Bryan ISD School Board Workshop Meeting, March 2, 2026

001I now call this Brian Independent School District meeting to order. Let the record show that a quorum of board members is present, that this meeting has been duly called, and that notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code, Chapter 551. The time is 6 pm. I wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone present this evening. I ask that you please turn off the sound on all electronic devices and let's stand for the pledges. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. >> Honor the flag. Ice one state and indivisible. Okay, we'll start with our spotlights this evening. Um, first is recognition of

002the Education Foundation's Alternative Certification Scholarship recipients. >> Yay. >> Sarah Braden, executive director of the Education Foundation, will present. >> Thank you. So, we're excited to be here tonight in an effort to grow and support our Bryant ISD educators. The Education Foundation has awarded $45,000 in scholarships to both teachers and degreed pair professionals seeking their teacher certification credentials. So tonight we are here to celebrate these nine outstanding educators who are already making an impact in the classroom through their dedication to learning growth and positive classroom culture. So as I call out your name to be recognized, please come up to the front. If your campus principal is here with you, they are welcome to join you and then we'll get a group picture. So, our first recipient is Jesse Arjon, who works as a science

003teacher at Dala Middle School. Our second recipient is Troy Ka, who represents Bryant High School as a physical education and health teacher. Next we have Marinel Stalin who is the art teacher at Neil Elementary School. We're also here to celebrate Tama Smith who serves as a paraprofessional in the best program at Mary Branch Elementary School. Another outstanding teacher is Katie Crier who works as the school suspension educator for Sam Rurn Intermediate School. We also have Quei Johnson. Quei is the CEK teacher at Rudder High School. Next, we want to recognize Ashley Justice, who is a PE instructional aid at Johnson Elementary School. We also have Natalyia Gonzalez Galindo is also receiving this scholarship. Miss Galindo is a second grade dual language teacher at Johnson Elementary. And last but certainly not least, we have Kathy Morris

004who is a paraprofessional aid at Sadbury Intermediate School. These scholarships represent a strategic investment in our future. We want to support passionate, skilled individuals as they transition to become certified classroom teachers. We are so proud of each one of these recipients and grateful for the dedication they provide to our students and our schools. Yay. Sarah, I just want to say that I think that's an incredible initiative by the education foundation to take resources from the community um and identify needs within the district. Uh this is this has been an awesome one to to see take effect and we're just thankful for y'all's efforts. >> And then after this, families, y'all can take turns and come up here and take pictures with your family. Oh, good. Good. He's going to get All right. Next, we will

005celebrate state wrestling athletes from Ruer and Brian High School. Uh, executive director of athletics Derek Rush will be presenting. Good evening. You guys come on up. >> Good evening. It is an honor to take this moment to recognize some truly outstanding uh athletes and coaches. Through their hard work, dedication, and uh outstanding commitment to their athlete ability, the Brian High School and Ruer High School have represented our school with pride at the state wrestling tournament. Uh so at this time, I want to turn it over to Coach Warren, who is the assistant coach at Ruer High School. Uh, Coach Donley is not able to attend tonight, but coach one would would take over and represent uh the uh RTOR wrestling program and talk about the young student athletes here. >> All right, good evening. Right

006here, we'll do Ava first. We have Ava. She's our senior, one of our senior wrestlers, twotime district runner up, twotime regional qualifier, and a and one time regional placer and state qualifier. She's been a great teammate and a leader and she'll be greatly missed. And then next we have Elena Placius. She is a junior district runner up in 2026, twotime regional qualifier and one-time regional placer and state qualifier. She will return to us next year as the cornerstone of our girls program and we look forward to seeing what she can do her senior year. We have any parents in the audience that want to come up and get a picture? So, next up we have uh Brian High School who uh these two young ladies and young men uh were alternate uh participated in the

007uh state wrestling meet uh there in uh u scare and also uh coach Zitto and coach Thomas uh the head coach at uh Brian High School will be uh representing and recognizing their student athletes. >> Good evening. Um so I am beyond uh happy to have these these group of individuals. Uh Clayton, he wrestled at 113 this year. Uh placed fifth at regionals and qualified. He's shaking his head cuz he's not happy. um I kind of had to like, hey, you're going to be here and you're going to hold your head high. But uh last year he uh didn't win a match at regionals. And so this year placed fifth state uh alternate. Next year I'm expecting uh so much more success for him uh and to actually be on that that state podium as

008a placer as well. Uh so very ambitious. Our two girls, um we have Zoe, Caitlyn. Uh Caitlyn wrestled at 100 pounds, Zoe at 145. Both of these girls made school history by becoming multiple time state placers. And Zoe made school history again by becoming the first state champion in Brian High history. And so girls, uh, all three of these kids, they they work tremendously. We just came from practice and rushed over here. Um both our girls are headed to nationals at the end of this month and we're working really hard to hopefully bring back some all-ameans uh hopefully in about the month. So uh we're just super excited and working very hard um next year all three of them get to return and hopefully be back on top of the podium. So thank you guys.

009>> Congratulations. retired Christmas. It's a neat story because coach Zito started our wrestling program at at the only one we had for years and then coach Victor was one of his state. Did you win state? You went >> a few times. >> Yes. So, one of his Brian High athletes and now he's the coach. And so you're looking at the two coaches for Brian High Wrestling since its inception. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. class. >> Congratulations. Next, we will celebrate our National Merit finalists from Rudder and Brian High School. Uh, presenting will be Dr. Christina Richardson, director of advanced academics. >> Good evening. Um, I am so excited to be here tonight. Back in October, we brought you uh the great news that we had two semi- finalists. And tonight, we get to give you the

010even better news that we have two finalists. The National Merit Scholar Award is given to less than 1% of high school seniors. It is based primarily on the PSAT to start, but during their senior year they have to pass through several more academic hurdles and in order to get awarded the finalist um award. And so I'm going to allow their principles to do their introduction justice. >> He's been here like four times with all the things he does. Good evening. It's always great to get to come up here and talk about Michael again. And so, um, once again, the thing that is great about Michael is how well-rounded he is and how he's been throughout, um, school. Um, he has been on the gymnastics team, varsity gymnastics, all four years. Last year, he went to

011the state meet where he placed fourth in the Palma horse at state, which is obviously a big honor. Um he's also competed throughout Skills USA and competed last year in the national competition in web programming. Correct. >> Computer programming. Sorry. And so um so he also has excelled at that and competed at the highest level at that for Rudder. Um after college, he plans on serving uh for his church for two years on his two-year mission before he goes to college. But in college, uh he plans on studying computer science and so we are excited. Um he says this year his uh favorite subject is calculus. And then uh once again he also will be a candidate for an AP capstone diploma at the end of the year. And so once again like I said

012uh we're very proud of Michael. He excels in many areas and uh on top of that he is just a wonderful young man. So congratulations Big brother. Good evening. is a first year principal and it's pretty easy to have a student that you've gotten to know well over time for multiple awards. So, Katherine definitely makes my job a little bit easier and and just remembering names alone. So, um it is my great privilege to stand here before you tonight and recognize an extraordinary young woman that we are lucky to have at Brian High School. Today, we celebrate Katherine Kaiser and her achievement as a finalist in the National Merit Scholarship Program. A distinction earned by some of the most accomplished students in the nation. This honor reflects not only her exceptional academic ability, but also

013her dedication, discipline, and intellectual curiosity. From the moment I first met Katherine, she's distinguished herself not just through her impressive transcript, but through her character. That character is seen on a daily basis, and just last week, her dedication to her fellow classmates was on display when she spent time with many of our sales students at a night to shine. >> What makes this achievement especially meaningful is that it represents balance. She has excelled in rigorous coursework while contributing to extracurricular activities such as her time in orchestra, journalism, academic UIL, student ambassadors, chess club, and national honor society. She exemplifies what it means to be both accomplished and compassionate. As a school, we are incredibly proud of her, not only for this national recognition, but for the example she sets every day. She reminds us that

014excellence is built through perseverance, curiosity, and the courage to pursue one's goals wholeheartedly. Next year, Katherine plans to attend Harding University where she will major in mechanical engineering. But until then, we're fortunate enough to have her at Brian High School. On behalf of our entire entire faculty and staff, we say congratulations. We cannot wait to see the impact you will continue to make in the years ahead. Congratulations to both of you. Well done. Next, we will recognize a showcase teacher by Lead Forward Consulting. Um, Linda Mononttoya, executive director of school leadership, will present. >> All right. Good evening. Well, it is actually my pleasure to introduce to you Mrs. Leticia uh Moody. She is our teacher mentorship and retention coordinator for our district. So, she works firsthand with all of our brand new teachers for

015the district. Uh she coordinates all the mentoring uh that goes along with our program. She knows these teachers. She provides training and so I'm going to invite her up uh to do the spotlight this evening. >> Thank you. >> Okay, we have Miss Helen here. I would have I'm very honored first to be here tonight because our very own Helen Ford, she's a fifth grade teacher at Jane Long and she teaches science. Uh last year I submitted three names from Brian ISD to be able to be highlighted and showcased on lead board's website and Helen was chosen this year to actually be one of the representatives on their platform where she was able to be able to highlight the important role of being a firstear novice teacher in a district and give some advice to

016I'm talking hundreds and thousands of teachers across the state of Texas because on this platform we're talking about a thousand plus school districts log on to lead board. And so Helen is actually highlighted and spotlighted this year. Uh actually now you can log on to their website and see her story. And what she's doing is providing some input because this time of the year new teachers kind of feel overwhelmed and kind of like can I push through? Can I make it to the end? Will they see me next year in my district? And Helen did a very good job speaking from her heart and her passion as a secondyear teacher because she was with us last year on how to push through. Remembering the why, remembering your purpose of why you're in this role as

