001been duly called and that notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas Open Meeting Acts, Texas Government Code, chapter 551. The time is now 12:00 p.m. noon. I wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone present. I ask that you please turn off the sound on all your electronic devices and we will now move forward on our agenda. The first will be information items. The first will be a teaching and learning update for my associate superintendent of teaching and learning, Dr. Barbara Ebar. Thank you, Miss Benford. I'm going to be joined by Mrs. Mononttoya and Dr. Brian Merrill, who um have for years overseeed our schools and we do these things as a team and in partnership. So, um they're going to also be joining me to to share some information
002to the board of trustees. During this update, we have several different topics we would like to cover as a team. Um, one of them is about the A throughF accountability system and some new information from the state regarding that. We also want to talk to you a little bit about the Texas strategic leadership opportunity the district has. Talk about assessments for learning and then also how we're using data to inform decision- making um and what our software packages look like for that. So, um, please bear with us as we go through a number of topics. Uh, so let's quickly go over a historical perspective of of our accountability system. Um over the years we've probably all been through there been through this before. We've talked about toss tax teams. It's quite frequent that the state
003will go through a changing in the assessment. Uh assessments are necessary obviously to ensure that all of our students are progressing and we need those to help us see how we're progressing with the curriculum. Um but however when the state does make a fundamental change typically the name is also changed i.e. teams tax toss star. So, if you look up there on the screen, the blue is STAR 1.0, the original rendition of the STAR assessment and what it looked like in the state of Texas. Um, and as that evolved, we now have a new version of the assessment, which we call STAR 2.0. But this time, this the state did not change the name. And so, it's important to understand we're looking at a different assessment with a different accountability system. So in the blue
004section you can see that star actually came into fruition um earlier than this but with the A throughF rating system in 1718 the district began at a particular level and we've progressed all the way to 2122 where the district received an 86 rating. We have not received ratings since the new star assessment has been released star 2.0 and the new accountability system um was also released. So let's talk a little bit about those differences. There are two major categories of changes. Those to the assessment and those to the accountability system. Let's talk first about the assessment itself and what those changes looked like. First, the structure of the uh questions which honestly was a very good thing. Students are used to utilizing technology and with the questions moving to a more in technology enhanced uh
005interaction and and interface it does make sense and it mirrors instruction. But it is a change for students and it's certainly a change for teachers. So what I mean by that uh there's drag and drop which that doesn't seem very impactful but when you think about uh fractions let's do fractions you have mixed fractions and you're asked to order them from least to greatest and there are four of them you must put all of them drag and drop them into the correct order to get the question correct so if you have two that are transposed the question is incorrect so it's no longer a straight multiplechoice there's a lot more that goes on with the question for the student and they have to be prepared to do that level of computation and then also interact
006with the technology in a way that puts it in the correct sequence in order to receive credit on the assessment on that particular item. Um there's also inline choice, highlighting, graphing. Again, all good things, but certainly a fundamental change in the structure of it. But the largest change was in the content area for the assessment. Writing historically had been assessed during fourth grade and then also in seventh grade. Now writing is embedded in all of the assessments grades three through end of course exams in high school in all subjects. So in mathematics there is what we call a short constructed response ancr where the students respond in written form about a question. The same thing is true for all of the other subjects. And then of course with every reading language arts assessment there's now
007an extended constructive response i.e. essay. Okay. So all of those changes really fundamentally changed the structure of the test as well as the content. When we talk about the accountability system, this was the other major component that was shifted with the 22 23 school year. And this one is pretty impactful. So even if the assessment maintained and was the same, the accountability system itself has different indicators, different cut points, and different methodologies. So much so that the Texas Education Agency re released a statement that it's possible that a campus with an A in 2022 could improve and yet receive a B in 2023. That's how much the assessment was fundamentally different and the accountability system was fundamentally different. So it's not apples to apples when you look at the 2122 school year and then the
0082223 school year. So at this point in time, we were looking at May of 2023. The commissioner actually released a video to school boards and if you recall we played it in this boardroom. We're going to go back over it because it's going to be pretty impactful with what's about to be released from TEA in the coming weeks. Uh Mr. Falls, if you wouldn't mind, sir. Okay, you're good to go. Hello, school board members. My name is Mike Morath. I'm commissioner of education for the state of Texas and I am a former school board member. I served on the Dallas board for four and a half years and uh schoolboard service is critical when you think about the role that you play in our republic. Uh you are where the buck stops, the governing body
009of the local school district and uh you are responsible for how well those schools work and how well we serve collectively all five and a half million souls in Texas public schools across the state of Texas. Thank you for your work. It is hard, daunting, and the pay is pretty terrible for a schoolboard member. So, uh, thank you, uh, for your work. Uh, uh, one of the things that I reflect on as a former schoolboard member, one of the responsibilities that I held was I needed to know how well our schools were doing in in Dallas. Were they the same? Were they getting better? Were they getting worse? Uh, because it was my job to oversee our administrative team and make sure that we were making progress for kids. And uh so what uh the
010agency does, what TEA does to try to um help improve your ability to govern your school district is we provide A3F ratings which then gives a summitative evaluation of all of your schools. And so every year when AF ratings come out, you can take a look at the ratings. You can then compare them to last year and you can say are my schools getting better? Are they about the same? Are they getting a little a little worse? and you can then help build action plans uh with your administrative team accordingly to support our kids. And the uh what what has been true for A3F for the last five years since really since 2017 is it's been basically the same system. The cut points have been basically the same. The mechanics have been basically the same.
011The we we've evaluated schools holistically on the better of student proficiency or student growth. Um as as you all well know, evaluating schools is complex. Our little humans are very uh very complex creatures and so trying to get a single picture of performance is difficult but AHF does that very holistically. Uh and the fact that it has remained unchanged since 2017 is also super helpful because you can then look at this year's results. Your teachers can look at this year's results. Your parents can look at this year's results and see, you know, is the school getting better? What what kind of progress are we making for kids? It was not always like that in Texas with the um school rating system. Before the A3F system, the agency, the way TEA worked, would tweak the ratings
012every single year that they basically raise cut scores ever so slightly every any given year. And that was good in terms of setting goals that are constantly higher and helping us push forward for kids. But it made life really confusing as a schoolboard member in Dallas uh in my old life because I would have a hard time figuring out, you know, are last year's results the same or better than this year's results. Um but the downside of what we've done over the last five years is we we do want to constantly get better for kids. We want to make sure that our uh we are setting higher and higher goals. In fact, the statute that sets up A throughF requires us to continuously increase cut scores to ensure that Texas is a national leader in
013preparing kids for post-secary success. So this year we are refreshing the A3F rating system. The uh we will be using the information that we've gleaned over the last um five years, all the feedback that we get from educators, from parents and others um to update the way the ratings work. Um, and what that also means is that the ratings that you look at this year cannot be easily compared with last year's ratings. There's a few places uh where cut scores are actually changing in some cases going up. And so it will it will no longer lead to an apples to apples comparison. So to try to make life easier for you, what we are doing is we're publishing preliminary what-if ratings using last year's data but using the new rating system um calculations. And so
014that way when ratings come out this fall, you'll be able to to look at compare this year's uh actual ratings with last year's sort of hypothetical what if calculation ratings. And that way you can have a good applesto apples comparison on performance. We're going to also put those uh hypothetical whatif ratings up on texaschools.gov gov. So that when parents or teachers or anybody in the community looks to evaluate year-over-year performance, they can compare this year's performance with last year's performance using this year's metrics. And um uh so we hope that this helps make the job that you have as a school board easier. Um but it's also going to be important for all of us to kind of communicate about this to make sure everybody's on the same page. So we'll be communicating more about
015this in the fall when ratings come out. We have provided your superintendent with uh uh hypothetical what what are preliminary what if ratings so they can go over those with you and and um there's a lot more details if you want to get into the the mechanics of it. Uh we have all that information on our website provided that information to your superintendent but I wanted to uh just talk to you directly about these changes because I knew that this would be important for me as a former school board member and uh hope that this is valuable for you. Thank you for your work. Thank you for the service that you do for our kids. School boards are critical to uh the foundation of our democracy and to highly functioning school systems. God bless you
016for what you do. Okay. So, he's referring there to the 2223 school year. Um so, that came out in the summer of 23 and TEA did release those whatif ratings. So, what you're looking at on the screen in 2122, the district received a B- rating of 86. during that same time frame of 2023 when they released the whatif ratings, that same data set that was used to to earn the 86 would have resulted in a rating of 75 under the new system. So again, some pretty fundamentally different calculations in the new accountability system, but it's still called the same thing. It's still called A through F. It's still called STAR, but in all reality, it is STAR 2.0 under a new accountability system. So that 75 was an 86 but under the new system it
017becomes a 75. Questions on that? I just want you to reiterate that. So before we even took the test or knew what our scores would be, this whatif scenario was saying that 86 just overnight becomes a 75. Is that what you're saying? That is absolutely correct. So if they used that the new accountability system on the prior year data, we wouldn't have received an 86. we would have received a 75 with those assessment results. That's also why TEA released that you could improve in this school year and still receive a lower rating because it is a fundamentally different calculation. And two things, it's a different calculation. It's a different accountability system. Yes, ma'am. Which means if we got whatever score we got on elementary that do this, do this, do that, multiply by two, divide
018by five, it's just a very different calculation on the same scores. But the other thing you're saying is that the tests change too. Yes, ma'am. Okay. So, both things shifted in this moment. So again, that's why the commissioner did the video release to school boards because it is a fundamentally different test as well as a fundamentally different accountability system. Yet it's called the same thing and the ratings have the same titles or labels. And so it can be easily misunderstood and misconstrued as schools not improving when in fact they did improve yet still received a lower rating. So uh Dr. bar. I have two I have a question in relation to the last legislative session. So that was um 3 23, right? Okay. When did this come out in relation to January of 23? So
019this was actually in May of 23. This that video that the commissioner just had was in May of 23. Okay. But but the test was already in yes 22 23 was the year they implemented the new test and the new accountability system. So knowing that and this is knowing that vouchers were a huge huge part of the last legislative session and this goes on like us. Was the state trending up with their scores just like Brian ISD was? Yes. Before all this started, was the whole state trending up in general? Yes, ma'am. because we we had a stable assessment and and to the commissioner's credit we had a stable accountability system and so you understood what the indicators were. One of the the moments of angst is that sometimes these are lagging indicators for example
020prior year graduates or two years ago prior graduates and they're using that in an accountability system where those rules weren't in place when those when that data was collected. And so whatever the target was, the metrics were, for example, college career military readiness in the new accountability system to receive an A rating for CCMR, you a district had to be 28 points higher than what it was previously said as the cut point. But that was overlaid on a graduating class that was from the year before it ever was even discussed or talked about. And so that's a part of some of the angst where scores were improving, college career readiness was improving, but when the cut points changed radically, people went from an A to a C in those categories with the same results overnight.
