001You may call the meeting to order Sher Independent School District board of trustees like the record show that there's a quorum of board members present on this meeting and July posted in accordance to take government code chapter 551. We will start with the pledge. I'd like to invite the elementary kids up to the elementary school. Let's show everybody over there. Nice job. Thank you. Hi guys, my name is Kylie Hughes and I will be praying for y'all from begun SCA. But before I begin, I just want to say how grateful and honored I am that we get to do this and that we live in a community where we can pray at these meetings and that our schools and our community is so like God. Okay, please bow your heads. Dear heavenly father, thank you
002for giving us the opportunity to gather here at this school and to come before you in prayer. Lord, we are so grateful for the amazing staff and community members who are here tonight. I pray that you would bless them with wisdom and give them your guidance through these decisions that they make. Lord, I pray over each and every person in this building, in our schools, in our community, and Lord, in our town that they would be brought to you and come closer to you. Lord, I pray that you would show us your ways and help lead us in the right path. In your precious name I pray. Amen. Thank you all. >> Thank you very much. >> Uh, next we're going to have our board VP read the mission statement. >> Gard will empower every
003student to attain an exceptional education that challenges them to exceed their own expectations and provide a foundation for success. Uh, SCO. Uh, next is the audience participation. Did anybody sign up to speak? >> Yeah. >> Okay. All right. We'll move on to dinner report. Okay. I'll briefly go over some activities that we had going on last month and look briefly into the future and then we'll do some recommendations. We had a strategic planning committee meeting with 40 uh community members on the 12th and the 13th of November. We met to discuss what we see for gun in the next 5 to seven years. That committee consists of students, parents, two board members, uh teachers, administrators, business leaders, and it was a lot of work over two days. So, I'm very grateful to the people. You
004see a photo of them on the bottom left there. Uh I made them all stand there and put them for a picture so we can commemorate what they did because we're going to look back on that day like I told them several times and we're going to say that's where a lot of the success we have in 5 to seven years, that's where it started that day. uh curriculum planning. We are currently looking at having our math teachers work with uh some curriculum specialists to figure out what curriculum we want to adopt for next year. It's a planning year for curriculum and math. So, we have our framework going on right now where we're we're researching the the strategies we'll use and we're also adopting a curriculum to use as soon as next year. You'll
005see a photo in the bottom in the center. That's where they're looking for the map framework in the bottom center there. And the bottom right, we do have Rotary Club from Preston Trail that's going to be having meetings here in Gunner starting in January. They'll have one or two meetings a month here and then the other one or two meetings a month in Salid. So, it is a shared club, but they're going to start moving this way. location, time, all that stuff will come out later. And we will be having the final uh cosmetic changes to this building done from the 18th of December to the 5th of January when the entrance to our gym is going to be completely redone. So, it doesn't look like you're coming through a restroom to get to the
006gym. It'll be a true entry way there and that'll be much easier. So the calendar this month we have the advisory meetings with my uh superintendent advisory groups the students tomorrow and Wednesday we have our co-op meeting on the 19th on Wednesday and then on Thursday I'll be at the superintendent meeting at region 10 and I'm taking our CFO because we'll be looking at the new Casey templates for budget and finance. So those are being released and uh that's pretty exciting that she's going to be able to to see those early in December. We uh are looking at facilities quite often. As we grow, we need to find out what it is that our spaces should look like and maybe how we can best utilize what we have. So, I'm going to go into Prosper
007to visit their facilities on the 1st. Uh we do have our first of four Garner ISD ambassador meetings on the 2nd. That's going to be at 5:00 to 8:00. And then, as a reminder, if you haven't heard, that program is going to be annual. We're taking up to 20 community members to apply. narrow down to 20 and after they graduate that they'll be a cohort ambassador. And what you get out of that is getting to know behind the scenes why we make decisions we make, how we get funding, personnel decisions, different different things that you may be curious about that you wouldn't know about if you didn't go through something like this. And so if that interests you, then look for the applications for next year. This year is already full. We I'll be in
008Fris. Hope you had a district that's doing some exceptional work about our size on the third and the fourth just seeing what they're doing and see if there's anything that we could take from them and possibly bring here for our students and staff. And then we have our board meeting on the 15th, safety and security meeting on the 17th and we start our Christmas break on the 18th. Now it's time for what most of you are here for, our student staff recognition. All right, I will start with our students. We're can't see everybody. We are recognizing our October student of the month uh award winners at this meeting today. So, first up we have Carson Simmons. All right, Carson, you can stand right over here and hold your sign. I'm going to read something your
009teacher said about you. All right, this is from Mrs. Fiser. I knew when I saw your name on my list, I was the luckiest teacher in kindergarten. You have a huge heart and care for each of each one of your friends. Your excitement for learning is contagious. When something is asked of the class, I always know you will take your time and do your very best. I love seeing you grow and cannot wait to see you grow even more this year. You are truly the spirit of being a true gunner tiger. Good job. You can sit there. You can sit next. Come on. All right. This is what Mrs. Ramage had to say about you, Micah. Micah, you are an innovative and creative student. It's clear that you enjoy solving problems in unique ways and
010using your creativity to develop new ideas. I love seeing how your perseverance and creativity help you excel in school. You truly inspire your peers. You are cool, calm, and intuitive, consistently showing respect to both your classmates and teachers. Your disposition, manners, and growth mindset always impress me. Your ability to communicate effectively with other students is highly commendable. I love how you lead by example. You're kind and considerate student who demonstrates grit and grace every day. Thank you for being an outstanding student. Next we have All right. I'm excited to nominate Mila Howard for the student of the month. Mila is such a sweet student to have in class. She is always eager to help those in need. whether it's a new friend or myself. She is also very eager to learn and always raises her
