of that. But we have one. Career and Technology Education Advisory Committee does not have a council PTA person on it. So we're working on finding the person that can be named to that. So Denise, can you make a note on the positions that have PTA next to it that it's just a two-year,

059you know, commitment from them so that when we roll them into the term to expire, we know it's just, you know. For the ones that are here, I believe this is year two. I need to confirm that with you, but I will. But as far as career and technology, there will be a name to be brought forward for a two-year term. All right. Hearing no modifications at this time, if you do have a name, okay, get it in quickly so that they can get in the loop of work. Do I have a motion to approve as presented? So moved. Do I have a second? I second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. All right. Along those same lines, the board provides an annual goal or two. sometimes three to these committees

060to guide their work and we ask them to then report what they have found to the board at the end of the year so they're not implementing the work we're basically asking them to do some research for us and discovery so at this time two of these five committees are meeting between now and um our october meeting so Before you, in your packet, those two committees are identified. One is the health committee and one is the gift and talent committee. So let's talk about each one separately. First, let's talk about the health committee. And I'm going to draw your attention to the piece of paper at your place that has two goals on it rather than the multiple goals on the initial submission. When we were working on the initial submission we did not have

061all of the information. We had a few questions but we've had those questions answered at this time. Point of order. Are these two goals in addition to? In place of. So here's the deal. We weren't sure yet because we gave the health committee a little extra time to make their final report to us from last year. They're going to make that in October. So we didn't know exactly if they were going to have the goals we gave them last year satisfied. We now know they are. So the ones from last year were related to concussion, suicide, things like this. So now that we know. more today than we knew then we've extracted those from here because we were asking them to do research and then really what's happening in this there's a lot of implementation

062that's already underway and we'll hear about that so for now we're proposing two different goals they're the same bottom two on the initial submission we just worded them a little in an improved way so because the viewers and so forth don't have the advantage of this, I'll read it out loud. The first one is, let me just tell you what the Health Committee does so that you can understand the context. This is a group that includes parents, students, teachers, staff members, and diverse community representation. They act collectively to provide advice to the school district on all aspects of the school health program. Well, what's the scope of that? They look at the number of hours of instruction to be provided in health education, the review curriculum appropriate for specific grade levels designed to prevent obesity,

063cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. Their duties... also include reviewing and recommending methods of instruction for human sexuality and appropriate grade levels and the council can review and recommend coordinated school health strategies for integrating appropriate curriculum components through the following health education, physical education, physical activity, nutrition services, parental involvement, school health service, counseling and guidance, employee wellness and a safe and healthy school environment. Okay, that's kind of the scope of what they can do. And I believe that this committee is a required committee. It is required by statute. That is right. So we're asking them, in their course of normally, the normal business that they do, and they meet about four times a year, to also tackle these two questions. They're both research-based. Number one, research the issue of self-injury as it relates to the

064wellness and safety of our students. identify best practices and reporting mechanisms that support student safety and wellness ie relating to bullying and drugs so last year we gave them some direction you know we were focusing a lot on mental health and suicide and so forth and we have some new programs that are in place now we're kind of wanting to understand are there other mental health issues as it relates to self-injury that we should understand And then we want to take a look at, as we work to keep our students safe and getting them help when they need help, are the ways of reporting issues that students might see about bullying that is occurring or drug activities that are occurring. What are the best ways of reporting that and bring those suggestions, bring what that

065learning says to the board? So I wanted to comment on the two the first one in terms of expanding the research on suicide to include self-injury I met with someone who's that's that's her specialty self-injury and suicide She shared with me. I didn't I don't I can't recall it, but I'm sure that I can get it from her research that showed that If a student exhibits self-injury, you have one year before they commit suicide to take care of that. And so that's why we're asking the committee to expand their scope to research self-injury. As far as the second one, you know, as a trustee, you get people... catching you in the street or anywhere and asking you questions or sharing information with you. I can't tell you how many times I was told that, oh,

066you know, that all our schools have drug issues. Everybody knows that. I mean, everybody knows who sells drugs and exactly where they do that. Of course, when I ask for details, I don't get anything. So we have a discrepancy here. Either it's happening or it's not. If it's not happening... That's great that everybody thinks it is and but it's not happening if it's if it is happening Then we have a problem of getting that information So what we're asking the committee via console to do is to find if the mechanisms we have in place to report this Are there good mechanisms? Are there other alternatives? Are there students or parents who know that there are drugs or bullying happening in our schools and they just don't share it for fear of whatever they're afraid of?

067We need to make sure that that goes away, that we have strong mechanisms. And that's what we're asking. Okay, so those are the items. So after we worked on this, there was a third item, and I'll leave it to whether the board thinks it's important enough and if the committee is willing to accept that as a goal. We have food that we offer in cafeterias, and there was a piece that I saw this weekend on one of the TV networks that talked about healthier choices at the cafeteria. So the question is, are there healthier choices that we can offer to students who eat at the cafeteria? If so, are there any budget implications? That piece talked about food that was actually cheaper, yet healthier. So what are the choices? Are we offering good choices, and

068are there alternatives? So as I'm thinking about the scope of work that they have to do in four meetings, I'm not sure. Can we come up with a phrase that is achievable? Because if we say, you know, is there healthier food? I don't know how this group will study that exactly. So what's our desired outcome? What do we want to get? A recommendation. A recommendation for better choices. Maybe, I mean, we're not going to ask the committee to come up with specifically what those choices are, but is there research, and I'm sure that there is research that was already done on what are healthier choices, and so flash out research that was done. Okay, so what if we do this? What if we ask them to research what others, what are the best practices and

069healthy choices or something like that? I don't know that they can come up with, well, here's the best menu plan. We've got staff to do that. That's right. The best practice is in identifying healthier choices. Is this achievable? So you know one thought on that is that you know maybe rather than going to the committee we ask that question of staff first to see if that's something that has staff has already done the legwork there and to present that way you're not asking the committee to do something that's already been done. I mean, that's a question I could ask right now. Can you give us some feedback on what you know about? In 2012, the SHAC did a similar study of foods in the cafeteria, and our food and nutrition services were involved in that.