021And so statewide what was trending good for kids and we we had a grasp on what was we as the whole state public schools had a grasp on what was going on and CCMR is one of the best things for kids. Absolutely. It's just still such a coincidence that all of this happened right before and going on with the last legislative session and has affected things so much through through this legislative session. Sorry. No. Yes, ma'am. Had to throw that. It's intentionally confusing, right? It's intentionally designed by the state. Very confusing. And it gives us results that are I mean unfortunately it's a letter grade and so they think immediately it's easily to be understood. States been affected. Exactly. As we were all trending up. Yes. Kids were doing better. Yes ma'am. Teachers could understood
022better. Exactly. Knew what to teach, how to get there. Boom. This happens. Exactly. Yeah. I I want to weigh in one final thing and I'm glad to see the video again and I do appreciate that the commissioner was telling the board in our communities that it was no longer quote apples to apples because of the significant changes. So to your point with the confusion when people see that we were a solid B rating with an 86 and then we suddenly drop you know according to the what if um scenario there um it's not apples to apples there's not a controlled variable with this process. So the drops are not legitimate because it's a different test and a different accountability system. So it's really cannot be compared. And to the commissioner's point, uh again, if you
023a school could improve in 2023 and still receive a lower rating, the district improved in graduation rates. We we had improvement, but you're going to see lower ratings under these calculations because it's a different calculation. So, let's fast forward a little bit with this. That was in May of 2023. So, during that fall, the commissioner still had not adopted accountability manual for that that data set for the 2223 school year. So in October, the commissioner does adopt the accountability manual for the prior school year. Remember uh that summer we had the zone of uncertainty with scores and we had uh we didn't know what TEA didn't know what passing was going to be on particular assessments. Um so we went into the fall not knowing what was a passing score and also not knowing um
024what the final accountability system would end up being. So then we have court um litigation being filed against Texas Education Agency. So the 22 23 results have been tied up in courts since that time and it was for the reasons we just discussed um lagging indicators that the test itself changed fundamentally. But according to statute the commissioner was required to validate it as reliable and valid by a third party entity. That did not happen and it didn't happen because we didn't change the name of the assessment. So, in the commissioner's mind and in TEAS, it didn't need to be validated again because they're recalling it the same assessment. Um, these are all what the courts were saying or what the litigation was saying. Um, and then of course that manual wasn't adopted until October of
0252023 when the results were six months the the kids took the test six months earlier and we still didn't have an accountability manual. Well, recently, last week, that court case has been removed from court. the court of appeals has issued its judgment and said that there is no longer an injunction against releasing those those scores and those ratings. So in the near future, TEA is expected to release the 2023 ratings that the commissioner was speaking of that are fundamentally different from the prior year of 86. Okay. Also with this there is an injunction currently for the 232 24 ratings again for the same same reasons same things along with some additional um details. Last year was the first year AI was used to grade those short constructed responses and those extended constructed responses the ECRs
026and the SCRs. Um, again, that proved up some litigation. That is still tied up in a court injunction and those ratings have not been released, but we do expect the 22 23 ratings to be released. And again, just reminding everyone that um the whatif scores would be the more likely comparison. Although even under the whatif scores, I want to draw just a little bit of caution. It is a different assessment. So the what if scores only control for the accountability indicators and methodologies being different. It doesn't control for the changes in the assessment with the content of writing and the technology enhanced items. So that you really can't control for. And while we're calling it apples to apples, it's more closely tied to apples to apples. But there are some pretty fundamental differences when you
027have writing in every grade and subject and you did not previously have that. So what do we do? uh regardless of the accountability system and we do believe there should be an accountability system. There should be state assessments. Those inform our instruction, they inform our support structures, but we focus on the kid. So even if we don't have the ratings, we do have the results of the assessment. We know which standards the kids were strong with. We know which standards we have some work to do to shore up. And so we put together different action plans. And you've seen this slide before um where there's shared responsibility between the campus, the district, and the support structures between CNI and then also on our improvement planning. So much so that this year we did a a
028fundamentally different approach to our on-site support for schools and as a district team, we went out to campuses every single week um and focused on how do we best support them. Yeah. And Miss Montoya, feel free to jump in. We start every Monday the beginning of the week on a campus sit sitting down with administration um and and the teachers really looking at their plan talking about uh their data. Uh all of central office is sort of uh starts the the week there and it's been a a wonderful conversation. We've done it throughout years in previously. Uh this year it's been intentional to start the week that way and we've seen great success. So, we're going uh obviously to the campuses in dealing with or working with the principles and any issues or problems or
029challenges that they have. So, talking specifically about student results all the way down to the classroom, the kid, the teachers, making sure that we're prepared for uh those state assessments and uh as a general and then talking with instructional coaches, all the instructional leaders on the campus to make sure that we've got things covered. And again, um we've even additional taken additionally further uh in the spring semester and many of our central office folks are out on the campus kind of stationary or officing out of there three days a week. And that's really uh just presented a a wonderful opportunity to embed uh that staff in the solutions as they're happening. And so again, it's been fun to to watch the campus grow, to see the teachers uh anticipate that we're going to be there.
