Aug 12, 2025 at 5pm Regular Board Meeting

001this mic. It is now 5:00 PM on Tuesday, August 12th, 2025. This meeting of the Clean Independent School District Board of Trustees is now called to order. The following trustees are present and participating. Susan Jones, vice president. Brenda Adams, secretary. Marvin Rainwater, board member. Oliver Mintz, board member. Tina Capedo, board member. and me, Brett Williams, president and presiding officer. Absent and not participating in this meeting is board member Rodney Gilchrist. For the record, a quorum has been established and is present. As a reminder, anyone wishing to speak at public forum must submit their signup sheet at this time. It has been the board's practice before each regular meeting to have an invocation and pledges of allegiance to the United States flag and Texas flag. Tonight, I'm going to ask Mr. Rainwater if he will lead

002the invocation. And I'm going to ask Madame Capido if she will do the pledges to the flags. Please stand. May we pray. Our father and our God, we're grateful to be in a free nation and be amongst people who want to serve and who are helping children and teachers and all the people involved in school staffs. It's going to be a busy day tomorrow, God, with people doing things they haven't done for a while, with new experiences and some old experiences. We just ask, Father, you will watch over us and keep us safe and help us feel the love of and glory of an almighty God. Amen. I want to take a moment to to introduce Dr. King Davis, our interim superintendent, on his first day on the das with us. So, welcome. We appreciate

003you being here. >> Thank you. >> A recording of this meeting is being made and will be available to the public at a later date. We're also streaming this meeting on our cable channel 17 and on the district's web page. Agenda item number one, public forum. The board will now hear comments from those who've signed up to speak. Per board policy, each public comment is limited to three minutes. I will ask the audience to please refrain from any public outburst and to maintain decorum. Parents, employees, and citizens are encouraged to utilize the district's grievance process to the fullest extent possible. Related policies are available on the district's website or upon request. For the record, we ask that all public forum participants begin by stating their name and the city in which they reside. Once complete,

004your three minutes will begin. First signed up to speak, we have Hank Glaster. Welcome the superintendent uh search. Um I understand we've got a uh presenter here uh Thompson and Horton I believe that's going to pitch their uh recruiting uh pitch and thereafter you all are going to go into close session in order to discuss uh superintendent uh qualifications and such. Uh, I guess you all have read the uh AI uh uh road map I sent y'all concerning uh searches and um uh personnel hiring as far as head hunter firms. Um I think one of my problems is that we use the Texas government code. um Texas Open Meetings Act too frequently in this body. Uh I don't see why there is a problem with uh discussing and I would hope that uh upon the

005uh Thomas and Horton presentation that uh y'all are not going to choose uh the organization. I understand they are also uh um employed or retained by KISD in a legal aspect. Um and I hope they don't, you know, go in and give you information without making sure that there's a legal uh schism between that because they're I guess they're representing both uh a head hunter firm and a legal firm at the same time. Um, I'm somewhat familiar with uh uh selection criteria and what goes on at least from the uh county commissioner standpoint and what went on there and when they were looking for it and um election administrator a few years ago and that was an open meeting. So that's all I got for the uh superintendent search. Uh the other points are board

006policy and not allowing uh uh homeschoolers to participate in uh u athletics extracurricular activities. Uh that's wrong. Um the other item is well the dong uh semikim uh free trade zone. I'm a kind of a Republican and u I want to make sure that the free trade zone does not prohibit uh uh them from being uh tariffed. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next we have Elena Jane Green. Did I pronounce that right? >> No. >> Help me out because I want to give credit. >> It's okay. It happens all the time. Um, but it's Alana Green. I'm sorry. Alana Green. My name is Alana Green. Sorry. And I reside in Colleen, Texas. First of all, good evening um y'all. Um, couple months ago I spoke here about our animation class and I'm back because removing

007the animation endorsement doesn't just cut one course. It erases a career pathway that prepares students for one of the fastest growing industries worldwide. Sorry. For many, it's the bridge from high school to college programs, internships, and industry work. Um, I reviewed some of the district's own numbers and they show promise. Um, animation 1 peaked at 36 students in 2023 2024, which is the highest in recent years. And animation 2 nearly doubled from 11 to 20 in just one year. While projections for 2024 and 2025 um show a small dip to around 30, in my opinion, that's still a strong base. So with the right promotion and resources, those numbers can grow. And I've researched a concrete solution, the Tounboom academic program. It's used by Disney, Netflix, and Cartoon Network, and other animation studios. Uh, Tounboom