070So that has taken place a little while ago. One of the things that the committee will be working on this year, in addition to the goals that you outlined as a board, is that last year they adopted the wellness policy, I think it's FFAF local, and this year they have to create the wellness plan, the coordinated wellness plan. Nutrition is a huge part of that plan in our schools, so I don't know how those two things marry, but it's likely that there will be conversation about the nutritional factors in our schools as a part of that wellness, coordinated wellness plan. Certainly we could ask FANS to partner with us on looking at what are the nutritional options for our schools within the federal guidelines that they're required to follow. I know Dr. Cooper might be

071thinking and certainly if FANS is represented here, we certainly went through a period of years where there was a dramatic required push for healthier options in fans and it's not to say that we're unhealthy we still have guidelines but I know they're probably going to wonder which to which to write we just we just came off a significant federally required healthy lunch choices that many felt went a little far and I would I guess if Carrie is that fair to or am I way off? okay yeah plus he has bigger issues like bus 837 that's So I'm all for bringing nutrition, I just want to make sure the scope is appropriate. I'm okay with writing this as an action item and asking staff to present to us. Okay, so Denise, let's just add that to

072our... tracking mechanism. Okay, therefore I comment on concussions as part of my pre-board preparation I asked a clarifying question and received the answer that we'll receive a presentation October on the work that's being done today because I think we've made dramatic progress in fact even tonight part of the consent agenda was to approve the pre-concussion testing which yay finally making those moves and so I want to make sure that we are sort of closing the loop that we are wrapping up our total commitment to that work. Also, I feel still slightly uninformed about really the effort we're doing in suicide prevention. I don't know if that's also going to be presented at what time period. So all of those that was one of the three goals so we you know I talked to Sarah and

073she talked to the staff leads of that just to make sure that though that's one of those three items was sufficiently covered it's already an implementation and we actually approved a contract a little while ago with UT Southwestern that's doing a lot of that I can't remember how many sessions it is five three four five or something like that with Yes In the health classes. And we had the issue on that in terms of how the online health kids get that information. I don't know if that's been resolved yet. I think what we shared last time regarding that question is we can't move forward on that right now because this, we don't have permission yet to use the materials. It is something certainly that we'll explore, but it's very much an interactive. content with this

074trained professional that comes in. So it's not as simple as just adding that to the online curriculum, but definitely we will be looking at that along with the summer school and night school courses. Maybe some move to maybe even do it in English class. It would make very interesting discussion topics and topic for written reports. Can I back to the point earlier regarding the cafeteria and the foods of you know healthy foods? She pointed out that the wellness program will be Discussed and designed by the shack so in addition to the note that you took For staff looking into it just know that the shack is looking at it as well Student Health Advisory Committee, sorry. Thank you. Okay, so do I have a motion to approve the two goals as submitted? So moved. Do

075I have a second? Second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. All right, second topic is for gifted and talented. The two goals presented, so let me just recap where we are here. Again, a committee of no less than 15 people serving a three-year term. Committee shall be composed of parents, community members, and staff. Members of the committee shall be asked to study and make recommendations concerning the various components of the Gifted and Talented Program. The purpose, they will focus on district equity, the relationship among the programs, and the unique needs of each program. They may also study the advisability of adding, deleting, and changing various programs based upon the needs of the community and student body of the district. We may also direct them to study and make recommendations on specific

076issues, which is what we're doing here. Two goals. Number one, audit and report back to us the updates on last year's recommendations. They made a lot of recommendations. I know they're working on implementing things, so we want the board to know where those implementations are. I'll just make a comment that the staff leader of this committee happens to also, in this one case, be the person tasked with the implementation just by job description. That's not always the case. Second is explore opportunities to offer courses that can contribute to obtaining a, we're going to strike the word bachelors and just say degree, by the time of high school graduation. A higher degree by the time of high school graduation. Because we've learned that we can't we've not been able to identify a partner that would allow

077us to grant an undergraduate degree but we will make a stretch goal of offering as many courses as we can that contribute to achieving some higher degree beyond the high school diploma. I would want the community to think strongly about the coursework that will lead to a bachelor's degree. There are a lot of courses offered in our community colleges which are great, but will not move you toward a business degree or an engineering degree or an education degree. So I want to make sure we enrich our offerings in that way. So to me, it's less about getting a degree before you end up in high school, but having 30 hours of real college credit. That would be important. Or more. Or more. I think the goal that we should have is to eliminate every hurdle

078that they have to get as much as they can. We've seen students that are gifted and talented, and the classes that they take, we probably can't, but never could. But it's amazing, and if we can let them have coursework that would get them towards a higher degree, anything we can. And I would actually expand that. To me, it's not just a gifted and talented issue. It's that kid solidly in the middle who realizes family can't help him with his education. How can he graduate from us with 30 hours of real credit? So it's only a three-year degree that he'll have to pursue. Except that this is the gifted and talented community. Well, I understand that. Dual credit sequencing is part of the second faculty work. So that is the alignment to dual credit options. Okay,

079so those are the two items and the rationale behind them. I'll mention that the sentence following those two, it says, that's actually a leftover from last year. We need to, I think, strike that. Okay, it doesn't. It just says that this committee will work to collaborate with the diversity advisory. That was for a different purpose. Let's just strike that. Okay. So do I have a motion to approve the two goals as presented and slightly modified? So moved. Do I have a second? I second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Okay, item 3E, it was actually something that we took care of at the last meeting, so you got an email from Denise indicating we're pulling this item. Okay, next up, we've completed the action portion of the agenda. Now we're moving

080to the report section of the agenda, and the first item is instructional calendar. I now invite Carla Oliver, Assistant Superintendent for Government. community and planning initiatives to introduce the 2018-19 calendar draft discussion. Ms. Oliver. Thank you, President Bender. On the slide for our viewing audience as well as our audience tonight, you can see that draft A is currently posted. These calendar drafts are coming to you tonight as just a first glance to kick off our calendar adoption process. The plan is to provide these drafts to you both A and B this evening and any research that you'd like to have done beyond these drafts. use the month of October, the rest of this month and then the month of October for input. And according to the timeline that you saw in your packet, you may

081have noticed that according to the timeline for input, we would be coming to you likely November the 14th at that board meeting for adoption. So I should have said that first. So beginning with draft A, I'll point out a couple of features of this particular calendar. In response to the board wanting to investigate the idea of starting earlier than the fourth Monday in August which has been legislated for quite some time according to our DOI status which is district of innovation we have the ability to start earlier and this calendar reflects a start day one week earlier than this current school year which would be August the 13th it has many of the same features of the calendar that we are operating under now I will bring to your attention that The last day of