030There's a portion where we walk through the data and then we immediately walk the classrooms and we're giving feedback to teachers and so we're in and out of the classrooms on a regular basis. Miss Montoy, would you like to say anything? You covered pretty much all of it. Uh, one thing I will add is we've also been very intentional with looking at the data and like Brian said, getting down to the kid level. Um, we also were looking at, you know, some kids are allowed accommodations on the test. We can also look at the number of minutes that each child took to take the test. So, I think that there are some kids that don't know that their teachers know how many minutes it has taken them to finish the test. So, it's allowed for
031some really good conferencing and one-on-one uh with the teacher and the child. Um talk about the accommodations that they're allowed to use. Did they use them? If not, why? Because parents were involved in those conversations as well. So, it has allowed for really good conversations in looking at at the data. And we're going to talk in a second about assessments for learning, but when you get down to the kid level, it's all about growth. And that's a very important concept. That's a conversation you can have with any kid. You know, where are you starting? Where do you need to go? What's in between? Those are conversations that the teachers, the assistant principal, the principles are having really on a weekly basis. again all the way down is a is a very healthy conversation to take
032the data to figure out where they are. And that's why I think it's really important when you think about the test changing because you don't want a kid to miss the question and really understand the concept. If we're spending a ton of time talking to the kid and the reality is they didn't understand the the the computer or they didn't understand the actual technique or the what was needed of them, then they didn't they actually understand the concept and we're wasting needed valuable time on the concept when it it doesn't isn't needed. And that's the type of of uh intervention our teachers are doing. They're getting to know the kids. They're understanding where they are and they're at that point then even some cases grouping them or tutoring them based on their their deficiencies. So
033additional supports coming um in the future and next year. The district applied for the learning acceleration support opportunities grant otherwise known otherwise known as lasso grant through the Texas education agency and we did receive it. It will be a grant that focuses on all intermediate and middle schools and will provide coaching and executive support to the principles and the assistant principles on that teacher feedback piece. So as we go and model on Mondays and give feedback to the principal and the team there and the teachers, they will be another layer of support coming in to support those particular campuses. Um that will be a two-year commitment. First year will be teacher observation and feedback and the second year will be datainformed decision- making. again just shoring up what that process looks like on each campus.
034Um the other thing that's in play right now is something called the Texas Strategic Leadership. Um this comes from the Texas Education Agency and is funded by them. It is free. We put in an application um and consult with our region service center. This would provide a three-year commitment where the region service center would partner with us to focus on an instructional strategic plan looking at the desired student experience to improve student outcomes and would actually be supporting all of our district leadership team as well as many of our campus principles. Um we should hear about that early in May. Um but hopefully that will be approved and we'll be able to participate in that program. So, we're going to go ahead and move to our third topic. Um, assessments for learning. This is we
035have our STAR assessment. That's an assessment of learning. How did we do? But all along the way, we want to know how we're how we're teaching, how we're learning, and if it's making an impact for the kid and what they need differently if they're not mastering it all along the way. So, assessments for learning teach us how to or tell us how to modify our instruction to support student outcomes. Um, as we go through our school year, we have several different ways that we do this. Uh, we have release tests that we administer that are called benchmark assessments. That's typically in the spring and a small one in the fall. But we also have measures of academic progress MAP assessment by NWA. And that is administered at the beginning of the year, typically the middle
036of the year, although we did not do it this year, and then end of year. And let's talk a little bit about this. As the STARS assessment changed over the past two years, we've started to receive a lot of stakeholder feedback about the purpose and need for the MAP assessment and if it's really an authentic measure of what students are expected to know and how they're expected to show what they know. Um, so I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Merrill and Miss Montoya. Yeah, clearly when you're on the campus as you're out and about, you're talking to the teachers. So we've been doing that for a few years. In addition, Miss Caroline has a teacher advisory group and she meets with those uh quarterly where they're coming in and they're providing feedback. And
037so there's a whole host of of conversations and topics and uh discussion. And this is one that that continue to pop up through the years. And you know uh it's it's an age-old problem. Uh what type of benchmarks, assessments do you give? How long do you give them? When do you give them? This has long been a conversation for years. It didn't matter whether it was teens or tax or it really didn't matter. But when you look at that benchmarking process, when you look at that kind of as you go uh thought process and making sure that you're not surprised when when the test comes, you know, it's important to really involve the staff and make sure that they're on the front lines. And so we're constantly doing that uh from this to budget conversations
038to anything we're doing it with them to be completely honest with you. So when you look at this, we were receiving quite a bit of feedback from not only parents but from teachers and the feedback was pretty consistent. I don't think it's anything that you'll be shocked by. If you had uh students in school, it was probably something you heard when the kids came uh home each day uh or throughout the year. But one was uh the number of tests that were given. And so when you look at it, the staff and parents concerned about the number of tests students must take throughout the year. That was just an ongoing conversation of you know when do we teach and how often do we test? And so we looked at it and made the decision that
039we would uh remove the middle of the year MAP testing. The teacher administrator request for benchmarks. when when we talked to the staff, they really wanted something that they felt like was a fall benchmark was more aligned, if you would, with uh in some cases to the STAR test. And so, um we we did that. In a lot of cases, it may have been released questions or released test and they built that because they felt like it was more indicative of the way the students would perform. And again, um it's the same type of thing, right? If it's any type of athletic performance or any type of performance academically, you want to try to mirror what's going to be in the final on the final test as much as possible. And they're all there benefits
040and advantages and disadvantages to each to be each to be completely honest with you. Then ultimately they felt like that the MAP test was not really align aligned with the new STAR 2.0 and it didn't provide what was the necessary information to drive instruction. Again, we never want to take a test just to take a test. Uh truthfully, there's an entire process when a student takes a test. You want to sit down with them. They have to be a part of of that data. They need to know how they did. They need to know which questions they missed. And you know why they missed those questions? You have to go back over it. It's going to take time. Even though the test may take about an hour, two hours, however long, you're going to circle
041back around. It's not only going to drive instruction for the student, but it's going to drive in a larger sense the overall instruction for that subject. Our content experts are going to circle back around. They're going to look at it as a whole. Uh, so you're not only looking at it from a student perspective, you're going to look at it from a teacher perspective, from a campus perspective, and then from a district perspective to make sure that our curriculum is covering everything that it needs to. And so when you do that, you want to make sure that that assessment is as lined as tightly as it possibly can be. And to some degree, you know, I mean, the state of Texas just did this by themselves and they sort of created a problem and an
042anomaly. And what they did is they almost ruled out MAP uh because it's no longer a line because nobody could really catch up because they just didn't allow them to be a part of that conversation either. And so that's really what it amounted to. So what we did is we pulled together a group of teachers and administrators. Every campus was represented. Every administrator on every campus was invited along with teachers who utilize MAP in grades 3 through 12. Now I'm going to set K through two aside. right now um K through2 utilizes it for required screeners um that and math is one of the approved vendors for the commissioner of education. So we're focusing right now on grades three through end of course exams and we said okay what would what feedback do you have
043for us and here are our options. So we can continue with map. There are concerns and again that analysis that was done across the state showed that there was a a greater distance now between MAP being a reliable and valid assessment in terms of STAR prediction than what it was previously because of how much the test has changed. Um we have a new option. There are several different item test banks that are available now through our region service centers that you can purchase that have the star 2.0 0 like questions and interfaces that would align it more to what students are seen in the classroom and are expected to do to show what they know at the end of the school year. Um, and so feedback from teachers, administrators, the curriculum and instruction team and
044teaching and learning staff was pretty strongly aligned to moving to a new option and moving away from MAP in grades 3 through 12. Um, again, we would keep reading fluency with MAP and then also K through2. Currently, we spend approximately $250,000 annually on the MAP assessment. We would still have a partnership with MAP, but it would be a much reduced price um annually. And these test banks are um a fraction of the cost that it would take to administer um and we could do it within our own systems with it being uh graded live time to provide data with teachers to be able to respond instructionally to what that data is telling them. So I'm going to pause there for a second. Any questions? I just want um Felicia, myself, Julie are on the teaching