011hand to participate in class discussions. Mila is such a gem and I'm so blessed to have her in my class this year. Love Mrs. Neo Riley Randall. This is from Mrs. Harper and Mrs. Keel. Riley is an exceptional student who truly embodies what it means to be a Gunner Tiger. She approaches each day with a positive attitude, a strong work ethic, and a heart full of kindness. Riley gives her best effort in everything she does. Whether she's tackling a challenging math problem, diving into a good book, or helping a classmate in need, she demonstrates true grit, never giving up when things get tough, and always striving to improve. Riley's determination, respect for others, and willingness to lend a helping hand make her a role model in our classroom. We are so proud of her for
012her hard work, leadership, and caring spirit. Congratulations, Riley. Your dedication and kindness make our school a better place. Next we have Eli. This is from Mrs. Pelzo and Mrs. Martinez. Eli has had an incredible fourth grade year. He is hardworking, cares about his learning, picks up on concepts quickly, and has shined in his academic journey. He also is respectful, a leader to others, and never interrupts his teachers. He has a fun sense of humor and makes others laugh around him. Eli also pushes himself to try out and be part of many academic UIL teams. This is something that is important to him as he wants to help represent Gunner Elementary in such a positive way. He has been a hu He has been on a huge journey of growth in every possible way and we
013cannot be more proud of him. Congratulations, Eli. You deserve it. Travis Ortiz. This is from Mrs. for Monty. This year, Travis Ortiz has shown tremendous growth in the classroom, emerging as a standout student in fifth grade. Academically, Travis has a strong work ethic, and is genuinely dedicated to his learning. He takes pride in his work, puts in the effort to do his best, and never hesitates to go the extra mile. Whether it's tackling a challenging assignment or helping a classmate who needs support. In addition to his academic efforts, Travis is a model of good character. He treats others with respect, listens attentively, and always uses kind words and actions. His classmates enjoy working with him, and his leadership and positivity contribute to a welcoming and supportive classroom environment. His willingness to lend a hand combined
014with his kind and respectful attitude make him someone we can all rely on. Travis Ortiz truly represents what it means to be a model student. We are proud of all he has accomplished. We look forward to watching him grow and have a positive impact on his classmates throughout the remainder of the school year. picture. We'll take these three Heat. Heat. Okay, back. Go ahead and come on out. Okay, we are proud to recognize Jacob, Cole, and Nick for our October students of the month. Cole and Jacob are off playing basketball at Prosper right now. So Nick is here to represent all the boys, right? These boys consistently demonstrate kindness, responsibility, and a strong commitment to learning. They're positive role models who make Gunnar a better place every day. Congratulations on making a big impact wherever
015you go. I will say Nick is new to us this year in Gunnar and has done just a fantastic job this year getting to know his classmates and being a real standout student. Um he gets off the bus every day. He greets all his friends. He's super positive. He's a leader in the lunchroom. He's a leader in all his classrooms. So we're just very blessed to have him on our campus this year. And thank you for all the wonderful things that you're doing in the classroom. You look awesome. Come forward, please. >> All right. So Sarah Esar and Eric Solis all the characteristics that you've heard about the young ones they share those same characteristics but really why they get recognized tonight. Um they were both accepted into the patient care technician program at Grayson
016College. They was accepted in the patient care technician program. They have also accepted except that they received a true uh scholarship. This includes full tuition, their textbooks, scrubs, and the testing voucher. So, they don't have to pay for any of it. So, I'm very proud of them for that. And they will actually this program, they will graduate this program before they get out of high school. And so what this program is, Grayson's College uh patient care technician program prepares students for the frontline healthcare with skills in basic nursing, EKG and phbotomy combining classroom learning, lab practice and clinical hours to make graduates eligible for certificate exams um like the CPCTA or the PCTC. Uh the program teaches fundamental patient care, EKG monitoring, blood draws and documentations uh in simulated hospital settings. Uh leading to careers,
017assisting nurses in hospitals, clinics, and long-term um long-term care. So once these kids graduate this, they'll be able to go out, receive their certificate, take the exams, and can start working immediately. So this is a this is a big deal for our kids and we're super proud of. So congratulations I don't know if it's too old guys have to take participating. I don't often times get to recognize students. So, um, I might slow down and just enjoy this a little bit. So, uh, we started something new this year where we have students draw their very best Christmas card, whatever they think they represent. Gunner ISD, the very best, and we ask them to use our school motto within that. This year, our school motto is small town, strong bond, big impact. And so we've asked
018them to draw a Christmas card and we told them we would pick a campus winner for each campus and then an overall winner for the whole district. And those four are here tonight and we're going to recognize them in just a minute. You'll be able to see the artwork that they drew. Uh so for each campus, I'll name the person the student. They can come up. We'll show you the artwork and then after we recognize the three campus winners, then I'll bring up the uh the overall winner. So for the elementary school, Olivia Phelps, I just want to show everybody the hard work here. We'll have some of these at the building. We'll put some on Facebook so you can see them and you can see why she was the winner. the certificate that she's
019getting that everybody these four says in recognition for being a winner of the Christmas art contest of 2025. Good job middle school sixth grade. Make sure you can see those as well. It's a Christmas tree. And I do want to say we nailed these down and we had 31 district finalists and the finalist got a certificate, got some recognition online if you saw that. But these were by far just exceptional and we have a lot of talented students. The school board selected the winners. The next one for the high school is sophomore Pamela Torres. Congratulations. All right. And our overall winner is Sydney Bond freshman. Now take Heat. Heat. All right. So, our elementary big impact awards recognizing our first night crystal apple winners that is a peer nominated and peer voted on award. Uh