082school, according to this draft, would be on May 24th. And as an aside, maybe this is selfish for me to mention, according to the traditional timeline that we have followed for scheduling graduation, I think that's one thing that during our time of discovery we need to notice that we would likely be hoping to bump that up to that Saturday before for the STAR facility. If another district, specifically Frisco, wants that date, that may be something of competition that we may or may not be able to overcome. So as we move through this process, that's something that we'll be researching along the way. So can you just tell me the specific date that you're talking about? Yes. If you notice, again, on draft A, the last day of school would be May 24th. And usually we

083follow the, according to this most recent year that we completed, it's the week following. So if you notice, this past year we were on the second Saturday in the month. This would be a first Saturday if we followed the same pattern of time. And so we may be in competition with another district. Is it not possible to do the 25th? Not in order for the grade reporting and for everything to be reconciled. So you're looking at the first, which might have a potential conflict. And that's just correct. And that's just if we follow the same pattern. And if they do. Pardon me? And if they do. Exactly. And they're not in the same position as we are regarding that 18-19 calendar as of yet. Do you know what their start end date is for this

084year? I'm sorry, I don't have that with me. Sorry, yeah. And do we have to graduate only on a Saturday? Historically, we haven't done that. In order to be at the STAR facility, that's the only day that's available to us. So I'll set that one aside for just a moment and move to draft B. There was interest both from the board and from the cabinet to consider a midweek start. And if you notice, that would be a Wednesday, August the 15th start, with the last day of instruction being on May 29th. Again, this is just a point to consider. I'm not trying to sway a decision, but knowing the parameters that we operate under, that would keep us on the same traditional path for scheduling graduation, which we know has some restrictions around the date.

085But the calendars are very similar in their features. I will point out as well, I want to find the right piece of paper, that since I joined the district in 2004, one of the very common... conversation was to keep balanced semesters and although that was mentioned this evening as a point of discussion as well when I first joined one of the the topics was to keep within a two to five day difference between semesters and that's not been possible with the starting fourth Monday in August and so being a district of innovation this does give us the opportunity to consider if that's an important criteria for the board before adopting a calendar So I'll just share that with you. So, Carla, just as a reminder, we have lots of different kinds of calendars that we

086utilize in the school district. This is an academic calendar. Correct. Right? We start here. So those other calendars will flow from the academic calendar, which is going to be our best effort to make a calendar that maximizes academic outcomes. Exactly. So for these two examples here, I'm not seeing it. I may be missing it. But the number of instructional days before and after the holiday break? I think it's 8790 for calendar A. Okay. 8790 calendar A. So then it would be? 8592 for the other. 8592 for the other. Okay. With the reality that testing occurs in the second semester. Right. Okay. So. Here we go. I'm sorry, I didn't hear exactly what Ms. Richards may have said. On draft A, it's 87 days in the first semester and 90 days in the second for a

087total of 177 days in our calendar, which again is what we're operating under right now. For draft B, the first semester would be 87 days and the second semester would be 90 for a total of 177. There'd be wouldn't be a service a to numbers the second one is two less in the fall and two more in the spring Yes, I'm sorry, okay So I've got a wrong total here, but yes, you're correct. Okay two days off So because of however many there are a lot of testing days in the springtime that brings that number effectively down It should be 85 and 92 If you're ready for comments, I think draft day is a great calendar for academic success. I like the fact that the semesters are balanced closely. I like the fact that in

088October they have both a Monday and Tuesday, so those juniors and seniors can do college trips. There's about one day off at least throughout the calendar, which I think gives children and families respite. And I like the fact that finals end before Memorial Day because I think it offers some children an advantage and a disadvantage to have their finals after the long holiday. Friends can share notes, tips, whatever, and I think having approximately the same days to prepare for those finals makes it more equitable. I think it's a great calendar. So Tammy, at that point I was thinking about the finals, the difference between these two. You know, back when we were in college, finals start on Friday, and you have a round on Friday, and then you have a weekend, and then you have

089a following week, and it kind of is nice in that regard that you can study for your Friday final or your Friday-Monday final. early on one week and then over the weekend study for the rest of the finals. So that is one benefit of B. But I think I'm with you in that I think A overall is a better calendar. And I do like the idea of ending before Memorial Day. I guess I take some things to do. I have a question and it relates to the UIL implications. Have they changed any of their start dates for Practice or is it because we are a district of innovation and we have flexibility with our calendar start date Are we bumped up to a fixed date for UIL for band practice drill team cheer sports football?

090Kind of fluctuates each year, but not for example the fine arts thing this year. I think it was August first They can have a few days of some non non-marching type activities for a handful of days, but for the most part they can start along with a volleyball. It ends up being around this year with like the first of August. The football is going to be so many days ahead of the start of your school year, but they do dictate that. UIL did not make any changes for this year. I mean, who knows what they'll do for next calendar year. They did not make any changes this year. So, you know, the football team and the band, I think it was the first, actually, based on where the calendar fell. So who is our representative

091to the UIL Executive Committee? Who sits on that? Do we? Who does? I sit on the Executive Committee UIL for the Fine Arts Committee. So, you know, let me give you some figures that I've pulled up. So we have understanding of order of magnitude. There are roughly over 1,024 school districts or so in Texas and 617 school districts applied for and received a district of innovation plan. 96% of those have opted to have an earlier start date. So, okay, about 600. But earlier than the fourth month. Yes. You know I would have to think that that magnitude of districts in the state has to carry some weight as far as scheduling goes I think maybe you guys are already doing this But I think we should explore that topic with the UIL right because this

092is just year one you know and maybe they were waiting to see what the legislature was going to do or not do. But I think that's an action item that I'd like to see if we could get an answer to. Like, are you guys thinking about revisiting your schedule based upon this magnitude of school districts in Texas that are revisiting theirs? Well, they could potentially just say number of days before your start date, and then you're good. you know, limit it to that rather than giving a hard date. I think that's a potential thing, a good conversation to have. I've heard anecdotally, and I'd like to understand what Fine Arts and Athletics thinks, is actually they didn't mind the earlier start because they liked the discipline of being on a schedule. And so they were