045and learning committee and you brought this to us uh Friday so it's not new to some of us and we mentioned that um of course those of us who sat you know at a teacher's desk um I like the idea that you got so much input from teachers themselves and that they can have ownership if we do indeed move away from map most and it's also um moneywise going to be more you know I mean we're going to save some money at the deal too but um you went into very much detail with us on Friday. We do believe that the the release questions and the test banks will give us a better gauge all along the school year throughout the year about how students are performing and and how much of the curriculum they're
046mastering. I I know there's always anxiety when we're talking about tests and and really it's about the curriculum. Has the student mastered the curriculum? The only way we really know that is if students can show what they know. And this is one of the ways that we do that all along the year as we progress so that we can pivot and adjust to make sure at the end of the year they've accomplished everything we intended for them through the curriculum. Um, this would allow us to do that and be more flexible with doing so. And as a teacher, it's giving them in-house data, in-house test questions, released tests that they can relate to, and they're not pulling uh process stuff and bringing it in to do the analysis. So, a great deal more customization that's
047available by going this approach. In fact, let me speak to that. Um, thank you, Mrs. Waller. Um so one of the options we've had previously um in utilizing data and integrating systems uh the board had found us a product uh called forecast 5 frontline um actually bought them out recently but it utilizes um three different suites five lab and five site. Five labab was used to bring all of those data uh elements together, assessment data, attendance data, um all kinds of academic data and that particular software package was invaluable at a time when we did not have access to data visualization tools under our current current student information system and enterprise um solution um i.e. it was eh school and e finance and now we are moving to skyward. Um under the transition to skyward
048we've already gone through the transition on the business side of the house and now we're doing the student information side of the house and we are so excited that those data elements that data visualization element will be built in to Skyward as we move forward. That coupled with a new option through um our current platform edge of provides a host of uh software suites that we use throughout the district. One piece in particular is a wear that's where we house it actually administers the assessments to the students. So it allows them to take the test online and do star 2.0 type uh question sets but they have a lot uh a huge section of on the data side for visualization in their new version. And of course that is an upgrade, but again um the
049difference is roughly $35,000 versus $250,000. Um but those two things together, the transition to Skyward and the possibility um pending board consideration um in the future to go to the enhanced version of aware would allow us to do much much more and be much much more flexible uh with student data so that it can be utilized for informing instruction. So, we've we've had a lot of big things kind of developing over the course of a couple of years, and they all seem to be kind of coming to a point um in this moment. So, I'm pause there. What questions can I answer for you? Or was that more than you ever wanted to know? And it's okay if it was. I understand. No, I think it's a lot, right? I mean, there's a lot of
050things happening and moving in public ed right now and trying to keep people informed is I mean, as board members, we're in this and it's very challenging for us to stay up to date with what's happening. So, I can only imagine what our citizens feel related to this. It's also important to note that given the bills that have been filed, there's not likely to be any new influx of funding. Um, so we're also suffering uh from uh massive budget shortfalls. So it's trying to balance all the things. So thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Next we'll have our strategic plan update by Deputy Superintendent Dr. Brian Merrell. I have Mr. Griffin coming up as well. Um I've introduced him a couple times. you're familiar. He's a face now, fair fairly familiar in and around
051the district. He's got kids in the district as well as um you know, has been a citizen for for a few years and um we've got him out of retirement and um put him to work to be completely honest with you and it's been a blessing to have him uh walking around and I've learned so much in the last few weeks. So, I'm very very thankful for him. We're going to move pretty quickly through strategic planning and then he's going to get into uh sort of the facility assessment and answer any questions that you have on that. Uh I'm going to move pretty quick. You've seen these slides before. That's your beautiful picture. We've t always introduce you and we've had a um different different set of board members every time. Um that way uh
052everyone can be a part of the process and we don't have a quorum issues and so we appreciate your participation uh so very much. So, thank you for uh popping in and um for your contribution. Uh we are these are the individuals leading it. Uh just a quick reminder of the committee members. Um this entire boardroom is full. Uh we're very pleased with the turnout. Um they've are engaged and attentive and we get in in an hour and a half and every time I'm like where did it go? It goes very very quickly. And so I'm very thankful for their commitment. Starts at 4:30 and ends at 6:00. And um they've been great at communicating with us when they need to meet. uh but also being there. Uh just a second uh just a quick
053uh kind of mention of what the committee's been charged to do there. Your committee, you've um charged us to put the strategic planning committee together. And uh we always talk about the mission, the mission, the vision, and then the board goals. And then that little piece of the pie, that's the facilities and infrastructure. That's really the piece that we're examining. In some cases, they may have questions in the other areas, and we fill those as they come along, but for the most part, we're just going to do facilities and infrastructure. Uh this last week we had department updates. They did a phenomenal job. So I'm so very pleased. Uh and just wanted to share a little bit. I kept most of these uh this slide deck in there just to sort of go through it.
054But uh we have a wonderful leadership team for our technology department. They're here. Uh they do a phenomenal job. So thank you for that. Uh this is some of the work that they do from data services to technical support. I'm not going to read through it. It's overwhelming to be completely honest with you. Um they did a wonderful cahoot that I skipped. The questions that the technology department shared for Cahoot uh were fun. Uh they were very interesting from the number of Chromebooks to all the hits from the internet. Everything is pretty remarkable to be honest. And so it was fun. I appreciate that they keep us going. They do a phenomenal job of not only uh systemically thinking about things, but then all the way down to the level making sure that kids are
055have access to vi to devices and those devices are working. And that's not that's a full-time job for a bunch of people. In fact, uh we may get to there in a second, but this is instructional technology and cyber security. Uh they're they're constantly u looking at ways to make us safer, which we do appreciate, even though sometimes they're hassles and uh longer passwords and and two-factor authentication, which I think y'all are having to do as well. So, we appreciate that very much. Uh these were the areas or needs or discussions or consideration that we spent some time on. And so, they went through and just mentioned some things that are kind of coming up. And again, uh, we're part of strategic planning with that little piece of the pie and that these little pieces
056fit in there. So, um, I appreciated very much them spending the time and bringing this to to the forefront of what we need to think about. Many of the things have, uh, been done along the ways, but in some cases, um, they're just outstanding and we need to get to them. Uh, strategic planning was our safety and security and Rich did a phenomenal job with that. He's a team of one, although all the campuses are definitely on his team as well. So, we're making sure that we're uh we've we're in the the vision and the uh oh gosh, the board goals we're living out on a daily basis. We want to ensure physical and emotionally safe and secure learning environment at all times. These are the things that we've done. These are ahead of the
057we're ahead of the statewide mandates. We have our vestibules and intruder resistant film access control and our school resource officers. Our wonderful relationship with Brian PD. Uh and then we also have armed security guards which we're very thankful for. Again, ahead of statewide mandates, we have surveillance cameras, 1,600 uh district-wide cameras, campus maps, which has become, you know, hopefully we never need to have one, but if we do, we have it. And it gives us uh up as north and alpha numeric grid, and it gives us access into the building with increased understanding of where the campuses are just in case someone is on our campus. Then night locks. And again, a lot of these were purchased either through bond or also we've been very blessed to get grant money. We've used a used a
058lot of that money uh from the state if they gave us very little but we used some of it. And then we had a wondous wonderful donation from Don Adams that allowed us to buy quite a bit of things as well. So the night locks were something that gave us additional barricades on the doors. Very simple item that's located near the doors that they could take off out of their little box and then put at the bottom of the floor and it just barricades the door very quietly. Um almost you can't penetrate it. Safety audits are a thing. We appreciate the state uh and TEA um obviously helping us with this. We want to make sure we're as safe as possible. We have a required one every three years and we have a district vulnerability
059assessment that's conducted every four years and then intruder detection audits. Again, we take this very seriously. We're doing these on the campuses and we actually uh want and appreciate the same way that we need accountability, we want this as well. We want to make sure our campus is as safe as possible. We've had incredible results with these. We're very very proud of it. In fact, they've come back and the reason that we're able to say that we're ahead of statewide mandates, that's not a term that we just give ourselves. That's one that the experts have told us time and time again that we've become the standard most definitely in the Brizzes Valley, but in the state of Texas and what we have just uh with safety and security. There are some things that he's mentioned