017a teacher and you did a very good job encouraging them. Lead board was very proud of your testimony and speaking from your heart and your passion to all of our new teachers all across the state of Texas. So, we honor Miss Helboard as being lead boards showcase teacher on their new teacher website. >> Wow. >> Yay. >> And I had the good fortune to be with Miss Ford Saturday and she knows how to make slime that's not messy with the glitter and everything. And so I told her we were coming over to get slime lessons. That's a sign of a good science teacher. >> That's funny. >> Congratulations. Next, we'll move to public comment on agenda items. Citizens may make comments about topics relevant to district business. Topic should be limited to three minutes. Comments

018concerning specific student or personnel will be held in close session. We do not have any um comments this evening. So we will jump to board member reports. Intergovernmental committee report uh will be provided by Miss Felicia Benford. >> Good evening. I attended the intergovern meeting myself, Miss Waller, and Miss Carabine. It was the Brazes Valley Council of Governments that did the presentation. So, it was all about them, the services that they offer. They have um seven counties that they serve. They have 17 programs. The number one program is workforce and their second program is WIC. Um they have 32 board members on that committee and they serve the regional 911 area on aging. Uh they have an indigent health care program. They provide fiber optic to several business in town help with housing, transportation, senior

019Christmas. So just a lot going on. So if you get the opportunity, go to their website and see all that they have to offer and what they're doing. great program. Um doing wonderful things. Wonderful. >> Thank you. Uh moving to our in foration items. Uh first is campus improvement plan updates for Bowen Elementary, Fannon Elementary, Henderson Elementary, and Houston Elementary. Executive Director of School Leadership Linda Mononttoya will present. All right, I am back again to talk about campus improvement plans. So, we have four more principles that will will be um they will be providing you some information this evening on their priority focus areas for academic improvement uh from their campus improvement plans. And just reminder that the alignment begins with the board of trustees with the adoption of the board goals. So in the

020development of the campus improvement plan, we always begin with the review of the district vision, mission, the board goals and our district improvement plan. Some of the required elements in uh include the comprehensive needs assessment, measurable objectives uh for student performance strategies, uh the budget and timelines. And then every campus has a CPIC committee and I am not very good about there we go um their CPIC committee who actually reviews and approves uh their board. So some of the things that we do as a district where we collaborate with our campuses uh we do our CNI support walks. These are our our district coordinators, our curriculum coordinators who uh walk classrooms along with the campus administrators. We do our foundations trend data meetings. Uh and this is through our safe and civil schools. So we're

021looking at data continuously through that. Uh we do our campus support team walks. Uh every Monday we go to uh an elementary campus. One group goes there and one group goes to a secondary campus. Uh during that meeting, we do classroom walks. We look at data. We talk about things that are going well. We talk about areas that we may need to tweak and and we make plans to to make that happen. And then of course this year we've added the uh Texas Instructional Leadership which is funded through the Lasso Grant. This is our campuses that are grades five through eight and they focus on observation and feedback and um providing training for uh campus principles on um the coaching cycle. So at this time we will hear from four principles. We will hear from

022um Bowen's principal, uh Fannon's principal, Henderson, and Houston. And I'm going to let them each come up and introduce themselves. So, Miss Guest, you want to start us off? >> Oh, yeah. That would be great. >> Hi, guys. >> Hello. >> I'm excited to stand here with you today. Um, Bowen Elementary, our improvement plan. Uh, took a dip starting off with um, Miss Guest not being there. So, it was important for me very quickly to come back um, and see where we are in our current improvement cycle. And so the best way for me to engage u my kiddos, staff, and families um was to come up with an easy to remember um tool for our for everybody to to take ownership here. We can talk about the campus improvement plan and ask staff about

023it, but a lot of times when we're quizzed about the campus improvement plan, even if they've heard it a bunch of times, um it's very difficult for people to nervously produce what we're working on. So if we focus on a word like engagement and put that with areas that are super important on our school, um then we can make sure that everybody has some ownership there. So the areas of engagement that we're focusing in on at Bowen are academic engagement, behavioral engagement, and emotional engagement. When we talk about academic engagement, um specifically uh it starts with planning. um on our part, it's important that our teachers are receiving the important um training that's necessary for them to be um star teachers. And for us, that means focusing in on their teaching rubric, which is tests.

024Um domain one is often not spoken about too much here. Um but this is the planning area where teachers are um teachers are evaluated. And um what we know is that we cannot grow kids how we want to grow kids unless we are focused on strong planning. Um what we're talking about is the exemplar. So ensuring that our teachers have strong training on what does the best look like in your room. And if we plan for the best, then it's easy for us to see where our kiddos aren't making um those gains. And so ensuring that our test uh training is strong for teachers there. We want to encourage student improvement in reading and math always. We know that that's what we're all going to talk about up here. Um but specifically with the use

025of academic vocabulary, um encouraging our teachers to plan for usage, not just the teacher saying out loud, but student discourse, studentto student dialogue, and encouraging them to speak um in a way that's academic. We want to um keep our kiddos informed in their own learning and that's student goal setting. Making sure that kids can explain where they are, if they are meeting their goals, where they're struggling and where they um need to improve. And so um student goal setting is super important in that academic engagement as well. Behavioral engagement is um an area that we all uh don't have a choice but to focus on because behavior is in your face and we got to make sure that um our campus safety is top priority. And so we want to increase kids feeling of safety

026by making sure that we have that that 3 to one positive interactions um with students to and staff. We want to collect data on that and make sure that we're driving our our teachers in the right direction with professional and development. not just say that we're doing that um but give them strong data on how often that's happening and occurring in the settings in our room. And then foundations is doing great things for us especially at Bowen with common language. Um we really like having these oneliners and things that we can say and do that mean a much bigger thing in the in campus. Um our specifically what we're taking data on right now is a common language term called pause up. And as simple as that sounds, um it's very important that kids know

027how to stop, um sit up tall, look at the speaker, have their ears ready to receive the message, their mouth quiet, and their bodies safe so that we can hear what's going on so that if any adult in any setting calls for pause up, kids know what to do, and we can get moving. So, we're taking data on that right now. Emotional engagement is our very favorite. We um are doing fun things at Bowen to increase uh family connections. Um, our veterans brunch has been very popular over the years. Um, every year we do it, we almost double attendance and this year they had more than 80 families join the veterans brunch. It was incredible. So, something fun to talk about. We have um an addition of a glow night that just happened last week.

028Um, glow, you know, neon and black lights and all the fun carnival games. We partnered with BB Kasa and they did some incredible um, blowup things for us. and um our turnout was tremendous um with over 40% of our families there which is so much fun. And then uh increased incentives with attendance. Attendance is a sore subject for everybody. We want kids here. We know how to do that. Um but we've been using some fun things including our book vending machine that our PTO um helped us with. But in order for kids to get to visit there, they have to earn a hot ticket. HOT stands for hot here on time. Um kids are here Monday through Thursday. They are here on time. Their name gets to go into a drawing and um at on

029Friday morning, two kids from each grade level um are chosen to go to that book vending machine and visit. So the only way you get to go there is if you're here on time. Um, Bowen Elementary is a great place to be and um, I'm excited to be back and thankful to be back stock chatting with you guys and uh, thank you for your time tonight. >> Yay. >> My name is Mrs. Taplet and I'm the principal at Fannon Elementary and I want to talk to you a little bit about our three areas of focus this year and of course our very first one uh well we'll talk a little bit about academic culture and student leadership. Uh of course academics is the most important uh goal that we have a focus that we have

030this year and a little bit different from domain one with test. We're focusing on domain one with star and that's just saying that we need to get more students passing that test. it's just not okay not to pass. And so that's been our focus to uh to strengthen our domain one scores for STAR. And we're doing that by looking at our tier one instruction. As we always say, the best tier one is a better the best tier two is a better tier one. You know, if you get a better tier one, you don't have to worry about tier two as much. And so our focus for tier one instruction has come through planning this year. After having so many strong conversations and uh meaningful collaborations during PLC's, we quickly realized and you know from a

031solid lesson plan for what we uh appear to be solid lesson plans. We noticed as a pattern of walkthroughs conducting walkthroughs a a big disconnect in our classrooms. So what we began to do was look at our test rubric and of course look at the um the waterfall document that we received this year to look deeper at where the the breakdown is happening. And we quickly realized that it was through lesson delivery. And so after determining that we were having a problem with lesson delivery because lesson on a paper is different from delivering a lesson. After uh determining that that was our area of breakthrough, um we uh decided to look deeper through the waterfall document and target the area of modeling. So our PLC shifted from being just talking through lessons, discussions to demonstrations.

032And so every week we have two to three teachers who are actually modeling lessons. Um it's becoming very a very powerful very quickly. Uh it was a struggle at first. uh teachers were really pushing back. They didn't want to prepare to come to planning in a different way uh by bringing all of their materials for lessons. Um by November it was really tough. I think we're all looking for November to come in Thanksgiving break, but we've made it through. We kept pushing. It was just, you know, it was just a non-negotiable. Um and so now they see the value of having planned actually modeled two to three lessons a week. I mean, just think about it as a teacher. if you've had those lessons model how much less stress that is and how much more

033effective your tier one is uh being. So that's been very good for us. Uh the next area we focused on was vertical alignment. That's been also a missing piece at our campus this year especially because we had different people in different places in the in the classrooms. So we realized very quickly as well that the language wasn't transferring from grade level to grade level. So we focus a little bit on vertical alignment in our academic u uh plannings as well during our weekly we call flex data meetings. We have for every grade level has a flex data meeting aside from PLC. So we focus on looking at that vertical piece along with data. Uh and so that's been a very big focus for us. We look at that we've been doing that during our uh

034PD days as well. And so teachers are finding a lot more value in collaborating over lesson plans. Another area I guess is our our culture. We are a leader and me school. I think we're the only school in the district that is a leader and me school. And just a little bit of side note and uh background on leader in me back in 20 March of 2020. We all remember that was during COVID uh that's when we were introduced uh Dr. Capertton was at our campus and was given a book on the uh by Steven Cvy the habits seven habits of highly effective people. And so, um, we looked at, she and I looked at that book and decided we were going to do a book study. Well, a couple of weeks later, we went