093able to prepare in a systematic way. So it might not be a disadvantage to our students at all, even if they can't start before August the 1st. They'll be back in routine more. I have to chime in as a band parent here. I can tell you they did, you know, this summer lost a week of preparation. And I'm sure the football teams, the coaches were here would say the same thing. By moving it from the fourth Monday to the third Monday, as we had this August. They lost a week. Right. And I think, I mean, I can tell you, I heard from a few dozen parents this weekend that I really think we should look at a calendar that starts in the third week just to give the community some options here. I might say

094that they didn't lose a week. They just got a different type of week. Yeah, because it's six, one half dozen, the other. They're all, I mean, they're in school. doing the same practice work that they would have been doing. Well, the band practices in the morning and the evening. So during a school day, I don't know if there's as many hours for them to practice, and there's limits on that. I'd rather pursue the UIL. Let's ask some questions and see what we can learn about that. But let me just provide a little history on this topic over time. So the law that changed a school district's local control on this came about in 2006. And they required that school districts start the fourth Monday in August. And that was simply a, it was a tourism

095lobby issue and it was a give back in the school finance conversation. Okay, so it had nothing to do with is it good for pedagogy or instructional purposes or anything like that? It was it was a political move. Okay? So school districts in Texas knew that and didn't like the loss of local control. So when that happened even before that happened in Plano we looked back at our legislative priorities to see what has been our position on this topic and it even predates that action in 2006 but since then there have been three legislative sessions and each one of those sessions this board has adopted a legislative priority seeking the return of that local control so that we could have control of the start date for best academic purposes. And we heard a little bit

096about that having to do with balanced semesters. So one of the questions that we heard today was, what's up with that? How can you prove to me that that is a better thing that we should seek? So here's the simple response to that. The state determines when the standardized testing occurs in the springtime. We don't get to choose those dates. maximize academic outcomes and the chances that our students have to be successful on that, every additional day of instruction contributes favorably toward that outcome. So as we shorten that window of instruction and we reduce the number of days, then we are reducing that student's access to the instruction to help them. So academically speaking, the feedback that we've received from our staff is that it's important to have days of instruction. So that is why

097balance, so that has to do with maximizing days of instruction prior to those tests occurring. The balanced semester impact has to do with getting the tests complete before semester break. Plus when we have single semester classes, if you have a small semester and the same amount of instruction and you compare that to a bigger semester instruction, is that an equitable experience for the student? So we're trying to create equity and balance in those experiences too. Steve, as far as budget impact goes with regard to AC and this kind of thing, I remember the answers that we got to the questions that we asked about that when we've been posed, you know, when that question has come up before. Hey, are you paying a higher electricity bill because you're running the systems sooner? Can you speak

098to that topic? Or play with the microphone? I'll turn it on to say no. I will offer. I think it does. Basically, you're trading off some days in late May and June for some days in August, and it is generally hotter. I can't recall what the numbers were. It's not a large percentage of the budget, and in return for that, if it was better academically, I think it was better. trade-off between what was better academically and spending a little bit more money on the utilities. So when, when, one of the answers that I remember is that principals were in the school anyway. Staff was in the school preparing for the school year anyway, so the systems were operational. That's for the most part that's true. There are some where we have some zones where we're

099not heating and cooling the whole school. But there are generally with summer school and other activities, it's not a day-for-day trade for every school. Because just as you said, there are some in schools. So there's probably a little bit of savings there, but not a lot. Well, I mean, I don't want to offer a pure cause and effect, but the reality is we did start earlier this year, and we cut kilowatt-hour consumption and cut the budget for our... energy in the coming budget. Yes. So, I mean, I'm not saying A equals B, but the fact that, and there are a lot of reasons for it, but the fact of the matter is we were able to reduce our energy costs in a year that we did start earlier. So it doesn't jump out at you

100that it's... Huge budget effect. Steve, I didn't hear you say part of the reason is what? Well part of the reason we reduced the rate this year or the total was the rate. I think there was a slight reduction of kilowatt hours too but we also got a very favorable thing just a little bit over well less than four cents per kilowatt hour on our negotiated rate. So, Carla, can we talk for a minute about the district communication plan? So something new that you're proposing is that with whatever feedback that you hear from the board today, then following this, following that communication plan, can you talk about that for just a minute? Of course. I would like to show the audience. I don't think I advanced the slide. So we talked about B and the

101audience heard our thank you. I'm sorry, did you have something you wanted to share with me, Dr. Moore? No, Sarah was trying to advance it while you were trying to advance it. I thought we better not dual advance. Yeah, I think we just motored right on through to the timeline. Option B was in there to review as well. I appreciate the assistance. The timeline, there are obviously groups that we would like to approach that regularly meet. That would include our PTA, faculty council, key communicators, some of those folks. But also on our website and through our district e-news, there's the opportunity to give the opportunity for input from anyone who wants to share. Our window was much shorter last year, so in regard to that, we've... allocated a month if the board agrees with this

102timeline a month plus a bit like I said for the rest of September and it gives a little extra room for the input that we that we mentioned so Again, if you notice as we go down the page tonight, we're at 9-5 for presenting the drafts to the board. That will be posted on our website, as mentioned. Also, utilizing social media more by putting this out. We've been worried in the past, and I'll share this with you, that the more options that are out there for people to see, they may save those or may not get the final adopted version and so on. But we're going to flip that thinking. and do a really good job of promoting the final product after the input is given to us and it may or may not affect

103what the board decides to go forward with but we will have an opportunity to really I would say showcase the final version. So we're gonna try that option this year to allow for more input. One thing that's not on here that I will also share with you is that President Bender, as you mentioned, this is an academic calendar, an instructional calendar, and we do start here based on the academic priority of our districts, but my plan is to also visit with our finance department, our student records department. We always have those moments to touch base with each other, but really doing it in a more fixed way so that we have more people around the table. as we talk about payroll issues and reconciling student grading periods and those kind of things because it really

104does affect even how we, the professional learning department and what days are allocated before the first day of school and so on. So there'll be a discussion about that in the coming weeks as well. I'd like to make a couple of comments, a few comments. First of all, I really want to acknowledge the fact that we're barely two weeks into the school year and we're working on the calendar of next year. I know that for this year we were a little late, but I appreciate the fact that we're early enough to work on that and see the first two drafts. Dealing with the budget too, but dealing with the calendar is a balancing act. I mean, there are reasons why you want to start early, why you want to start late, why you want to

