Bryan ISD School Board Meeting March 24, 2025

001e e e I now call this meeting Brian Independent School District meeting to order let let the record show that a quum of board board members is present that this meeting has been duly called and the notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas open meetings act Texas government code chapter 551 the time is six o'clock I wish to warm a excuse me I wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone present ask that you please turn off the sound on all electronic devices and stand for the pledges American flag Bannon Elementary you welcome to introduce your studioes introduce and parents get wherever you want to to take pictures m is J have my name is eer Sanchez okay thank you my name is Axel Reyes my name is [Music] Vanessa

002is Abigail Marcus Abigail Marcus okay hold on a minute hold on let's do yours here I'm Val Val my name Sanchez my name is my name is mon adrio ad my name is emal my name is phip Miss taplet who are you I'm sorry oh I'm Miss taplet I'm the principal and missum assistant principal I am Miss Orga a kindergarten teacher Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it to stand one nation under God indivisible for liberty and justice flaw very [Applause] good all right good evening we have Crockett students from our student leadership group I'm going to let them introduce themselves and then we'll say the Texas pledge Daniel you want to start us yeah Daniel and my name is Daniel L third grade my name

003is Keegan Mor Moraga in third grade hi my name is uh Abraham I'm in third grade hi my name is roselina Rodriguez and I am in third grade hello my name is AA SES and I am in third grade hello my name is Samari sfer and I am in fourth grade we got one fourth grader nice awesome all right guys ready and tell us who you are oh I'm missart I'm the principal at Crockett and then we also have Miss ramir as our school counselor and Miss Stanford who was our teacher that is we're going to recognize in just a minute all right right wait sorry honor that Tex flag I pledge allegiance to the Texas one State under God one ined the Civil thank [Applause] you now we're going to have some spotlights uh

004first one will be for the elementary teachers of the month and I will remind everybody that truest Bank uh had provided some a little extra for the the those who are being recognized and Alonso robless uh with uh truest is here to help with that thank you and we have uh first teacher is Iris Ortega at fanton elementary okay we have miss Iris Ortega Iris okay this is Iris Ortega and as you can see I think all of these people are here for Iris so she is much love all right much love and these first uh for five seven students here are her students in her classroom so iris is truly an exceptional bilingual kindergarten teacher at Fanon Elementary who started the year with 23 little Falcons and she's still smiling not only does Iris

005have a great attitude Miss Ortega goes above and beyond in her commitment to ensuring that each one of her students students feel loved valued engaged and in their learning as a bilingual kindergarten teacher iris is deeply committed to fostering language development in both English and Spanish ensuring that her students become fluent in both languages her ability to engage your students in meaningful languager activities and create an environment where bilingualism is not only supported but celebrated is unparalleled just visit iris's classroom and you will find an environment complete with anchors on Dust ceilings walls wherever just to help students become independent bilingual Learners in addition to our passion for bilingual education Iris in is incredibly effective in all of her day-to-day activities she's very organized she's always prepared she sets high expectations and yet maintains a

006positive patient attitude with her students and our staff every day and I mean every day Iris engages her students in small group instruction and readily adjust her instruction and strategies the next day if needed to in order to feed the unique needs because she recognizes that every every child learns differently making her an outstanding educator who truly understands how every child is uh learns also not only is Irish successful with her own students as though she does not have a handful already but her classroom is a safe place for other students in kindergarten Beyond her work as a classroom teacher Iris takes on many important roles in our school Community she is the devoted team leader in kindergarten she heads up one of our leader and the action team she's a huge part of our

007PTO she helps organize many of our Afterschool events and much more demonstrating her flexibility and willingness to support her col colleagues while fostering a positive collaborative atmosphere and Ours is also working on a master's degree by the way she is truly an IR Irreplaceable member of our school community and our district congratulation Iris for a well-deserved [Applause] recognition I think so I think let's go over here okay spee precious that was good time I to get by her dere dere needs to recruit those big about to knock the whole thing it's not all about all right congratulations again and we're back to the Crockett rockets and we got M jort back up all right good evening again miss Stanford come on up and just so you know Crockett Elementary turns 75 years old this year

008so we have a big birthday coming up all right good evening tonight we have the pleasure of celebrating Miss Courtney Stanford she's a kindergarten teacher at Crockett Elementary in the three years that Miss Stanford has been part of our school family she has demonstrated unwavering dedication to serve the children and families in ways um that meets every family's need each day Miss Stanford implements in her class room what she knows works for kiddos um and each day she also strives to learn and understand new different ways to work with children in her classroom her dedication to do what is right for each child in her classroom is tireless um a tireless effort effort on her part she has a spirit of perseverance that makes her an asset to her school and to her students when

009teaching students in her classroom that have different needs than the majority Courtney doesn't stop at is it's not working she pushes through to find what works she ask questions she seeks to understand and listens to learn and lead in her classroom Miss Stanford um um oops sorry I lost my spce seeks to understand listens and learns and inside the outside of the classroom as well Courtney doesn't just have care and concern for her classroom but our school as a whole Community last year she became part of our student council as an adult leader she has delivered lessons and worked with students in all grade levels um in this capacity she's also joined our foundations team this year to help take part on the task of serving on our Campus Community as a whole in addition

010to our commitment to our school she also is committed to our district she serves on District committees when needed she's an upand cominging leader in our school in our district and our community and a great asset to crocod Elementary we are pleased to celebrate Miss Courtney Stanford as our teacher of the [Applause] month for you got one more one more don't be [Laughter] shy any else so cute thanks Barbara congratulations [Applause] again all right now we're moving to the secondary level and uh we have uh Kimberly gensaw to introduce the uh teacher that we're recognizing from Stephen F Austin Middle School Barbara you give you meaning to behind the scenes she did just save the day she did good evening I'm excited to introduce to youall Mr Demarcus Lee um there are many qualities you

011look for in a great teacher the qualities range from being an excellent Communicator active listener hard worker that sets high expectations compassionate kind and creates an ideal learning environment these are just a few qualities that Mr Demarcus Lee possesses it is truly an honor and PR R to have him as a teacher at SFA Middle School Demarcus Lee joined Steven of foston middle school last school year midy year which as you know can be hard and challenging with our Ela Department as an eighth grade intervention teacher as you can imagine Mr Lee was a little anxious but was beyond willing to make a positive impact on our students in campus he filled that position and immediately began making great strides with his students and his students showed amazing growth this year in his role as

012an eighth grade ELA teacher Mr Lee has continued to be an outstanding educator in the classroom who is passionate about fostering a love of learning in all students he is able to build positive relationships with students which encourages and motivates them to perform to their fullest capacity his lessons are designed to meet the diverse needs of students ensuring that every individual Fields both challenged and supported the market creates an environment where students Thrive academically through his ability to not only share a safe and trusted classroom but through his relationships with students as well students enter his classroom knowing that his expectation for everyone is to do their best Mr Lee students are continuously ranked first or second across the district for their growth and achievement on assessments this is a huge accomplishment for a second-year

013teacher Demarcus Lee has con consistently demonstrated exceptional dedication not only in the classroom but also in his role as an athletic coach who came straight from track practice today um as a coach Mr Lee has led student athletes not only to success in the sport but also in their personal growth coaches on campus say that he takes the time for all athletes to understand the details of each play and often Works one-on-one with his athletes to want a deeper understanding who want a deeper understanding Coach Lee sees the importance of sharing his knowledge and experiences with his younger generation of student athletes in addition to his teaching and coaching Mr Lee is a valued member of our school Community he works collaboratively with his colleagues supports schoolwide initiatives and is always willing to lend a

014hand whereever needed he has become a valuable member of several committies on campus such as the foundations the social committee and he was also chosen to be our grade level team lead um on the third floor um that work to enhance the culture both with teachers and students even with his own responsibilities Mr Lee mentors other teachers by sharing experiences from teaching the curriculum and using successful classroom strategies for Student Success he brings his enthusiasm experiences and positive attitude to all areas of our school Mr Lee is a true asset to our school Community embodying the values of Excellence commitment and integrity that we strive for as AA Middle School Demarcus lead truly exemplifies what it means to be an educator and a coach who makes a profound impact on students both inside and outside

015of the classroom Mr Lee is incredibly deserving of this recognition and there is no doubt that his continued contributions will positively influence our school community and our district [Applause] yay and you can keep this but let's take a picture first welcome I like that shirt congratulations [Applause] and we certainly couldn't do it without our auxiliary staff and we have an auxiliary employee of the month as well to be recognized uh by custodial Services Supervisor Richard Scott from Johnson Elementary good evening board members uh cust custodial Services is proud to recognize fortina Pinto de kunga as the March 2025 auxiliary Employee of the Month Florentina has worked for Brian I for two years in October 2023 Florentina took on a challenging responsibility as the head custodian of Johnson Elementary she leads two custodians in maintaining the

016cleanliness and disinfecting of the Johnson Elementary School campus fortina consistently exceeds Expectations by keeping the Johnson Elementary campus clean and healthy although she is primarily responsible for for the cleaning and disinfecting of the Johnson Elementary she regularly provides custodial support at other campuses throughout the district she has a strong work ethic and a keen attention to detail when it comes to ensuring her job is done correctly and preparation for the recent inspection that by the tea fortina demonstrated her commitment to in improving the campus safety and and ensure that her employees were trained on how to stop the bleed prepared her employees to effectively assist in a crisis situation improving the campus's overall physical Readiness Florentina PTO de konga's outstanding work ethic and attention to detail have demonstrated that she and her employees maintained the

017Johnson Elementary in an exemplary manner uh Florentina thank you for uring the high level of Readiness of the Johnson Elementary School campus [Music] conratulations [Applause] thanks thanks again to Mr robless and truest Bank we appreciate y'all support now we have uh really special recognition uh and I'm going to let Dr Leslie hulm provide the tals she is our director of curriculum and instruction uh it's like a pretty special pretty special deal go ahead good afternoon we're excited to celebrate our social studies and foreign language coordinator Lisa muton she is receiving the John Crane Texas history education award from the Texas State Historical Association this prestigious award recognizes her for her outstanding contributions to Texas history day our program we call History Fair uh and and her dedication to advancing local history education Beyond her work

018in our district Miss muton is deeply involved in our community she serves on the City of College Station historic preservation committee she's the board chairman for the brazes valley Valley africanamerican Museum she also acts as the treasurer for the Brian chapter of De Delta Kappa GMA it's a woman's organization that supports our teachers and our kids here in Bri ISD additionally she serves as a communication director at her church uh we celebrate miss mutton's leadership uh 24 of our students from our districts have qualified to advance to the Texas um History Day in our state competition in Austin this April this is the largest group that we have ever sent to state competition so we're super excited about that these students represent DOA SFA Brian High School Brian Collegiate Rabon long and sadberry our district

019is incredibly well represented at the regional competition winning more Awards than any other school district in our region students who place first or second at state will earn the the opportunity to advance to a national competition so congratulations to miss muton on this well-deserved [Music] [Applause] recognition you want do a you want to do a board picture with this one with this one can we come we come down and join you may we okay [Applause] and next Mr rush you got something special to present uh powerlifting state qualifiers and champions good evening uh it is an honor to take this moment to recognize some truly outstanding student athletes and coaches uh through their dedication hard work and commitment these students from rer high school and Brian High School have represented their school with pride at

020the 2025 State powerlifting meet so at this time I'm going to recognize coach will now he's going to come around and recognize his uh uh student athletes and talk a little about them we're fortunate to have two uh State qualifiers this here Kade Duncan and Chester Gooden Jr Kade uh couldn't make it this evening um he actually has a district golf meet uh tournament today he's heading out there for us he does it all so very proud of him as well um he's our 114 pounder and uh he finished 20th in the state so I'm very proud of him I want to recognize him real quick uh Chester was able to make it um he did a great job for us his first year powerlifting um came to work every day every lifting session pushed