020and to me this award carries a lot of weight in terms of the people in the trenches doing the work every single day. Pick these people for the teaching and support category for the things that they're seeing their co-workers do every single day. So for our teaching staff winner that is Mrs. Bethany Foster. Here's what her peers said about her. Bethany has done such an amazing job with individualized instruction to make this meet each student's needs. And she has done it with such patience. She also brings so much to the team. She's always one step ahead in preparing anything we need and taking things off our plates. We appreciate her more than she knows. Mrs. Foster is not only an exceptional educator, she creates an inviting environment that's conducive to learning where every student feels
021valued and every student belongs, but she's also a great person and I can count on her to be proactive to handle any situation that comes her way. And she's flat out a great role model for our kids. Definitely foster, I guess. Yeah. All right. First down winner of the crystal for the first time. This is Dominguez. Congratulations. Here's what her peers said about her. Girl keeps our campus clean, safe, and welcoming. She has a positive attitude and is dependable. I'm grateful for her hard work and dedication that truly shines. Pearla is one of the hardest working people on this campus. She shows up every day and works harder than most realize. She keeps our school shining and does so with a smile on her face every day. I'm thankful that Pearl is a part of
022the GES family. We wouldn't make it without her. And we talk about we we come here a lot. We talk about our facilities and how important they are to us. Pera is the reason those facilities maintain that impeccable state and that expectation and our learning environment. The state that we keep it in is symbolic of everything that we do in our school. And so we could not have the exceptional education that that your kids get every single day if we didn't have immaculate facilities. Thank you brother. So, Mr. Davis and I did not collaborate on this. Um, but I do think it's just a testament to the incredible staff that we have here. So, I would like to recognize for our big impact this month. Um, I want to recognize our middle school custodial department.
023So all the ladies can come up here please. So Cindy, Isabelle, Monica, and Elizabeth. They told me how nervous they were. So, I want to proudly recognize these ladies for their unwavering dedication to keeping our school clean, safe, and welcoming for every student, staff member, and visitor. Their hard work often happens behind the scenes, but its impact is felt in every classroom, hallway, and common space. Whether it's responding quickly to unexpected needs, and we know that in middle school, that can get real weird. maintaining high standards of cleanliness or greeting our school community with kindness and positivity, our custodial staff consistently go above and beyond. Anytime I send a text message or call, they say yes every single time. Um, and it's usually a request. So, it's very nice of them to always say yes.
024Thank you for your continued excellence, professionalism, and pride in your work. Just like Mr. Davis said, "It shows every single day how much pride they take in keeping our school consistently clean for all of our students and consistently picked up for all of our students. They work long hours at night, early in the morning when we're not here preparing for the kids. Isabelle's cleaning the bathrooms every single morning at 6:00 a.m. before they get here. And it's just wonderful, just dedication. One walks around at lunch and is teaching the kids Spanish." Um, so not only do they have a a great impact on our facilities, but they also have a wonderful impact with the kids. So, thank you guys so much for everything you do. impact winner is Stephanie Graham. I'm going to be very
025careful what I say cuz I can't tell her anything already. And so the more things I say, I think she'll uh that head gets a little bit bigger and bigger. But anyway, she she is my secretary. I don't know if you've been in the office recently. Um she has done she takes her own money, her time, her effort. Um starting back in the summer when she first uh got the job has made some incredible um improvements to our office to make it more welcoming. um just her energy, her smiling face, her willingness is just it's just brought in a welcoming environment into our office and I'm very thankful for that. But if you have been in there recently, come in there in about 2 or 3 days, it's going to change again. Um I have
026just gotten out of the way. I don't even I I just let her go. And so she's been incredible. Um our kids, the environment she's created, um very welcoming. The kids understand if they need something. Where's Miss Grandma? Um, she does everything from helping me with any assembly we've got going. The doorbell rings constantly cuz if you know how active our kids are and all of their transitioning. So, she's got an iPad on her hip, phone ringing. It's pretty incredible how she can multitask. So, I'm going to leave it at that cuz I said I'm going to keep it short. But, um, I can't tell you how much I appreciate Stephanie Graham. Heat. Heat. We are ready to start the business portion of our meeting and you're welcome to stay here on the school's financials
027and things going on. But if you like this time, you can go ahead and this time. Thank you all for coming. Appreciate Heat. Good evening. So, we have the monthly financials, October financials. They start on page three when they go from 3 to 17. But, uh, up on the screen, we're just going to go over some of the highlights from October. So with bank account updates, our total ending balance for all accounts was 20,951,945.34 cents. The material changes within the accounts are the general operating investment account increased by $1,362 $1,362,671. And that was just due to uh state aid received. So, the state aid will we received um uh one last month this month and we won't receive another one until August. So, we've received the large majority of our state aid. And then our
0282023 bond account decreased by um a little over $2.7 million and that was just payouts for the construction. And then um another good highlight on there is our total interest earned for October was $67,96818. The next portion of our financials is the tax collection update. So, uh, we've had a little seat trick in. It's not going to start rolling in until maybe a little this month in November and then December, January, February are going to be our big big months for that. So, we've only received 6.89% of our budgeted revenue for our tax collections. And then the final portion of our financial highlights is just a budget summary looking at where are we at. So our expenditures um are about 40% of our total budgeted for the year. Um the only areas of concern we