105have half a week, you don't want to have half a week. From the emails that we're getting and posts that I saw on Facebook, there are very strong considerations in every direction. One thing I think that we need to accept is that we're not going to make everybody happy. there's always going to be somebody that's not going to be happy. Having said that, people know how to reach us. And I'll make a comment. When you reach us and you start your email after noticing the proposed school calendar, it begs the question exactly who thought this up and what were they thinking. That's probably not how you get somebody to take your email seriously. I told people that follow me when I posted these, I said, don't tell me that which option you're going to vote

106for because you're not voting for it. Give us reasons of why one is better than the other. Give us considerations that we're going to get, that we're going to consider when we make the final decision. With that, I have to say, you know, when I look at that page that you showed, Carla, There are 11 touchpoints with the public in that one. And so that's a change from what we've done in the past and that's a welcome change. So people will hear it. I caught five times through e-news. You have social media this time and our website. So you will be collecting input. I'm going to ask, and it goes without saying, and I'm sure that that's the intention, keep an open mind, be creative with the solutions based on the feedback that you're getting.

107We need to achieve the maximum benefit for the maximum number of people understanding that we can't make everybody happy. There are going to be people who are not going to be happy enough. Two final points. One is a reminder of the religious holidays, the high holidays that should be considered. And finally, the... There is a point that I'm not sure that we captured that from a previous one when we talked about the summer and the cost of AEC that we have an open item to investigate the opportunity for a year-round school or going to the summer and see what we can do to help, especially those from lower socioeconomic families, how we can help them catch up. I just have one comment and maybe you've already thought of this or maybe it isn't feasible but

108if you could put a watermark that says draft over this so that people won't mistake it for something in the future or just more I know you already have draft up here but some disclaimer maybe so that you bet we don't make a mistake looking at it later so I'm I'm encouraging that the community will participate in the collection the feedback opportunity that the district is providing because then you can present you can coalesce all collect all that information you present it back to the board so Let's all encourage our communities that we belong to to participate in that process and then we'll use that information. You know, you may learn stuff and make recommendations. So we'll consider that hopefully in the November timeframe. One suggestion, I really like it when you guys are, when

109you put together our bond programs and so forth. I love the FAQs that you put together. I think this might be a great opportunity to put together some FAQs that will help provide some context to these. You know, a parent is going to look at this and they're going to give us their feedback based upon their world. I like this because it's good for my family's vacation schedule. Or I don't like this because of band or whatever. If we could inform them a little bit more with regard to some of the elements of the decision that the board has to tackle. just even if they don't like it at least they'll maybe learn something about oh I didn't think of that I never knew that about this kind of thing then you know as you

110present an executive summary fashion sort of this what we're doing here's some things to know background and then lead them to the opportunity to give feedback And maybe we'll learn stuff along the way we can add more FAQs. I think one of those points might be college start dates so that people can understand how our calendar aligns better with that. That might be one of the FAQs. I will say in the idea of an FAQ, I appreciate we were able to answer the board's call to do an earlier adoption of the calendar. the traditional time would typically be like a February-March or January-February depending on where we are in our study. So I'm very happy that we're doing this at this time. We don't have a lot of information to gather from other districts to

111compare, but we might as well set the stage. So I know we're just talking one year here, but for a while there we did two years at a time. That was kind of nice when we could do that. I know we're looking at one year, but in your analysis... If you think there's an opportunity to do a second year sooner rather than later, utilizing maybe the same thinking, then we might give ourselves a little break on doing this every year. I'm all for that. I like the fact that we're starting earlier as well. I actually like the idea of doing it one year at a time as opposed to two years. And I think that giving folks a nine-month head start, and we've already gotten one email about, oh, your starting date is going to

112wreck my vacation. I think nine months is a reasonable notice for people to plan around for the next year starting school. So I kind of like the idea of doing it one year at a time, but I do like starting that process early on in the year before. So I'll comment on that. The nine months in advance, it depends. It depends on what cruises, for example, and that's the one that I know take more longer than that to plan. I think that I don't see a way we can get away from doing it every year. It would be great if what we had was we had this coming year and then here is kind of what we're thinking about the following year, knowing that when we get to the following year, this becomes the one

113we're working on and then we're going to see one year into the future in general. Having said that, I mean, if we move it one week up or down, we may cause people to book travel that they're not going to be able to make. Balancing Act. Okay, Carla, do you have enough information? I think so. I do. Okay. Thank you. All right. Next topic is 9B, Special Session Legislative Update. Ms. Oliver is also going to introduce. this topic. Thank you. I'll start with just the notion that we've had a special session following our regular legislative session. The dates were July the 18th through August the 15th. And I'm just going to go through these very quickly. Certainly ask questions if you like. Some of you have been so involved with the legislative session, you have

114a great deal to bring to the table in regard to the discussion. So I will certainly yield to you if you have items to bring up. So Governor Abbott called the special session, obviously on July the 18th, and our board and the cabinet, we identified some special issues where we actually developed issue statements in regard to the special session. So most of what we'll be talking about tonight that I prepared is based on those position statements. One of the first things to come to light was... Governor Abbott's call to increase teacher pay and provide greater administrative flexibility in the retention and recruitment of high quality educators. One of the things that we were doing in our district at the time, we were already setting a pay raise in the amount of $1,642 for teachers with

115a bachelor's degree and added $240 per year to its health insurance contribution for each participating employee. So although we appreciated the notion, and when I say we, I am speaking of the district at large, so if you disagree, please speak up. But I would say that our district, we appreciated the notion of reimbursing teachers at a higher rate. The district had already taken care of that through our budgeting process, and it did not escape the notion that it would also be an unfunded mandate. Had we not done that, that would have been an unfunded mandate. day in a directive essentially with no funding for that we would have to reprioritize our funding in our district so for that i'll just this you think this consistent in your packet it eventually led to no action but

116that was the conversation surrounding that particular one priority number three administrative flexibility and teacher hiring and retention practices Our board supported the idea of administrative flexibility offered in the District of Innovation plan and we adopted that earlier in 2017. This flexibility allowed for the hiring of certified teachers in all content areas with the exception of career and technology education classes. So there was a lot of conversation around this. Ultimately there was no action. Oh I didn't advance, did I? Party number four, School Finance Reform Commission. Plano ISD supported the concept of School Finance Reform Commission as long as the enabling legislation clearly defined the work of the Commission to be exclusively related to the financing of public school districts and public charter schools. The governor did call for the establishment of the Commission. Ultimately, no