060that he would like for the committee to consider. One is the vehicle ballards. Those are the items, the big kind of things that are set out front that would uh you know obviously keep any type of vehicle from coming into doors or um again hardening the exterior the building graphic window film that's not only for visibility but it also just helps uh the campus uh makes it just more attractive in general. And then weapons detection and that's an advanced technology using AI and it's a very quick system that he uh has has just suggested not the typical type of metal detection system and much more sophisticated system that we've uh looked at. Also additional considerations were better surveillance technology, higher resolution and then AI technology. We're seeing that time and time again where AI is
061able to step in and maybe help make the campuses uh safer. Uh and then also messaging message boards, monitors and hallways and classrooms, color LED, just a way to communicate safely and securely with our our students, all different types of students regardless of disabilities. Again, did a wonderful job with that transportation department. Uh Pat and Claudell uh leading that department. Very, very thankful for um what they've been doing here recently and just making tremendous success. In case you didn't know this, 147 total employees, 11 staff, 96 drivers, 30 31 aids, and nine shop staff. Some interesting facts here. 453 square miles. We are massive. We roll over 10,000 miles per day. That's those numbers are just staggering when you start to think about it. 5,000 daily riders, 108 routes, 2,000 field trips each day. Those
062are numbers that just become staggering. Again, I want to point out they're doing that with 147 people. So, there's a lot going on out there. And it's not just getting kids to and from school. By all means, we have to do that. They're all the trips during the day, including even Brian Collegi. Brian Cleg, every hour upon the hour has to be picked up. Kids are taken out to Blind and they're brought back. Same thing with CEK. We're picking kids up at Brian and Ruer and we're taking them out to CEK. We're thankful for that. Sometimes it goes unnoticed till they're not there and then when they're not there, we really feel it. Um, so it's it's easy to see where they where it'd be difficult when you're talking about 108 routes over 2,000 field
063trips a day. There's just a lot of moving parts in 10,000 miles. I I mean that's however many uh oil changes. That's just crazy to think about all the oil changes and tire rotations and everything that it takes place to do. So I'm appreciative very much of the work there entire department. 90 general I'm moving very quickly. I'll answer questions but I'm just letting you know the slides. 90 general education buses, 22 ADA buses, 11 filtrate buses, 15 SUVs, and five micro buses, and no CDL for those micro buses. This is a complicated sort of smaller uh we gave this as a handout, but this gives the lifespan of a bus and talks about the delivery time and how much a bus costs. And then it also shows how old our buses are. And so
064basically, you know, when you think about what it takes to maintain, you want a bus that's obviously maintained and able to roll and so much goes into it in that maintenance. So we're appreciative of the shop staff. And you can see as the buses are getting older, there's going to be more maintenance that's required of those. In a lot of cases, that's that's not cheap to be honest. Engines and transmissions are are very expensive. They've gone up in price as well as tires. And so you'll see that 15 of those buses were purchased in 2012, meaning that that their lifespan is coming up in two-year lead time. Who knew that? Two years to order a bus to get a bus. The white fleet. This is just more of of what we talk about. This is
065what you would typically think of just like a Suburban or SUV or some type of vehicle. That's what we call the white fleet. These were areas of need and discussion or consideration. Updated technology. Uh currently we don't have driver tablets. What they have is a sheet of paper. And so if a a driver comes on board or some or even a student drops, they're going to have to constantly update those maps. And the drivers obviously you you could have a substitute driver and they're going to sit down and they're going to take that map and they're going to look at it. And so one proposal would be a a tablet that would be, you know, on the screen like we have in our cars and it would show them exactly where to go. Um coupled
066with that RFID technology. So all in that picture, you can kind of see what the recommendation is. You've got the the tablet right there and then you've got a student scanning their ID and that would allow the bus driver to know who's on the bus, who's getting on, who's leaving, where they're going. Uh, a lot of the software will just automatically remove if a student's not there that day and they don't scan in, it'll just remove that stop. So, the route becomes even more effective and efficient. Comprehensive video technology systems. We're currently using a bunch. Uh, there's obviously significant upgrades when you're talking about a bus from 2012. I mean, you could you could see where the new buses aren't going to be built the same way the old buses are and their ability to
067be able to communicate with uh cloud systems and all of that as technologies out there. The white fleet with additional buses. So, all this was discussed and just kind of given as as what some districts have and uh things that we would like for the group to consider and at least discuss. We threw in and just talked a little bit about the underfunded mandates. So, I'll just take a moment to talk about this. We've talked about the massive deficit shortages and these are just two really simple explanations. When you look at the state aotment for transportation, we're going to receive 1.467 million. The cost to run our transportation department is 6.1, meaning 4.7 is going to have to be made somewhere. So, it's really just I mean it's it's blatantly obvious they're not giving us
068enough for transportation. Uh and that's not even counting like in some cases like the cost of the buses. This is just to maintain the fleet. That's and the drivers and all those things. So, it's we're woefully underfunded when you look at transportation and safety and security. Underfunded mandate again with safety and security. When you look at it, the state aotment is roughly half a million. It costs $3.4 million to be able to have Brian PD and then armed security guards on our campus. Uh, and some of the other general improvements. So, most of those costs are personnel, meaning it's it's it's what it is. You can't really cut it. And so it's just remarkable when you look at what the state has done and the underfunded mandates and this is just a pretty blatant blatantly
069obvious example of the way that they do those things. We got into the facility condition assessments. I'm going to let Mr. Griffin talk a little bit about that because he led that section. Well, as we've been talking about, we've been steadily increasing the tools in our toolbox. I I know y'all heard me use that term, but we do need to bring on our staff to explain and and help identify what all has to come out of the M budget and where we are and where we're moving with that. So, we will continue to bring additional folks in. I think this next uh fourth meeting, we're going to actually have general contractor come in as we start looking at pricing. So, these are some things that we will utilize to to help bring facts toward our
070board. Um the issue is I mean I've been here less than two months and the more we uncover the more we realize the more we look at guys I got to say I've said it before I'll say it again our staff is absolutely amazing what we've been telling you is that our life cycles are not and this past meeting we talked about how many came up close to but the previous meeting we started giving facts about life cycles that are almost double industry standard is 20 years for mechanical equipment. We've got uh mechanical equipment that is 38 years in service and still functioning. Okay, it's incredible. But the issue with that is every good deed does not go unpunished because the reality is it starts costing you. And that's where we are now. We've got
071all this equipment that and 7.6 million in deficits from underfunded mandates. Where did that money come from? Y'all tightened the belt. Y'all worked it out. Y'all heard me use bubble gum and bailing wire. That can only last so long. And that is where we are. Issue with that is equipment, structures, all of these things. Yes, they're still working, but what about your indoor air quality now? What about your efficiency? Are you now spending more money to maintain and keep this equipment going? and what's going to happen when it finally takes its last step. Are we going to be in a place to move forward? I don't want to paint a doomsday picture, but we have literally have to start looking at getting back to the center and finding ways so we can do properly maintain
072and operate moving forward. Yeah. So, we we aren't going to go through it, but we talked about the intermediate, the middle, and then our high school and auxiliary. Uh, and I I would point out one of the things the constant uh, feedback that we received is just the work of the maintenance department. Again, I'll call their names out. Mike Cullen, Robert Hereda, and Ron Cooper. Uh, Ron Cooper has done a phenomenal job in keeping our HVAC systems up and running. We're so very thankful for those men. The entire department out there, uh, Pat leading leading that. So thankful for them and the work that they do out there has just been tremendous. Uh, we're very very pleased and thankful. Brian, I'll throw this in. Sorry, but those an example of why they're so good in
073at their job. If there's if we're talking about 50 guys and and girls, 40 of them went to school here. They did. They they can walk into a building that they went to elementary, they went to middle school, they went to high school there. They remember those rooms. They may not have ever been sent to the boiler room, but maybe they snuck in it and it's the same boiler that was there. But I when we had um the you know horrible freeze Yuri couple of years ago and they worked 24/7 in the snow in the the ice, you know, and sacrifice buildings, right? They did. and they came in here because we wanted to applaud them and we asked you know how many of you are Bron ISD people and for the most part three
074four of them maybe even four fifths of them raised their hand and so we're blessed to have people like that and that's why another reason besides them being really good at their job their hearts are in it yes ma'am they were out this weekend I mean we all felt the temperature change right I mean it's the beginning of April and it it's cold. I mean, and they were making sure the buildings were adequate. Um, and I would love to say everything just turned back on. It just didn't. Uh, and they were out. I we got calls Sunday and they were making sure that um Houston Elementary had air. I mean, they were just making sure everything and they know where these things are going to have issues. And so, they they're intentionally on those campuses