008offers professional-grade software, curriculum aligned with industry standards, and teacher support. Most importantly, students can graduate with an industry recognized Tounboom certification, a credential that opens door to higher educations and jobs, and most importantly, money, cuz we all need that. Um, KISSD is already known for its outstanding fine arts department. Animation can stand proudly alongside illustration, theater, and music as another area where students excel, but only if we allow it to thrive. If you don't have, let's Okay, let's say this. If you don't have sheet music to play a trumpet, you're not you're not going to play right. Okay. Um, I guess another example would be if you don't have paper to make a drawing, what do you have? You have nothing. We don't have to close the door on future animators who simply want to

009learn and succeed. And after all, you never know if their passion projects could leave an impact on you and shift your perspective on life and make you see things in a way that you you've never really seen before. So, please consider integrating Tounboom's institutional program. We can give students the skills the industry that I'm sorry, the animation industry demands if we choose to try. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Beth Snider. Did I say that last name right? >> Snood. >> Storuditor. There we go. My apologies. Welcome. >> Okay. Don't like public speaking, so bear with me. U my name is Beth Sudter. Um and I just want to talk about some issues that I'm already having again this year because it's been a repeated issue. This one has um school nurse today asked

010me for another copy of my children's vaccines or the exemption which I don't really understand and I haven't looked it up why we need another one if if the letter states they've been injured from the vaccine and won't be taken anymore. Why we need it yearly because nothing's changed. But regardless, it's not expired yet, and she sent me the expiration and wanted me to track it down in their school record that I'm pretty sure she already has access to. Um, then she tells me she's new and doesn't know a lot of things. And then a couple hours later, I get somebody else's HIPPA records in my email. So, that does not make me feel comfortable to send my child to a school where they just release, I don't even know this kid that they sent

011this to me today. During the summer, I had to file another grievance because a nurse called me at home to say she just treated my daughter for something, gave her some sort of medication. I had to go back to listen to the recording because I record everything now. Um, my child was home with me, so it wasn't my child she gave medicine to, and I even confirmed it. She thought it was my child. They had already tried to give me somebody else's child during that extended thing for children with disabilities. That's another thing. My children have disabilities. Non-verbal can't tell me enough. So, if this nurse really did had given my child something, somebody else's kids prescription medicine and it caused her harm, she wouldn't have even known to tell me. So, this isn't safe

012at all. And I just don't understand employees that can't take ownership of their position and responsibility for it thoroughly. Thoroughly double check theirel and if they don't know the answer, hold the line and go find it out. This isn't good. Then I had issues previously. I had to fall grievances on for nurses not even calling me with head injuries. And then the nurse is like, "Well, it's her face that's on her head. Why is somebody treating children with disabilities who can't even tell mama they fell and got hurt at school?" Cuz a beach ball can give you a concussion bad enough that you don't act right the rest of your life. Um, y'all, I'm frustrated. Then on top of that, I I really advocated last year for my children to get much needed services and

013was denied by Mald Moore. Got 42 seconds. I'm going to try to make this quick. Did not have a good experience at Maldmore. I have confirmed from many others in the community. They've had similar experiences at Maldmore. There's connections to their new school, Skip Chaw from Moldmore. That doesn't make me comfortable. Now, we got the nurse issue. I don't want any more problems. I just want my children with disabilities to be able to get the education that they have a federal right to without making my life more stressful. Y'all probably heard him screaming outside. He's a handful. Imagine living with that all day, every day. and then getting CPS called on you at the school because they don't like that you want some more money for your child to get an education. Not fair. I'm

014still dealing with that case. Talk about another time. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> As we have no one else signed up for public form, we are closing public forum and we're now moving to agenda item number two, which is a presentation from a superintendent search firm. At this time, I'm ask Dr. Moses and Mr. Thompson uh please come forward and microphone right there and they've got a PowerPoint presentation. Trustees, everyone should have a copy in front of them as well. Welcome. >> Thank you, President Williams, members of the board, and uh Dr. Davis. Good to see you again. And um I will say to the board uh Mike Moses and I have have worked closely with you and known your career for a number of years and I know they appreciate having you here

015on an interim basis. And we know this is an important week and an important day tomorrow for the board, for your administrators, for your teachers, parents, students. Um Tamron and I, our two daughters are teachers in public school and uh and my dad was an teacher and administrator for 35 years. He always told me that January 1 is a nice day on the calendar. But for people in education, the year starts when the kids and the teachers come back in to school to start a new year. We know you have high hopes, high expectations, uh and and and we know everyone in the community is going to work pretty hard this year to be successful. We wish you well. Uh thank you for giving us an opportunity to visit with you a little bit tonight