035out for, uh, co and, um, just looking for a way to rally the campus together. Thankfully, uh, you all do such a great job in preparing your your principles. You know, that was such a stressful time during the year. Uh, we just didn't know what was going to happen. And so, as she was in meetings getting feedback and information from you guys, she was bringing it back to us. And part of our I think it was our safeguard. It was it was a safe haven for us was this this book that we did a virtual book study by Zoom on. And so of course everybody was coming you know everybody was getting on Zoom. It was such a a powerful uh book for us. Um but leader in me is a comprehensive pray uh framework

036that um nurtures the um students in three different areas that is academic, culture and leadership and that's uh why I have those three uh areas here. So we became a you know we became a believer that year and um the next year we actually adopted the leader in me process and so you know we deal with seven habits that we teach students and adults. the adults have to learn habits as well. And so we teach those habits and they've been very powerful um these last three solid years, three solid years that we've been in there. Uh well actually four solid years. Next we've been looking at we have our um family day. Let me talk a little bit about family day. That's been about one of our pride and joys that come through leader and

037me. Family Day is a day that uh all of our all of our teachers on our campus and their students are a part of a family. We have four families. And so what happens is during family day, these teachers get together within their family on their grade level team and they rotate throughout activities together. So you have prek through fourth grade in one family. And so they'll rotate for two hours. uh great um lessons and activities and it's just such a strong way to strengthen our campus community. So we end the day with a high energy studentled pep rally because leader and me is very high on student leaderships and uh student roles and so the pep rally is studentled lots of uh familyfriendly competition lots of spirit and each family waving their flag. So,

038it's a very fun day. Uh, and at the end of the day, one family earns the bragging rights to take home. Well, not to take home, to hang the coveted spirit stick. Our next family day is actually this Friday. So, if you'd like to come, our pep rally actually starts at 1:30. The family day rot act uh activities uh go from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. But if you want to come, come to the pep rally at 1:30. It's a lot of chaotic fun. uh you will see a lot of students um running the whole thing and then look we look at attendance and the thing about I love about leader and me and not only leader and me but also foundations and our essential aid that we have for the district a lot of

039the principles are the core principles are all three are so intertwined and so we've had to do the work of actually because we didn't want to put away leader and me it was such a it it you know I think it's very dear to us because of the time we adopted it. So, it holds a lot of of of memory for us. And so, we didn't want to leave that to push that to the side, but we had to work together to create a crosswalk for our leader and me uh foundations and essential aid. And so, for a teacher, it is is we made it easy because it's on our calendar. Our counselor links all the lessons every single day. The teachers just have to go on and click the lessons during time and we

040can uh it it brings all three of these three uh together beautifully. So we've done a lot with attendance as well um through foundations and also uh with the leader in me because our next uh area talks about the student um leadership notebooks. Uh each student in our campus have a notebook. It's almost like cat avid but our thing our notebook's a little bit different because it have about five different sections but the first sections in that notebook is attendance. Every day in the classroom, there's a calendar in every child's notebook that the first thing they do is they log their attendance for the day. So any students can look back and see, you know, you you you bring up, hey, where were you last week? And they go, I was there. No, look at

041your notebook. Were you here? So, it's a very good reminder and memory for them to to look back over their attendance for the whole month because we do change those out every month. Um, also in that notebook they have things like um goal setting sheets. Uh, that's been a big thing. We've been doing goals for three years now. And so we're getting better at it. Um, because we've been really good at setting goals, but we found out that determining what a lead measure is, how do you reach a goal? Students have no idea how to reach a goal. And so we've had to learn how to teach ch children what are lead measures. And so u, we have that in there. We have my work, my celebrations because we believe in celebrating every child on

042our campus have a job within their ca in their classroom and then we also have campus jobs. So, uh we've done a late a lot with uh goals in our campus. Uh and our another one of my favorite is our grade level data boards. Every grade level has the data that they're tracking. You know, they have to work together. What are we going to track? What is our what is the what is the best bang for our buck? What are we going to track? So there's a a grade level data board um in every hallway. So that's been exciting for us to to keep track of. But as you see, all three of these areas work so well together. Um the academic student uh leadership and culture and they work well together with all three

043of our initiatives. So I do thank you all for coming. Again, we have our le our family day on Friday if you'd like to come by and um it's a lot of fun. Lots of color every family. It's earth, wind, fire, and water. And every team has a a color and they wear it to school and it's just so much fun. But want to see a elementary pep rally? Come on by Friday at 1:30. And that's also an an attendance incentive to get kids to school the last day before a big break. So, thank you for your time. >> I would like to just say one thing. Thanks so much for the invite uh for Black History program that y'all had on Friday. It was wonderful. >> Thank you for coming. Thank you for coming.

044I enjoy the invite. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Annette Ramirez. I am the proud principal at Henderson Elementary. And I love that we have a lot of things in common that you already guys heard. Uh so always the main goal that we have is academics. We are a bilingual dual school. So we have doubled the challenge as we are trying to get our students to increase their scores in both English and Spanish. Our students who take all the assessments in two languages when it comes to the start test. We decide what is the highest for them. Uh but we cannot do that if teachers are not ready. Uh so we plan as well. We meet with teachers and same as spanning teachers are now modeling for each other. I have a huge range

045of uh novice teachers with experienced teachers. So they are helping each other to grow and they come and they help uh in math and in reading and also we look at data often. Uh so we meet once a week for planning and then every time after we take an assessment we look at the data to see where the gaps are where the uh where we're doing good and what do we need to come back and retach and then from that we uh you know regroup redo our groups and we start all over again. Uh same thing as uh with that we want the students to be aware of their goals too. So, we also have goals for the students, they also have a binder, too. And we call them goalgetters and uh and this is

046for all the students. I have a bell in my office. So, when the class gets uh to meet their goal or the students, they come to my office and they ring the bell and they absolutely love that because it's loud. So, everybody gets to hear that we're celebrating them. So, it's it's an awesome thing that we we celebrate. We love to celebrate the students for everything. Uh so, that's a big thing. Um one challenge that we had is um always academics who always want to grow. So last year we uh took a group of seven people with me to go to a so we are doing a this year too. We're at the second elementary doing a now we are speaking the same language with everybody. So we're doing organization and this starts with having

047your backpack organized. So with the littles is we have icons of what it is that you're supposed to have in your backpack. So, we're cleaning backpacks hopefully weekly. In the classroom, we have binders for what gets to go home but stays in school. And then for the older kiddos, we are helping them to organize their thoughts. We have a lot of graphic organizers that they use in the classroom. And this goes from first grade to fourth grade. And they look different in every classroom, but we're helping them to um how to hold the pencil correctly, how to really organize your thoughts. and again for dual classes is double the the challenge because one week they might be thinking in English the next week they're doing it in in Spanish. So that's what those folders are

048really helping their students to be successful. Uh the framework for duo is they don't repeat the same they go back and they move on. So we really had to make sure that they're they know what they learn the first that week so they can move on and advance the second week. So that has been a great help for our for teachers to to speak the same language uh with everybody. Um the same thing is we love foundations too and essential aid. Um we also work hard we uh to get to know the students and to really have that 3 to1 or maybe even a 5 to1 uh ratio of interactions with them. And we celebrate every little thing that we see. We have lots of tickets that we give the students. We have our hawk

049box that we give the students. We have a hawk store on Friday. We have hop block. So we are hawks all the way and we do it for everything. We do it for academics. We do it for attendance. We do it for just uh noticing great things with the students. And the same thing with the centuate. Once we became a foundations district, we took the centuate as our core values. So the students know that we Hawks work hard to be leaders and everything that we do. We are leaders and we work really hard. Uh and every month we have lessons. We follow the lessons on Monday for the district. But then my team created lessons from Tuesday through Thursday that we do as well. And then on Friday we do circles because we know that

050behavior really impacts. If you don't know the students, you won't be able to have good um results academically. So we we do also really know the students and we do a lot for them. Before we get to do all the academics, we had to start with the heart. So that's our first thing that we do in the morning. So we do all of sensual 8 or SEO and then we move on uh with that also with essential 8 one thing that we've been doing is uh lunches we every classroom gets to select the student that display the sensual for um optimism let's say and then we recognize them announcements and then on Friday they get to come to my office to have lunch with myself and my counselor and they love that too. We give

051them a shirt and you're assigned to go with this play and they also they love that and they it's fun when you get to have the siblings and they tell me oh my brother also got that award so it's really fun to to see that and also of course I had to brag that my school got the UIL the two uh top school the two trophies for English and Spanish and again we're dual campus so we always work on both uh so whenever it was the elementary UIL so we got the two trophies home so again another challenge that we have that we we also want our students uh to be competitive too. Uh we cannot forget about our SPE students, our SPE students. We have a lot of SPE students in the sales program

052and a lot of them get to take the start test as well. So we also want to uh embed them on everything that we can and grow them. They have a lot of skills that they develop around the school. They have a hawk snakes cafe that teachers place an order during the week and then on Fridays they get to deliver to the teachers and they also have a garden where they're planting strawberries and tomatoes and whatever else we can get our hands on. So again we we try to incorporate all the students in our areas and of course we cannot do any of this if the students are not in school. So for attendance we also have a lot of incentives for them. We also do a celebration. We have a raffle on a Friday

053similar to um being too that if you're here in school, you get to put your name in that. So, and then we give them a science kit so they can get to go home and play with their families over the weekend as well. And also for uh my staff to is I cannot do my job if my staff is not at school. So, I also celebrate my staff every six weeks with breakfast or lunches on this month for them. And one thing that we've been working a lot is family engagement too. We use Class Dojo a lot and our parents love. And then today we launched our new parents course that we've been posting on it too. And then I sent monthly newsletters and my teachers also send their newsletters as well. And then we

054also have after school programs. We have arts choir, soccer and robotics too and our parents absolutely love that they get to participate on all these events after school. Uh we're also part of by third as well. We did this before CO and then we're joining again and we love to spend mornings, Saturday mornings with our families as well. It's it's been great to be here with our families. I get to see most families uh being committed to it. So they they coming back and that's great to see that. Um we also have a lot of uh events after school too with our grade levels. Every girl level has their own night where we do our music program, art show, and then the teachers do an activity. This year we did science nights, something that we