075first to make sure that they're up and running and then they'll go hit the other ones that have newer equipment. Mike and Robert their leaders. I don't Ron Cooper. Yes. I don't know if Ron's a He is. Okay. So, see their leaders are Brian ISD people. They're they're wonderful. So, uh we talked about each campus. Each one's different even though some of them were built at the same time. Uh it was fun to kind of walk through them in sister schools, but talking just about the various buildings. Again, we're so very thankful for that department. Um and I think that's it. Any questions for us? That was quick. That was the last meeting that we did. If you were there, you got a little bit longer slide development, but we're very thankful for that. Could
076y'all start over from the beginning? A little late. No other questions. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. Next, we will move on to public comments. Citizens may make comments about topics relevant to district business. Topic should be limited to three minutes. Comments concerning specific students or personnel will be heard in close session. Do we have any citizen comments, Miss Lee? No. Thank you. We'll move now to our consent agenda. The board can remove any item from the consent agenda if they so choose. If there are none, I will entertain a motion. I move approval of all the items listed on the consent agenda. Second. Thank you. We have a motion made by Miss Waller Waller, seconded by Mr. Gonzalez to approve all the items listed on the consent agenda. All those in favor? I I. All
077those opposed? Motion passes. Next, we will move to our action items. Our first action item is to discuss and consider approval of instructional material for K through8 mathematics. And that will be by Dr. Yubara, Dr. Holamp, and Miss Jana Winsel. Thank you, Miss Benford. Um, Jana Winsel is actually our in-house expert on all things instructional materials um, procurement. So, I'm gonna actually start it off with her. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for having us. Um, we had the opportunity in the fall at the end of the fall to better uh or to share a little bit of this introductory information with you, but we felt it would be important to to summarize it again here for this purpose. So, we've had some changes uh from House Bill6005 to the adoption process to the instructional
078materials adoption process. And prior to House Bill6005, we had um the SBOE called for what we uh previous previously termed a proclamation and that would be a call for instructional materials that would have an adoption cycle of about eight years. Um with the new process, we call that the instructional materials review process. um and um also titled IMRA and um in that EMRA process the state added the review of these materials in terms of highquality instructional materials which adds some teacher and student supports among other things. the state board of education after the EMR review, which we just had our first one, EMRA cycle 2024, um they created a list of approved materials and that list is a list that we can use instructional materials funding to adopt from. Um, we continued even with this
079change to 1605 to have a very rigorous local review and approval process which we'll talk about a little bit more in a second. In addition, and the instructional materials and aotment funding, which is state provided uh funding, um, has a couple of additional pieces that we'll um, also share a little bit more about in just a second, but those are going to be titled entitlement funding. Okay. So, we talk about the prior proclamations. Thank you. Uh you'll notice on there the last time each subject was brought forward by the state of Texas for an adoption of instructional materials. Um so, as Jada mentioned, this past fall, the state board of education did its first new version under EMRA. And one of the things we were very excited to see was that mathematics K through8 was
080approved. There were certain vendors that were approved for it. You'll notice from the chart here that we've not had new materials for K through8 mathematics from the state of Texas since 2015. So that was in desperate need of an upgrade and and a revisit. Um so we actually did put that one pretty close to the top of the list for us and began working in January. Um you'll see here kind of the cycles. She just mentioned cycle 2024. 2024 that was our first cycle. Um, and you can see it's a pretty short list that the state has taken on to adopt materials in those grades and subjects. It's also important to note that they did not actually complete that list because they ran out of time to do so. So, Spanish language language arts was
081not adopted this year on cycle 2024. But you can see throughout um the the process here, we will create our own um review process on a rotating basis because there are limited funds. When Mrs. Winsel talked about the material instructional materials allotment, that is a separate account from our district account that is actually housed at the state where we request things to be purchased from it, but it is not in the Brian ISD budget or any of the funds here. So it operates a little bit differently than our other aotments. Okay. So let's talk about that, MissWinsel. So the instructional materials and technology allotment fund was established in 2011 and uh that funding as Dr. Ivara said is set aside from the SBOE out of the available school fund. Um and what can we purchase
082with that funding? We can purchase instructional materials of course, technology equipment and we can uh purchase related software from that aotment. So what um and this slide may uh look familiar from the last time we shared a little bit but our instructional materials and technology aotment fund we received that in bianiums and so the new bianium will begin in September of 2025 and that's that first bucket that you see there that larger bucket we will continue to receive that funding that's set aside and um again we'll get that in uh September of 2025 the entitlement funding that you see up there. So with uh House Bill6005, we will now see um an additional $40 per student each year into our funding source and that entitlement fund will not go away. So we can choose to
083use it this year or we could hold on to it until we determine we need to adopt resources or materials. the state developed open education resource entitlement that will be also available yearly but it does not accumulate so it won't stay there we will just get that that uh $20 per student will be available each year but it's not going to grow it'll be avail so if we want to use it on open education state adopted resources we can but we don't have to what's what's the difference between I'm sorry my map here is is the 1.2 million for two years because if it's $40 per student, it's we do we Yes, that is a wonderful question. Uh this was passed and so we received last September our first $40 and then this September we
084received an additional $40. So we have $80 per child in the bank right now. All right. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about what our adoption process looks like. our local adoption process. Of course, our um instructional materials committee is going to be formed first. So, we're reaching out not just to our uh the instructional materials group, but our curriculum instruction group, our coordinators will all serve on that initial instructional materials committee. will uh work together with teachers uh from each of our campuses um at whatever grade level subject area we're adopting or looking at considering adopting and pull that those committees together to include teachers. Teachers will review using the rubrics that were were created from the committee and then we will also offer up those um resources and materials for public view
085during this time. So any questions that our community andor parents, guardians have, we'll be able to uh answer those questions at that time. Um our committees look at and choose the top resources or publishers that they would like to see in a showcase setting. All teachers from the grade levels, content areas that we're looking at adopting are invited to attend and it was well attended this year. and uh we'll do a publisher showcase so the publishers have an opportunity and I'll let Dr. Hul Camp add to that at any point and then our selection recommendation is what we're bringing to you today. Yes. And I'm happy to uh bring to you today our K8 math recommendation is accelerated learning. Um it is a 100% um TIKS align resource and our teachers really appreciate the K8
086solution because it provides instructional continuity. Um it has a wealth of supports for our teachers including materials that are available for teachers scope and sequence. It also includes lesson plans for internalization. It has extension lessons as well as remediation lessons. It's in Spanish and English. Uh, and teachers really appreciated um the online format. So, if the state made any updates or changes that the company could make those updates and changes as well. Um, we are bringing this to to you today and to for approval. This is our teachers recommendations and there were a lot of teachers in fact every campus and every grade level was represented in the decision and we believe that this digital material allows for customization. Um, and our teachers really like that idea. They're able to customize and meet the individual
087needs of our students with this um product. So I'll finish it up here with just sharing a little bit about our next steps. The next agenda item you'll see is to complete the certification of provision of instructional materials. So we we will ask the board in just a few minutes to do that and then finalize order through our TEA uh instructional educational material system which is also called EMAT. And that's where that funding sits that we were talking about just a little bit ago. It comes directly from the state and we've looked at just kind of a an approximate prediction of the materials that Dr. Hol Camp just talked about and what that purchasing dollar amount might look like. So you can see there an approximate estimate for a one-year adoption of this product. Um
088also a two and a three-year adoption of this product. So, we have the flexibility with EMRA to choose the duration of the adoption. And then we also um always anticipate that the materials will be here during the summertime and we will have them in the teachers and the students hands prior to the start of school on this slide. So, is it a million dollars in year three or is it $3.99 and then you add the we'll purchase uh we can get three years of this product with a one time purchase of a million dollars. Gotcha. Okay. I just want to Perfect. Thank you. No, great question. I've got a question is so this is for a digital solution. It has I'll let Dr. Hulk can't speak more to it, but it does have a physical
089uh components and digital. So, there are classroom aids that that accompany the digital product that that my understanding is that in the past there were some classroom aids that were necessary to accompany some of the digital instruction. Is that is that inclusive in the the fee or is that a additional cost? It's inclusive. It's inclusive. Okay, good. Yes. But yes, there are digital components and that's really what was attractive to the teachers is that it had so many components that they could use. In fact, you could a student that may be u particularly low in an objective or an essay, they could assign them uh a task that's online um and they could customize lessons to meet the needs of the students and take them wherever they are. So that was very attractive to the