016about your superintendent search. We also know this is such an important decision for the board. If you get this decision right, a lot of other decisions get easier. Uh and we know the board's going to work very hard on it and take it very seriously. I'm David Thompson. Uh I'm an attorney in private practice. Uh our firm uh represents school districts, colleges, community schools all over Texas and in fact at the higher ed level around the country. Dr. Moses and I have been personal friends uh Mike I don't know how many decades now, but it goes back when we were both quite a bit younger. Um, Mike served as commissioner of education under uh, Governor George Bush. And when he finished his service u as commissioner, Mike and I always talked about what could we

017do together to be helpful to districts. And so we began in 2000 assisting uh, districts as boards go through superintendent searches. We've been very honored to do that. Uh, over 25 years. I think we've worked with around 200 boards as they've gone through searches. Uh and we always appreciate the um just the seriousness and the hard work that uh boards put into that. We hope your your community knows just how many hours unpaid uh boards spend in this process. Um we have a short presentation to go over in uh public here. We do have a PowerPoint. Mike, I'm gonna call on you to come introduce yourself and and run through our PowerPoint. Um, you had a comment earlier about the search. U, Mike and I, with searches, uh, we we kind of go by what

018I'm going to call the four Ps. Process in public, people in private. So, as much conversation about the process, anything related to the search that can be in public, we think that's appropriate. Uh and the only reason to talk about people in private obviously is to uh protect their uh personal interests but also to give the board an opportunity to look at the strongest possible candidates. Uh there will be a time when names are made public. Uh but um the process is designed in a way to allow the board uh to seriously consider uh and look at the strongest possible group of individuals. Um, Mike, I'm gonna let you introduce yourself and and say a few words about our uh PowerPoint and then and then we'll respond to We will not filibuster, but we will

019certainly try to respond to any questions the board may have. >> Thank you, David. Mr. President, members of board, good evening. It's good to see everyone. And I'd like to just underscore what David has said that uh um we know you have a very very busy time and tomorrow is a big day. My wife was a teacher. My mother and dad were teachers. Mother-in-law and father-in-law's teacher. Son's been on the school board in Round Rock. Uh they we all think that the first day of school is the My wife says it's besides Christmas Day, it's the best day of the year. The kids have on new shoes, new clothes, cafeteria food smells good, and everybody's ready to go. So, good luck. I hope you have a have a great year. Honored to be here. uh

020clean is uh a consequential school district in Texas. And I say that not only because of your size, but also because of the military support that you provide and also because of the just the the school district itself. It is a consequential school district in Texas. So therefore, the leadership here is consequential. Also, um I think the board chose wisely wisely with your interim superintendent. As David said, we've known Dr. Davis for a long time. Had the opportunity to work with him. think he of him as an outstanding leader and u I know you'll you'll do well with him. Um as David said, we're not going to fill a buster, but we're gonna see if if my we can run through this. Uh you already know how important this is. We have uh about 1,200

021district Texas charter schools. Uh average turnover is about 15% a year. Brenda has a list of all the vacancies that we've seen in probably the last 36 months in Texas. It's significant. Uh we have teachers. We have a teacher availability problem in Texas. We used to lose about 40,000 teachers a year in Texas. We're losing about 60,000 a year now. Who becomes our principles? Our teachers who becomes usually our other school leaders, usually our principles. Um and that includes superintendents. There is um there are good pools for people who want to be superintendents, but they are not as large as they once were. Uh we might have seen 50 people apply for a position like this. Uh districts this size that Dave and I work with now, probably we see more along the order of

02225 to 30 people. And we always can divide those between what we call pretenders and contenders. Um in any event, tenure five to six years. Um so, uh the representation of the district, outstanding people, we think is critical and if we're fortunate enough to be asked to work with you, then we we know this is critical and we want to represent you favorably. Uh I might also say whether this is a moment um when everybody needs to put their best foot forward. That's a nice way of saying that the marketplace the marketplace made up of school leaders also forms their own opinions about where they might want to seek employment. So we want we want people to see Colleen as a great place and a great opportunity. Um Dave and I don't do whole we

023don't try to do 15 or 20 of these a year. Uh we're probably more on the order of probably six to seven a year is probably three per semester, something like that. Um and because of David's work and because of my work, we think we enjoy a pretty robust network of successful school professionals in Texas, we we have been fortunate to work with some outstanding boards and some outstanding individuals. Uh we have not ever had a um worked with a district where we've not successfully been able to employ a superintendent. Uh references are in our uh proposal. Um we always say we do not represent candidates. We recruit candidates and we want good candidates, but we represent the board. You are the client. And so uh we want to be sure that the search belongs