021himself every meet uh he finished 15th in the State uh despite being um one of the lightest competitors in the 275 pound class um he finished um with a total of make sure I get this right 1660 pounds um finishing 15th in the state for his weight class very he finished the meet uh with the personal best in every single lift um he's also an excellent student and great great teammate very glad to have him for another year both on the football field and in powerlifting look forward to see him compete a senior year as well [Applause] con so at this time we're going to uh call up Coach George TI George he's the head p and coach at R high school and he's going to be recognizing his student athletes as well uh good

022evening um my first want to just want uh recognize uh Michael Bruce Hendricks he wasn't able to make it this evening um but he was a lone boy for our boys powerlifting team to make it to State uh even though things didn't go as well as planned as we had for him to do um he still had a great season he left the mark not only in our program but also um for the region by setting the uh bench uh Regional record in the 175 weight class at 470 lbs so that's what Bruce did this year and then these two young ladies right here first I want to introduce Caleb P um she competed in the 105lb weight class in the unequipped division and on her way to claiming fourth place um claiming the fourth

023place medal she set a personal best in squat at 205 and tied her personal records in both bench at 120 lbs and deadli at 250 lb uh reaching a grand total of 580 lb wow um wow nice and then finally we have Kimberly Sanchez Lozano competed in the 132b weight class uh unequip division as well um as those that were here last year remember that she came up five pounds away from being the reigning and defending state champion um using the field to overcome adversity several times this season um now we can say the queen of the 132 lb uh weight class resides at ruer high school she set the state record on squat with 290 lb and posting and posted seasonal records um as well at bench at 120 lbs and de lifting 290

024lbs with they're reaching the grand total of 705 lb so our state champion for the [Applause] 132 that is wonderful so coach do you get medals too or just I do not get medal but they forgot to bring but um I would I would say the girls medals are a lot better than the boys they're real huge they look kind of like um like baby little plates that they have they're nice medals I wish they would have brought them so they can show it to you but that's on me I'll take blame for that coach coach may ask one more question please do uh do you give the the gentleman at the school warning not to be smart Alex around these young ladies uh yes it only take one time and I'm sure they like

025I said when when they walk through everybody gets out the way congratulations ladies great job thank you guys that's wonderful State CH all right next yeah like well let's do the picture oh we got some flowers too that's great yay for our powerlifting program congratulations all right next on the agenda we have the superintendent report thank you Mr sasy I know Mr Falls is running to turn the slide deck on congratulations again to our power lefting coaches and our students uh that's a hard act to follow uh a lot of heavy lifting uh happening right here state champion um as you can see on the slide um it's spring in Brian i d and we are in full swing with daily student and staff celebrations uh with lots of family and Community engagement uh tonight

026is a Testament of the Great things happening so it's always hard to narrow our focus and uh shine a light but on this first slide I'm shining a light on Brian Collegiate High School they just celebrated their annual Avid showcase and this is not only a big deal for Brian ICD because other uh administrators and teachers go over to take a look but uh School District representatives from across the state actually show up as well because we have uh what we call a model District of best practices so it's really great to collaborate and to share and to build capacity with others again in our state we're very proud of what Collegiate is doing with Avid uh to remind you thank you to the board for approving this uh this purchase and this investment and

027we have expanded it in our uh middle schools and other high schools and even one of our elementaries has a model program uh Collegiate leades leads the way if you will because they started it and have they've done it longer and we're grateful for them um developing others uh we're also shining a lot on all of our elementaries they were so busy leading up to Spring Break and you can see in the photo lots of them had go Texan day go Western day lots of family uh events with full participation from um all of our staff and our students and then finally on this page we just had our annual Rudder in the Rotunda uh with their choir performance they performed uh to a Full House I believe it was a soldout performance at the

028highest caliber if you've never attended the rudder in the Rotunda it is truly magical because the Acoustics in there so uh we'll save the date for next year it's a showstopper for sure uh Fresh Off The Hills of the fourth grade track meet we're still celebrating this this is most wonderful annual tra uh tradition where all our fourth graders every single one in the entire District they show up we had perfect weather and I'm here to tell you that these kids were in it to win it we have a lot of competitors and I know our coaches were looking to see about the future of middle school and high school athletes it was a great fun we also just celebrated m Harris's spring graduation this is also a huge celebration for our students as we

029send them out into the world uh destined for great things and then finally this is a big shout out for Dr Hugo Ibara and his team with the Community Affairs department they just recently returned from the tpra uh star awards that acronym stands for the Texas school public relations Association we submitted uh lots of work that our team has done throughout the year and they returned with uh 32 different awards at this uh very competitive U Conference of those 32 Awards 23 were gold level distinctions six fell into the silver level distinction three were bronze category and then we also re received what we call the Best in Show for the district's attendance magnet that was locally developed here so congratulations to Hugo and his team for putting us on the map we know how

030important it is to tell our story so that others don't tell it for for us uh we're proud of what we do and we're not afraid to show and tell others about the great things so round of applause Round of Applause thank you uh speaking of Applause uh our soccer teams had quite the season especially at Brian High School the girls soccer team Advanced into postseason represented us very well at at that level and then the Rudder High School boys soccer team also Advanced and made us very proud uh the kids had a great season uh several key players are returning next year so we look for great things to come in the future and then finally uh right before spring break the Friday night before we left for the holiday it was our honor

031and pleasure to dedicate the Brian High School softball field to coach Janice Williamson her Legacy will live forever and it was a great turnout that night lots of her former players uh many many coaches that she developed over time showed up to support her of course our community showed up in full force as well we're very proud to have Janice Williams name on that scoreboard again to live forever so great things happening in Brian estd and I appreciate the opportunity tonight thank you very much M carabine uh we'll move on to board member reports uh starting with the finance committee uh Mr stennis okay so finance committee met um last Friday via Zoom at 10: a the board members present were myself Mr Stasney Mr Gonzalez staff members present were superintendent carabine Dr Merill Bobby

032Griffith uh Dr iar Kevin Bol and tobby Roberts uh items of discussion um we went over the ESS substitute contract uh this is the vendor that the district uses uh to um identify and and help out with the recruiting and retaining of Subs um believe that Mr uh beaw presented that it's far more coste effective um for us to continue to use the service rather than to provide the service inhouse um other things were uh addressing some needs um at meril Green Stadium uh the turf potentially looking at the lights uh identifying potentially um a donor or um other areas where we can uh continue to make those improvements um status of the rudder bathrooms uh over spring break I think we can finally put to bed the uh the rudder bathrooms are fixed and

033done and we can move on from that one other things or one last item was I believe we're teeing it up for for budget development the early stages of that uh project and so um the consultant that I believe we used last year applauded the effort um and actually used the Brian ISD example throughout the state and so um a lot of good things going on a lot of good conversations in the finance uh committee thank you David uh next executive board committee I I'll give that report since uh I was the only one that was there other other than and staff uh which was fine we just had some conflicts that day so uh uh but we had a good conversation anyway and I at least I personally got an update on some things

034and we uh as always had something to talk about in terms of of just things going on in the in the district and where we're headed and things that so much going on and and uh we're trying to uh juggle all the balls and not drop any of them get a little bit of more on what seems to be sort of just sitting the Jedi update and and I don't know if we're going to have anything else to talk about tonight but we did talk a little bit about that and also the board policy update that I is also I believe on our agenda tonight not part of the consent uh or I don't know if that's yeah M drar will update us on that uh and so that's really all I have for executive

035board committee uh we'll move on to city school and that's Joel Bryan um City School joint committee meeting occurred at the city of Brian um had the date this was on Tuesday March 4th um attending from Brian ISD were Dr Brian Merill Miss Laura King Mr Kevin Bol Mr David stazy Miss Ruthie Waller and myself um we had some topics that were uh on the agenda for the city of bran and uh Mr Hugh Walker gave us some background and information on the keep waterer local Campaign which uh was very interesting topic and we also received uh an update on the downtown North project um that was uh from Miss Lindy gindy miss Lindsay gindy and Miss sisha Jackson um topics that were presented and discussed by Brian ISD were some updates on CTE um

036we covered some some recent happenings with CTE including our uh recent District of Distinction recognition um also some uh recent happenings with um expansion of MC Harris and uh both programs and student enrollment and also um discuss the topic of some exploration into CTE courses and uh how how we can align some of our existing course uh courses with CTE program um also touched on our strategic planning and uh discussed our committee and meeting schedule as well as a process uh overview and our objectives and um and touched on school finance and legislative priorities um and there was also uh some good opportunities discussed in terms of how Brian ISD and the City of Brian can can work work together and identify Partnerships and communication uh between and it was a productive meeting yeah I

037I agree we were I think strengthening our relationship with the city of Bryan and that's always that's always a good thing but we'll let you keep going with the CTE Fine Arts and Athletics committee report CTE Fine Arts Athletics committee met on Thursday February 27th at 10: a. via Zoom attending were Mrs Ginger carabine Dr Brian Merill Mr Jacob Justice Miss Laur King Mr Derek Rush Miss Ruthie Waller Mr David stennis and myself um it was a jam-pack meeting this was our first uh uh committee meeting for this this group and um we covered a lot of information um we discussed for CTE uh again some of our uh recent um competition and District of Distinction recognition and some some recent happenings with all the things going on in CTE this spring um and progressing

038towards kicking off our 25 26 school year with planning and working on some mock four-year plans for our potential incoming ninth graders for the program um also discussed um some interest outside of Brian iy that that uh is looking into opportunities in RCT program uh and again course exploration and Alignment opportunities with our existing coursework and and also uh strengthening Community Partnerships um Fine Arts um so many things to celebrate um just to name a few Mariachi Orchestra dance teams um a lot of things again happening this spring and upcoming events uh UIL competitions um Mr Justice also identified some needs associated with our finance Pro fine arts program that um are only due to increased participation which is a great thing happening at Rudder Dava Brian High School um that uh through additional student

039um participation we've we've identified some needs and um also discussed uh our Tia teacher incentive allotment for fine artarts and and some things uh that we're looking at regarding uh expanding that opportunity for Fine Arts and Athletics again uh more celebrations um a VIP magazine renewal uh for the upcoming fall um we discussed our partnership with the boys and girls club for um uh hosting our intermediate competitions uh one that's upcoming is soccer that was recently announced that'll be on Saturday April 5th um some things good things happening with coaches Academy and camps for intermediate coaches uh to expand their knowledge and and and bring those coaches together and also just uh some additional priority uh needs list for athletics across the district well that's a lot thank you it was U but a great

040meeting a great first meeting for that committee because this was a this was actually a new committee not only a new group but a new committee so we uh we obviously uh recognize the need to have uh some committee work on that we the board members can't be uh everywhere at everything so so we we uh we try to divide up our resources and divide up the members to to go to these committee meetings so they can then report back not only to us but to the to the public to to the extent that we can no decisions can be made in the Committees because they are not you know not able to vote certainly in terms of making decisions but the Committees are very important and certainly uh last but not least uh is

041our Safety and Security committee report uh Mr Gonzalez thank you sir the Brian ISD Safety and Security committee meeting committee met right here in this room on uh Wednesday March 19th at 3:00 it was myself Mr Stasney Miss carabine and a lot of our our cabinet uh it was kind of an interesting meeting we really didn't cover a lot of detail but we had a nice show that the uh I forgot the name of the company it's in uh evolve uh presented a type of uh it's not a metal detector it's much more evolved I guess H the name than a metal detector and it's able to detect weapons metal any other kind of objects that we would not want in a school building and but it's not as slow nor as intrusive as a