117voucher bill made it into law and no action proceeded other than establishing the Commission. So not a lot of school finance reform this session. Priority number five, the position statement in regard to school choice for special needs student. House Bill 253 and Senate Bill 2 address Governor Abbott's call to provide school choice for students with disabilities so that parents of children with special needs can choose which school they attend. Also, some consider that to be private school vouchers. Ultimately, no action was taken with this issue as well. There we go. Any questions so far? No? Priority six, property tax reform. Obviously, this has been a hot topic of conversation, not only in our community, but across the state and with the regular session and special session of the legislature. Plano ISD recognized the only way

118to obtain meaningful property tax relief for Texas taxpayers while adequately funding public education is to completely reform the outdated system of school finance. This issue was debated back and forth. Governor Abbott had a call through House Bill 3, House Bill 32, House Bill 4, or Senate Bill 1 to reform property taxes in Texas. Ultimately, and we have other bullet points there listed, no action was taken in this regard. And at some point, President Bender, you might want to mention some, or I can, about our taxparency issues that we've been promoting locally in North Texas. Do you want to do that now, or would you like me to come back to that? Yeah, this would be the good spot. Okay, we'll do that now. Okay. Do you want to start? Go ahead. So previous... In a

119previous presentation that Mr. Fortenberry led, we were understanding the implications of the... you know, the taxing, the tax dollars that we collect, but we don't get to retain here. They're extracted by the state for its purposes. And we've been trying to provide visibility and educate the populace about that process so that they can be informed and weigh in about how they feel about that. So we had legislation to that end that was... advanced in the Senate but not in the house so it's it's a no-go that didn't happen however in working with other school districts in the area and across the state we're continuing that work to communicate in in a variety of channels with the public so some of those we're still developing that work now but over the next couple of months in

120advance of our taxpayers receiving their personalized text statements at home, you'll see the district communicating and other districts communicating in press event and in publications and in mail. So we are not waiting for others to tell us what to do. We are doing what we believe is right. So let's see I would say the efforts that we have to go to and other districts that are we're going through this process of Communicating could have easily been alleviated had they given the permission to put this information on the tax statement where people deserve to see it But we're going to extreme lengths to communicate to our communities and other districts are doing the same so that people understand where their tax dollars are going because I don't know that everybody quite understands it. They just know

121that their payments are going up because their property values are going up, but they're not realizing how much is it staying in their local district. So we're taking on Yeoman's work, which could have been on the tax statement. The whole desired outcome is property tax relief, and you get property tax relief when you get school finance reform. So this is how we're having that. We're beginning that conversation. Well and to the point that both of you made I would say the bedrock of the taxparency issue ultimately the goal is property tax relief, but I would say quality and honest communication about the situation that we find ourselves in not only as Plano ISD but other districts as well and I very much appreciate that effort from our board but know that that is a continuing

122effort that we'll be chasing a bit and trying to share again accurate honest information. So I'll move on from here and let's talk about privacy. The privacy bill, also referred to by some as the bathroom bill, Plano ISD long asserted their need for local control in this matter without having a method dictated by the state as law. It was considered in prior conversations as an overreach and ultimately, although there was a lot of... conversation I would say about this particular issue ultimately no action was taken here as well I don't know if any of you have anything to share that you would that you would like to share about this particular topic but for but for us we were just hoping to maintain local control and no action taken so it's still out for debate

123I would say what I would add to that is a lot of time and effort was spent on this and no outcome and so I think to the detriment of other issues that are more pressing. Transportation, education, things like that, water, they were pushed to the side. Yes. I would say this was, again, I guess we could say controversial in the sense to where a lot of people had different opinions about it, but I would say from what we would hope as an outcome from the legislative session, it was... It did distract away from some of the major issues like property tax reform and overhauling the finance system. Not to diminish the importance of this topic, but it was very noisy. So with that, my last slide will be in regard to House Bill 21.

124This was signed into law by Governor Abbott on August the 16th. There are... seven different bullet points here. I'm hesitant to read all of them to you, but even for our audience sake you may see that of the seven there are three that have red asterisks by them. So four out of the seven have no impact whatsoever to Plano ISD. And for those that do, I would say it's minimal and confusing. So in this regard, one of the things, because we all had There was a lot of discussion about this bill as well in the regular session and then in the special session. I was asked about our local delegation's voting record in this regard, and certainly I can bring voting records to you about all the other topics as well if that's something that

125you'd like to see, and I think ultimately it is. But in this regard, all of our local delegation voted yes in regard to House Bill 21. We did have one dissenting vote as a nay, and that would be Senator Van Taylor. But there are lots of votes to be found on all of these issues if that's something that you're interested in looking at a little more closely. Okay, any discussion questions? I will throw this out there just for what it's worth category. The $150 million transitional grant, what's interesting is the stipulations that they put on that are such that it's $100 million in the first budget and $50 million. I don't think anyone thinks they'll even get close to the hundred million, Steve. That's pretty accurate, isn't it? I mean, for districts to qualify for

126that, they're not going to spend all the hundred million is what it really comes down to. And the other thing, Carl, I would point out, too, in the... You had mentioned that the only thing they decided was the commission, and that's true. But embedded in that is the makeup of that commission. And I think that we ought to be kind of vigilant about how that... how that commission is seated. Yeah, who's at the table. Correct, because there's, I can just tell you from the Texas School Coalition and some others, there's some concern about who gets to place how many people on that commission, and all of a sudden it can ideologically kind of take a direction. I think we just need to be vigilant about who's on the commission. Okay, thank you, Carla. All right,

127Dr. Cooper. Thanks, Ms. Mender. I'd like to introduce Joe Parks. He's going to come up and help. Are you finished, or did I cut you off? Well, I was just going to mention what we're going to talk about here is Item 9C, the Safety and Security Bond Project Update. We had a bond program that our community overwhelmingly supported. last year and now we're going to learn a little bit more about its implementation in the area of safety and security. Thank you. Sorry for the false start there. I'm excited about it too. Thank you. Absolutely. That was very sincere, Joe. Strike that from the record, right? Joe does want to give a... Quick overview of the items that are going to be the biggest items in our slice of the pie from bond projects. And I'll