024to you. Uh and we try to endeavor to do that. Uh David, if you see anything you want to jump in here on, you need to to do that. Um we try to guide the board and search team to a desired date for action. Uh we have a timeline. It's as David calls it, it's a tool. It's not the master. Uh but we try to have a little discipline to the search. Have some markers uh that we're attempting to hit. Um I don't know, but I think yeah, we have the suggested timeline. And Brenda has has this in writing too. This is emphasized, suggested. Um, but if you uh what I would call your attention to is that date, January 5th. If you desire to have have a new superintendent on board by the first

025of the year, and if you want to back up and say, "Okay, we need to have a contract signed uh by December the 8th." So, we give somebody at least 30 days to make a move. Well, what do we have to do before? The law requires 21 days before we can sign a contract. So, we have to identify someone uh by November 17th. Well, what about checking references, background checks, criminal background checks, social media checks, vetting? Well, we probably need a week for that. Week of November 17th, what about I'm sorry, the week of November 10th. What about a second round of interviews? We usually recommend two rounds of interviews, uh, which we can get into a little more detail. Well, we're back to October 27th, uh, is when we would, uh, start that. And

026then if we if I go go the right direction here, um that would require us to be back meeting with you in around October 22nd or thereabouts to talk about your pool of candidates. By the way, and we think this is important, when we bring you the pool of candidates of people who have established their candidacy, we show you the names of every single person who has made their ca made a candidacy. We don't just show you our uh our the ones we think are good. We show you everybody so you know exactly who is in the pool. We will work with you to help uh get the number down to a workable number that you would want to interview. But you see everybody uh there if it's around October 22nd, we need a timeline

027uh an application deadline I should say of October the 17th. Uh if you want community input, um David and I do not recommend open mic nights because there is uh it doesn't necessarily get you the kind of information that you would like. What we've done, and we did it in this school district a long time ago, but we've done it with all of the 200 we've served, we do what we call focus groups. Um, and I don't know, David, if that um, Brenda has a a list of people that we would ask you to nominate. We'd say nominate a teacher, a principal, a parent, a non-parent, taxpayer, a pastor, a student, but we give you nine categories for each one of you to nominate an individual from. That gives us about 63, and if you

028want to add a few more, 63 to 70 people. And David and I return and meet with those people in groups. We call them focus groups and if you we propose in this particular calendar and again this is suggested but we didn't want to come unprepared this evening. This is suggested that September 24th the board's not required to do anything that day. In fact we we like to listen. We like we have a conversation that we want to have and we have questions. It's a guided uh conversation with the focus group members that you have nominated and and we want to hear from them. And then at the end of the day, we like to give the board a report on what we have heard and what people have observed about the school district, its

029strengths, its weaknesses, some of their desires, aspirations, and goals for a new superintendent, both personal characteristics and professional characteristics. So, that's kind of the community input piece, and we can talk about that some more if we want to get that done in in uh September. Uh I got to go the other way here. Then there there's when if the board decides to engage us uh then we would begin uh advertising and posting immediately. We would also mail out letters for people to im invite people to apply and also for people to invite uh or to nominate individuals that they think would have the necessary skills for this position. But trustees, that's just a quick look at a timeline. And David, you want to add something there? >> Can I make a quick comment about the

030timeline? >> Sure. >> So, you may be thinking, why January? >> Uh, first of all, we hope this looking at all of the steps that are are appropriate in a search gives you a sense that if you start with the end in mind and work backwards, uh, this this is a good flow in the fall for a for a search. Uh, but you want to line your search up when candidates are also looking and and we're going to be very candid with you. People aren't looking to move in September or October or even early November. They're committed where they are now. When do when do people tend to move in leadership positions in Texas? It's two times. start of a new semester, early 1 of January. That's a good timeh for a decision. It's actually

031a great time because it allows your new person uh to work with the staff in the spring to be involved in some of the budget discussions, some of the employment discussions, and it helps with onboarding. And the other time is um at the end of the school year, uh people tend to relocate in June, maybe into early July. So, uh, that's one thing we keep in mind is also structuring your search so that it works for the board. But you also want to align your search, uh, so that it's going to be attractive to the strongest candidates and lines up at the at the times when when individuals are most likely to be willing to to make a career decision. Uh the timeline again as suggested gives you an idea of just kind of some