042metal Det ctor so it's very exciting technology Mr stazzy and I asked for some numbers of course on it it looks great it's very cool looking but it has to be uh in our price range as well so we had a great demonstration on that uh Mr HL updated the committee on the annual review and approval of the BD Emergency Operations plan and cyber security annex by the Texas school safety center and then we went over uh can't go into details but we we did have a couple of inspections by the state and I would like to thank all of our principals teach staff everyone for helping keep our our students safe thank you thank you yeah I think was acknowledged that we had a pretty good track record with regard to yes sir I

043don't know how much I could say it was great yes sir yeah in terms of how our our safety record with regard to the uh because they'll come by unannounced sometimes and check things out yes sir thank you very much on that report um moving on uh next is our information items uh public hearing presentation of the district annual report Texas Academic performance report and it looks like we've got uh Dr Rara and I think we've got also uh Jill Dr Jill Morris thank you Mr stne uh good evening we are here today for our annual report this is a public hearing and so at a point in this moment we will also ask the audience if they have any questions um or need anything thank you very much for that uh the annual report

044is required by Statute and by board policy each year and it has several components that comprise the full report the full report is approximately 1,000 Pages um so it's a little light reading um and it goes over all of your favorite things uh unfortunately it was delayed this year due to a state reporting delay um we've had a couple of years now of reporting delays and information release delays um from the Texas Education Agency um but regardless of the delay in getting that last piece which was the Texas Academic performance report the taper report um that data whenever I do this report it feels a little bit like Groundhog Day we've already had several moments with the board and certainly many moments with campuses to go over the data from the prior year Star Performance

045so all of the data or not all the vast majority of that data we received in June so it's not new data to us um but it is the annual report that we have to wait for so that we can finish this particular presentation so if you'll bear with us as we go through the information this evening I know a lot of it is a review for for this group um you'll also notice on the annual report they added a new component this year um the board annually approves or reviews the house bill three goals for early literacy numeracy and college career and Military Readiness so those are now required to be a part of this report um so you'll hear a little bit about those this evening as well um any questions before I

046move on okay I'm going turn it over to Dr Morris we're going to talk a little bit about comparable groups and how we get to these moments but I'm not able to click there we go okay good evening so each year when we look at the taper report um we find other districts in the state that are most like us and you can see the Brian ISD numbers for total enrollment our percent of low-income students our percent of English learners and our U Mobility rate and we set some some boundaries and we use a peer finder to help us do that and with those numbers in mind again I think for the third year we've come up with the same comparable group so these five districts are most like us throughout the state so when

047through the rest of this presentation when we talk about comparable groups we're talking about an average for those five districts and so you can see what we mean by they're more like us the the red and this will be the same throughout this presentation the red represents the state average the green is that comparable District average for those five districts and the blue is Brian ISD so when we look at economically disadvantaged our emergent bilingual our at risk and our mobile students we're much more similar to that comparable group than we are to the state okay so on the Texas Academic performance report when we look at the star performance we're looking at three different levels of performance you're looking at approaches meets and Master's level performance so we're going to start with approaches and

048then we'll go through each of the others as well when we look at approaches grade level performance across the board um you'll see that the the district outperforms the comparable group in most categories with a slight decline um as compared in social studies and is below the state across the board in those but again with a comparable group we do outperform them in three of the four areas when you go to the meets level performance you'll see that similar pattern um continue and persist um the house bill three goals that the state put in place during the prior legislative sessions um all relate to the meets level performance so when we talk about our house bill three goals we are required for early literacy and new Mercy to set goals based on third grade meets

049level performance okay so when we do that we set those goals and I'm going to ask Dr Morris to come back up here and go over early literacy and numeracy so just as a note these goals these are supposed to be fiveyear goals as required by Statute these goals were set using the 2122 Star Performance that was before we had the new Star so um as you can see the graph both last year and the prior year we were slightly under our goal for literacy and again this is just our third grade students so that's why these meets numbers look a little different than what you saw on the previous slide because it's just that one grade level and so part of the literacy goals we report on them but we also have to have

050an action plan so this is a summarized action plan um that our curriculum instruction department is working closely with camp cuses um teachers instructional coaches to make sure that they have everything they need we use the reading Horizons um to help with and I was a secondary math teacher so some of this is Greek to me but um with the um systematic struction in pheic Awareness letter knowledge phonics and sight words um and so our teachers are trained on those explicit reading instruction skills using the reading acmy that are required by the state um we also spend a lot of time making sure students can um successfully write because now writing is involved in all of the Star tests so that's an important part of this literacy piece but we also want them to be

051prepared to take the test and while we are not prepping for the test and spending a lot of time we do make sure that they know how to operate the the testing platform because if they can't do that especially our younger students if they don't learn how to do that then it doesn't matter what they know if they can't figure out how to answer the question so we are incorporating that into instruction by using the platform as a model so the teachers are modeling then the students get a chance to work on it Dr mors may ask you on um so on 2223 were the um the the training to try to get our scores up had that already been implemented I'm wondering why we had a I know it's not a great decrease from

05222 to 23 to 23 for but it seems like if we were implementing that why didn't we have an increase is it is there an explanation easy one on that one I I think part of it is just the test itself the the whole state saw a dip okay and so sometimes test or even though they try to make them so they're the same level of rigor from year to year sometimes one year is harder or easier than the other okay so we're on par with wherever we were it's there's not a dramatic obviously 1% here so I wouldn't consider 1% % got decrease that's I would call that stable okay thank you Dr mores do you want to remind everyone that the state also started requiring everyone to take the test on the computer

053so they third grade students for both of these years right and we we actually did that the prior year um because with we kind of took advantage of the Year where we weren't going to have ratings due to covid and we let all of our students go ahead and start testing online just to build that capacity but then they switched to all these new item types and so we kind of had to start again and and build that capacity with our students again okay thank you all right and for math you'll see a a similar pattern and again we mirror the state with the drop and that meets level performance um and so some things we've implemented or continued to implement are the the daily Mastery checks and being sure that teachers are are correcting

054or filling gaps in the moment instead of way until two weeks because um as a math teacher if you let a child practice something wrong for two weeks before you go back and correct it they've learned it wrong and it's so hard to get them to to learn it the right way so fixing those things immediately um working on small group instruction and intervention providing those resources our curriculum department is doing a great job providing resources um to help our teachers uh do all of this work um I know that my department especially Sarah chup has been working very closely with campuses and having she every almost every day she's out on a campus having data conversations with teachers so that they're they're more able to um analyze the data and then make instructional decisions

055and I could have said that for the literacy part too because she does both was that part of the I'm sorry the same I'm not harping on the bad I just want to know what we I know we're working to make sure that we get everything so yeah we are the state also had a similar dip as to what we had is that correct they did okay because I know we'll get asked that question but if it's across the state then like you said we're not floundering or going down we're simply learning with everybody else at the same time is what I'm trying to clarify yeah and so we just have to be sure our kids know how to operate that platform and I know that our teachers and campuses are working so hard to

056make sure that's happening and you you said this but I want to emphasize that um the test changed dramatically it did during this time um can you give us just a little insight and maybe this is Dr iara on how and remember these are third graders so so very small children taking a test online on math um how did it change from past years so um prior to this the test was basically multiple choice with maybe a few where they they called them gdbl where they had to solve a problem and get a numerical answer and and bubble it in well now um depending on the grade level they may have one where they have a a sentenced in with some blanks and you know where they have to make comparisons maybe with greater than

057less than and use the words they may have a graph or a number line where they have to actually plug points on the number line either by clicking or they call them drag and drops so they might have a a VIN diagram and they have to drag the right pieces to the the right parts so it's and I know we give our students lots and lots of time to try to practice these skills they are third graders eight years old who are learning math concepts that are brand new for the first time are we also one to one at this grade level so students are taking their devices home are they able to use them at home they do not take them home but there is enough in the classroom for every student to have

058access um pick picking up on what Dr Morris was mentioning on the types of questions we were in a data talk with uh dror Chuck now and teachers and one of the questions was a mathematics question it was intermediate level so it's a little bit different but the response required the students to take the four values and put them from least to greatest and it's a a series of fractions and decimals and put them in the correct order so you had to put them all in the correct order by dragging and dropping them to get the question correct so if two were transposed you did not get credit for that question um so the students are having to learn one to work out every aspect of the problem for all the numerical values and then

059put them in that correct order that was required to get the credit for that particular question um similar problems happen on the younger grades along with short constructed responses where the students need to provide a written response also at third grade yeah I was going to say the writing is now embedded right across grade level including math so that's new as well and and one other thing I'd like to point out Jill has it up here uh the new K8 curriculum is is uh being reviewed for the 25 26 school year if you will recall um several board meetings ago we talked about the instructional materials allotment and we talked about the new way the state is approv proving curriculum materials for schools to utilize um the Mathematics Curriculum has not been renewed by the

060state of Texas since 2015 and so we finally have access to be able to adopt um I think they had three maybe four items that would work K8 um on the a list of approved curriculum materials and so we're we're hopeful and looking forward to ordering Mathematics Curriculum materials for our students since our current ones are fairly outdated 10 years old right yes and I think uh just want to remind people when we had that discussion the state does not give us enough no allotment to be able to buy all that we need for our children no Dr harlon that's a very great Point um that has actually fallen short of funding um in particular during the years where we had the Esser funding from the federal government um they remarked they being the state

061of Texas uh tea that they would reduce our instructional materials a lot since we had Federal funding and we could use that instead um which we had to come to the board and request Gap year fundings to cover all the gaps since we did not have enough funding um from those two sources to handle it yeah and I'm sorry to interrupt your presentation in this way but um I want it just to be known to the public that as they see these numbers um it's an image that I don't think any of us would be happy with 35% of our students meeting some goal right but um it's also by Design when you change everything about the curriculum uh you know we're we're testing in new ways using electronic means with small children that there

062are changes to be expected here um so I just want to make sure it's really transparent that this does not mean that we're doing worse than we were before Dr harand that's actually what the commissioner of Education wanted us all to know know as well that we should expect lower results even if the students improved that's exactly his communication to all board members across the state of Texas as they embarked on this and and as I recall as you all recall I know um most of these ratings and results are all tied up in courton Junctions for the past two years and are still being tossed around in that Arena so but regardless of what those are we still take a look at what the data tells us about what the needs of the students

063are and then we pivot and we adjust to make sure that we're meeting those needs um one area if if I can keep going yes okay um one area where it was not that same story you'll look at the Master's level performance we talked about approaches meets and Masters and so we still outperformed the state and the comparable group with Master's level performance um so again it's not that we don't have exceptional students who are high achieving and Performing um in great capacity on all of these assessments we absolutely do and we're very proud of the work of their teachers and of the students so um that is also there for your one other demographic that I wanted to touch on particularly for third graders and I don't think it's been brought up yet is

064our English language Learners yes ma'am as they compare to these other comparable districts and the state of Texas um we have a very large number of young children that are learning English language while they're being tested yes in English and then most of us realize that one of the last um aspects to develop in an English language learner's um journey is the ability to write in that other language and so with writing appearing on every version of the state assessment now um that also puts them at a big learning curve to be prepared and to feel confident on those assessments yes so when you were uh Dr moris talking about the uh comparable districts Duncanville Bast wo They al comparatively they have these same English language Learners as they I mean convince me that they