029we mentioned a couple last last month still watching those but mainly that maintenance operations were at 61.67% of our budgeted expenditures for that and that does include the incumbrances. So um it's it's got a lot in there. So our like um like our utilities and some of our um custodial those are large portions. We know how much that's going to be for the year. So we go ahead and cover all of that at the beginning of the year and pay on the POS throughout the year. So that's that's it. It it is a little inflated but that's the reason why. And then our budgeted revenue, we've collected 50.61% of our budgeted revenue. And that is it for the financials. And we have the investment report unless y'all have questions on the financials. So, the investment
030report we changed to align with our fiscal year. So, y'all have already seen two months that we've reported on that. It begins on page um page 18 of your book and uh we just added on September. So, y'all already seen July and August, but so we're just going to go over the highlights for that. And all of the accounts began um in July with $24,663,69 and they ended a total of all the accounts of 20,951,945.34. Uh the main contributor contributors to the decrease in the balances are um the bond payments that we just talked about. We had over the 3-month course, we had 2.4 4 million that we paid out for construction. Um and then we also paid out uh 2.4 million in August for our um by annual bond payments. >> And that's all
031I have unless you have questions. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. Got to take control of this lime tax. I'm Jake. I'm your tax attorney. >> Yeah. Thanks. I promise if you had told everybody that they were going to hear about delinquent tax, they would stay and they would have loved to have heard about this. Um, if you could uh put my first slide up there for me. So, you should all have a uh you should all have a report that we submitted uh in your packet. Uh it's rather wordy, but it it gets into all the the details of our our report. And we kind of put this together if you don't want to read everything that's in there. This has a lot of the same information, most of the same resulting information. Um and
032it's nicer to look at. So, um if you'll hit that first slide for me, this is our team. So, I am actually your uh your tax attorney. Uh Cory Fixus is our managing partner in Marcus Hannah works uh with me. We have our office that takes care of Grayson County here in Sherman. Uh but that team photo down there is everybody. Uh you're actually under the umbrella of the Fort Worth office. And so that's the entire team that we have there. Okay. So when we talk about what we do for you guys, uh we understand that while we're collecting delinquent taxes, that is not always a fun, you know, very shiny thing uh to discuss. Uh we are representing the school district and at times uh things can get kind of uh touchy. Um you
033know, it's a lean on poverty. If we can't get them collected, sometimes we have to file lawsuits. But we understand we're representing y'all. Y'all are elected officials. Uh so we we have that kind of that interesting uh situation of of doing our best to collect the money that is due to the the school district and holding the taxpayers um up to their responsibilities but also making sure that we know that y'all are a representative of the community and therefore we're a representative of the community. So we we take that um to heart. Um thanks. So here are some of the things that we do for y'all. Um, we do collect your delinquent property taxes, which I'll kind of get through the process here in just a second. We also, uh, handle state litigation and, uh,
034appellet services. So, if anything gets appealed up to the, uh, the district court or higher, we handle that, um, for the district. Uh, we're also involved in legislative initiatives uh, when appropriate down in Austin. That's not always a popular subject, but uh we do our best to uh represent um our clients when we can. We do property value studies as well. So when the property values are sent to the state and uh don't quite reflect what uh we think that the property values should be here, we audit those on behalf of our clients in Grayson County and try to get money back from the state uh if we think those values are are off. And we handle bankruptcy representation. So if we have businesses in uh in the county that fall into the district, we
035uh we handle that representation when they can't pay their taxes and and thereby file bankruptcy. So we kind of cover you with a nice umbrella of different services for what we're here for. So here's our timeline and how we handle uh this process. So, uh, in January, um, like your CFO just said, that's where you're going to get the majority of your tax revenue. You will probably end up with, I'm guessing, 96% 97, something like that, uh, percent of what you're due, you will be paid. Um, if they don't uh, pay by the end of January, then it goes delinquent and it is then tried uh, it's tried to be collected out of the uh, the tax office. that will run through to July. If it hasn't been paid by the 1st of July, then
036it gets turned over to us, right? So, um about uh you know, a few months ago, we just received our most recent turnover, which is for the 24 uh year taxes. So, we're always kind of collecting year behind, right? Everybody has an opportunity to pay them uh just to uh to the tax office themselves. And then with minimal uh penalties and interest, like I said, that usually brings in about anywhere 95 to 97% of your revenue. It's that 3 or 4% that doesn't get paid that gets turned over to us. Uh you don't pay us for any of the the services that we uh provide for you. There's July 1st, there's a statutory fee that gets added on to those taxes. And so everything that you're do, if we collect it, you're paid 100% of
037that uh that revenue. Our fee is an add-on fee that the taxpayer pays for for not paying on time. Uh but we uh we generally start our uh our process that July 1st. We're immediately going to send out a mailer to uh to everybody that is delinquent to make sure they understand. Uh the tax office is really not collecting this anymore as as much as we are. And if we're uh if we can, we'd like to settle this through some kind of payment agreement. Uh there's all kinds of different options that uh we try to avoid to get the payment. Uh but if not, we do inform the taxpayer that eventually this can lead to a lawsuit. Uh and if the lawsuit's taken to a judgment, uh that allows us to uh take that property
038to a tax sale if need be uh and thereby sell the property to get the taxes paid. That's never what we want to do. Again, that's kind of the the uh the last resort of trying to get uh taxes paid, but that is the end result if we uh if we can't get the the taxpayer to take care of that responsibility or if they're just not able to uh for whatever for whatever reason. Any questions on that? Okay. So here's what uh we have done uh on behalf of the district um in the uh from July of 24 through June of 25. Uh luckily in this district um we have really good taxpayers that pay on time. We don't have to do a whole lot of lawsuits, right? Uh even if they can't pay, we're