032of the things and and some of the benchmarks that that are involved here. Um if we're selected, we do all the advertising. Uh we do state advertising with Texas ISD.com and Texas Association of School Administrators. In the marketplace, they will get most of the hits of people who are interested in professional growth. If you have an interest in national advertising, we can do that. There's a it's a little more expensive, but it's not exceedingly expensive, but it's it's it it will give us give you some national uh advertising if you want it. People who are out of state, want to come to Texas generally follow Texas ISD and the American Association of School Administrators. Uh we Dave and I have recruited people who have been in Texas and left Texas and who have gone out

033of state, have seen the error of their ways and uh want to want to return and we've recruited for a couple of districts. We've actually recruited some people from out of state uh who have returned to Texas. We do occasionally find just somebody that is super talented um that we really and we will call your attention to those individuals. If we think there is someone from out of state who really merits your attention, then we will point those out. Um we we encourage you uh to let us handle your communications. Good candidates who know the protocol, who know the protocol for a position such as clean ISD will not call you directly. If they do, then they don't know the protocol. And that probably should tell you something. Uh now, if there's someone you know,

034that's great. And if you want to nominate them to David and I and say, "Hey, we I really hope you'll invite those people." We'll we if you have people that you've heard at conferences, if you heard speakers, you know of people you would like for us to be sure we invite them, reach out to them, if you give us their names, then we will happily do that. U we have a pretty good network as I said, but we're always looking for people and we're always looking for what I would call the rising stars. Uh so in any event, we don't recruit people who have had difficulty or having difficulty. If they are working without a contract or are not under contract, we will tell you that. We don't we represent you, not the candidates. U

035but what we're really looking for is people who are doing a great job where they are. Basically, a community that's going to cry if their superintendent leaves. Uh and you may say, well, that's kind of a bad way to look at it. But people who pursue who pursue professional growth sometimes make and pursue opportunities that are good for their family and good for them. So uh in any event, we're interested in finding people who are doing a great job. Uh but the other part of that is this and David and I would say uh if you have someone who's uh likes their job, likes their board, the board likes them, they have multi-year contract, they like their church, they like their bank, they like their doctor, they like everything. Um they're going to be very

036careful about about moving on, which is one of the reasons we say our searches are confidential. uh we will follow the law. We will David's a good attorney and he'll make sure we all follow the law, but we will maintain confidentiality in the right way so that people will feel free to look at this as an opportunity. Um did I skip? Uh we don't discourage non-traditional candidates. I think there's the invitation list we've talked about. We have a nomination list as well. And we have done a search that where the board did select a non-traditional candidate. Um not not very typical, but it does does happen. Uh I've already kind of talked about David. Yeah. >> Quick comment. >> We do want to emphasize that we welcome all candidates and that includes people who may

037not be in the community right now. Uh people who would be looking for an opportunity to come and be part of the Colleen ISD uh school community. But it's also open to to great people who may already be here in the district. Um and and we can always uh as the search develops if we are selected uh we we think we do have some good processes to work uh with boards uh to manage internal candidates and external candidates uh in a way that is appropriate for everybody professionally and doesn't impact your search. um focus groups we've talked about. Brenda has that list. Uh and if we were selected, we we had asked you to nominate one person from each of those categories. uh because of that timeline, which I'll back up to here for just

038a minute. That timeline, if we were going to try to be back here September 24th, David and I uh since January have had a trip scheduled um that's out of the country, and we don't have to go, but we'll both have to get a divorce if we don't go. Uh, so we will probably try to we will probably make that trip, but Brenda was kind enough to meet with us. And I don't want to be presumptuous. We do not presume the board nor assume the board, but if we uh were asked to do this, I wanted to at least be prepared to get the ball rolling. Uh, but it would require you as trustees to submit names for those focus group meetings uh in uh the categories wherever I left those off. uh right there

039those categories and Brenda has the categories and if you were to submit names with the phone numbers, emails and addresses to her and then that she and the president look over it and make sure your community is covered. uh then you you could probably send those letters out right after Labor Day and get a good response and get good participation with the community on those kinds of and and it is a it's a pretty rich conversation that we wind up having and um David and I enjoy doing it and I think the people that you nominate also enjoy it. Uh I think um there it is. We proposed to meet in with each group for about one and a half hours. We asked Brenda, don't put all the teachers in one group. Don't put all