128obviously allow some time for any kind of questions. Joe? All right, thank you. So I have a quick update on the three big safety and security bond projects. The first, which was the largest dollar amount, was replacement of emergency communications equipment. Just to bring you back a little bit, we piggyback our radio system, our district emergency radio system, onto the city of Plano radio system. And because of technology advances and some different technology requirements by the city, we needed to replace our existing emergency radios. That has been completed. All the school buses and other vehicle radios have now been replaced. We've transitioned to the new equipment in all of the campus and other district facilities. One good One of the benefits of the new equipment is that it's the handheld radios that we provide to

129campuses now have, and this sounds like a little thing, but they have a window, a display on them so that the campus knows exactly what channel they're transmitting on. And it sounds like a tiny thing, but that really is a fail-safe to make sure we have everybody on the right channel. Because we what we use these for is to make a district-wide announcement in the case of an emergency tornado dangerous weather or any other things of that nature. The other part of this bond project was replacement of campus, the small campus radios, which are the walkie-talkies that the campuses use to communicate at the campus level. A lot of those radios date back to the 90s. Some of them were getting unreliable or they're broken. And some of the student populations and special populations in

130general ed as well have changed at the campuses and they just require more radios. So we are in the process of purchasing and distributing those. In fact, one of the items on the consent agenda tonight was for the purchase of a quantity of those campus level radios. The next major project is the security upgrades at the senior high schools. As you are probably aware, the senior high schools have never had a voice intercom system, which is a challenge when you're trying to make an emergency announcement for people to evacuate, go into lockdown, things like that. So this bond will cover the installation of a... automated voice intercom system that beyond making being able to make routine voice announcements some of the models that we've demoed allow for pre-recorded emergency announcements so in the heat and

131stress of the moment the campus administrators can push a button and the system will make the emergency announcement some of the models we've demoed are also can be integrated with access control and other systems. And the access control is part B of this bond project. Currently the senior highs, because they are multi-building campuses similar to junior college and students transition between the buildings, there's really no way to keep the doors locked. all the time because students have to go through the passing period. So the current practice has been that basically they unlock the doors in the morning and then they lock everything back at night. Some but not all of the doors are on the district's automatic access control system, what we call the Galaxy system. A portion of these bond funds will be used

132to increase the number of doors that are on that automated access control system and ultimately we'll work with the campuses to identify perhaps one door at each building that would remain open all the time. and the other doors would be on an automatic lock system, a timer, so they would lock during instructional periods and unlock during passing periods. There's really no perfect way to secure those campuses, the exterior doors, because they have kids coming and going, staff members substitute. So the idea is we're going to not have, you know, 20 doors open at each building. We'll have one door open all the time and then the others will unlock on a timer during passing periods. So trying to come up with a happy median there. Also the intercom system we anticipate will integrate with the

133access control. So in an emergency, depending on how we set the system up, we could have it lock the exterior doors or unlock the exterior doors at the push of a button when the intercom announcement's made. We are in the process of working with an engineer to come up with the specifications on that project and the anticipation completion date will be this upcoming summer. Lastly, The last bond item is to upgrade the campus panic alarms. Currently all of our buildings and campuses have a panic alarm, but it is the type that goes through an alarm monitoring company, then calls the police in that city and notifies the police that way. There's somewhat of a delay in that type of system that you just can't get around. We've placed three of what we call the Centurion

134alarm systems. We put those in three campuses a couple of years ago as sort of a pilot program just to see how this would work. fearful of false alarms. That can be a, that's a major sticking point with the local police departments if you're having a glut of false panic alarms. This new system, which has worked out very well, what it will give us is that rather than having one or two panic buttons in a school, you'll have 10 to 12 staff members who can activate the panic alarm on their computer. either through activating, pressing certain keys or by clicking on icons to activate the alarm. And it's instantaneous. When that alarm is activated, it plays a prerecorded radio announcement over our security channel radio as well as some of the local police department's radios.

135It makes an automatic call to 911 and it sends a text message to anyone we want which is generally the security staff, the campus staff, and our roving campus protection officers. In the case of a senior high or high school that has an SRO, we can obviously include that officer in receiving a text message if that alarm is activated. We've had a couple of meetings with one vendor, the Centurion system, and We'll work with our purchasing department on the specifics of where we need to go as far as a bid or if they have a sole source letter, which I believe they do. But long story short, we have some things to work on with our technology services department because installing this system district-wide is going to require some coordination and support because what... What

136comes up is making sure we know where that alarm came from. And there are some conventions and how we are going to make the pre-recorded announcements and other text message language so that we have that information quickly. So we're expecting to complete this project by December of 2018. If you have any questions, I'm happy to. Joe, the Galaxy system that we currently have, does it allow you to lock down the campus completely now? It does, but it's a fair number of keystrokes. We did. Probably a year or 18 months ago, we had the Galaxy technician set up some what they call door loops to get all of the senior highs, each building's exterior doors on one door loop. So if we had an emergency at the senior high and needed to lock one down, we

137would have a support staffer and security who could log on and start hitting those buttons. I have a question. On the door that remains unlocked, obviously there needs to be ingress and egress during class time for certain things. Right. Will we have to have special attention to that door in an emergency? The concept would be that we would try, working with the campus on how they use their buildings, we would try to identify a door that would have some sort of, at least informal surveillance on it. Located in an area where there's adults in an office or something like that. And if that wasn't possible, we'd certainly have a camera on that exterior door. and would have the ability in an emergency to remotely lock the door down as well. Okay. Thank you, Joe. Thank

138you. All right. So that concludes the items for action and discussion. Now we move to item X or 10, which is, oh, sorry, reports. That was the report section. Thank you. This is item 10, policies. These do request a decision and closure. They've undergone prior review by our attorney and by each board member. We have a multitude of them to go through individually. At this time, I'll ask Ms. Oliver to please introduce these policies. Thank you President Bender. I will say although there are a number of them they're all second reading for the most part and there are only a couple that reflect any editing that came as a result of our first reading and I'll point those out to you as we go through but first we have TASB localized policy manual update 108

139which affects local policies. It's presented to you for adoption under second reading this evening. Okay, this particular item will require a specific language in the motion. Do I have a motion regarding this adoption? I move that the board revise, add, revise, or delete local policies as recommended by TASB Policy Services according to the instruction sheet for TASB Localized Policy Manual number 108. Update number 108. Thank you. Do we have a second? I second it. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Item B is CFC Local. Thank you, President Bender. This is in regard to accounting and audits. This policy is presented for adoption under second reading. One edit has been made since it was first presented to you for first reading. The term interim has been removed throughout the policy as requested