039we've been pretty fortunate we can get them involved in payment agreements. Uh but unfortunately that's not always the case. So we did file uh seven lawsuits. um in that time period. Uh we disposed of uh of 19. So what does that mean? Well, there's a couple different things. Doesn't mean we took him to a judgment, sold the property. It just means maybe they got on a payment agreement after we filed it. They paid timely and then we were able to dismiss it. Um the idea is just to get the taxes paid. It is not we are not here to take property, right? We don't want property and we don't want to take it. Um so it it is just about getting the taxes paid. So, so anywhere in that process, if we can get it
040uh paid in full and that case gets disposed of and it gets uh dismissed, uh even after even after it's been set for sale, we get them to pay it. Uh we pull it from that sale um before we have to sell it to anybody. Um we did mail on I believe that looks like 64 accounts. Um and then we still had four pending suits uh from uh from that that particular time frame. So, uh, overall we collected $370,746 on behalf of the school district. Okay. So, this is a breakdown of uh of your delinquent tax role. Um, it's just a nice pie chart to kind of give you an understanding of how since we all turn over a number to us, what's really reflective in that. And because my eyes are getting bad, I'm
041going to have to look at my print out here. But essentially, what we're looking for is, you know, about half of what is turned over to us. We call them clean accounts because we can actually find the people. Um that's not always the case. You can see there in the red that there's we do have a $50,000 balance of bad addresses, return mail. uh if we have to file lawsuits, those are the ones that take longer than a year to 18 months because we can't define them, right? Maybe they're no longer living, maybe they've moved, who knows? But there is some issue in trying to locate those folks. Uh we have just over 50,000 in payment agreements. We have 28,000 in lawsuits. And then you can see um there's a much smaller portion um that
042is in deferral or has a bankruptcy or or is considered uh uncollectible. Any questions on that? Okay. Next. Um, so here's really the most important thing uh when we talk about collection percentages for school districts because this is how you receive your your funding from the state. It's based off your uh your collection rate and we're a part of that. And over the the 5-year um collections for for Gunner, we're at 99.34. um you don't turn over just a whole lot of money to us because of the size of the district. So, a lot of times when you're looking at these these numbers, one account can actually create a pretty big fluctuation in in your percentage. And like I told you, sometimes it takes us a year, 18 months, maybe even two years to get
043it collected um if we have to go through the lawsuit. So, that's where you can see, you know, a one or 2% drop one year, but we actually collect it the next year. So, that bumps you over 100% because it's kind of a back fill, so to speak. But as a whole, uh, we're we're pretty good at at keeping youall pretty steady and and again, a 99% collection rate is is good. And and these are numbers that come from your own J1, uh, that you submit to the state. So, these aren't numbers that we're making up. It's the numbers that we produce them, turn them over to you, and then that comes from your report. Okay. Here are here are the collections. As you can see, they have steadily grown over the years. Uh, and
044that's a really a huge indication of property values and how they have uh gone up. There's there's not a whole lot of difference when you're talking about the amount of accounts that y'all uh turn over to us every year as far as delinquency is concerned, but the value of those accounts is is, you know, has has been growing up. Uh it's it's you know that property value thing is something that that everybody deals with and you can see it on the the next slide. We try to let you uh see the difference of what we collected versus also the that adjusted levy comparison. Right? That levy is the line and it's or the the levy is the uh uh the bar graph going up and it is pretty much falls right in line with the
045delinquent tax receivables that that are going up. Right. It's but they go hand in hand. So your receivables uh that that amount keeps going up because the property value keeps going up. It's not necessarily a change in in the number of accounts but also that is reflected in the in the in the levy. Okay. So we didn't have to sell anything this past year which is great. But I want you all to know that if we do when uh when buyers access our website, that is your district. Those are the border lines of the district. And if we actually did have a property that was up for sale, it would populate with a red dot and they could find that property in the district. And so if we had five or six sales of properties,
046you would know where those are um through uh through our reporting system online. So, does everybody know that y'all actually are doing all your your tax sales online now? We don't even do the the sales live on the courthouse steps anymore. So, it's it's really changed how tax sales are done. Uh within 5 to 10 years, I think everybody in the state will be doing it. It's pretty pretty progressive and it has been really advantageous for for getting the property sold. So, kudos to the tax office. Okay. Um, so there's a there's a slide that uh we removed, but it's in your packet and it's something I want to bring your attention to. It is your top 15 accounts. Um, and I bring that I want to bring your attention to it because, you know,
047I don't live here in Sherman. We have an office here, but y'all do. And so I there's nothing confidential about that information. It's all public. Uh, but I put that in there because I want y'all to know these are your top 15 accounts. These are kind of your neighbors, your businesses that are here. If y'all know these folks and y'all can help us get these collected. Um, and any any help is really appreciated. Sometimes we're we're looked upon as the mean old, you know, delinquent tax law firm. Um, and y'all are the neighbor. So, uh, sometimes a phone call from y'all uh can can make a huge difference. What you're looking at actually has been updated. Um, and let me see where we're at. Well, the majority of those that you're looking at that says
048targeted, those have been paid. So, generally speaking, once we sent the letter, it it motivated folks to uh to to come forward and and take care of their uh their responsibility on that. Uh so again, as far as payment options, the slide that's on the screen, um it's just u further explaining all the different links that we go to to try and get these things uh paid without taking it to that last level uh to a tax sale. And so we can do regular payment agreements. We actually do all the payment agreements for the tax office uh through the entire county uh not just Gunnar, but uh if it's a homestead agreement, uh we acknowledge that and try to keep people in their homes. Uh if they're old enough, uh or need an exemption, uh