065do they have the same amount of um no English language Learners that we have that are taking this test online third graders now I can't say specifically thir third graders overall the and I can go back and look at no I'm not sure I can look at just third graders with the reports that are available that's okay but overall they're they're actually a little bit higher than us they're at 31% and we were at 30 last year so no I'm talking about overall our English language learners for our district we are 30% of our students are English language Learners okay sorry I missed that I I I was uh looking at the other things but but um yeah I think it's really important just to remember who the who are our children and what are

066they struggling with at a very early age and being asked to do math and write and do all of that is just very challenging and not that that's an excuse we want all of our students to excel um but it explains some of what we're seeing in the numbers and and what they like you were talking about the it's I think of it as the infrastructure of of the test the teachers have to teach these young children who a lot of them don't have a computer to go home and be on the whole time teach themselves how to do that that how to click and drag and drop for math problems it's it's it's hard um we do have the advantage of having schooly which has some of that same um technology um our test

067in software edoria aware that we use and um when students take dbas or benchmarks they can do it um in aware that and has some of those same capabilities so we're trying to give them multiple ways to practice that yeah it just reminds me of you know my teacher education program which says that if the method by which we're testing becomes the thing that we're getting data on then it's probably not a great method and so I just want to remind us that particularly with third graders these are these are U you know tactile skills too that that we testing and they may not all have that I know some grew up on an Xbox or a a whatever a Game Boy whatever they are now what what am I missing who's who's the who's

068the people with young kids you know what I'm talking about but not every child grows up with those things with that hand eye coordination as well okay so also in um the volume of data in that thousand page report we looked at Chronic absenteeism and this is some good news as well um chronic absenteeism has decreased in the district which is what you'd like to see we would like that blue bar to be as short as possible on this graph and so we see that um right after the 1920 school year where covid um interrupted education 2021 chronic absenteeism was approximately 22% in brine which was still better than the comparable group and then in 2122 we saw a bit of an increase that's when we started seeing more students being required to come back

069and and needed to make sure they were here every day but we were still much lower than the comparable group um and then this past time that we have data on the 2223 school year we are even with the state of Texas and have a lower chronic absenteeism rate than the comparable group so again we need them in school so that we can teach and educate and learn and take care of them so we're we're glad to see that number continuing to improve we talk about graduation rates this is the core of our business uh we talk about cohorts of graduation and we do this little example every year but if the entire Board of Trustees entered ninth grade in the exact same year then you would be in a cohort um forever and always

070that would be your cohort and so we look at how many students in that cohort what percent are graduating four years and five years after entering that cohort um and as you can see from the data we are higher than the state and slightly below the comparable group and so um well why is that it just makes no looking at all the other data that we're you know they're they're more disadvantaged on some items is there is it the region they're in what what would cause that do you have any idea I'm just curious I can't really speak why the states is lower they do have a few more districts um than just us of course in the comparable group so it could be the number of districts included in the calculation versus the five

071or so in the comparable group and then the singular Us in that blue bar um but historically the state it takes a a big shift to move the number at the state level and a big change um this district has worked very targetedly and very purposefully um since before 2017 to turn that number around it did not used to be um in the 9s and so we've inched and worked and and really come together as a team to purposely focus on it and we'll continue to do so that's that's great because the differences are you know it could be the margin of error they're so close I was just curious if there was I'm very proud of those numbers that I'd have to go back and look at the numbers but there is one of

072the districts that their graduation rate is like 9 97 98 so that kind of exuse everything but no those are the AR numbers are great thank youall that's you again yep so um one of the other things that um House Bill three requires us to track is college career military Readiness remember that's performance on things like the SAT or the ACT um the TSI all those college entrance types of tests taking and passing AP or IB test um taking dual credit courses um the fact that our district is a CTE District of Distinction also plays into this because um earning those industry- based certifications um is a part of that and finally we have military Readiness back in the mix because the state of Texas has worked out um an agreement with the Department of

073Defense that we can get that or the state can get that data so um military enlistment will now be um included in that and so as you can see on this graph we set goals and this is one of those lagging indicators so the most recent data we have is for the 2023 grads even though we're about to graduate class of 2025 um so we have this data and we have surpassed our goal um and I attribute that to the work and the counseling department Advanced academic CTE all working together to come alongside and make sure that as many students as possible are college career or military ready when they when they graduate I think that this page is the reason is the difference like I think what U Mr Gonzalez was talking about too

074this page is one of the things that makes up the difference from like three pages ago our scores are lagging for whatever reason then those kids start getting involved then they start finding their niche in school then they realize being in school is good and fun and productive and they can get certifications and graduate with all kinds of degrees or certifications you know partial degrees and and and I was there at this Barbecue cook off right here and the and our students have fun there's programs available to them so the difference in their lagging in scores when they're small this sort of thing and what we have to offer keeps him in school and is another major reason for our elevation and graduation rate you also speak to the changing indicators state level that number

075might change in the future with the CTE um yes so CTE you know the accountability system is ever evolving um but CTE they're changing their indicators used to if you earn the industry based certification we got ccmr credit and they've been doing this slow roll out where um you have to take at least two courses and then earn the certification in that pathway and then you have to take three courses and earn the certification now you have to be a completer so you have to take the whole pathway and then take the certification and so we um have been planning for that for multiple years because we did not want to be caught unawares or behind so even before it was required we were having students you know kind of work a year ahead so

076that we um or a year ahead of where the state told us we had to be so that we could make sure that we were prepared plus it was good for students um is that what you okay I think it's still me sorry okay so the last few parts of the annual report are reporting on the financial status and you've already had a report on this we have the the superior rating so I don't need to um belabor that and then the district accreditation status the most recent status is from the 2223 school year because they have to have accountability ratings to do the accreditation status the way it's set so we are still accredited and we'll we'll stay that way um the campus um performance objectives those uh campus Improvement plans that the board

077approved back in October each one of those um is part of the annual report as well as it's already been posted on our website and then this whole entire annual report is has been posted on the website um I would advise against printing it unless you have lots of paper because it's like Dr bar said it's almost a thousand pages on our I'm very proud of our military ra that graph are we ahead of the other districts in that is is can we compare that to to the state yes I don't know by how much but as I recall we were Miles Ahead we'll just go with that well we can always yes we can always say that yes sir we can look that up but off the record from what I can tell when

078I meet with District leaders in the region that we are probably at the top of the chart in our entire region great uh as as evidenced by the uh district dist distinction award we're basically in the top 3% in the state right now great so we hope to maintain this but what you were talking about about those changes were were not um really excited about the changes with ccmr with CTE certifications in particular it's contrary to what districts do when we encourage kids to get involved and to explore and to take some courses for interest like what Ruthie was saying I think we could see a dip or a decline across the state with all that yeah I think that's one of my concerns as we move forward under the new accountability metrics and the

079system of must have this and this and that you can have a student who obtained the industry based certification and still not receive any credit for that the student is prepared for postsecondary but the district would be penalized in the accountability system because the certain sequence of courses leading up to it weren't completed in the way the state said they needed to be even though the child obtain the industry based certification so there's a little bit of a rub there with that well there's always and that's what's so frustrating as everyone knows and want the public to know you know you look at our scores yeah we might be lower but you don't know everything that went into it you know what what what day what time which grade which area and so I know

080it's not indicative that we're that we're doing poorly as what I'm trying to say so I just appreciate everybody staying on top of it and I know it's a it's a it's a big job but we're I appreciate it thank Youk I just have one more comment about the taper report so taper report has been around for super long time yes ma'am right but if I look at data in this taper report versus past Year's taper report I mean they all have data and percentages and all the things would you say that we're comparing Apples to Apples or apples to oranges in new taper reports versus old taper reports I would say that depending on which indicator you're looking at Chronic absenteeism pretty consistent okay attendance pretty consistent Star Performance those are different measures but

081we've called it the same thing yes correct we changed the assessment but did not change the name of the test and I need people to hear that like we changed almost everything about the assessment what we're assessing how we're assessing all the things yes and yet we're still using basically same name and we're sort of saying it's the same metric when in fact it's very different than what it was before which is precisely why it's tied up in courton Junctions for two years now exactly yes ma'am and I also I wasn't going to do this but I feel I have to say it I hope that the public sees that and hears that because it's part of a narrative about the negativity of public schools um it's trying to paint a picture that public schools

082are quote unquote failing and that parents need choice for private schools um so that's all being duked out right now in Austin um with our legislators um but it's really disappointing when we're part of public schools and we know the good work that's happening and we know that this is not transparent like it is not transparent to have a different test um that measures different things that is given a different way that by the way was not tested it wasn't pilot tested robustly there was no reliability and validity of the way we're asking these questions and yet we're couching it as the same thing and to your point Dr harand uh when Dr Morris mentioned earlier that we're ACC credited from the 2223 school year because that's the last time ratings were issued the district

083was an 86b during that time frame under the original accountability Provisions in the original Star assessment um and that's when the commissioner came out and said the schools just be prepared your schools may actually improve and yet still receive a grade level lower rating under the new system the new accountability metrics and the new assessment that's why the commissioner came out and spoke to board members about that well I hope our parents uh demand transpar Arcy of our government and the way that we're being managed in these cases because school districts don't have choices on the tests we give we don't the state tells us what we're doing and so we do those things and yet um yeah being imposed thank you Dr I was at a fundraiser Saturday night and there was a former

084principal from Brian i d there been retired for a while and she and my wife and I were sort of discussing got managed to get into public schools and vouchers and so on and and the principal former principal said something to the effect that well you know they're in this other state I'll just say it was it was Florida you know that it looks like they're having uh some success well my wife Mary immediately said how do you define success and she paused the former principal paused and said that's a very good question because that's that's uh that's what we're struggling with as far as how to we define success Howes the state define success and how are they going to define success when you've got a bunch of cherry-picking private schools out there that

085are going to be able to say hey this is the students we want so it it is an ongoing battle to to try to convince the public that we are working hard we are not trying to cut Corners we are doing everything we can uh to educate every child but a sign at some point there just has to be learn about your schools and find out what we're doing go visit and then if you really think we're not doing the best that we can possibly do or that anybody can do you then you can then you can say what you want to say but don't believe these Outsiders that come in and pump a bunch of money into pushing an agenda that and and as as was already been mentioned that that part of that

086strategy uh is to dispar uh what we're doing when when it's just simply not warranted so anyway it's it's out there it's hard hard hard to to Really convince people based on what we've got to work with that we're doing the job that we know we're doing before you sit down I want to say that if people want to see our students all from kindergarten to the ones that are to graduate every side of town happy kids come to the Showcase downtown Brian April 4th and our kids will be uh Center Stage doing what they do uh showing showing off uh what they do in school uh talking to you about the fun things and what they're learning and the good things that are going on so so this is as good a time as

087any to say you want to come see our kids and see who we really have as as clientele uh our bottom line which is the profit we have our our children come to this showcase downtown Brian what time's it start 6 5 it's here it's right here six Anyway come to our showcase uh what down to Brian on April the 4th at come at 5 just come at five we'll be yes there there are presentations starting at 5: yes come one come all downtown Brian first for First Friday joining forces with destination Brian in the city of Brian it's the best event in town thousands thank you miss wallard all right well I guess we're done with our public hearing thank you very much ladies thank you I guess I did you turn I guess

088we didn't have a lot of audience out there to ask questions but uh anybody still wants to ask one please uh jump in okay now the for the show that we've all been waiting for budget development update from Kevin beaw can you top that Kevin top the tap I'm sure not so that's why I'm bringing doctory bar and Dr Merl with me because I know they can they can uh top that um so thank you tonight we're we're going to do a little review and update clarify some information uh legislative update uh following the bills that are are pending that will affect our our finances and just want to make sure at this point the legislature is at a a phase where there should be no no new bills uh introduced unless there's special circumstances