040the parents in one group. Don't put all the principles in one group. Don't put all the non-parents in one group. Mix people up so they get to hear from each other. U also after the focus groups, we we put the questions that we pose to the participants on your district website. So if somebody comes up and says I would have liked to have participated in that or I'd like to have some input into that questions we posed in to the committee members or focus group members on our website. Please go to our website and participate and complete the survey. So there is there's a chance and we usually we we encourage the district leave that up for a week. After a week then then we're we're we've completed that part of the process. Uh, I've

041already mentioned confidential searches. U, what do we ask for? We ask for a letter of interest and a current resume. We don't use an application form. David, you want to say why this is a CEO position. How people present themselves is going to tell you as much about the person sometimes as uh as any as the information itself. Our experience is that if you if you ask for a very good current resume and a letter of interest, first of all, the letter of interest lets you see how someone communicates in writing because we know that's a very important part of the job. We found in the current resume, they're going to include every information you would ever ask on an application. And they're going to tell you other things. They may tell you a little

042bit about their family. They may tell you about what their interests are outside of work. Now, I'm going to put my lawyer head on and say obviously when the board makes a decision, you will make a decision based on the legally permissible criteria that are related to the job, right? But the more you know about a person, hopefully that's helpful to you as you go through the process. When a deadline is completed, we we like to leave these jobs open about 45 days. And we'll this one would be open about 45 days maybe a maybe a couple of month 45 to 60 days. Uh then we we have a proposed date come meet with you. We will have done vetting. We will have looked at the all the candidates talked to a whole lot of

043maybe not everyone but pretty close to everyone. U and then we would come ready to you you would the evening we meet or the time afternoon we meet. It's a long extended meeting. It's probably a it's at least a three-hour meeting or so when we're looking at resumeumés and credentials and we're talking through candidates and so forth. Um we anticipate two rounds of interviews. We handle you we we we ask you to tell us the times. If you note on the timeline, we suggest a week for the first round, a week for the second round. Your big challenge with all of you being busy and having obligations is get getting the dates on the calendar. We recommend usually the first round be a two-hour interview. If you do six of those, you do five or

044six of those usually. That's usually where most of our boards uh we suggest you do those in consecutive days if possible. Uh if you try to do one on Monday, skip Tuesday, do a couple on Wednesday and do one on Thursday, skip Friday, and do two on Saturday. It's it is not conducive to compar getting comparative information on your candidates. We usually suggest like a 4 to 6 in the afternoon have break for dinner and have a 7 to9 and do that for three days in a row. In any event, the board president gets the duty of scheduling everybody and that we and we'll work with you on that. We'll have the candidates here. We will set all that up. Um, we do not talk to other candidates about their about who are the candidates.

045It's all confidential. There is no information shared about who's being considered, who's being discussed. Um, and we will handle all the communications uh with people who are invited to come back with as well as those who are not. We don't leave people hanging. We call them and say, "Thank you very much for your candidacy. The board appreciates it. Dave and I appreciate it. Here's here's the board has decided to move forward in this way." So we we try to handle everyone with courtesy and professionalism. Um I think I've already told you we share you see the name of every person that establishes their interest. Five to six seven people are usually who we would suggest you you zero in on after you've seen everything and we'll assist you with that. We speak with candidate references

046uh and we do talk with people in the profession who are not on their reference list. We we have been around a while and so our familiarity with a lot of the leaders is is allows us to talk to people in the profession and sometimes out of the profession that know of their work. May be board members, it may be s of the superintendent, it may be business people or it may be people at uh in Austin. Um, we also like at the as we reach the near conclusion of the surge, uh, we give you names and cell numbers of of leaders that have worked with the candidate and we ask that at least two or three of the board members make calls and verify what what we've told you. We don't like you to

047say, well, whatever whatever David Mike said. We we appreciate that, but we would rather you hear what we hear, and we will try to make sure that that you're able to do that. um you have to do a criminal background check. We'll assist in that. We do a credit score uh so a financial background check. In today's world, we also do a social media check to make sure that there's nothing uh embarrassing that someone has posted or that that's does that's going to reflect fa negatively on the board or upon themselves. Um, if you want a site visit, those are we we don't see many of those today because the internet is so full of information, but if you wanted to do that, we would set it up. If you want assistance in the contract,

048we have a pretty good attorney here that does that and that's included in our fee. But if you want to use your own attorney, we're happy to we're happy to turn that over and let let your attorney do that. So, whatever works for the board, but you do have contract development included in the fee. Um, we don't nickel and dime you. We do not send you statements during the search. Pay us a little now. Pay us a little now. Pay us. We send one invoice at the end of the search. If you're happy uh and search's been successful and then we'll send one invoice. We also provide a guarantee that if somebody leaves you uh the first two years of service, we'll do another search. Uh if it's within two years, I think we'll do