049then we make sure that they know uh they qualify for these exemptions. All they have to do is file it and it stops what we're doing. And so um that takes care of that. I try to keep it as brief as possible unless y'all have questions. Uh but that's kind of the process that we haven't done this uh in in a year or so. Um and so I wanted to come back through make sure y'all understood what we're doing for you. Uh if anybody has a question or you know a lot of times people don't ever care about the taxes until they get that letter in the mail and then they're mad. So, if somebody asks you about it, at least you know who I am and and there's my contact information. Please reach out
050and we're we're happy to to work with anybody in in any way that we can to try and uh solve, you know, a sticky problem. Cheers. >> Thank you very much. >> All right. Moving on. We have our enrollment report on page 33. You notice we're down a few. We have some students withdraw, but we do have uh about we have one start today in middle school and we have about nine more starting between now and January that we know are coming in. So, it's going to fluctuate back and forth. But once we start getting the houses sold, we'll start seeing that number. So, it moves on to our principal report. See if I can All right, principal updates. We'll start. >> All right. Um, our year-to- date attendance rate is 96.51%. Um, during the
051period of time since we last met, our attendance rate has been 96.19%. Um, some things that we've been doing over the course of the last month, our third grade put on a musical Veterans Day performance. That was a big hit. That's my favorite one. Uh, each year the kids did a great job. Mrs. Perez put so much work into it to get them ready for that and they they they kind of MC the whole thing. Uh, if you haven't had a chance to see it, I highly encourage that you come out next year for that. Um we got our fourth and fifth grade leadership team selected. Um it's fourth and fifth grade, eight students in each grade. They do different things throughout the school in terms of um service, a different roles that they serve.
052Uh but this year we're we're trying to kind of elevate it and and have more of an actual leadership focus. Um, so I've started doing a a book study with fifth grade um to kind of have some deeper discussions and and help to grow them as leaders. Uh, our first grade is putting on a food drive. Um, it's running through this Thursday for canned food items. All donations will stay here in the community. Um, they'll go to Gunnar Community Food Pantry at Valley Church of Christ. We recently had our story book pumpkin contest which is always very popular. Students take a book that they've read and they take a character from that book and then they they or their parents create a pumpkin um and when they're displayed in the library, the kids vote on
053them. Uh our our top three votes this year were Drake Duncan with a 67 pumpkin. Um, Kelsey Kerry had a really cool pumpkin that was a blowfish with candy corn on it. And then Brenley Duncan had a a very tall flamingo pumpkin that was very good as well. Um, we had our celebration of learning for the first nine weeks where we recognized students for character traits of grace and grit as well as our readers are champions. Um upcoming things, we've got our our deer night, drop everything and read uh from 6:00 to 7:00 on December 9th at the elementary. Uh are we testing out our valet service on that? >> Yes. So, we've we've reached out to the community. PTO's having uh some dads come up with their side by sides and their golf carts,
054and they're going to help uh shuttle with some of the parking. Um so, that'll be fun. Um we're going to have some volunteers actually coordinating with NHS to have some volunteers come and read to the kids as well during that time. And then on Wednesday, we're having uh our balloons over Broadway parade um in which we have several grade levels that are participating in a mentor text that basically talks about Macy's Day Parade and then the kids get to learn about the origin of that, the history behind it, and then they get to build their own their own floats and their own balloons. and then they'll do a march around the school at 2:30 2:30 on Wednesday. That's all I have for you today. >> Excellent. Thanks. Thank you. >> Okay. Um, our National Junior
055Honor Society is off to a start. So, um, students were notified last week that the faculty committee had made their decision. So, we have about 30 kids in seventh and eighth grade. We'll add sixth grade in the spring and then we'll do an induction ceremony since we got started a little bit late. We're going to do an induction ceremony with everyone in the spring. Um, so we're looking forward to that. They're already feet on the ground. They're already going. They're doing a toy drive and um student council is helping with a canned food drive. So, they're kind of joining forces for the holidays just to get ready for our community and hopefully get some things going there. Um, our movie night was a big success. It was super fun. It was really cute. Um, student
056council did a great job organizing it and running it and working it. Um, and it was really fun. I hope that we can do something like that again. Um, our enrollment, like Dr. Eno said, we had a new student start today, um, is around 284 and then our attendance rate, we're at 96.78. Um, so that's all. Um, I don't know how, but we are. Um, our strategic planning was great. Um, I was highly impressed by Kier Baker and Ryan came um and represented the middle school and they were just all in, contributed so well. Um, stayed the whole time and were just really invested in giving their thoughts um that were just invaluable I think um to the committees. So, I just wanted to praise them for their work on that. Um, the Veterans Day
057program was awesome. the uh high school in um elementary line middle school got to attend and uh we also had the privilege of having Dr. Enos on our announcements where we asked them some questions about his service. So the kids really enjoyed that. Um and we also hosted our own middle school pep rally. So the cheerleaders organized all of that along with our cheerleading sponsors. They did a wonderful job. Um and so that went off without a hitch. No, that's that's why kind of a theme, the service project, the service projects our kids are able to do this time of the year is kind of what I wanted to focus on as well. And so I know Eric touched a lot on on that. So did the junior high. But first, our enrollment, we're we're
058at 384. So the last time we met, we're down two uh one with Drew and then we had one that tried to graduate early last year. He didn't go back get there but he has finished everything up and we have him graduated so we will be able to celebrate him later. I think Dr. owe him a steak dinner I think. So our attendance race 96.1 um and so to highlight some of those service things that and I want to focus a little bit on the Veterans Day program. Um this year is a little different. Mr. Ruffles always had a huge part in uh putting that together. We got our baby. So, um, a little bit stressed this year. Um, and then, you know, Stephanie had done a great job and Miss Watson having her help.