089but they still have to be worked out worked through the the house and the Senate and then receive the governor's signature before they become law and just remember uh we have to pass adopt our budget uh I believe at the June night meeting will be our Target so uh because of the fiscal year change that's uh that's when we'll we'll have it at that at that meeting you've been you've been at this for quite a few years uh is this maybe is this maybe the toughest year ever for trying to create a budget you got somebody behind you shaking his head yes yeah I mean it seems to get uh more drawn out and uh more poor Kevin yeah everything is is up in the air uh it seems like more than it than it

090ever has been but uh of course it's hard hard to top uh you know last year when you know the the prior session they went into the four sessions special sessions and didn't end till December so uh but uh we'll keep we'll keep at it and whatever they decide we're going to put together a budget and we'll we'll move forward and and do the best we can for for our students but as we go through this process we always want to remember you know we're uh going to keep in mind that whatever the budget is we're going to use it to support our highquality instruction and resources uh and then retain a high quality uh Workforce uh so we have the best teachers that we can that we can get uh maintain a healthy fund

091balance that's always uh top priority of mine to make sure that we're uh in a good situation so we can uh weather the storm as we need to and as we have uh this last couple of years and then uh Safety and Security is always a top priority and we uh we'll talk about that a little bit more the allotment and things that they they have for that no doubt uh the question about how complicated it is is very true we'll talk on a uh touch on a few of those things that seemingly would seem like it would be simple some things stayed the same but that actually makes it more complicated and uh Ruthie I would agree ccmr and graduation radar uh that's what we should be measured by when you look at it

092are kids graduating and are they graduating with a career college or military ready that's truly the number they're set forth and ready to enter into the workforce or go into the military or enter enter into college and so going back to the previous presentation I would agree 100% And so this is uh stay the same 6160 and you've seen this cup many many times in fact we we've kind of joked about it it's become the cup not only that we've used in board meetings but every time we step in front of principles uh any staff including teachers we've used this countless times and it really becomes I think a very clear visual for the representation of the way the state of Texas funds us so 6160 is per student and again that's at 100% attendance

093we've already talked about sort of the attendance numbers and the consistency with that even though we're beating it you're still not at 100% there's no way that every kid is going to show up on every given day and what you see is they're um they're really in some ways uh resistant if not downright they're just not going to change that meaning they're going to give us our weighted our Ada average daily attendance and they're only going to give us a portion of that 6160 and again depending on the since we continue to vent about at least a little venting about what what how we're being treated as public schools is that the way the charter schools are being no it's not based on attendance it's B it's based on 100% they're just given for enrollment

094and ain't that true for also at least what we're hearing on on the uh on the uh theou vouchers yes sir they get it and they the $110,000 they get it and that's what it is they just get the the enrollment dollar they don't get an uh weighted Ada or the Ada the average daily attendance yes sir and even though it seems like a small percentage it's oh it's significant millions of dollars yeah in fact I'll elaborate in Brian I we hover around 94% attendance so if we were funded on enrollment that would it be an additional $7 million yeah for our budet it's not a small portion at all so there we go let's see wrong way there we go go all right when you look at it uh no matter what the state

095kicks in our local portion um is going to make up the difference so if they put more in ours is going to be less in regardless uh the other way around and so it's going to be the 6160 so even if property values are going up this happens to be a a common U just misconception it's like oh property values are increasing which they are and that means that we should have more money that's actually not the case so as the local money goes up the state portion goes down so it's going to stay the same level regardless of What's Happen locally and it's great that we live in the brazas valley and we see that type of uh support and that type of growth but it doesn't mean that we're actually going to see

096additional dollars so it's going to be consistent no matter what it is I promise I can push a button right hand there we go all right now you talked didn't know my right from the left you know you need drar to do it for you I do uh here you go that's that's sad okay she just was less visible with hers than me all right we talked about uh Mr Stasney the difficulty in sort of the sort of the complexity well here you go you look at what's happened we're going all the way back to $9 we all know that $ 2019 do not go as far as they do now and so we've kept the funding the same and here we are in 20 uh 2025 and yet we still have the same funding

097so fuel costs are up 91% utilities are up 7% property insurance up 200 4% and then health insurance up 21% and what you find if they had just increased uh for inflation we would be at 15 to6 million more now that number is staggering to me that they have not adjusted for inflation since 2019 even though they've had an abundance of uh savings billions of dollars earmarked and then not spent not sent out and clearly we've talked a little bit about what's happening in Austin but you see the implications of it that's one of the complexities of that you alluded to it's it's even though the funding stayed the same nothing else has stayed the same the complexities of educating the children and then the uh increase in cost is tremendous Brian is that 156

098million based on our average daily attendance rate yes sir so in addition to the 15 16 million yeah 21 you're in the $20 million yeah that's a great point Thank you and so these are the factors here again that Mr stazy was pointing out we had record inflation the end of Esser I'm honestly very thankful for the way we spent eser we spent it directly on the staff which has allowed us to be able to maintain what we've had through the the years and then obviously with no change to the basic allotment those three things have really created a Statewide Financial Challenge and again we we've done this with staff we've done it with uh our our teachers we've done it with everyone pull out your phone look at what's happening across the state of

099Texas and what you find is every district is in the same place summon significantly work than we are we're thankful for our finance department we're thankful for the decisions that you've made to be completely honest and it's allowed us to be in a very healthy situation but at the same time we're staring at the the edge of the cliff and uh reality is if the state doesn't do something then we're we have made changes and we're going to continue to have to make changes um yeah yes and then so we're going to talk a little bit about a couple of allotments and and the things that uh you know you've heard that excuse me the governor's talked about we you know we receive a lot of money and and they put uh more money out

100there than than the 6160 but one of the examples here uh a couple of things that are uh mandated by the state and they're uh underfunded so when the additional funds that are on the weighted average daily allotment or for example uh those kind of things where that money has to go uh transportation one example uh our state allotment uh for last year was uh 1,467 th000 and the cost on our transportation department last year was a little over $6 million so you can see we were the the funding that we received for transportation was uh almost $5 million uh underfunded that money has to come from some other allotment somewhere else the basic allotment or or wherever uh you can you can pull it but uh another one is Safety and Security uh that's

101a big one and it's uh we're going to going to go over a little more detail on that one but uh the state allotment was a little over 500,000 and the cost that we uh spent uh about $3.4 million so again almost $3 million underfunded on that I will I will confess that I didn't know that the transportation was that bad it's that I knew it was bad but I didn't know it was that bad U and so it again where does that money extra money come from it's coming basic allotment I guess pretty much yeah you take you take all the other allotments and whatever is is excessed from those you use that to to cover for that one so it just makes us once again that makes it that much harder number one

102to even pay the bus drivers what they deserve and number two we how how in the world do we pay teachers what they deserve if we're having to pay I mean it's not like we can cut the salaries of the bus drivers they're working for very low pay anyway considering what they what they have to to do so so I again it's a little more venting but I wish people would really see this and say this is this is crazy this can't continue or it's almost like it's well I'm sure a lot of people already think it's a recipe for destroying public schools and is that what you want and that that seems to be where we're headed if they don't get their act together and it's pretty scary right now but anyway that was

103just a little more venting yes sir and then just going to go into a little detail on just one particular allotment just to kind of show how how that how that all calculates out uh behind the scenes or behind the curtain so to speak so if the safety allotment uh the funding calculation you we start with enrollment uh we're only uh we received funding for only half day uh prek so we have about 900 pre students we uh reduceed the enrollment by about 450 to take that out uh and then the attendance rate we've mentioned 94% so that gets us to our average daily attendance of 14,600 17 the safety allotment now is per student $10 so that would be 146,000 and then when they uh changed the uh requirement that we uh needed to

104have U armed security uh Personnel at each campus they added $15,000 per campus so that's another $375,000 for a total of $521,000 um there's a down there I'll go back to that in a second so 2425 expenses if you look our school resource officers our uh split with cost with the city of Bryan is about $1.2 million security guards for the uh the rest of the campuses uh is about 830,000 and then you can see there's uh security film um we did some vestibules window replacements different things for security uh e-hall pass couple of programs um there critical response maps and things that we that we did that we spent $3.4 million on so the allotment uh 5 21,000 you can see doesn't doesn't quite cover that and just to expand a little more I

105know not everything that's on the 2024 2025 expenses was mandated some of those were choices we made because they're important for safety of our staff and our students but the things that were mandated so school resource officers the security guards the security fencing so even if I just look at the things that were mandated what they gave us to cover that is abysmal it doesn't come close would that be true that would be that'd be correct yes ma'am yeah in the last session they did talk about increasing the amount for this allotment and you'll notice that safety allotment per student to $10 is because they gave us an extra 28 cents per kid to round up to $10 so that was 28 cents more and then the 15,000 more so um Kevin this is a

106great example of the reality uh when you see what's being uh shared out there with all the extra money in addition to the basic allotment just know that it's not discretionary we can't take this money dedicated for safety allotment and turn around and use it for salaries Etc because we're trying to satisfy mandates and that we're already underfunded so it's really confusing to our public when they share that we have all the additional money um coupled with the 6160 per child if it were perfect attendance but um the the best way to to describe that is it is not discretionary is to satisfy a Litany of mandates it's an insult to the public students in Texas that the state thinks that there's only $10 worth of safety that needs to be spent per student yes

107ma'am I mean that's is correct you can see the cost that we incur to to uh to try to do that uh is quite a bit more than that and in fact there is a bill that's in in the legislature right now uh Senate Bill 260 that if that passed it would increase the uh the this allotment to $20 per student and 30,000 per campus so basically double it which gets us to a little over a million dollars but you can see just just for the security officers alone which is mandated that's a little over two so still only gets us to about half of what it takes to get the uh the security officers on the Kamp campus and that's that's just it's a it's a good example of what the allotments they all

108have some uh required things or required spend on them and so but several of them are in in this situation where they're uh not nearly enough to make up the things that we have to that we are required to do and then you may have heard some some uh something going on at the federal government level uh where federal funds uh the president's ordered the dismantling of of the US Department of Education and so that's very uncertain what does that mean for us we the list there is the U consultants and and help uh with collaborating with other districts and so on um with uh tasbo the Texas Association of school business officials with Amanda brownson last year remember came in uh helped us walk through the the local budget uh areas and and where

109we could get more efficient anything that we could uh that we could streamline to to better utilize our funds and then uh Amy Campbell with tasby uh we're working on compensation review to try to make sure where we are what's the market are we you know below Market how far below Market compartive uh to the other districts and then we're working on a program uh right now we're starting with the for the federal programs fund we're again reaching out to tasbo uh Miss Sonia NY uh is looking at at helping us walk through that making sure we're being the most efficient as we can and and uh looking at uh what's this reduction going to look like for us uh how much is this uh going to impact our our federal funds and make sure

110that we are using those as efficiently and effectively as we can Okay so let's talk about what's going on in the legislature right now uh just a high level overview of a few of the bills that um pertain to school funding House Bill two has uh been pending in committee for a while now um under that particular uh Bill the increase in the basic allotment would be an additional $220 per student um and just to remind the board to adjust for inflation that increase would need to be I think roughly $1,300 per student um so for our district at a 94% attendance rate that' be additional $3.2 million as it stands um right now one of the stipulations uh pretty typical when they do these types of increases is that 40% must be dedicated to

111compensation previously it was 30% um so they put rules attached to what that funding can be used for as they increase the basic allotment um but certainly $220 more um does not keep up with inflation or cover um any of the the costs with mandates um one of those allotments Mr BW mentioned a few of them um a few moments ago but pen story education allotment um we're going to get a half of a penny um under this particular bill so I'm sure that'll be very impactful um we have an increases to the teacher in Sy of allotment which we applaud we want to make sure that the teachers who earn that um particular distinction are compensated appropriately they're looking at shifting funding um for special education students to base on intensity of services um