049it for half price. If it's one year, we'll do it for nothing. So, uh, we've not had that happen. People that we've been fortunate enough to work with have stayed in their positions for, uh, anywhere from five, seven to 10 years. So, uh, that that's that's our goal. Um, we always tell people that strong superintendents want to work for strong boards. Strong boards want strong superintendents. So, our goal is to is to try to make that happen. David, you want to wrap up? Just just one quick last uh comment. As as Dr. Moses said, this is uh something we enjoy doing because we like working with each other. Mike and I have said for years, we're on a mission to eat at every quarter burger in Texas. Uh we've been checking a lot of them

050off, but they keep building more. So, uh we'll we'll keep doing it. Um but, uh we limit how many districts we work with. And just for your information, we we've only committed to two other searches at the present. We are working with the region 11 ESC board as they're selecting a new executive director. That's uh the Fort Worth uh area. Uh and then we are working with the go uh Goose Creek Consolidated ISD uh board in their surge. That's a district of around 20. They're less than half your size in the uh in the Gulf Coast area on the ship channel. Yeah. Baytown. Um, and we do not believe that either one of those would be uh overlapping or conflicting with your search. We always try to be very careful uh that we we don't

051do searches simultaneously that are in essence competing with each other uh for candidates. We've actually passed in the last couple of weeks on on a couple of other districts and we've uh told them that u we we could not submit proposals. So, um, if you did ask us to work with you, that would be three. And, and I will just tell you right now, our plate would be full. That would be all we would be doing during the fall. Uh, again, we try to tailor it for each district. And we do not do uh districts at the same time that are that are in essence in competition with each other for for the same pool of candidates. So, uh, Mr. President, members of the board, uh we tried to run through that and hopefully got

052through that information expeditiously, but if you have questions here in public, uh we would be happy to talk to you. And then uh Mr. President, at the board's pleasure, if you if you have any u issues uh either legal issues or about particular individuals uh that that you want to discuss, uh we would be happy to meet with the board in in close session. But that's that's your call. Of course, questions from trustees, >> madame vice president. >> Sir, sir, if we were to use our own attorney to draft up the contract, um would you discount your fee because we would not be using that? >> We we we've typically not. I I will I will consider it. But uh we we kind of view that as something that uh we we offer that doesn't

053add cost. I'd think about it, >> but but we don't typically we haven't typically done that. Uh we we view that as something that we include that others don't, but >> I'll think about it. >> All right. Thank you. >> Questions from trustees. >> Okay. Thank you, sir. We appreciate you. We're now going to move to item number three, which is consideration and possible action to hire superintendent search firm. U we've just heard a presentation, so there'll be no one else has come to the podium to provide additional information. Uh we've heard from a potential firm. um what's the desire of the board or if there are any questions Mr. commence. So, um I actually I just have one I think a follow-up question. So, our timeline is necessarily bounded by today and when we

054think we want to hire it >> as the so that creates a timeline, right? That puts some unnatural necess bumpers on it. Is there anything in that timeline that gives you cause, not necessarily cause for concern, but areas where we might be compressed um other than would naturally be without a left and right limit? >> We we actually think you're in a very good place to begin a search right after um Labor Day. and um um actually a fall search with a January u start date uh we have found works very well for boards and it works well for candidates. Uh we think this timeline and as Mike said, we're always going to say the timeline is a tool. It's not a master. If you ever get to any point in the search where you

055say we don't feel comfortable for the next step, we don't ever want you to feel like, well, gosh, I guess we have to do it because that's what the timeline we adopted said. You know, we will we will adjust if as needed. We do think this timeline, think about the required steps. It it has adequate time for advertisement and for gaining community input. It has adequate time for the board to do interviews. Uh we've we've blocked out two full weeks there. You have a full week blocked out for background checks uh and and for due diligence. Uh then you are required by law to have a 21-day period uh between the time you announce the finalist and the time you actually enter into the contract. And that and that's no no flexibility. That's a legal

056requirement. And then you have about 30 days built in after you've you've made the decision to allow the person uh an opportunity to relocate and be ready in January. So uh we think we actually think it's a a pretty disciplined timeline. Uh as Mike said, the hardest thing for boards is is to find dates that work for all of y'all because we know you're busy people. Um but um trustee Mintz we we we really do think it's a and and as Mike said this is suggested so if some of these states needed to move a day or two one way or the other um that's obviously ultimately the board's call but we think it's we think it's a very appropriate timeline >> and you're not going to be rushed. >> Okay. Thank then that that