090student I mean and to the teachers for the students needs. Are there any physical components that are Yes. aids to lessons that that go into the classroom? Both. Okay. Joel likes books. He's a book guy. So that's what he what he wants to know are their books. Yeah. To to his point, a lot of our kids prefer a consumable or printed copy. So the teacher would have discretion to print accordingly. Not all kids uh thrive in the digital world. So a good balance is key. So is that what you're saying? Yes, there's there's an opportunity for both. Okay. Although we're now assessed by the state of Texas in the digital world. So that balance again is is key. But uh I too am a print person. So I appreciate being able to send it to
091the print and for the kids to have pencil paper. I I think we have to teach in both ways for our kids to have that good well-rounded experience. Any other questions? Any other questions from the board? No ma'am. I move to approve the selection of Accelerate Learning STEM Scopes Math as the instructional materials for grades K through eight as presented. Second. Thank you. I have a motion by Mr. Gonzalez, a second by Mr. Brun. All in favor? All oppose? The eyes have it. Next we will have um discuss and consider the certificate of provision of instructional materials that will be coming from Dr. Barbara Ibara and Miss Julie Johnson. Hi. Thank you Mrs. Benford. Um, as we previously mentioned, this is a requirement prior to any ordering of new materials each year and that the
092state of Texas requires us to bring towards the or bring forward to the board the survey of provision of instructional materials. Basically stating that we have the instructional materials that cover 100% of the standards at state of Texas and that we have them available to our students and to our teachers. Do I have any questions from the board? I'll entertain a motion. I move approval of the TE certification 2023 24 form and survey as presented. Second. Have a motion by Mr. Waller, second by Mr. Stennis. All in favor? I. All opposed? You guys have it. Thank you, ladies. Thank you. Next on our agenda is consider approval of the purchase over $50,000 for the turf replacement at Merl Groom Merl Green Stadium. Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Kevin Baw be joined by Executive Director of
093Athletics, Mr. Derek Rush. Good afternoon. So, we're going to share with you the uh uh needs as far as reurfing the uh field there at Mel Green Stadium as far as the why and the uh purpose of that why that standpoint of it. So the artificial turf at Merl Green Stadium as uh was installed in 2016 and it was uh lifespan typically ranged from 8 to uh 10 years. Given the volume of activities the stadium experienced annually, the turf has significant worn down and it has now reached the end of its lifespan. The existing turf is no longer providing the necessary performance or safety standards. And so when we look at that and we see the why uh of replacing the turf, number one, safety. Uh worn down turf can lead to an increased risk
094of injuries for our student athletes, which is a significant concern. And number two, as far as the playability, uh the safe uh the field wars and tears uh uh hinders the overall quality of plan surfaces uh while directly impacting performance. And number three, durability. a a new uh turf field will provide long lasting benefits ensuring that the facility remaintains uh performance at their best without the risk of injuries. And so when you look at the uh the amount of traffic that our uh the state of holds over a course of a year, uh when you look at football playing there, soccer playing their uh band practice and those type of things and also since uh Brian is a centrallylo city, uh we have a lot of playoff games between schools in Houston, Dallas, and in
095the Austin area. And so that that impacts it as well as sportsman and football playoffs are taking place and soccer as well. And you also look at all the outside uh events that takes place at Mel Green Stadium when it comes to uh um uh family outreach uh our fourth grade track meet and things of that nature that play takes place uh during that annual time. And so uh again right now the the the uh the age of this the turf is nine years old. And like I said, the life cycle is between eight and nine 10 years, but based on the high volume of activities that take place at Merl Green Stadium, uh it needs to be turf. Uh when you look at the stadium right now, as far as the condition of it,
096I mean, you can walk the field and the fibers come up and that's not supposed to be happening. And also, uh you look closely at it, if you walk around the stadium, it's starting to grass is starting to come through the turf. And so, uh, it's vitally important, uh, that we move forward in in providing a safe environment for our student athletes, uh, when it comes to that, uh, standpoint of it. And so, uh, to kind of go back in history as far as looking at, uh, our options, uh, as far as when we first, uh, were looking at replacing the turf, knowing that the financial cost, um, given the state that we're in right now, our first option was to, uh, uh, seek a sponsor uh, for naming rights for the field. As far
097as seeking a sponsor that will take on that cost and giving them the name of rights, meaning we will put that company logo on the field. and we're still in the process of getting that done, but unfortunately right now uh nobody stepped up and in and taken on that responsibility. So that will be an ongoing process as far as seeking a sponsor to sponsor our uh reurfing of our field. But uh it's such a vital important aspect of uh keeping our kids safety. We need to get this done before the season start in August. And so that's why we're reaching out and seeing uh moving forward get this done uh uh this June and it'll be done by July. Mr. Rush, may I ask you? I'm sure someone's going to ask us. So turf versus
098grass, I mean what why are we going with turf? I know we have lots of reasons, safety and all, but would you please give us a little bit of information on that? Well, the the the overall annual cost of of of keeping up uh a grass field compared to turf over a long period of time, uh watering the field, fertilizer, and those type of things. Maintenance of the grass compared to turf. Uh again, the high volume of activities that go on at Merl Green Stadium uh uh and versus using grass and and having our maintenance people maintain that. Uh it it would be uh awfully cost more than this. Yes. No doubt. No doubt. Okay. Thank I just remember in 1989 it was it was so much fun watching the mud mud show. So but
099thank you very much. I just wanted to make sure that people were aware that y'all have we have looked at that option and that it's it's more cost effective to go with turf. Yes. Well, we hosted the intermediate inter murals uh games over the weekend after a big rain. Um, and so I'm sure that the turf, the utility of the turf allows you to host those events rather than cancel them. And um, you know, so I think there's the added benefit too that you you can even though with the weather component, you get to still host events and play events. Cancel. Yes. And I do know that uh, as far as utilization of taxpayer money, we're not I mean the field is not open. I mean, we hate it because a lot of people can't
100come just walk the track, but due to the warranties on these turf fields, part of it is that we guarantee people aren't going to come in and dump red Gatorade on the turf and things. And so, part of saving the taxpayer money to keep the field in good condition as long as we can, it is closed to regular foot traffic. So, we want people to know that we protect it and so that doesn't add to the shortness or longevity. I mean, you know, the opposite of longevity. Yes, for sure. We've heard other presentations today and for the past several months about budget shortfalls and those kind of things. Um, this is a big uh ticket item. Um, so tell me more about the safety. So I get it. Things are faded and there's pieces that
101end up in your shoes when you walk across it. That may be a nuisance, but that's not a safety issue necessarily. So tell me more about the safety reasons that this needs to be done now. Well, the main safety reason is that they the companies come out and do what they call a geoax test where they test the uh the softness of the field and the mobility of the field. uh from that standpoint of it and we had three companies uh the Paragun and also Helis and uh and uh symmetry those three companies came out and did their Geo Max test uh and and that also based on the hardness of the field when a kid falls on the field uh I mean as far as concussion uh areas that plays a huge part in
102that and so right now uh when they came out and tested those the fields uh the the Mer Green Stadium field fail that test, GO Max test, which determines the softness and the playability of that field uh based on concussions uh injury prevention, those type of things. So, uh, death, uh, is is crucial as far as moving forward and providing, again, like I said, safety for our kids when it not only injuries, but also concussions in this day and age when, uh, that is highly uh, looked upon as far as the predetermining and also preventing those concussions, things of that nature. Well, and it's interesting because I've done a little bit of research in the past on turf versus grass and injury prevention and you know, it it's um not um uh really decided like
103which I see a lot of college fields going back to grass turf because of safety reasons. I get that they don't have as much traffic as perhaps we do, but um my biggest concern now is that um given our budget deficit, uh this is, you know, a big ticket item that's coming at a time where we're having to say no to things um and um but we want to be sure that we can support. This is a district-wide state our students use it. But the other thing I wondered about, Mr. rush is as we use this field for other events that are not Brian ISD events. Um what is our cost recovery approach on that? Do we let folks use it for free? Are they paying for it? I'm just thinking long term like you
104know gone are the days where we can just say out of the goodness of our heart this is what we're going to do. Um we have to be looking at how do we replace it in another 10 years. Correct. So let let me uh start by first asking your first question as far as uh the uh deficits and things of that nature. That's one thing that came up when we first uh initiated uh linking and replacing the turf. So that is an ongoing process that we still would be looking for a sponsor to sponsor to sell uh the cost of the uh resurfacing uh from that standpoint of it. It may take a a a two months from now. It may take two a year from now from that standpoint, but I'm almost uh sure
105that we can sp find a company that would sponsor the cost of the field uh from that perspective of things. But as far as the time frame of getting it turf before the season, we're we're resorting to this option here as far as uh asking the district to take on the cost. But as soon as we found a sponsor uh to take on that responsibility, naming rights, that money funds would go back uh to repay the district for the cost of the uh the resurfacing of the field. Uh from that standpoint, Mr. Rush, this is coming out of a bond anyway, right? So it's not coming out of our operating budget. Is that Kevin? Can you elaborate on that? Yeah, that's correct. So when we, you know, as Mr. Rush said when we looked at