112which is needed and would be very helpful um they're looking at creating another allotment for Fine Arts um that that would particularly um support those programs um they went ahead and added in prohibiting uncertified teachers and The Core curriculum for the coming years and they even did one nice thing in this little draft of a bill uh creating a grant although I wish they would just fund it to reimburse school district for TRS costs um for those associated with hiring retired teachers this is one of those things that we've advocated for years is to be able to hire retired teachers and bring them back into the workforce where there's not TRS penalty of an additional fee that we pay to have them employed more than 19 hours a week um so it would be under

113Esser we were able to do that um since that has um gone away um those penalties are back in place so that is one of the bills another one is Senate Bill 26 this one is titled the teacher pay bill it did pass the Senate and it is moved on to the house public education committee um it does do some additional changes to the teacher incent of allotment increase in the amounts and creating some other levels of Distinction would provide free pre enrollment for all classroom teachers in districts where prek is offered u in Brian ISD we do it at a very reduced cost to anyone um who is in the district and does not automatically qualify for prek um so it would help us offset some of those costs and then for their teacher

114pay portion of this bill um it would be for only teachers with three to four years of experience would receive $2500 and $5,500 for those with five or more years of experience so anyone with zero to two years of experience would not receive an increase under the teacher pay bill nor would any other position in the school districts receive an increase under the um proposed bill um again it would not increase the basic allotment so there's that as well and this is a question maybe Tommy can answer it so $2500 teachers with three to four years of experience on average like what percent increase would that be over a year for their salary while he's calculating that I just want to put it in perspective like and what I can tell you that we have

115142 teachers that would be in that category roughly a 5% increase a onetime increase yes and that's 142 142 teachers currently out of our what's unclear about this bill is it says retention allotment so we don't know for certain if it's salary or it's a one-time payout by the legislature and then it doesn't reoccur sure sounds like a one time to me right and to reiterate what you've shared with we have 3,000 employees in the district it takes every single person every bus driver every cafeteria worker nurse counselor etc etc and right now there's not a plan for compensation for anyone outside of the teaching uh classroom well and if you go back to the other bill which you don't have to change the slide but uh the interesting thing about that one is that

116basically there's almost no money here right that would help us increase salary or anything like that um but they're going to prohibit us from hiring uncertified teachers in The Core Curriculum I don't think anyone wants to hire uncertified teachers but the truth is that there aren't teachers seeking jobs so people are leaving the profession so how can we recruit and retain when there's nothing here to help us do that all they're doing is hamstringing us even more how are we going to put someone qualified I mean somebody in the space to teach us subject that that would be my question what is what solution are they offering and I don't see anything no just makes it worse and that same provision is not um overlaid on anyone accepting educational savings accounts true point and let's

117talk about educational savings accounts so there are two separate bills for this Senate Bill two and House Bill three um the Senate version has already passed the Senate and has been referred to the house public education committee um in summary it would be approximately $10,000 and an educational Serv uh savings account for those seeking those um those funding sources it can be used um for a number of services um and in fact I I believe there's a lot of social media posts about that um you can roll it forward so if you don't use the entire allotment in that first year you can roll it forward and combine it in the future with remaining allotments um you can use use it for transportation expenses you can use it for breakfast lunch textbooks computers dual credit

118whatever um is needed for the child um it does not constitute taxable income private schools um May select a nationally Norm assessment of their choosing um to my knowledge I didn't see anything where they had to report those um results and there will be no accountability or rating system for them and they are not subject to fate and F federal or state laws regarding serving all students um should they elect to serve a student who qualifies as a disability um they would receive an additional uh $1,500 and I believe there was a provision where the public schools would still be required to support that student as well in some capacity with meetings and diagnosticians and those sorts of things um so those are still in play and this are all funded by enrollment as you

119mentioned earlier not by attendance and I'll leave it there okay so looking ahead and how do we proceed into um this budget season we we went through it last year and as we went through last year um we we came together with our faculties and staff members across the district we went campus to campus and and met with each and every faculty to get their feedback and their suggestions um after hearing the the state of funding in Texas Public Schools um from that um we were able to cut approximately $ four to five million doar um through a variety of um opportunities uh and again knowing that the leaner we become the more when there is funding we can pour into compensation to address um the market challenges with the compensation uh review and study

120that's going on um but while we did make great effort that we still have more to go because there is still no more funding um so we need to do our part to dig a little deeper and go a little further in the coming years so I'll invite Dr Marl up yeah you're not that is uh the previous slides a one time uh cost saving mechanism I mean there's some of those that you can go ongoing but for the most part once it's it's utilized it's done you've taken advantage ma'am can we go back sure two okay the next slide back next slide talk well one more yeah that's our prompt yeah I love that um so M Dr Yar was talking about private schools do not have the admission review and dismissal sure meetings

121for their students for any students in special education so we would provide the art meeting to the students that live in Bri ISD that go to private schools or even homeschooled I guess and so our teachers and our staff would do all the work for that child which good you notice I said for the child which we want absolutely and so then that family takes everything thing that our district does for that child and says okay this is what this special education student needs in your private school then who oversees the um the accountability and that that child is actually getting their uh accommodations and and there is no oversight there is no oversight and then but if they were in public school we are our teachers I mean they would want to do it

122but they have to do it correct and we would we would stay I don't we would stay on them I don't mean that to sound but the parent has the right to stay on them the the student their supervisors we make sure everything is happening for that child but that doesn't happen at the even though we do all the accommodation work and we do everything then that child goes back to the public to the private school and just hope we just hope for the best is that yes and in alignment with the funding pieces that we've talked about with the basic allotment and what students would receive if they were to opt into the vouchers what you'll also find is the uh amount that is allocated for students with disabilities they get an extra amount

123with their vouchers and in many cases that amount is more than what the public school would receive for that student in the services that they qualify for so it's a double hit and Dr Warren is there something also proposed with the bill that parents would as be asked to perhaps wave their rights for services for their child's eligibility if the private school didn't offer anything at all and there was not any option for them to receive it at the are you referring to the private school enrollment yes so once a a parent chooses to go to private school for all of their Educational Services they are in essence waving the right to fape which is a free and appropriate public education so that is something that they would have to wave um right now as

124it stands with adab which is our governing uh rules and regulations for special education at the federal level with idab what what we do already provide to students who are in private school or homeschool is that uh students May uh opt into Services through proportionate share or private nonprofit funds so we have to already take a portion of our federally funded allocations and designate it to our students who are already attending private school or home school if they qualify so they're already receiving a specific portion of our federal funds to provide for us to provide potentially um walk speech or one of the other services that we might designate and then once those funds are depleted then that service should end until the next school year when of those funds are reallocated out to districts

125and then in addition to that we also do um the work towards our child child fund obligations which means if a student lives in our school zone but they do not come to BR ISD we still have to offer an evaluation for those students so if they go to private school school or homeschool we can offer a service plan that says this is um what what it would look like in your school to offer specialized services but it's not an IEP or an individualized education plan that we would develop we just offer what's called a service service plan and it's up to that private school to implement that so we give them the materials we give them the not necessarily the materials but the guideline of what it would look like to serve that child

126but it's up to them to implement it so many more questions a lot of a lot of work on our side well and we want to do that for the child but we have to also trust that somebody's going to go and implement the individual education placement where they are and a lot of times they're just not equipped for that same thing underfunded correct well and one of my favorite things on this slide in particular it says private schools May select a national normed reference assessment after we just got done doing a taper Report with assessments created by the state of Texas for Texas public schools that we literally have no say in whether these are great it's May select where we're required it's May select so they don't even have to right um and

127I think that's where um that Apples to Apples argument really comes into play um it if this were presented in a way that everyone had to play by the same rules it would be a completely different conversation but at this point the schools are still obligated to uh portion out their proportionate share we still have our child fund obligation we still have to serve any child that walks in our door but if a child chooses to go to private school or homeschool we still have all of the regulations that we have to follow but then it's up to them whether or not they want to implement it and so it's still the burden on the school district to provide all of that whether or not they choose to move forward with no funding with no

128funding for that student yeah and all the legislatures can can say all this verbatim right yeah they they Sorry that was rude sorry we should probably kind of Move Along we we'll go to the other one so I think it's Mr carine's ask us to lead by example so we've taken a um already kind of a first look at our non-campus staff and I I won't read them to you but I do think it's important to go through and show that we've been leading by examples these are non-campus staff that we she's asked us uh to do we're doing more with less and we're doing it very strategically and surgically to be completely honest uh and so we look at every position to see if there's something internally we could do uh if there's a

129way to make the job I would say more streamline that's what we're absolutely doing so again these are these are positions that we're here at central office that we've we' either kind of condensed down we're on hold uh We've uh I mean paused there's just a whole host of things that we've we've done to be able to still continue to offer the incredible education that we we do while at the same time making sure the positions um just absolutely needed at the same level which it was before so again I don't mean to just push through things but if there's any questions I'd be happy to answer those on this little goes along with way to be honest now we've mentioned before that we talk with all of our stakeholders that's not only our uh

130District level folks but it's also our campuses we've done the road tour the cup is very well known as I've made mention and we've asked them for input and we've gotten some wonderful feedback not only from last year but this year Miss carbine goes out to every campus to talk with them individually the campus and the teachers and then we've also gone out and done presentations with the staff and so I think that that speaks volumes to doing this with them instead of to them I think that's critically important and um she's led by example and so again just to reminder Remind You 86% of our local budget is Staffing and so really and truly when you get right down to it um that's where you're going to going to have to eventually make up

131some of the the shortfall the opportunities to fill vacancies internally I've already mentioned that that was the slide previously that's what we've done opportunities to streamline the Staffing uh review of non-teaching positions through attrition we've looked at programs and consolidation of those program programs um that would might be within special education or something else to make sure we're maximizing our programs in our campuses and our staff that we don't have if we can make uh a group of students have one teacher instead of two spread out across campus in some cases we've done that our resources again this was done surgically when you look at our Master uh scheduling software our attendance tracking software data visual visualization software sped many of those uh we transitioned to Skyward and it's allowed uh under that umbrella to

132take some of these examples of uh programs multiple programs and allowed us to use one so in in many cases we've done that review of uh all operating costs and then cost sharing with school nutrition funds as well so all of this again a little bit goes a long way into making up the deficit looking ahead Road shows about to continue about to go on so March DT we meet with them tomorrow uh and then we've uh met with them continuously to update them and bring them along the journey April and May we have the updated projections based on the legislative progress and decisions we will continue our stakeholder feedback we're going to go out and about continue with our DT DLT is District leadership team that's our principes and directors and those folks and

133then obviously our board budget updates and then in June ultimately we will continue with DLT again our board budget updates and then eventually we have to make an adopt the budget some of those things we're waiting for the unknowns that's the hardest thing is as we factor into this is what are we going to receive from the state is there not going to be any adjustments if there's no adjustments then obviously we're going to have to make drastic adjustments internally to make sure that we don't have a u massive um budget deficit any questions it we're not uh like we've we've adopted deficit budgets in the past right so that's not new for us and usually we're able to make that up by different cost savings along the way yes ma'am is there any scenario

134at this point point that if we don't get an influx of money from some Source outside of us um immediately and by immediately I mean before June yes that we are not we're we're beyond the point of just tightening our belt and those kind of things like we are going to feel it immediately they are going to feel it immediately in the classrooms uh in the buildings we've in the slide that I show that I just sort of quickly went through we're feeling it in in this building as well there's not a building that that we um own that we work in that we are not going to feel it it is going to be noticeably different and again I think almost every District passes a deficit budget at some point and they make it