055haven't done in a long time, and it was a huge success. We had a lot of partnerships, a lot of people came from the community and we had also their reptiles from Rayburn. So, we had people holding the snakes. So, it was a lot of fun. Uh, at school, um, we also partnered with the village. This one I love because this one is a good mentorship for students especially for the male students that we have. Uh this is a program with a lot of&m mentors that come to school on Thursdays and it is just after school. It is free for the student but it really works on building the students. Uh it's not academic it's just about mentorship about how to be a better person and who do you want to be when you grow

056up. So, this is great that our our students get to spend one hour with college students playing basketball and learning a lot of new skills with them, too. One thing that we're doing this year that we haven't done in the past is PTO. We did not have a lot of parents, but this year we have about five months that are amazing. We actually had our movie nights on Friday nights and we raised over $1,000 with that. So, it's been great that we have more more and more more wanting to be at school and wanting to help to raise funds for the school. So, that's great. And also, I mean, Henderson is a great school. We love our school and we love our parents. And we always do everything that we can to support families for

057Christmas. We had a tree that we had about 60 students that went home with uh Christmas presents that sometimes parents could not afford. So we and a rally all their parents and all of our angels got adopted and everybody went home with really good pre um you know Christmas presents and right now we're doing cereal. So we we want our families to feel welcome. So we do we try to go above and beyond for them for everything that that we can for them. >> Any questions? >> Thank you. >> I've got a question. >> Yes. Um, how do you, um, I'm curious about your after school clubs, robotics, soccer, art, choir. Are they volunteer led by members of your staff? >> Amazing teachers that they volunteer. >> Wow. >> Yeah. They they they have those

058teachers that are the ones doing that, they have been at Henderson for maybe 10 years, the same as that have been there, and they know the value that that has with having that community and building those skills for the students. So, yes, it's it's volunteer. >> Yeah, it's awesome. >> And they love it and they keep doing it. >> Thank you. >> Hi. How are y'all doing this evening? Um I'm Andy Wells. I'm the principal at Houston Elementary School and um we have several focuses that we're looking at this year. Um, as always, we're focused on our um, student achievement, but really focused on our academic growth. And in looking at that, we really look at differentiated instruction is where we're really focusing this year. And it's not just with our third and fourth graders.

059We're really looking at it K1 and two. And so in addition to doing our weekly planning where we plan our tier one instruction, we also meet with our teachers um as grade levels and we look at student work and we talk about individual students and we look at where they're at and what we can do to push them. So not just necessarily students that need intervention, we've really been focusing also on what we're doing for our students that need to have enrichment and they need to have extensions. And so really when we're looking at our um our groups for differentiated instruction, we're not just looking at it for our lower students that need to get on grade level. We're really also pushing our higher achieving students and making sure that they get the uh differentiation

060that they need to push them higher. Um in looking at um we also have like our um different things as far as focused on clubs and stuff to help with that. Um, Miss, if y'all haven't had the opportunity to visit with Miss Bell, our librarian, she's absolutely phenomenal. And so, to help us with our focus on pushing our reading achievement higher, she has been having uh book clubs after school with different grade levels and really getting kids really interested in reading books for pleasure, not just for increasing with academics. and um she's just a magical person and truly a gem and really works on getting kids really excited about reading and excited about books which in turn is driving up our our reading scores. Um we also really do a lot of meeting with our

061teachers and having those um coaching conversations with them. We do a lot of walkthroughs and and then looking at their kids and talking about them and really being proactive and working as a partnership with our teachers alongside them and coaching them in uh providing feedback that way of increasing instruction. Um and looking at our attendance, you know, they have to be there in order to learn. So, we've been uh having some incentives on focusing on that. Um we're close to our goal, like we have a 96.5% goal right now. We're at 96.1. So, we're getting there. We're working on it. Um, we don't just do like grade level um competitions like we have where the classrooms are actually having competitions within each other and we do class prizes as popcorn parties and different things like

062that. But we also do individual um incentives. So, where children that are there on time have perfect attendance for that six weeks. They also get to get books from our book vending machine and that has been a huge hit. They've really enjoyed that. Um, we also have the principal hundred club and it's not just myself, it's also Miss Foreman. And we use that not just for attendance, like if they're there on time, they get to do it. We also look when they meet their goals and stuff, they can put their names up there. So, it's another incentive to kind of drive kids to push them towards their goals. Um, and then also a big one for us, I would say. Um, you know, we have an incredible parent involvement at our campus. I'm very blessed.

063We have an extremely strong PTO. They do so much for our students. Um, huge family engagement as far as activities and things like that. But what we really wanted to focus on this year was really bringing in more um partnerships within the community. And um so our first event where we really brought in those big partnerships is we just had our steam night and several of y'all attended that. Um it was absolutely huge. And I will say I had one teacher that really headed that up and jumped in when we talked about we wanted to have more community involvement and she had probably six or seven departments from&m that were there. She had different businesses like Code Ninjas that were there. Um she also had Abberlife Education Development. Um the uh Brazis Valley Museum of

064Natural Sciences and it was just huge. I mean, she just knocked it out of the box with getting all of them engaged. Um, and it was really exciting. Something we're looking forward to uh this spring is we also um most closer to May, but where our students do our living statues um but we have something really exciting this year where we're actually going to partner with the College Station Historic Preservation and they've actually invited us to have our students come for lunchon and actually perform for them and do that engagement for them. So, that's something that we're really looking forward to. I think it'll be really exciting for our students. And so, um, as you know, I mean, Houston's just a magical place and I have an amazing amazing community, very supportive and very amazing

065staff. And so, we're just very blessed and just continue to push them forward. Do you have any questions? >> I want to jump in and and just say this the steam night was amazing. many of us in this room were able to attend and I'm glad that you recognize Sabrina Springer who was the teacher that was instrumental in in bringing them all in. So, I was not surprised when I saw that she's your teacher of the year. Oh, she's just phenomenal. And it's not just with that. Like you mentioned something to Sabrina and she's like, "Okay." And she rallies everybody in and just really gets it done. Like if we talk about a focus or something we need to push on, she's just phenomenal in that aspect. I mean, I couldn't ask for a better

066staff member. And just truly um not just with that, but how encouraging she is to her peers. Like she'll send me emails, she sees her peers doing something great in the classroom, and she'll send an email and say, "I know you weren't in the classroom. You didn't see this today, but this is what they were doing." So, just really a very supportive staff member. She's phenomenal. Thank you. Thanks. >> All right. Did you all have any questions for these amazing principles? All right. Thank you. >> Thank you all for coming presenting. >> Next we have a teaching and learning update on student opportunities for academic success presented by Dr. Barbara Ibara, associate superintendent of teaching and learning. Thank you, Mr. Brian. Um, I'm also going to be joined by Dr. Richardson and Dr. Merrill. Uh,

067it is a team approach. This is all about academics and pathways for kids. Uh, we worked closely with our communications department. So, first, we all take no credit for this presentation. Our communications team put some phenomenal resources together um that we could use to help get the word out to families. So what we hope to do tonight is just we know the board's well aware of many of these programs but maybe not all of the viewers who could watch this later online are aware of all the programs that we offer in Brian ISD K12 for students pathways and success towards um their post-secary lives what they're going to do after graduation. So we wanted to talk just briefly about each of the programs with advanced academics K12 and then CTE as well kind of rounding

068out the whole story of life after graduation. Uh with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Richardson to begin with Brian Collegiate High School. >> Good evening again. Um so Brian Collegiate of course is near and dear to my heart. Um but they have been a exemplary school for many years. Um as you can see top four of schools nationally rated by uh the US News and World Report currently. So, students who attend Brian Collegiate have the opportunity to earn up to 60 college credit hours tuition free. Um, any of us who have paid a college tuition recently knows that that equals incredible savings for um your parent, a student taking out loans, whoever is going to be responsible for that tuition. It is a partnership with Blend and Texas A&M. Blend does

069a phenomenal job providing the dual credit services and um Brian Collegiate is set up to provide supports for students who want to take on that challenge. Um at the class of 2025, 75% were first generation college students. 48 student or on an average of 48 college credit hours earned 12 earned their associates degree 41 were core complete. That means that no matter what their major is, those dual credits they took will transfer on to uh the next school that they attend. And then they have an emphasis on community service. And so the class of 2025 earned 14,800 community service hours. And we have our QR code there for parents who uh would like to apply. And those applications are open. Any questions for Brian Collegiate? Okay, next up is our international balorate diploma program. Uh,

070one of the great things is this is the only one in the Brazes Valley. They had 137 total students complete one or more IB courses with 114 passing their exams and earning college credits. five of their subject areas. They the scores on those five subject areas were above the world average of those uh tests. 12 subject area exams 100% pass rate. So all the students who took those in the 12 areas passed their uh pass their exams. Brian High IB diploma students report earning 30 to 32 college hours. So, this means that once they get to their school, they have to transfer the credits and the and they're awarded that way. And so, what they're 30 uh they're getting 30 to 32 credits. The curriculum is really focused on research and making sure that those

071students are extremely well read, they can write um and that they are ready for that next step. And als QR code there for uh applications. Any questions on IB? >> Christina, do you remember uh how many are in in the state and even nation? I know it's a very exclusive number and uh it's globally renowned. >> Yes, I I actually don't have the number off the top of my head. Um but it is less than a thousand schools in the state and we are privileged to have be one of those campuses. >> All right. the only one in the Brazis Valley and yet we're proud to claim that. >> What are what are our numbers for IB currently? Do you know off the top of your head? >> I don't know off the top of

072my head. Sorry. Um they did just recruit I know 130 students into their freshman class for next year. >> So 8th grade students are um becoming aware of the IB program and preparing to enter in as a freshman. Mhm. >> And that's uh preIB. Is that freshman and sophomore is preIB? >> Right. So technically the IB courses are do not start until 11th grade, but they bring students in as eighth graders and kind of cohort them together. Um you know because students aren't going to want to start at another high school and then transfer over their junior year um because they participate in a lot of other things. And so you want to stay at one school during those four years. And so they are not taking IB courses um but they are starting to

073learn all those IB skills that they're going to need to get into the IB program. >> So a sophomore who's not in preIB can then enroll into IB as a junior. >> Yes, they can. >> Okay. And still be on track to to achieve the IB. >> Their act the actual things that they start doing for their IB diploma will not start until their junior year. >> Okay. So, at Rudder High School, we have the AP Capstone Diploma program. Um, this actually is not as veteran as the IB program. It just started um in the 1920 school year. And so, they are still growing. They're kind of they have to fight the infancy during during COVID years. But they what happens is that these students take two courses. The first one is called AP Seminar.