059She gathered all the information she could that Miss Russell had already had laid out, put together. So, it just it was just a continuation of what she's done in the past. That was tremendous. And so, thank you, Miss So, thank you, Miss Williams, for putting that together. Well, with that being said, our kids is what, you know, if you come to that, if you see it, um, got to get a little, you know, there there's moments that, it's very touching. Um, and so, um, Miss Kith had come up here with Miss McCoy. We don't have a choir. I'd love to eventually get back to her. We have a a choir that goes and competes and does things, but if you would have seen those 15 kids that they put together, it was incredible. sounds like
060they had been singing for I mean for for years and so they did a tremendous job when they sang the national anthem of that that was very touching. Um our FFA students are always they're in full dress they're at the doors they're escorting um our veterans in they're welcoming out the door also our NH NHS students so Mr. greeting Miss Kittens. They do a good job getting NHS students together. Um they escort the veterans to their seats. They also help us serve our cafeteria and put on an amazing M. Rogers and her staff put on amazing brunch for our veterans. Um and our kids help serve that for them. So very very impressed with with our kids and our organizations. um student council last month had so October I think we raised over a 100
061pairs of socks that will be donated to the Grand Central Station in Sherman and so our kids like to do that and I know there's some incentives for the winning class there I meant to look today and I can't remember who the winning class was but I'll find out um also also last week I don't know if you saw the picture that was posted posted last week donate donated $200 to Women Rock um that's a a local breast cancer cancer outreach reach and so they donated that $200 to that outreach and they raised that money by selling peout items to our junior high and our elementary students. They also today visited the senior hall rehabilitation center um when kids get a chance to go interact um with those residents at those places. I I think
062our kids probably enjoy it more than than the residents do. It's it's really touching. Um they've got a lot of pictures I'm going to share with y'all eventually on that. you know, this when I got back later today, I didn't have time to do them all together. So, um, look out for those. I'll be sharing those as well. All right. Um, join in athletics part. So, football defeated Rice last Thursday. We'll be competing um against City View Friday night at Denton at 7:00 p.m. So, if you get a chance, come out and watch that. City View is going to be um very competitive. So, looking forward to that. And I u think it should be a good game. Girls basketball has gotten off to a great start. I've got three and one. They may be
0634 in one. Um but they've they've already had victories over Crumb North Point. So if you know anything about the enrollment of those schools compared to ours, um I think it's going to be a very very fun year for our girls basketball program. So we look forward to that. Our boys as well, but um but our girls are the ones that have started. So um our volleyball got beat in the regional final against Bonder. Um they competed extremely well. Uh we let one step away in that first set. Um but our our kids never got down. They competed very well. We're very young. So um I I look forward to them being very successful moving forward. Um band this past weekend performed at the US Bands North Texas Championships. Uh placed third in our division
064and then once we made the finals, we got the finals and finished seventh. So I thought that was very encouraging for our kids. A little excitement there to end the marching contest season. And so hopefully that's something that we continue to grow off of um and and continue to get better at. But I know our kids were very were very um I think happy with their performance this past weekend and the growth that they've shown over the marching season. All right. And then the upcoming week, girls basketball tomorrow is in monster at 5:00 p.m. JV girls basketball being Gunner on the 20th which is Thursday at 5. And then I've already mentioned football issu Friday. So that's all I have. If you have any questions. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Dr. You
065want me to roll into >> Yeah. Next. Hold on one second. We got a couple more things. >> Oh, no. That's next. House Bill three. CCMR military ratings. Go ahead. >> Okay. So, House Bill three and our goals. you looking at goal three and I've got a tremendous my my counselor do a tremendous job of keeping up with the CCMR for for us um uh is a tremendous asset for us as well looking at it today our CCMR board outcome goal is the percentage of graduates that meet the criteria criteria for CCMR will increase from 84 to 97% by August of 2029 well looking at that today um We thought we were going to be in the range of about 84%. But as we broke that down today, we already have 60% of our seniors,
066if they didn't take anything else, have already completed um the the required coursework for CT coursework for an endorsement. And so we already have 60% completed. Now, we have another 45, excuse me, 35% that are enrolled in the coursework that's needed uh to gain that CCR point. So, at the end of the year, we're already we're going to be 95% um already. And so, our originally goal was by 2025 to be at 84%. Well, we're going to be at 95 at the end of the year. That is if all the kids pass the appropriate coursework, and I think most of them will. Um and so, we're ahead of the game on that. Even looking at the juniors, we're probably already at about 48% already. um a lot of our our juniors are enrolled with dual
067credit course work and different CT pathways that will um that we'll have in there as well. So we're we're way ahead of the schedule which is a good thing for us. Um and then we're going to go 3.3 which is the percent of CCR students that enlist in the United States Armed Forces for military readiness will increase from 8 to 10%. This may be a little bit more difficult. We don't have as many kids that enlist into the military as some places. Um, we had one last year. For us to get to 8%, we have 77 in the in the graduating class. We'd need approximately 6.1 students to be 8%. And so, um, I think last year we had one. Um, but what we are doing is we're providing the ASVAB test annually for those
068students. Uh, we're going to get that two test and and so we're providing that for them. And we have a very involved um, recruiters in this area. So, we've already seen the Marines a couple times. We've already seen the army. They come in at lunch times. Um our um neighbor recruiters will go into our English classrooms which we we we invite them all to come into um like all of this coursework where they can touch all of those those seniors and then those juniors and so we're providing all those opportunities for those kids that um college or workforce may not be um intermediate. Military is a is an option for them. So that's what we're doing. Um just trying to meet that goal. Everybody good? All right. We have House Bill 2425 PTO financial report