135up along the way right I that that those days are gone for everyone you see drastic reductions across the state closing we're not doing these things so I before I say it I want to be really clear we haven't done them uh closing of schools those types of things are things that you see across the the state of Texas and not just one 10 like you see it across districts Fort Worth those places they just don't have they're facing the same struggles that we are well I know um I keep up with school districts around the state and I know there are already you know tough decisions being made about programs right so um we you know there comes a point where we just don't have money if if 86 or 87% of our budget

136is tied up in staff and we have to do reductions it means that we're cutting something that's going to hurt some people something graduation ccmr down the line the very things that you referenced earlier those are what keep kids in school we find the right place we get them and then we graduate them in their position to be productive citizens I I say that to say now is the call to action folks if you have been sitting on the sideline just hoping things will be okay now is not the time to sit on the sideline um it it's important that all of us express our opinions to our elected legislators and let them know our wants and needs and what I hope that citizens of this community want is a robust and vibrant Public School

137amen well thank you very much absolutely that's very helpful detailed and I hope again that a few folks see this and and uh perhaps the media pick up on some of it because as Julie just said we've got to we've got to get the word out that this is not okay all right uh don't go too far Brian we've got strategic planning update uh I'm going to ask you to kind of give us a quick overview I don't know we're in the early stages I'm not sure we need a real lengthy discussion uh I know that we want to hear some of the key points and we want to hear from Mr Griffin too yeah but uh we still got a long way to go tonight we do we're going to move uh fairly quickly

138we've provided the handouts in the back for you of the full presentation we've reduced it down to just a few slides uh the first meeting was held on March the 20th phenomenal meeting great energy I could not ask for better representation across the district I'm incredibly excited I truly couldn't sleep the night before I was so excited about the work that's not hyperbole either I was so excited to get up like the first day of school right you're just making sure everything was done and that everything was checked off uh and it met all the expectations I went home and and slept like a baby but I'm I'm very pleased uh to have this young man beside me I've gotten to know um I've told the story I've got to know his children first and

139then I got to know his wife and then I got to know him and uh his family is incredible there's a long history in Brian uh but I'm very excited to get to work with him for the last few months and he's going to talk a little bit about uh what we're doing the great work and uh and so this was the meeting agenda again the slide deck is back there and it's longer but this is just an abbrevi version and I think I attached it in an email to all of you on Friday the entire presentation from the first meeting yes ma'am obviously we started with our board so there's there's your picture and Mr Stasney you addressed the group which I appreciate very much uh we have over uh nearly 90 citizens or

140more depending on the day and they're made up of all different uh groups of kids students parents administrators Teachers Community leaders uh Community leaders residents it's just again a broad representation of our entire Community which we're incredibly proud of uh bringing various uh varying perspectives from our community we have a couple three or four uh students on there it's fun to get their perspective as well so um we're very excited about that purpose charge and promise again just a a a few bullet points on what we did this was actually three slides but you'll see some of the things that we discussed the work that you've uh given them to do we want to be responsible for that to make sure that we uh honor the work that you've established for them and that we

141do that well and so you'll see a couple of our guiding principles prioritize student needs develop a fiscally responsible plan work with the big picture be ambassadors for the district broader community and we're going to have a lot of fun there was a lot of laughter in the room and and a great amount of energy to be honest all right I'm going turn it over to Mr Griffin so really we we discussed where a master plan comes from and it starts from our U facility assessments which are always ongoing we all have some idea of what that is as far as your home your car your your appliances but it's a much bigger scale obviously we're the largest business in most all communities public education is the biggest hire we have the most buildings we

142have 32 buildings in Brian ISD so with that we track uh life cycles we track the equipment we track uh the building envelope we're looking at all the things that really make up the consistency of our buildings and what state they're in with those we build those into what's called a master plan the master plan is really just a long range 10 to 15 years it's based off of everything from projected student growth which there's lot of discussion about that but there's also just what we see is happening between now and 15 years from now it's crystal ball of course we're also dealing with our maintenance needs the shortfall y'all been talking about that for the last 30 45 minutes M Ando what happens when you run out of money well you better get some

143chew gum and bailing wire together because that's how you hold stuff together our staff does an amazing job and I want to tell you since I've been here in the last two months the amount of what I've seen what they're doing with what they have is amazing so we need to be very proud of the staff that we have but that creates the shortfall from the M side and so now you've deferred maintenance and so that's even a bigger issue so we have to consider how are we going to fund that we have to keep the envir the envelope the environment and the safety of our students and all of that comes together but the facility is just really one portion of that what we talked about the facility assessments the first part collecting assets

144where we are now trying to put it together using these the the folks and the people that are in that room but also Engineers Architects HVAC people you see the word me that's mechanical electrical plumbing and technology these are things that all go in as part of how we've got to put this together but all going to be looking at the same amount of money and the same things the one thing I strive for and the one thing I seriously push is sustainability if we're not putting our money and our efforts into sustainable construction then we're just spending more money on it and as y'all some of you have already heard me say pretty is not always best something that's going to last for 30 years uh earlier in the presentation tonight I T heard

145about Crockett guys I walk through Crockett Crockett's 75 years old that school looks amazing welcome to staff working their tails off to make that building look amazing so we've got to learn to do more with less make our dollar stretch further and then make sure we have something that follows through and lastly that's just recap how you conceptualize explore develop and refine but all of that is building to how we're going to come up with money for the next phase after our master plan Mr Griffin I know I've said said this about a million times but I am very excited to have you working with us I love everything you say and you're you're I'm just absolutely thrilled to have you thank you dog that doesn't learn a lot of new tricks yeah he has

146a uh and we've shared this his background um is all over place and he's done every side of this type of work and we're really appreciative kids in the district lives in the district um great oversight uh truthfully watching everything making sure that our our needs and our wants are represented at the table in all ways and it's been wonderful just to walk with him to see his eye on things and to watch him talk to contractors and just to really have our back uh wherever he goes so it's again a a real gift to have him in the district I've been trying to convince him that I have an internship to work with him but it hasn't hasn't he hasn't fallen for it yet that's funny well I'm just going to second that real

147quickly I my my experience with you has been it's like a breath of fresh air many specs and and I'm just thrilled you're on our team thanks yes sir absolutely we moved into school Finance 101 uh very quickly in just a couple slides not anything that you haven't seen and that we don't need to to walk through but uh these are the obviously the ways that we receive funding we talked just uh very briefly about that and then we quickly moved into school Finance 101 a little bit of the emo that he already me mentioned maintenance and operations and interest in syncing uh which has been vastly uh confusing by the governor he loves to take this amount and throw it up without clear explanation and confuse everyone if I'm honest on again I'm going

148to move quickly through it but he loves to take those and act like that that's just money that we can use wherever we want and however we want it's just available we can spend it on salaries and anything else obviously not the case uh not the case at all and then we talked about next steps wonderful graduation picture again that is our outcome and then we talked about the upcoming meetings again wonderful it was uh just a wonderful representation it was fun to watch everybody Mill around enjoy we had to like quieten everybody down to get started and then we had to kick him out it was we needed Lester to turn the lights off and kick everybody out like he does the ball games he was here earlier uh he's gone home for the

149day but you know how he does that for sure so uh that's it any questions on strategic planning we're going to bring updates periodically not only do the committee meetings but also into the Border thank you thank you very much and yeah it's it's not again it wasn't it's very preliminary at this point we're just trying to lay all the groundwork down and and not not certainly nothing that would being the nature of decision making at this point so but certainly uh y'all ask anybody who wasn't there ask all the questions you want and review the materials that were presented uh but it was uh it was very very positive uh well I'm going to move on to public comments uh my understanding is we don't have any I will just quickly say that in

150the future if somebody wants to make comments about either an agenda or non-agenda item that you may do so uh let limited to three minutes uh comments about specific student or Personnel will be heard in Clos session uh so with no public comments uh we will move to consent agenda and I will remind the board that any item can be removed from the consent agenda for discussion or a separate motion Mr stazy I move approval of all the items listed on the consent agenda second motion is made by Mr Gonzalez and seconded by Miss Benford all all in favor say I I I'll oppose it was unanimous and I takes us to action items 10 discuss and consider Innovative course offering uh for principles of community service and Dr Christina Richardson has stuck around to

151do that thank you thank you um hopefully I have two very easy requests for you um working with rer on some some things at their campus and I started digging for some solutions and you know one of the goals of Brian ISD is to give our students more opportunity for community service we had the amazing event with Habitat for Humanity in the last few years and we want to keep that going and so finding a way for our students to get credit for that Community Service as well as an experience where they're learning more about what is in our community um what uh services are there that we offer how can students get involved and giving them a chance to do some projects of their own and so there are two courses um the first

152one is principles of community services and it is a CTE weighted funding course um so it's a little bit higher weight than a normal course would be and it is a state elective credit the reason I have to bring it to the board is because it is on the Innovative course list so it does have um tees to it it has been approved by the state they get State elective credit that counts towards graduation um but uh based on board policy as as well as Administrative Code it has to be approved by you guys any questions for me I I have a quick question that's kind of tied to this so when you say that we've got it's an Innovative course what what makes an Innovative is there a list are there is there a

153list of innovative courses there is there's a tea state approved Innovative course list um we offer several courses that are on that list at any given time um and basically these are courses that either entities such as um there's a one called Pals peer assistance leadership that is a nonprofit organization that has written the curriculum for a course and gotten it approved um or districts can actually write their own courses and go through the the processing through with tea and get them approved that way as well they're on the Innovative course list for uh so many years and then they have to be renewed okay I know uh Miss Waller and I went to one of our conventions and they had like life skills kind of classes is there anything like that offered here is

154that a totally separate so for these two this that would be a separate thing to separate separate class I'm sorry do do they I guess I'm just asking a general question in your Innovative classes do we have any offerings that would be like a life skills kind of class or is that when you say life skills Mr Waller what the one that we looked at I mean they did everything from check checking account doing your checking account you say changing your tires I mean the whole not not live skills like skills that's what I like would tell me exactly what you're looking so yeah there are a number of them on there um it it just depends I mean so we just need to ask you you have to you have to dig into each

155course and look at the course description and look at the te for each course um there are courses like that um which we um we have offered in the past but either they didn't make or we have found something as a better alternative to off instead you know the greatest course ever like that was called home Mikey I start to say that I say bring it back bring it back but Christina the reason you're here today is because these are Innovative courses that require board approval for us to be able to yes yes and this one if you think about what we've done with student ambassadors there are other service organizations as well this is almost written for that these kids are volunteering hundreds of hours every year so this could be an elective where

156they get a a credit that would satisfy graduation yes absolutely we it's there's lots of different organizations with students involved in it who could take take advantage and get some some State Credit for all of that work that they're putting out since I Sidetrack this I'd like to move approval of the Innovative course offerings for principles of community service as presented second okay Mr Gonzalez made a motion and I heard two seconds but I'll go with Felicia as a second all in favor say I I I I'll oppose I didn't hear any so I'll consider that unanimous and you got one more looks like the next uh this this is the second course in the series y go ahead um it's it builds on that first one so that initially they're learning about Community agencies

157this helps them dive a little bit deeper into the needs of the community and uh working more with the agencies and this one's also weighted it is they are both CTE weighted and they are also part of a u one of our CTE Pathways that we already have established I'm of approval of the Innova course offering for community servic as presented second motion made by DR harand seconded by Mr Brian is that right yeah okay any any uh further discussion I got I got was um one one quick question and it sounds like this would be something that is not just okay we're learn to be a good person but you could actually perhaps learn skills or or get a good handle on how you might work for a nonprofit or something like that and