106this originally and and um looking at uh getting a sponsor, we uh did what we call an RFP to go out and and uh have that done. It's a fairly new thing for high schools, so it it didn't go as quickly as we thought it would or might. And so that's an ongoing process, but as as we said, in order to get it uh accomplished and finished by the time the season will start in the fall, this would be an option to do that. So we do have uh enough funds in the 2014 uh and 2019 bonds, which those were both uh bonds that that came uh were done before the legislation that uh put this into a thing where you would have to have special bond referendums. So, this would be an allowable purchase
107for that with those bond funds. There's uh approximately in the two combined yet there's approximately $1.3 million. So, you you know what the what the amount is, we do have sufficient to do that. And then when we do get the uh uh sponsorship going and and get that moving forward, uh we we could either repay the bond or we could put that aside to uh have that available uh for the next time we need uh trust surface or there's other things that may be needed for that. So we can't use bond funds for example to increase teacher salaries, right? So, I mean, if people see this and say, "Oh, you know, we're making those choices. We can't use those funds for that." Anyway, my concern is, you know, it sounds like it needs to be
108done. And, you know, of course, that's our job is to consider those things, but um looking ahead, how can we really manage um this big expense that's recurring? make that much. Well, one of the things we're going to be looking at as far as a recycle uh placement recycle uh schedule as far as dealing with athletic facilities uh from that standpoint of it. So, that's something we'll be visiting with Kevin and Melissa about as a as far as a replacement cycle plan. Uh other districts I've been in uh we we've had that and so that's something in the future that we'll be looking to into as far as having a a a scheduled plan as far as we know that this turf is due in eight years. have a plan set to to go ahead
109move forward in purchasing that. And to answer your last question about the rental in all our athletic facilities, we do have that in place as far as we do uh uh uh cost as far as that's concerned as far as that is concerned. And so, uh we're move looking forward and looking into increasing that rental fees, uh compared to other districts in the area. Derek, have we done any reference check checks on Paragon Sports about previous jobs they've done, how they've performed, on time, on budget? Yes, etc. Yes, we have. Uh, Paragon, we've worked with them uh three times now as far as they turf they uh resurfaced the track at Brian High School. They also resurfaced the track at Ruer uh last year, two years ago, and also they resurfaced the track at uh
110Daba Middle School. Uh we reached out to uh Temple. Most of you guys probably want to hear that. Uh but we reached out to them and they ted their field uh uh three years ago and I know some of you guys may have been to their stadium this uh past year and it still looks like new. And so we've done our due diligence as far as uh reaching out to different uh uh districts and and uh and uh most of their work is done in the Austin Dallas area. Uh but we have done business with them in the past. Does the lifespan of uh Astroturf vary across vendors or is that pretty consistent? That's pretty consistent, but like I said, but given the volume of uh events that go on at Mirror Green Stadium, that
111expands the speeds up the process of the lifespan. So maybe if it's really nice, we could think about having graduation on a brand new uh turf soon uh to get another we would save a lot of money not renting Reed Arena and have a beautiful graduation um on our turf field. I move approval for the replacement of the turf at Mel Green Stadium to Paragon Sports in the amount of 697,664 as presented. Second. We have a motion by Miss Harland, Dr. Harland, second by Mr. Brun. All in favor? All opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, gentlemen. Next, we will have consider approval of a purchase over $50,000 for replacement of kitchen and cafeteria equipment. That will be presented to us by director of school nutrition, Miss Sandra Baxter, and our assistant superintendent of business services, Mr.
112Kevin Bisaw. Yes, ma'am. While while the ladies get uh up here and get situated, I'll just uh mention we also have Miss Sunday Priier, who was uh the previous uh director of school nutrition. Uh and this this purchase is one that we've uh brought some things forward before and and talked about the uh plan that that the uh food service has to do. They this is one of our um very efficiently run uh departments and the issue that they have their funding source is a separate force separate uh source uh US Department of Agriculture, Texas Department of Agriculture and they they monitor the things very closely. So what they um they have uh issues over the years is basically in excess of fund balance. And so what that means is that the state uh TDA
113will say you have to put together a plan to spend this down to uh the acceptable level. And so they and then they will approve those uh expenditures and things like that. So this is one of those purchases which is approved by TDA. and I'll let uh Miss Baxter and Miss Frier go over the the actual um what what they're proposing. Good afternoon. Um this spin down plan is specifically targeting uh Johnson Elementary. Um it has a lot of original um one of the most expensive things that we're replacing there is the serving line and I know I worked here for 30 years so it is older than 30 years but the other um is the fire suppression and the exhaust system that is up in the ceiling. Um it is original from the 1974
114when Johnson was built. So, that's a um an a very big part of this expense at Johnson Elementary is um having someone come and remove the old exhaust system and put a new fire suppression system because when we have this inspected every year, um a lot of the parts to replace it are obsolete and we're having trouble getting them. So, we're just going to rip the band-aid off and try to fix everything in that kitchen with a new serving line and new pass through equipment. And the new serving line would help. It would have um frost tops where we could set the trays down to keep our fruits and vegetables cold. So, right now the current serving line does not have that. So, we have little ice baths where we just move it very quickly
115in and out of the refrigerator. And then because we were doing an RFP to include a lot of equipment, we went ahead and added um Brian High School needs a um replace a reachin freezer and a heated cabinet. And then we're going to replace the steamer at Houston. Um, and so this was part of a spinown plan that was put in place um, before I left last April. And so we have till June 2025. And so um, this was um, a big part of it. And we have some other projects that we will also be doing. Miss M. Benford, I move approval for the replacement of the kitchen and cafeteria equipment listed to ASmart Restaurant Supply in the amount of 360 694.35 as presented. Second. Have a motion by Mr. Gonzalez, second by Mr. Stennis.
116All in favor? All opposed? Eyes have it. Thank you, ladies. Thank you. Next, we have consider approval of a purchase over $50,000 for the workers compensation and liability third-party claims administrative services by assistant superintendent of business services, Mr. Kevin Bau, and assistant director of benefits and risk management, Mr. Michael Styers. Yes, ma'am. While Mr. tires uh comes up and gets situated. I'll just u mention the process of this is a uh u the a third party administrator to uh help out with the uh workers comp uh administration and claim service on that. Uh we can uh talk about what all uh this process involves, but we went through a request for proposals and received uh from two uh different companies on this. Um and they uh they both were were fairly comparable. We uh scored
117them with a with a team of of course uh Mr. Styers, myself um uh and uh campus representative and another uh representative also uh that u I believe is uh Mr. Pat Corbett also was on that uh representing auxiliary in that. So the areas that that most deal with this uh weighed in on these and and propose that that we go forward with this one if you want to go through any part about uh what this process does or what they what they actually work on help us with. Yes. So excuse me this company is they handle all of our claims administration that we have to submit to the state uh to the state of Texas. There is a time requirement that we as the employer are required to submit claims. once we receive them.
118And so that's just part of that um stay staying compliant with that, making sure that we're utilizing the best resources we have available as well as the most financially responsible and resources that we have to be able to explore as well. So they handle from end to end um claims as far as the first report all the way to um getting in front of a judge with the uh with the state of Texas at the work comp division. Is this the same company we've been using or is it a different one? One of the two companies is uh that bid on this is our current TPA as we speak. Is that the one we're recommending to go with? Okay. Just wanted to be clear. So, do they they handle everything? And I see it says
119up to 60,000. So, if they have to take it from the initial investigation to trial, is there a different I assume there has to be a different cost to us. Is that how that works or is it an all-inclusive? So, there is a cost per medical claim, cost per indemnity claim, cost, there's no cost for just um just normal reporting. And so, it there is Yeah, to your point, yes, sir. There's different stages to this, but the initial medical claim is going to be a set price, but then it comes into the BRC's, the CCH's, as well as the attorney's times um on all of those BRC's with the state. Okay. So, there is additional if you go to trial, you're going to pay the attorneys. I mean, it's not one of those like an
120insurance where you pay a set fee. Okay. That's worth checking. Those dang attorneys tell you. I move approval of CAS claims administration services for workers compensation and liability third party claims administration services not to exceed 60,000 annually as presented. Second. A motion by Dr. Harland, second by Mr. Gonzalez. All in favor? I. All opposed? The eyes have it. 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 session. Any action the board wishes to take as a result of discussion in the closed session will result after the board reconvenes in open meeting. The time is now 1:34. The board reconvened in open session at 2:18 p.m. No action was taken in close session.
121Oh yes. Motion for consideration. Can I move approval uh of Norma Riddle as the chief financial officer, assistant superintendent of business services for Brian schools as presented? Second. Have a motion by Mr. Brian, second by Mr. Gonzalez. All in favor? I. All opposed? The eyes have it. There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 2:19 p.m. Also want to remind I mean this isn't business but okay we're doing our best to reschedu this our Brian ISD showcase. We're working with um destination Brian because we sure want to reschedu. So we'll let you know as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you. Bad weather. Every every Friday night there'll be a storm. Bro, I was joking to