140from the last time. Do I have a motion to adopt CFC local accounting audits under second reading? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Item C is DH local regarding employee standards of conduct. Second reading. Thank you. This policy is presented for adoption under second reading as well. It clarifies procedures relating to testing for prohibited substances, and it's the same as when you first saw it. Do I have a motion to adopt DH local regarding employee standards of conduct on second reading? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Item D is DH local. This also is in regard to employee standards of conduct and falls in line with the edits from the previous

141policy. This clarifies which drug testing policies apply to certain employees regarding their work. might be subject to federal DOT regulations and which employees are not so this is just the next leg in that series of policies it's also production under second reading and hasn't changed okay do I have a motion to adopt DHE local under second reading so moved all in favor second do I have a second okay who's in favor please raise your hand motion passes unanimously thank you item E is EC local regarding school day thank you again this is for second reading I will say since you first saw it in first reading a revision was made requesting that in that last paragraph on one of one that the term in the series of the district shall not compose, sponsor, encourage, suggest,

142and then the edit is or discourage the recitation of prayers in school facilities during school days. Okay. Do I have a motion? So moved and thank you. And do I have a second to adopt item E, EC local? I adopt that. Second. Okay. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Item F is EIF local having to do with graduate academic achievement graduation. This is also presented for adoption under second reading and again it's the same as you saw in first reading. Okay you don't have a motion to adopt item F EIF local on second reading. Okay do I have a second? Second. All in favor please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Item G is FL local on student records. Thank you. Again, this is presented for a second reading this evening

143and for adoption. This revision modifies the process by which certain requests for education records are handled. Do I have a motion to adopt item G, FL local, under second reading? So moved. All in favor? A second. Do we have a second? I'll second. Thank you. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. All right. Thank you. Next item is item H, GKD local. Ms. Oliver. Thank you. This is in regard of, under the heading of community relations regarding the non-school use of school facilities. It's presented for adoption under second reading. Okay. First, I'll entertain a motion. Do I have a motion to adopt item H, GKD local under second reading? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? Yes, typically these policies often don't have much life unless you're telling someone

144they can't bring their dog to the carpool lane. This one actually became real to me after we voted on it at the first board meeting. I'd like to share kind of a visual aid to make my point. This is actually from the Huffman Elementary yearbook. This is the Huffman kindergarten soccer team. I want you to look at the kids and the families and the smiles. Most of our kids went to Plano Elementary schools when this happened naturally. Well, Huffman, with the challenges it's had, it doesn't happen naturally anymore. So a coach came out of retirement to start the kindergarten Huffman team, and this is the result of it. This year, and the recruiting was done at the meet the teacher thing right before school started. This year, after that was planned, this coach got an

145email saying, we'll let you do it this year, but next year you can't come and do this. because of this particular policy. Well, if you read the policy carefully, it doesn't preclude a community volunteer affiliated with a non-profit coming into the school. So I don't have any issue with the policy, it's the practice I'm concerned about. Because particularly with schools with great need like this, we need every community non-profit and community volunteer mobilized that we can to move forward and help these kids. So I want to make sure that our practice isn't just to say no because it's easier when our policy actually would allow it. Now it's been an amazing coming together for this community. This soccer team has the grandson of a former trustee from one of our leading families as well as

146kids who are new to this country representing five or six different countries and you see how they've come together. It's held together so well that we lost only two out of twelve kids which for Huffman is amazing retention and there's been a parent group that's decided they're going to move forward and coach the first graders so this team will get to continue. There was such interest this year that we're actually going to have two kindergarten teams. So I ask the district not to preclude this type of community engagement. If you decide to, I'll get my husband back. And the hours and hours he's putting in and the money he puts in, I'll be off the hook. But the community will suffer. So that's my plea, that we don't do things that disadvantage children. Okay. So

147we have a motion and a second. And we have a comment regarding... practice in your feeling that it's inconsistent with policy. So my suggestion is that, and I bet there's been some conversation about this that's occurred already. Can we continue to have the conversation to explore this topic a little bit further? There's another group that was told they couldn't come back as the Boy Scouts. So this is... Well, not come back. Well, not come back to meet the teacher. And the challenge when you have parents who are new to the district, new to the country, certainly we can send home the little flyer in the back to school thing, the go home packet, but that is not a very personal way to communicate the type of services we might want to bring to our children

148from recognized nonprofits. So I'm sure the balancing act is in the examples that you've shared there are examples that we all would feel great about. Is there risk to opening the door to examples that we wouldn't also feel great about that we find at risk? So in that part of the exploration, if we could just continue the discussion. consider what we want to do with this policy so we have a motion and we have a second so now we'll take a vote all in favor of GKD local please raise your hand motion passes yes thank you okay item I is CQ exhibit this is an item just for our review miss Oliver Thank you, and thank you for mentioning the review. As part of practice, we typically bring exhibits and regulations to the board just

149for review. It does not require your vote to approve. Again, this is brought to you under second reading, and I just wanted to offer that clarifying language. All right, thank you. Do I have a motion to review item I, which is CQ exhibit under second reading? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Item J is CQ regulation. Again, an item for our review. Ms. Oliver. Thank you. This is in regard to technology resources. Again, this is presented under second reading, and this revision will allow the district to accept electronically signed documents or digital signatures as specified in the regulation. Do I have a motion to review item J CK regulation technology resources under second reading so move by the second second all in favor

150Please raise your hand motion passes unanimously Item K is GKD exhibit B Miss Oliver. Thank you This is under the heading of community relations in regards to the non-school use of school facilities. I will say there are a couple of edits to this particular one and they are in red in your copy and this essentially comes back to rates that we added in since the first reading that helps clarify what facilities are and are not available along with their rates. Thank you. Do I have a motion to review item K, GKD exhibit B, under second reading? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor, please raise your hand. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. All right. We are now at the conclusion of our meeting where we have a public comment

151session opportunity. Ms. Oliver, do we have any non-agenda speakers? Just for the record, I will say that we did have one, but I understand that that speaker has left. So, no, we do not at this time. All right. Thank you. With no further business, this meeting of the Board of Trustees is adjourned at 9.23 p.m.