158that is the career pathway that it's built built into uh for those who are interested in pursuing working for a nonprofit or uh potentially social work yeah okay all right all in favor say I I all oppose say no looks like it's unanimous again thank you very much thank you all right and then next we have a uh scoter number 10c discuss and consider authorizing superintendent negotiate and enter into a contract with ESS South Central l seat for the provision of substitute Staffing services for 2526 school year good evening so like Mr stne said we're here to ask for approval for Mrs carabine to enter in our contract um with ESS um it's a I will tell you firsthand it's a valuable partnership that I hope you consider uh us continuing as a end I'm

159going to interrupt just real quick again just just to maybe not not to cut you off but just say that you did I think it was the finance committee that youall presented at and we were very impressed with all the information we received and reminded that that unlike when it would first came into our district it they have really been doing a good job so I just wanted to pass that along that we did as a committee here uh the very positive things go ahead and continue um I I was just going to uh mention that as an end user I know I shared this in the finance committee but as an end user as a campus principal this is a very valuable service um they are able to hustle at the last minute and

160all the bells and whistles that they bring with it um so I'm going to turn it over to Angela Baron assistant director of HR and she's going to talk about some of those things um positive things with the SS so we've been partners with essf since 2019 and in that time uh since 2020 we've had the same team on board we've got two full-time employees that are dedicated solely to Brian ISD to hiring recruiting onboarding and filling those daily vacancies and these two ladies do an amazing job with that um in addition to that ESS has District specific on onboarding um training that they do to help make sure our subs are very well prepared for us and they listen to our feedback and so you know we implemented stop the bleed training this year

161ESS got on board and they're training all of our subs will stop the bleed as they're on boarded um in addition to that we specifically asked ESS for some subs um some training so that our substitutes were more well prepared to work in a special education classroom ESS hir ired a former special education teacher developed a training and they started doing it with our substitutes so that our subs were ready to to really go into those special education classrooms and do well and that has actually proven to be so good that ESS has done that Nationwide now and so something that we started in Brian as a you know a suggestion they've taken Nationwide for substitute training so I think that really speaks to this partnership and that they listen to what we need and

162they're um you know working with that they um really have and their orientations too are nights and weekends and during the workday they really think outside the box on that so that they make it as easy as possible for us to get as many new Subs into the district as possible um they have an after hours call center so if a teacher puts out at 8:00 at night that they're going to be out sick the next day they're working on their call center to get subs to secure for the next morning and then in addition to that they offer lowcost benefits to their employees um Health dental vision 401K all of the things that we um couldn't provide they were part-time employees for us but they're offering that to their employees now and so that's

163very helpful to especially our subs who need those things and then um they offer benefits that we can't like incentive benefits that we can't offer we can't do gift cards and Raffles and drawings and all kinds of things to incentivize Subs to work on you know harder to fill days those Fridays during um you know the Sports Seasons when we have sports all AC across the district or days when we have big trainings and stuff they can offer a raffle or gift cards or things like that to get their subs to come in and fill our class rooms and then I'd like to draw your attention to this photo um this is our account manager Cathy Alvarez and she's with toia Proctor and Miss Proctor was the 2024 esess sub of the year she was

164nominated by the um campuses that she worked on and she is now a full-time employee at Ross um Elementary in um as an instruction assistant so I think this goes to um the next slide and it's actually my my last bullet on this slide but it's a good segue um since 2019 we've hired over 206 subs from ess's full-time employees they tend to be a really great recruiting tool for us and I will say that um ESS does this with a smile on their face they are um always you know happy and supportive when we hire one of their subs that they've recruited for us um which speaks to the dedication of you know how much they understand that it's good for the students um you know it's a great on the- job interview our

165subs work in our classrooms the principles recognize what a great job they're doing and then they hire them for a full-time job and so ESS has been a really good tool for us um since 2019 they have filled to date over 999,000 absences um 999,000 you know vacancies which is pretty amazing to me and then as of this year they have filled over 14,550 absences um and and then here's the thing I want to brag on most tonight as of today we have 482 active Subs in our district those are active they're not the people that are not working those are active Subs to give you um an idea of how big this number is before ESS took over 2018 2019 we had less than half of that number in our subpool this is the

166largest subpool we have ever had and the reason why we need such a larb subpool is that you know Subs make their own schedules sometimes they work one day a week sometimes they work five days a week but we need a lot of Subs to fill all those vacancies and I want to brag on ESS for a moment last Monday we had a 99% fill rate in our district and today this morning we had a 97% fill rate and that is a testimony to 482 active Subs so ESS has done a really really really good job and they're working really hard to make sure that we maintain a good high active sub um pool and then in addition to that we have 16 preferred Subs in our district these are highly qualified Subs with bachelor's

167degrees and their sole job they make a little bit more than a daily rate and their sole job is to go wherever Cathy Alvarez tells them to go each day so um they do those last minute absences we don't put them in long-term vacancies we don't put them in advance absences that we know about because those can be filled by other subs but day of absences are really hard to fill so if a teacher's child gets sick in the car in the morning that absence is really difficult to fill so these 16 people are on call every day w waiting for Kathy to tell them where to go um so that's a pretty amazing thing too and then let's talk a little bit about the trends so in 1920 um you know that was our

168covid year and so it was cut short so we really don't have a good picture of what um absence bills would have been that year but you can see that 2122 we had a pretty big year for absences and we would expect that in a pandemic and then we've started to Trend back to where we would like to see um you know 23 24 was much better and we're on on par with that with 2425 and so now I'm going to pass the Baton over to Kevin to talk about the financial side and Kevin again I'm I'm I may get shouted down by the rest of the board but but I think mostly what we want to know is is is do you see overall a negative I mean are we losing having to spend

169a lot of extra money to do this over what we used to do which was to have our own staff do it what overall what do you see as the the likely impact of this uh yes sir right I think the uh as we as we continue to work through the numbers uh at at one point this uh came out and it it cost roughly uh about a when we were tracking it was about $100,000 uh additional funding to to utilize this company uh and Through the Years now they've picked up some other things they've picked up Red Rover which is a the absence reporting uh software that ties into Skyward uh Miss Baron mentioned the hiring and recruiting we hire uh people from them they're more of a placement agency almost for us uh

170and then the cost reduction uh since that beginning we started uh the markup was uh was 1.32 in 201920 uh at one point we asked them to go down to 1.29 to help us with those costs and they did that dropped us to about a $60,000 uh uh difference and then last year when we were uh you know uh struggling with the budget we asked them again to go down uh to 1.25 and they they said they didn't feel like they could do that but they went down to 1.27 so they reduced the cost even further uh and then of course they cover all of the things for the employees as she mentioned the benefits and and the other things that they could do uh if we looked at it from our standpoint if we

171felt like we had to uh take it over on our own and then go and cover those benefits and those things it would it would probably uh increase uh roughly 10% is what we estimate so that would make it uh that would flip it probably to A50 to $100,000 uh cost on our part additional cost if we if we went that route uh and you you heard from uh Mr Roberts about being on a campus and what a what a benefit that was to be able to have those uh people uh working on that filling those jobs and and it's just the efficiency and pretty obvious the benefit is real and so I just everybody's uh at least normally wants to hear the price tag too so it it does sound to me and again

172if anybody wants to ask some more get some more specifics on this but again since we were had the advantage of the committee meeting it sounds like it's not like well this is costing us a bunch of money to do it and considering how how efficient they're working and how effective they are it sounds like it's uh money well spent yes sir I it would be a recommendation of of the administration to go ahead with this because it it does um with all the different changes and the other things that we're talking about with the budget uh for the campuses it really uh helps them to to uh be stable and and have as many uh classrooms filled as we can which makes it uh much easier for them to uh to function on a

173day-to-day basis so anybody want more details Mr no if not I'll make a motion Mr stazz I move to authorize the superintendent to negotiate and enter into a contract with esss South Central LLC for the provision of substitute staffing service for the 2025 2026 school year second motion made by Mr Gonzalez and seconded by uh David stennis uh any further discussion I just I I think that ESS is a real benefit to us but I it sounds like we're a benefit to them too I bet you that they use our district to help build their potential as a company and use some of the things that they're learning here so it sounds like it's a really good partnership it really is they are very receptive and we have been a reference for them as well

174when they've had other districts but but it is it has been a very good partnership and um you know this team that we have is amazing and then their leadership is great too I just have to pick up the phone and call them and they respond immediately so it's a really good partnership great thank you yeah and I certainly remember when we didn't have any or very too few Subs show up and we I don't know how in the world we manage those class stre but I don't think much learning was taking place so all in favor say I I I I'll oppose I don't hear anything okay looks like it's getting animous thank you thank you very much um let see what else I think we're ready for I'd like to make a motion

175oh sorry sorry Skip One uh oh yes uh I'm sorry board policy do anybody care about board policy guess we will we will hear from Dr iara again sorry I feel the enthusiasm for the presentation I feel very good about it it's not you hear from you all right so this is actually a very very quick policy update uh the Texas Association of school boards has a numbered update this is numbered update 124 um it is mostly legal policy although there are a few local policies but what you'll find as we went through our process of making sure we all took a look at it to see if there were any implications to practice um there really isn't any in this particular policy update in fact most of it is terminology um that has been

176clarified or adjusted or restructured um so so much so that I really didn't even have a great highlight to give you on each section of board policy after school snacks wasn't a yeah so the the big moment there for legal policy under coob was moving the terminology from meal supplements to after school snacks so again when I say this update was pretty thin um it was in incredibly so um as you skip through and you kind of look over the highlights again you see more clarifications um in section D and this will parallel in section g which is community they added additional provisions and clarifications regarding e cigarettes and that they do not need to contained nicotine to be prohibited and we already prohibited prohibit them um this just clarifies that doesn't matter if they

177have nicotine or they don't have nicotine they're still prohibited um so again clarifying language there same thing with legal policy when you get over to instruction it references the dyslexia handbook which it already did it just changed the wording around um it again updated some more things with funding didn't change the funding but just clarified uh the gifted and talented funding allotment which is also an underfunded allotment going back to what we talked about earlier um under students um you'll again clarifying language reporting um to to CPS should the need be there um you must give your name it we already do all of these things but the identity of the reporter is in fact private um until it's necessary to disclose it in accordance with law just clarifies that it's already in place no

178big change there and then like I mentioned earlier sex G just updates the electronic vaping um again it does not need to have nicotine it is still prohibited whether it has it or doesn't you it's not permissible on school property and and that is really the extent of this entire policy update terminology structure and some reconfiguration of words well we really appreciate you evaluating it and whoever else was involved uh because uh that really helps us since we want to focus on what really matters and and if it's just a clean up we certainly trust you at least I do I think everybody does that that you're going to tell us there's anything major so thank you sir having said that entertain a motion uh Mr Stasney I move approval of the updates to board

179policy as presented second motion B by Mr stennis and seconded by m Benford any further discussion questions if not all in favor say I I I'll oppose none so passes thank you very much thank you we'll try to have a quick close session Barbara to make up for that thank you Chris I'm usually the one you Yen all right now we are going to convene and close session discuss following items I assume we do have some things we still need to talk about yes sir okay so uh being in close session discuss following items allow government code chapter 55174 uh we you got three items uh appointment employment evaluation reassignment du discipline dismissal of the public off officer or employee uh discussion of public school student where personally identifiable information will be necessarily revealed and

180possibly consultation with attorney to discuss legal requirements and financial terms of the jetti tax incentive program uh we are now going into to close session e e e board reconvene in Open session at 9:47 no action was taken in closed session there being no further business this meeting is adjourned at 947 and a half good job sir for