074And they can take it as a sophomore or as a junior. and then they take the follow-up course which is AP research and that's taken as a junior or as a senior and it is essentially two years um if you've ever seen a thesis or a dissertation and that's what they're building is that they are learning how to research learning what does good research look like and learning how to put that together into their own research project um and that's what the AP research class is so students complete those two classes they submit their work to college board as part of their AP exam exam and then to earn the diploma, not only do they have to pass those two courses and exams, but they also have to pass at least four other AP courses

075and exams. So, it can be those four can be anything. It can be art history, it can be physics, it can be whatever they feel strongest in. And for those students, they actually start taking those AP courses as freshmen. So, a student who takes AP human geography or AP world history, those scores would count towards their AP diploma. So, they have a little bit more time to meet all of the requirements of the AP capstone diploma. Um, and I believe they are about, last time I checked, they were at about 60 applications. I did phone a friend. Uh back to the IB. Uh as of early 2026, there's uh less than a hundred IB programs in the state out of 1,800 schools. So it when we say exclusive and and a tremendous opportunity, it is

076is truly that. So >> and for AP Capstone, we were the first in the Brazis Valley to have it. I believe now there's one other school that has it. Um but we were the first ones to start it. I think we're the only public public comprehensive high school with it. Yes, I'm pretty certain. >> Yeah. And then next is our Aspire Academy. This is our fifth through 8th grade academy. Um students enter in in fifth grade. Um during intermediate school, they get the opportunity to participate in enrichment. During that time, they're introduced to six different pathways. biomedical, engineering, computer science, fine arts, global studies, and graphic design. These are curated pathways. They were chosen very specifically so that students start understanding what am I a STEM student and what is STEM? And so they're looking

077at three different areas of STEM or am I more of a humanities student and what does global studies and business and language look like? What about fine arts? Graphic design is a very upand cominging um area as well. And so those six pathways were chosen very specifically um with teachers, parents, community members as we developed Aspire. Those are then aligned into middle school into six different pathways with CTE. And so they can actually start if they're a computer science kid, they can start taking um foundations of cyber security. um if they're engineering, they can start taking the um engine in introduction into engineering as well as um robotics. So each of these six pathways has courses in middle school that align to those uh experiences. And then into high school, it's curated again that okay,

078if you did this in middle school and this is what you really liked, then keep going and here's where you're going to go in high school. And so this was all done very intentionally with our our planning committee uh from Aspire and we continue to refine it as things change in the state because that's something of course they change classes on as they change pathways all the things. So we keep refining it a little bit as we have to meet those challenges from the state. Um and then within the classrooms students are in all four core area of advanced. So whereas uh other students may choose, oh, you know what, I'm just a really strong math student. I'm just going to do math as an advanced class, Aspire students are expected to be in a

079core curriculum that all four core are at that advanced level. And the teachers are doing project-based learning and cross-curricular activities. For example, in um intermediate, they're doing history fair in social studies. Well, in the English teacher, the aspire English teacher is also helping with history fair by bringing in the writing piece of it. And so, they're finding joint projects like that across their curriculum to um help enrich as well. Any questions for Aspire? >> I had some questions from a parent at one point about um I think at some point unfortunately can't give you all details but but that that there were students in some of these classes that were not keeping up with the coursework and it was uh in his opinion was kind of dragging dragging things down somewhat. >> I know that's

080a real challenge because we want to get as many kids involved as we can. Do you have any any comments on that about how that's being handled? Yeah. Well, that's always a challenge in any advanced academic. It is at Bryant Collegiate and AP and IB because students say, "Oh, I want to do this. I want to do this." And then the reality of actually doing it can be much harder or difficult than they they realize. One of the things that the intermediates have have put in to help students um is AVID. And so there's actually an AVID section for aspire students who need that. They need that organization. They need those study skills. they need to know how do I take notes and so they all of the campuses are trying to find ways to

081offer support to help those students who may be struggling a little bit. >> I I only recently went to on one of the board walks and saw some of the AVID stuff and I didn't really know that much about Abbott. I just heard is a good thing and and uh I can I know now what you're talking about about the organizational skills that's that's a a huge deal for a lot of kids I'm sure and >> something they can use uh in their if they continue their education after >> absolutely here >> and that's our goal is that they are taking these skills that then transfer later on um you know anything from how to read a syllabus to how to take notes because there's a lot of students who arrive into uh higher education

082who have no idea how do some of those basic executive functioning skills. And so that's what we want to be sure is embedded in our programs that they learn those while they are with us. >> Well, the only reason I asked my first question was I I just want to still be able to assure people that it's going to be a great opportunity for your high achieving kid to reach for the stars. And >> absolutely, absolutely. And then uh last but not least is our Explorer Academy. And so this is our academy for highly gifted students. So every spring um over January and February we spend time identifying students um in kindergarten who are gifted students. Now off the top of that are highly gifted students. So, highly gifted students are typically scoring in that

08397th 98th percentile um and in in all subject areas, not just one area because a student can be gifted in English and not be gifted anywhere else. But our explorer students, the way that we look at all of their assessments, we are identifying those students who are highly gifted in all of their areas. And so these students are um invited. Um it's not just an open application because what we do is we identify from the testing who are the students who are truly that highly gifted that we want to invite in. And then it is a self-contained classroom. Um and then they'll they'll go out for specials and PE. They'll join other students. But for their core part of their day, it is a self-contained classroom because those teachers are specially trained in depth and

084complexity and really being able to uh curate their curriculum to meet the needs of those highly gifted students. Um because you know left to their own devices, these are the students who are going to entertain themselves if you can't challenge them enough. And so um during their day in addition to their core being challenging they also have the opportunity to work on passion projects as well as project lead the way modules um through science and through that that passion project time. Um if a student is from outside of our district, we every year we always have at least a handful if not more who are calling from uh home school, from private schools, charter schools asking uh if their student can join explore and they contact Ross and then we set up the testing and

085we work on identifying do they fit the profile of an explore student. Christina, will you explain um should a parent choose to not attend a sport academy or they maybe they don't qualify but they're still gifted and talented and they meet all eligibility criteria. Will you explain that we do provide services at all other ele? >> Absolutely. So all of our other elementary schools serve gifted students um and and even Ross serves gifted students who aren't part of explore. So all students are served um at all campuses um and it's in two different ways. One is through the cluster classroom which means a classroom is a a teacher is picked specifically uh for their training and their ability to work with gifted children and then they are in the master schedule they're picked a group

086of usually about six to eight students to be part of that clustered classroom. So, they're still able to interact with grade level peers who are not gifted, but they also have gifted peers that they can relate to and and be part of a small group experience um that pushes them further. And then, um in our third and fourth grade, we also have pull out, which gives them enrichment experiences like robotics. Um I know that they've written their own little they've written a book. They've done a number of different uh projects through the pull out as well. Any other questions I could answer for you? >> Christine, I got a question. So, if I'm a if I'm a parent, uh, and I'm looking at these, um, programs, I'm kind of also speaking a little bit from

087experience. Um, how do I, you know, and I look at it and I go, okay, um, these are these are fantastic. There's a there's a litany of of options for me to choose. And if if I think if I think I'm right. Um if I'm looking at Brian Collegiion, okay, as a parent, I'm looking at that going, "Okay, that affords my child the opportunity to build college credits, >> uh tuition free." Okay. Um but if I'm looking at the IB program and capstone, um those don't come with collegiate credits. Correct. >> So they Yes. But so uh Brian Collegiate is run off of dual credit which means if a student successfully completes the class then they earn the college credit blend transcripts that credit um when they apply to college all they have to do

088is is submit that transcript to transfer their credits. Uh Brian High and Rudder have a smaller offering of dual credit but also do offer um a smaller selection of dual credit with AP and IB. those students have to su they successfully complete the class and then they have to take an AP or an IB exam and so they have to score high enough on those AP and IB exams for AP it's at least a three for IB it's at least a four and then they apply to school uh you know if that's&M or UT or wherever they're going next they submit those AP or IB credits and the school evaluates them for will we accept this and if we do how you know what what class are we gonna substitute? What does that get accepted

089as? And so the when I tell parents, they're like, "Which one do I choose? I don't know how to pick, right?" >> Um there's several different things that I tell them to to consider. Um first, >> their students, >> how do they perform in these high pressure moments like an AP exam? um if that is if that is something that's going to cause them a lot of anxiety and they're going to really not do well because it's such a high-risk moment of if I don't pass this I don't get the credit then dual credit may be a better option for them because if they successfully complete the course they get the credit >> right >> um on the other side if your student is going if you're planning on going to a private school or

090if you're planning on going out of state dual credit acceptance is not guaranteed and in those cases an AP or IB credits may be a better bet for your student. >> Yeah. And I think from a parent standpoint, I think it's it's great that we have all these programs. It really is. Um I think sometimes it's just kind of going, okay, well, which one do I what what do I pick? And you know, one of the things that I sat there last year's graduation, you know, kids are graduates with like 4.7s. I didn't even know that was possible. Um, and so I didn't know if you know, okay, Brian Collegiate affords you college credits. Um, AB Cap or Capstone and um, uh, >> IB >> afford you where the grade is on a larger scale,