069sorry on page 34 through page 37. this year was about establishing a baseline and see if there's anything that overall that we needed to um dig in further, maybe do an internal audit or ask for an audit overall. And so we've received everything we've asked for um except for the things that were highlighted on page 36. You see there's one person in the football uh excuse me, the quarterback club, football club that has not a background check. They still have the baseball booster that has not submitted their financials. We'll keep looking for those things and once we get them, we'll report with you at the next board meeting whenever we have that information available. Do you have any questions about the financials that are here? Welcome to discuss them. >> Did we set a deadline
070to get the information in or >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. Multiple reminders. When was when was the the first deadline? Yeah. >> Three weeks ago, maybe four. >> It's been a while. >> Like I said, they didn't have any issue tomorrow. >> That's fine. We had about We had about 60% meet the first deadline, maybe a little bit higher than that. Not much higher. And then uh we sent a reminder, then we had probably 90%. We sent another reminder, 95. Now we send these couple and uh and they're all aware of it. >> Okay. So are each one of these organizations or clubs are they set up as 501c3s or do we know? >> We don't have all of the information yet now in there. I would say all but a couple. I know. Let's see
071here. >> Just curious. I some aren't probably um I know what the basket is. >> I think they all look at the list here. I have all their bylaws. I've read through their bylaws. We sent them back for corrections and I can let you know. I think I think the answer is yes. The one that we are not is is not on here and that's the softball. They just have a club yet. >> They just get the money. >> The kids remember the kids were involved in >> the parents in that one are loosely aligned and they get the money to uh go into their softball team. Okay. So this the coach and the the players vote on what they're going to buy purchase with the money. So all of these yes I believe the
072answer is yes for all the 501c3 and I can verify and let you know. So the individual do their own tax filings then all their own tax filings all we need to do is provide oversight. So that way unless they generate enough revenue they don't need to have an audit if they report to us. So this is an annual requirements policy that says they will give us their financials in getting the annual audit done. If we see something that is doesn't look right, we can ask for an internal financials and I can bring forward all the statements and everything and that doesn't mean we can ask them to do externs to look into what's going on. So look for that. It's a little late because I came in late. This should be a late summer
073every year. You'll get this. Number seven is upcoming upcoming meetings. So you'll see the meeting dates starting in December all the way through May listed on here. They're all board meetings at the last one graduation 8:00 p.m. at Tiger Stadium on the 22nd of May. All of those same GMS. I am looking at potentially moving our board meetings over to the ed elementary school over there for two reasons. We can set up permanently after we stay here breaking down right away. And we can use the kitchen stuff to make sure that we're every once a month using the equipment and it doesn't go bad while sitting there empty. That way we have eyes on it and footage is working. If it's not looking good right away. So look for about January us moving our meetings
074over there and I'll let you know. And then we have the uh the ambassador program like I mentioned on the 2nd of December. We start looking for three board members who will now talk to those individuals. We'll send you the questions ahead of time if you available by 8 that night. We appreciate it. So if that's you then please reach back out to Stacy or Heather let them know that completes item seven is consent. We have any discussion on any of the items on consent or would you like to call the items consider to accept agenda motion seven motion and second for consent agenda. All those in favor say I. Any opposed? Item eight is greater agenda. Um item 8A is consider approval of the list replacements of new books for the general library. So
075library books have to be posted now and on school board. All of these books here meet the state recommended listed and with your approval they can be purchased. So my recommendations on page 64 65 list as I presented any discussion on item 8. No further discussion motion to approve the list purchase as presented motion. Second motion second. All those in favor say I. >> Opposed. Item 8B. Consider approving the board to add revised by TASBY policy service for consideration and according to the instruction sheet for TASBY localized policy manual update 126. Update 126 is the largest update in task policy on history. did is from page 66 through page 175. We went through a long training as a team of eight years earlier this year and they discuss every one of these policies plus many
076more. So if you have any questions about a specific policy, I am ready to answer them. But my recommendation is you agree with the policy update 126 asking present discussion motion. I'll make a motion to approve policy manual update 126 as present. >> Second. >> Got a motion to second. All those in favor say I. >> I. opposed. Item passes. Item 8 C, consider approval of resolution to nominate candidates for a position of the board of directors of the Grayson central resolution for the 26 through 29 staggering terms. We are electing two members to be on the board of directors for the Grayson County Central Appraisal District. We have 55 votes. Previously, we have passed all 55 for Charlie Williams. Those members running against Mr. Williams are Brad Morgan, William Stevens, Monte Walk, Monte Walker,
077and of course, Charlie Williams. Those are the four. Two will be elected. Um, my recommendation is to do what we've done in the past. Uh, but we can have discussion to see if you know any of these, but if you've not heard of any, the person who represented our interest for many years on this appraisal district board is Mr. Charlie Williams. Motion floor discussion. Are you okay with that nomination? >> Yes. >> All 55. The resolution will say that all 55 votes are being cast towards one nominee, Mr. Charlie Williams, to sit on the board of directors from 26 to 29. Take a motion. Motion. >> Second. Got a motion and second. All those in favor say I. I I opposed motion carries. Item nine. Um board will now journ to executive session pursuing the
078following session text meeting Texas government code section 551.072 discussing land 551.074 discussing personnel and 551.076 76 and the time is 7:15. >> I like to meet everybody. We are not saying those are not Yes. Heat. Yes. Thank you.