091a fivepoint scale. Am I correct on that? Close. >> AP and IB courses are on a six-point scale. >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Sixpoint scale. And so again, I I I think that, you know, and again, >> but I will tell you, dual credit is also so kids at Rudder and Brian High who choose to go the dual credit route, those classes are also on that six-point scale, so they're still competitive. >> Yeah. So, and I think from a parent standpoint, I think it's it's going, okay, so that's where these programs make an impact on that scale. Um, and so again, I'm I'm almost speaking out of my own curiosity, but also again from an experience of sitting not only dealing with and having these conversations with our family, but also experiencing that in a graduation

092where I'm going, I didn't even know you could do that. And so, um, but I think these are all, uh, great programs that, um, you know, we we we offer. Um but also from a from a from an outsers's perspective whenever you start looking at it it's going what is all this and so um thank you for for for doing this presentation and uh the slide deck is is very easy for guys like me to understand where I'm going >> when do I apply how do I apply what's important so thank you for that >> and Mr. Stennis I have to give you and Mr. Brian credit because in our most recent meeting for community affairs with Hugo and Cali, you you gave us that feedback that we need a playbook that's easy to understand

093because the the complexities and all the options and choices. So, if you've got a kid in elementary or intermediate, this is a foreign language to you. Yeah. >> So, thank you for your feedback so that we could break it down and tell the story and make uh the information available. And we're talking also about bringing it out to parents because you can't wait until high school to make these decisions. It it really starts in elementary when you think about course selection for intermediate and middle school. U in fact we've done it with our intermediate parents in those nights called the next step. We've started talking about choices with course selection and then you you mentioned it already grade point average and how that determines ranking class because the universities are looking at that and then

094I can tell you as a parent and and someone working with college admissions officers even if you don't farewell on the AP or AIB exam if that's on your transcript and you took those levels of courses they understand the rigor and depth and complexity and if you're up against a student trying to get into&m or UT and you've taken AP or IB courses, you're probably going to jump ahead of the person who has not because they they understand the that level of rigor. So, it it's a lot to understand and we are committed to making this uh available to our parents and having meetings etc to guide them so that they can position their kids for success. And what I can tell you uh working in Brian IT, we offer more choices and opportunities for

095students that I than I've ever seen. and that's that is the truth. So, we're proud of it and um I'm happy to hear Christina explain. We're also working to make sure that we level the playing field and we position kids for success because maybe all kids are not as committed to um you know doing the work. So, we don't want them to fail and then miss out. So, we're going to do even more to lift them up and uh level the playing field and give them the resources they do because so they can be successful if they choose this route. >> Yeah. And one of the things that I I have that I do share with parents when I do various presentations is I actually have a a spreadsheet that compares all of the programs

096and all of the main elements of it so that parents can kind of get this view and decide here's who my child is. >> Which path is going to be the best one? >> Yeah. Good. Yeah. I was in regular classes so I didn't have to >> envious of those that do though. So >> you say something about meeting with parents. So, I I I'm hoping that when counselors get a tough question, >> I guess often times the the parents are going to our counselors that they would say, "Okay, well, I'm going to need to bring or you need to talk to to >> Yeah, that a lot of them know the answers. I'll be honest, because they they, you know, talk so much about all this stuff, but they they always use me as

097a resource. that they don't know or even if they're just a little unsure, I will they email, they text me and I I'm I'm as quick as I can to answer them and help help the parent. >> Well, that's great because you're the expert. >> Well, just one thing you mentioned about AB or AP and IB course credit. I think one of the distinctions between those and dual credit that a lot of people don't recognize is that with uh dual credit, you don't have choices on whether or not to accept the credit at college. Um if it's on a college transcript, it goes. You can't say, "Oh, I don't want to claim that." With AP and IB, if they score high enough to meet the university requirement for that test, so different universities have different

098levels of what they will accept for credit. then it's up to the student working with their academic advisor to choose whether or not to accept the credit which is a little bit different. Um and the last thing if I put on my professor hat former academic advisor um cautionary tale for all parents and students more college credit is not better. Absolutely. >> Um and we've talked about yes being core complete is helpful. Um but if they're not taking the right things in that moment, it doesn't serve them well. So if they're going to be engineering, um certain maths are required, etc., etc. And we it's just so hard for students to know early on what they wanted to do. >> And that was one of the huge benefits that Brian Collegiate had being a partner

099with&M is that Brian um&M admissions actually came over and met with us. And I learned so much about transfer credits and all of the things. And that's when even though the state was telling us get every kid their associates, it was because of&m that we were like, "No, we're going to go for core complete. That's what's best for the student." >> Yeah. And some people may say, why is that not a good thing? If they come in with 60 college credits, they're halfway through a bachelor's degree. It means that when they start as freshmen, they are taking upper level coursework that they may not be >> and they get locked into a lot of pathways like they they just don't have that moment to choose something different. >> Yes. It's very, it can be challenging.

100So, again, our goal is to make sure all of our students are set up for success. >> Yeah. You know, and as hard it is, you know, for students to pass those AP and IB exams, um, you know, on the on the dual credit side, while they do get the credit for passing, the other thing that we also cautionary tale to parents is if you don't pass the class, that college transcript is a permanent document. And so as a high school student, you are doing long-term damage if you are not protective of, okay, I'm really going to commit to this dual credit course and I'm really going to work hard on it and do well. So we try to make sure parents have the the the scope of of both ends of it. >> The

101great news is we offer so many options. So thank you for all your work on that. Incredible. >> Thank you. Well, to complicate it even more, uh we're going to go to CTE, which is um we're talking about a different type of giftedness in a lot of cases, but equally as uh gifted. If you've ever had a car that's broken down, you're looking for someone to fix it pretty quick and you want somebody that's gifted that can get it done. Uh and again, those choices and offerings in Bron SD is second to none to be completely honest with you. So, I direct your attention. you'll see all the various uh career pathways and uh we've been in the boardroom before, but for those maybe tuning in uh just as a remembrance, we are a CTE

102district of distinction. It's the top 3% of all uh districts in the state of Texas and we've uh gotten that for two different years. So, uh clearly there's uh a lot to be proud of in Brian ISD. When you look at that, there's industrybased certificates and our students are are graduating high school in many cases with those college credits that they talked about and they've got an industry based and I'm uh so very thankful for uh my children graduating and and is in that case and so whether it's cosmetology, welding or automotive or whatever it is they're getting to explore those options and uh we've only grown those programs and again you know this but it starts all the way back in middle school. Miss Carabine mentioned that uh you're picking classes intermediate. Uh you're

103doing the same thing in middle school and so you have an opportunity to take CTE courses to take the advanced courses that they mentioned and it's really the and they're both in this case and then all high schools including Bryant Collegiate. We're very excited about the expansion there and then the board has approved uh really a massive expansion at our uh MC Harris and we're thankful for that. uh you know we have the bride and rudder that has equal programs and then you've got our CEK uh on Mumford Road that offers four different programs out there duplications of what's at Brian and Rudder and so uh we've got very active and vibrant CTSOs career and technical uh student organizations which is uh critical for their understanding outside of uh the classroom. They have community B

104and business partnerships and quality curriculum and they engage the community at a level that I've uh really never experienced till I came to Brian. Uh you've you've seen that the mini monster truck that they the only uh program really only school in the state of Texas, Brian High. And then if you've also know of the all the wonderful culinary art programs that we have, the barbecue uh cookoff teams that were this weekend and then the rudder that brought home the the golden fork uh at the the competition. And so if you you know this better than anyone if you ever get a chance to eat their food uh it's better or as good as any uh restaurants in the Brazis Valley for sure. And then something that's I think very very interesting that our community

105has really grown to appreciate is the employability card. And when you look at that it's a card that the students get that shows that they're ready to be employed. And so as students go out and many of our students are interviewing junior senior year. In fact, we have so many folks outgoing looking at our kids. We had to say, you know, be careful. We want them to graduate high school. Don't be offering them these great jobs just quite yet. They can work part-time until they graduate. But they're asking for those cards and it's those soft skills. So many of our employers um they they'll train them and they've got good understanding of what's expected, but they want to make sure a kid will show up, that they'll be on time, that they know uh where

106to put their phone, that they know how to take correction, they know how to take guidance. And that employability card communicates that. So when a student goes, an employer will say, "Hey, can I see your card?" to verify whether or not they've got it. So, um, it's not only the hard skills of can you do this bead and can you, uh, replace the, you know, the alternator, but more importantly is, uh, can you be employed, will you stay employed? And so, a lot to be proud of. So thankful for our directors and our teachers. And um again, not to complicate things, but you've all said it, engaging our counselors is critical, not only for our advanced academics, but for this u because you're going to get an opportunity to take multiple electives. Uh and so

107you you can engage them and really figure out where your student wants to go, where your child wants to go. Any questions over CTE? >> I want to make a point, a statement. Um, I'm on the subcommittee for uh fine arts, CTE, and athletics. And it was it it was just like this thing that gives you goosebumps. This week we were on this Zoom um meeting and all uh Laura, yourself, Derek, uh Jacob, Justice, all everybody was represented and to let the community know, and I hope I'm not speaking too soon, but we're always thinking about career pathways that are going to be good for our students and our community. Yes, ma'am. >> And Laura brought up the fact and Derek also that we're going to create a career pathway for coaching, weight training, nutrition,

108and officiating. And if that isn't a pathway for kids to get started into a career that could go so many different directions, and anybody that has a child that's an athlete knows in youth activities, we're very short-handed officials, baseball, soccer, flag football, everything. And so to think to know that you guys are putting your heads together and thinking about things. I mean, I would have jumped on that heartbeat. U I think I was a football coach in my first life anyway. So, um, but this is just an example of what we're thinking about in the future. And I'm sure there'll be other districts that'll copy us, but that's okay because we know we the ones that got it started. But the career, this is just an example. >> Yes, ma'am. It's very pathways. That's a

109great example of course you wouldn't expect. >> Yeah. We're mixing science with the nutrition and the physiology part of it with the weight training. So, some of these people could come out, be coaches, be teachers, work on the collegiate level, be I mean, there's just no telling uh nutrition and and >> uh think of all the dieticians that are making a gazillion dollars right now. >> And anyway, so I'm just very proud and thankful that that >> our administration, our cabinet, and our department heads are thinking like this. >> I want to add one thing. Thank you, Miss Waller, for recognizing the good work. Thank you, Dr. Merrill, for shining a light on the tremendous amount of opportunities. But we talked a little bit about GPA and then ranking class. Of course, some of these

110CTE courses are also weighted. Our industrial engineering and robotics is falls under an engineering umbrella and project lead the way and biomed technology. Those are all on the same academic pedestal as some of these advanced placement classes that we that we are describing. So if I'm vying for top 10% graduate or valadictorian, etc., I could take take these types of courses in the CTE program and and contend with another person taking an AP and a core content. So uh we recognize in Brian that CTE and advanced academics as well as everything else we offer is all on the same uh pedestal is of importance. >> Yes, ma'am. And and I think you've pointed out and we've seen examples of students that have taken that engineering and robotics course and they've stepped into&m or Sam Houston

111State and they were teaching classes for upper level uh students because they've had practical hands-on experience. The robotic arms and everything in our uh C in our CEK is second to none. Um it rivals&ms in a lot of ways. So I don't know any other district in the state that has what we have sitting out on Munford Road. So our students are taking advantage of it and they're ahead of the ball game when they go to college. Thank you. >> All right, I think that's the one last slide, but I think that's really kind of it. So, you have anything else? >> And thank you. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> All right. Thank you all very much. >> Thank you. >> Next, we will have a bilingual program update. Dr. Jennifer Warren, executive director

112of special programs, will present. >> Yes. Thank you. And I'm here with Dr. Molina as well, and she'll help present some of our stakeholder feedback in the direction we're headed as a district. But over the past several months, we've had a few updates for the board of trustees with our bilingual programming across the district. Uh this these updates have been a reflection of the ongoing uh review that we have had of our bilingual programs across the district, especially at our elementary and intermediate levels. Uh what we are specifically looking at though are our knack and early exit program and knack stands for new arrival center. And this evening we're presenting our collective recommendations uh and our direction moving forward into the 2627 school year. So, as a review, at our elementary level, we have several

113different bilingual offerings, but specifically for tonight's purposes, the new arrival center, we'll review that, is our second through sixth grade students. And new arrival center is offered at one elementary school and one intermediate school. So, that would be at Jones and Jane Long. And that is specifically for our students who are arriving into the country with very little English. um maybe none at all and it's a very intense English support program for our students. And then we also have early exit transitional which is going to be for our prek through sixth grade students and we have this offered at 10 elementary schools and two intermediate schools and we have them listed here on the slide so you can see that. But what this program offers is over time we uh introduce spa uh English at

114a slower pace so that our students can transition from Spanish to English and develop that one language moving into our upper grade levels. So in both of these models with new arrival center and with early exit we have Spanish as a temporary support for learning English and what we want to do as a district if is move into our our one-way dual language model which would develop bilingualism and biiteracy. What we'll see with one-way dual language is that it would still be offered at our current campuses where early exit is. So we will not be seeing a huge shift in where these programs are offered. It's just which program is being offered. And uh you'll see that English and Spanish will be offered 50/50 across the content areas and students will remain in the program

115through sixth grade to really honor that biiteracy element. Now moving towards this as a district required a lot of stakeholder feedback and we worked with our parents, we worked with principles and teachers, community members, department leaders and even received feedback from each of you from our different updates so that we can inform our decision- making. I'm going to pass this off to Dr. Molina so that she can share some of that feedback with you. >> Thank you. >> Before I begin, I just have a very quick story. We were sitting on the sidelines over here listening to the principles present their incredible uh campus improvement plans and so forth and Dr. Warren leaned over and asked me are you excited and the truth is I am beyond excited. This is such a significant opportunity for

116our students for our pam our families the community for our teachers for our principles that we are making the commitment to bilingualism and biiteracy. So uh ab above and beyond excited and that's just shared sentiment from the stakeholder groups. So when we were looking at gathering this information over time and using the feedback to refine our proposals and actually come to you with a final version. Um the most common feedback that we received from the stakeholder groups included simultaneous language acquisition and biiteracy. The goal of all bilingual programs is English language proficiency. The goal of all bilingual programs, whether it's a knack program or an early exit program or a dual language, one way, two-way, all programs, the the goal is English language proficiency. But with a dual language program, there's an additive goal of

117bilingualism and biiteracy. And that's why we're here today. Also the the feedback from the stakeholders, they recognized the long-term academic growth that can be seen with a dual language program. So looking at higher reading achievement scores, increased performance on standardized tests, even greater performance uh and preparedness for college and career readiness. In addition, uh some of the feedback from parents is that a bilingual program should include biiteracy. We heard that when we were meeting with the the families and the community that a bilingual program they felt that it should include biiteracy and bilingualism as as the goal of an actual bilingual program. And then finally looking at alignment with tea initiatives and funding incentives. TEA uh basically has effective frameworks. They have uh professional development modules. They even provide weighted funding for school districts to

118really take into consideration and implement this model for emerging bilingual students as being the most effective model for English language proficiency and again the additive uh goal of bilingualism and biiteracy. So our next steps I think we need to start with re-engaging with the stakeholders. uh we absolutely presented the information to our stakeholders as a proposal and now that we're moving forward in this direction to reinvite them back to the conversation to build that capacity and deeper understanding of what one-way dual language is and working with the communications department getting something out to the families having them uh forward- facing documents and so forth giving them an insight into what that oneway dual language program is going to look like are going to be some of our critical next steps. Also, training for teachers. We

119have a a a great professional development venue that we have at the end of May. It's called Sale into summer. And during that time, we're going to have a dual language academy building capacity with the teachers and truly understanding the program. What is the goal of the program? and then looking at the critical support documents, the grading guidelines, the framework, the language allocation plan, the language of instruction plan and putting that all together for the teachers because one thing that is not not negotiable is fidelity of the program. We absolutely from day one one want to make sure that the program is implemented with fidelity so that we can see these gains and these benefits the academics and linguistic gains that we consistently are talking about and the parents want to see and the students

120are going to benefit from. And then finally looking at training for principles and building their capacity to understand what a dual language classroom looks like, what it should look like, giving feedback to grow the teachers through the the test model and so forth. So what is that going to look like for them? So again re-engaging all the stakeholders moving forward as we put all the uh all the elements in place for uh a successful implementation of the program from day one. So this is our direction moving forward for the 2627 school year and we are very excited about it. Our stakeholder feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and those that had questions we met with individually even at times to make sure that we answered their questions and uh brought up their comfort level with this

121model. Uh do you have any questions about this model moving into the 2627 school year? Well, I just need to say it's not the first time we've seen this. I think this is what, the third time, maybe. So, great job. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right, let's go to the consent agenda. The board can review any item from the consent agenda if applicable. If there are none, I will entertain a motion. >> I'll move approval of all the items listed on the consent agenda. >> Second. >> Uh motion was made by Miss Benford, seconded by Dr. Harlland Wolf. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Our first action item this evening will be to discuss and consider approval of the district of innovation local

122innovation plan renewal associate superintendent of teaching and learning. Dr. Barbara Ebara will present. >> Thank you, Mr. Brian. Thank you, board. I'm back this evening. I was here in January and gave you an overview of District of Innovation renewal process and I'm here this evening seeking your consideration of renewing that plan. Uh just as a brief overview and a reminder DOI is what we affectionately call the entire process uh was approved by the 84th legislature and Brian ICD has been a member of this group of districts which is pretty much every district in the state of Texas that has adopted a DOI local innovation plan. Uh this is we've renewed it one time after five years. This is our second renewal. We're at year 10 at this point. Um so it has been um in

123place and functioning well um for over a decade at this point. Uh the current plan has six different areas where we've sought innovation and uh basically um exceptions to the statute uh under the provision of the DOI legislation. uh things from the first day of instruction so that we can operate school before the fourth Monday in August through teacher certification which again has some limited flexibility especially after the last legislative session, minimum attendance credits, class size due to the mobile population, uh complaint resolution and then most recently the oversight of campus libraries as well from the last legislation. um those had not changed in in the process and in the plan itself is identical um to what has been previously approved by the board of trustees. Uh the process itself began in November where we

124went to the district education improvement committee the DEIC which is composed of community members, teachers, parents um and administrators. They looked over it. We did consider some other possible um adoptions and determined that they weren't necessary for the district. Uh we moved on into December where they gave additional feedback. In January, the DEIC held a public meeting and took a formal vote on the proposed plan which is identical to the current plan. Um and then we did post it online. It's required to be online for 30 days before the board takes consideration and possible action. And so we are here this evening um to discuss and answer any questions that you might have regarding the proposed uh local innovation plan uh before um before it goes forward. Any questions I can answer for you? >>

125I hope I don't jinx it, but it's hard to believe that something that's been actually this effective and good has lasted without a whole bunch of changes from above. >> That's very helpful. >> 10 years. We've made minor adjustments along the way with the board's approval. Uh but before you this evening is the identical plan that's currently in place. >> I served on I was newly elect or newly serving when all this started and served on the first committee >> to look at it. Yeah, it was great. Um so it is good that we are in our second iteration of it. Um, I move approval of the District of Innovation local innovation plan renewal as presented. >> Second. >> Motion made by Dr. Harlland Wolf, seconded by Miss Waller. All those in favor say I.

126>> I. >> Any oppose say nay. Motion passes. >> Thank you very much. >> By more than four. >> It was the unanimous, right? >> Yeah. Um 9B, consideration of and possible action on a proposed contract with PBK Sports. We'll let you take it from there. Thank you, Dr. Brian Merrill. I appreciate that. I went and grabbed the sheet because I wanted to make sure I said every everything correctly. Uh no doubt we're bringing PBK Sports uh into the boardroom today. Uh we're working on the other contracts. We anticipate being in there uh next board meeting. There's no issues or concerns with really any of them. We just wanted to go ahead and get started. Uh Bobby is uh anxiously waiting to get the work started. And so, uh we knew we could bring this

127one in, uh and we know the projects as they exist. And so we just wanted to go ahead and do that. And so we're hoping tonight that you would consider that um as approval that we could move forward with it. And he's going to hit the ground running. So we're very very excited for that. >> What's the total cost again? So 80. You're gonna get me lying. >> Sorry. >> Give me a minute. Will you look it up? >> Is it in the annotation? >> Yes. >> You got it, Melissa. I gonna say 82 or 86. It's all the athletic portions while she looks. It's uh the Merryill Greenfield House, all the fields and tracks, those types of things that don't that require an architect. Not all of that to be uh honest, Mr. Pavis

128will be included in that total amount. It will only be the project. So, for example, if we're just reskinning the like at rudder, we don't need an architect for that. So, even though it's in the total cost for the athletic portion, we won't hire an architect to do that work if the uh everything is good to go. In many cases, you can res reskin a a surface like three or four times before you have to do anything to the base. So, we won't need them for that. But when we come back into a like a baseball or softball, we're going to going to need an architect for that. >> 98. There we go. Will you remind the listeners that it was the two-step selection process? RFQ. >> Yes, ma'am. Happy to do that. Well, so

129we started with the RFQ process where they submitted all their submittals. We went through them, put a committee together. That committee stayed together through the entire process and so we had fidelity with that. Then they came back in after basically over half of them were weeded out and then another half came in and did a presentation as well as an interview. And uh the panel was right here in this room. They did a 20-minute presentation and then a 15minute interview. Uh, and they came in specifically knowing what they were looking to to obviously build. And so that committee then ranked them and um selected the architects that they felt like would build it the best. And so it was a honestly unanimous process. It was wonderful to participate in. Uh, and so they they really

130got to know the architects, their firms, and the pro projects that they've built over the years. specific questions. Not only did what the firm did, but what did those specific architects do, what was their background, um what uh projects they contributed in, what percentage of their time would be given to Brian ISD, who would we see on the ground, all of the things that uh one would need to know as they're selecting those architects was part of that process. And again, I I know we've shared this, but maybe someone's tuning in for the first time. We had the largest submitt of firms that we've ever had, not only from the architecture side, but also from the engineering side. So uh we interviewed I think 11 and we selected seven and we've had them ranging from

131a international firms to local firms and uh it was fun to get to know each one of them and uh see the strengths of each one and and that came out to be completely honest with you that you as you uh got to to not not only know their work but then watch their presentations and then listen to their interviews. You really got to narrow in on what you felt like would be best in this community. And then the last process was Miss Caravan brought them in. We came into the boardroom and you gave her permission to negotiate the fees and uh we did that. So they came back into the to uh the conference room beside our office and we got to know them in a like a little bit more intimate setting where

132we got to look over the contracts, talk about various aspects of it and um you know she got to see some of them for the first time, second time and that was a wonderful process as well for us to go through those steps uh to eventually get to where we're bringing uh we'll bring all of the architects in for the various projects. And you know, I I read things on social media and um find it interesting how people perceive bonds just in general. But um when we asked our voters to approve the the different bond packages that we had, they you know, so athletics was pulled out into its own separate one. Technology had its, you know, instruction had one um and they approved all of those and we're grateful for that. But those were

133estimates of what we anticipate. So it's important for folks to understand that the work hadn't been done in terms of >> what is the structure, >> what does it look like, where is it going, all those things. >> And so we try to to estimate what those costs will be and contingency for things that might go wrong. And so I bring that up to say that recently we had some bond savings from a previous bond and we were able to use that for something that was in line with what vot voters had approved, right? >> And that allows us to do something without having to use fund balance. Um so that's not unusual. No, ma'am. >> And we actually hope that that's the case. >> Yeah. Yes, ma'am. You do. So I I appreciate you

134pointing that out. And um if you're living right and lucky, then you come out on the positive end of things and you're able to bring things to bond steering. You're able to bring them to the boardroom and move things from 2025 to 2020. And that's what we were able to do. Uh absolutely. So they're estimates and uh we brought in phase three of 2020. We had it $4 million estimated for the total budget and we were, you know, very fortunate. It came in at 2.9 million. So there was a $1.1 million savings. And again, the projects that we list, we're we're going to complete them. And if for some reason, God forbid, there's ever a time when we can't complete the projects or something changes, we're going to come into the boardroom and we'll explain

135what that is. And so projects are completed, they're done, and you know, again, if you're living right and all the stars align, then you come out on the positive end of that and you have some bond surplus left. And um again, that's a wonderful position to be in. And it's um it's not really by chance, it's by hard work and really programming everything out and designing it out. And we're going to do the same thing hopefully this bond so that when we list those projects we're able to hopefully have a savings and that only contributes back to the district we're able to take care of things uh that you know would we might not have been able to. >> Right. And that voters we're in the same vein with what voters were interested in us

136doing. >> Absolutely. Yes ma'am. >> And we'll like she was saying maybe there's some confusion that we had some extra money because of the frugality. Is that a word? sure >> from the last bond. But we'll make sure that we're very transparent with the community about, okay, this money is left over because we came in under and so that's how we have this money to use right now from the 2020 bond. U not to confuse them that we had a whole bunch of money left over, but yet we created the need for another bond. And so that's certainly not the case, but we'll be >> better at explaining >> how this money is left over, what was done to allow it allow us to have, you know, the extra money. >> And um >> well,

137and and not to interrupt, but we do know of school districts that were not well positioned in 2020. >> Yes. that couldn't finish projects because they they underestimated the need when prices went up and they did not have folks looking out for them acquiring the things. >> Yes, ma'am. I think back, thank you for pointing that out. I can think of a few districts just in particular that have buildings that are either sitting half done or they haven't finished them out or they've decided to scrap it because they don't have the money to be able to do the projects that they said they would do. Um that's a that we're we're nowhere, thank God, in in that position. And so um I we've said this a few times, Miss Carabine led the work that built

138Sadbury. And um they did so much work on Sadbury that when they ordered all of the materials, it was sitting all over the world. But by ordering it when we did, it sat there and we were able once the world reopened in 2020 to bring it all together and it saved us millions of dollars. if that hadn't gone the way it did and a lot of a lot of districts fell into that trap because they just the world changed when CO hit and we were on the right side of it by you know hard work and diligence and getting things done and so that procurement just worked to our advantage. >> Yeah. Well, I just want to commend um our the staff in our district and the uh different vendors that we work with for

139helping us do that important work and we wouldn't be in the situation of having um you know some money to adjust if it weren't for all of those efforts. >> I I agree completely. Melissa does a great job in making sure all of those uh the contractors are aware of the projects and there's a lot of we've had recently a lot of bids which makes for really competitive situations and it gets down in some cases in a 2.9 million down to I mean what was it $50,000 60 something like that it was something really close and you feel good about that uh when you get bids like that you know that they're really hungry for the work and again we've had wonderful projects the building right behind us um we had SCS and Jacody that

140did that project and they did a wonderful job and brought it under budget for sure. So, we're very thankful for those partners. >> And then this is also just it's completion of construction, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes, sir. >> And can you explain that a little bit for everybody else so they can understand it? >> Yeah. Yes. I think it goes back to what Dr. Harlem Wolf was talking about is we've got a budget, but then it's going to come in and you're going to get a total uh contract amount, right? So we may have, I don't know, let's say hund00 million or in this case the $4 million that we set aside for the phase three project, but it came in in 2.9. So we're not paying the whatever percentage on the

141four, we're paying it on the 2.9. So we're not going to just give money away by any stretch of the imagination. >> Thank you, sir. >> I I don't know. I'm seeing Mr. Griffin over there and though this is probably on his mind in case the listeners are asking and maybe this is where you're going. Once if the board considers approval tonight, Mr. Mr. Griffin is probably ready to hit send on some email because he he will go to work and then he will decide the best construction delivery method which you'll hear all about that in the boardroom which means we will hire a general contractor depending on his delivery meth method and then subcontractors etc etc. So there's a lot of really good exciting ahead. >> Yeah, the architect is just one piece of

142that. So this is the very first piece of the puzzle >> so that everything else can start to unfold and Mr. Griffin and Dr. Merrill will come back into the boardroom and start sharing a timeline. That's what we're most eager to hear is when, you know, and where and how >> when can we tear it down, when can we see construction? >> The football players, the football players. >> Yeah. I don't do that. Bobby would be standing beside me if if we were doing that for sure. >> Yeah. But the football players want to literally tear down that fieldhouse. So, there's tremendous amount of exciting excitement in the community. This is just step one for this all to begin. And and I'll echo what Dr. Harlland Wolf said. Thank you. Thank you to our voters

143for making this a possibility. >> Yeah, we're very proud and we never want to lose the transparency and uh honestly the just integrity with this entire process. Uh I'm thankful that we're standing on the shoulders of those that have come before us and we never want anyone um to doubt that and so we want to be transparent with all that we've done and all that we will do. >> Thank y'all for y'all's hard work. >> Thank you. All right. I move approval of the contract with PBK Sports for the design and construction administration services for the new fieldhouse and associated athletic projects as presented. >> Second. >> Motion made by Dr. Harlland Wolf, seconded by Miss Benford. All those in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Those opposed say nay. >> Motion passes. >>

144Thank you so much. >> All right, Bobby, get to work. >> It's sent. Derek is very Look at Derek smiling over here. >> All right. The board will now convene in close session to discuss the following items as allowed by the Texas Government Code Chapter 551.074 and 551.0821. No voting will take place in the closed meeting. Any action the board wishes to take as a result of discussion in a closed session will occur after the board reconvenes in the open meeting. The time is now 7:59 Yeah. board reconvened in open session at 9:26 p.m. No action was taken in close session. There being no further further business, the meeting adjourned at 9:26 p.m.