057answered my question. Uh thank you. Uh second question would be so as I look through the timeline here the the window for the board of trustees to provide obviously we need time all y'all are going to do some comm getting your own community input but I think certainly the board is going to get community input. Um is our window to provide that to you is that the September 24th there kind of at the end of the day or is there other times periodically? We we were anticipating we would do it then while we're in the community. Now, if if if we need to meet with you on another occasion, we we certainly uh can and will, but uh we thought that usually that's a good opportunity after you get your community a chance to speak

058for the board to also give us give us some reflection. But if you need to do that earlier in the process, we're, you know, we're we're always, as Mike said, it's your search. It's not our search. >> We just try to do this to give you >> a sense of some benchmarks. >> Sure. >> But you say, "Hey, we need to do some of this." And board says, "Y'all want to take have an evening to take input yourselves on it." Is is I tell people people who want to come from the community don't want to talk to David and I board meeting. They want the board, >> right? So that that's my question is when does that go from but but I you've answered it. I I understand I understand the response to it. Yep.

059Thank you. >> Any question for the questions? >> Any other questions? >> You have question madam vice president. >> So we talk about national searches and I agree Texas is a great place to be but Virginiaians would probably say that that God loves them more than they love us. But um so if we were to do a national search or we had candidates that came from out of state, uh they would have to come with a Texas superintendent certificate. Is that correct? >> They have one year uh they they can like any teacher or anyone else moving into the district, they can activate a temporary certificate for a year and then they have a year to complete. They don't have to retake courses or anything, but they do have a year to complete and successfully

060pass the uh uh certification exam for a Texas superintendent. >> But they can they can get a temporary certificate immediately. >> So it doesn't prohibit us from reaching out to >> It does not a national search. Correct. And every state in in the >> United States requires superintendents to have certificates. I'm assuming in their state. Yeah, correct. And most districts have uh reciprocity. They don't require uh uh either teachers or administrators to go back to college and and in essence get new degrees. But but many states have their own exam structure and and that it's fairly typical what we do here in Texas uh that you get a grace period. Think of it that way. You can get a temporary certificate for a period of time. In Texas, it's one year and and during that

061period of time, you have an opportunity to study for and complete the U certification exam. And Mike, I believe it's offered three times during that uh one-year period. I haven't I want to confirm that it's either two or three at least that's offered during that window. >> So, I'm I'm I'm in favor of casting a really wide net >> um to get us the best candidates. you know, we we have worked with a number of boards that have have chosen candidates from out of out of state. Um, we do say that, you know, Texas, we have a somewhat unique finance system and we have a somewhat unique accountability system as every state tends to. And so, um, there is a little bit of a learning curve, but but, uh, great people from out of state

062can master it. Um um so so yes, I mean we we absolutely uh in in support including a a national broad brush if that's the board a broad search if that's the board's desire. >> Thank you. >> Can hear the questions from trustees. This is an action item. >> Madam Secretary, >> thank you Mr. President. I move to approve the board hire Thompson and Horton to conduct the superintendent search process for Colleen ISD. >> We have a motion by Secretary Adams. Is that a second, Mr. Rainwater? >> Yes, I move to second motion. >> We have a second by Mr. Rainwater. Any further discussion by trustees? There being no further discussion, all those in favor, show of hands. We have six in favor, none in opposition, one absent. not participating in board member Rodney Gilchrist

06361 vote. We will we are not going to go into close session. We are it is 5:53 p.m. and we are going to take a 7 minute recess and reconvene the meeting at 6:00 p.m. So it is 5:53 p.m. and we are at recess. >> Thank you very much. We look forward to working The time is now 6:01 p.m. and we're coming back from the recess. Uh, agenda item five, public form, the board will now hear comments from those who've signed up to speak. Per board policy, each public comment is limited to three minutes. I will ask the audience to please refrain from any public outburst and to maintain the quorum. Parents, employees, and citizens are encouraged to utilize the district's grievance process to the fullest extent possible. Related policies are available on the district's

064website or upon request. For the record, we ask that all public forum participants begin by stating their name and the city in which they reside. Once complete, your three minutes will begin. First, we have signed up Stan Golab. Welcome. Uh Stan Goliboff. I still live in Harkits. So, um I'm gonna try to keep this short. I probably won't, but um I'm here tonight to talk. You're the board. You guys are doing a great job, but your messaging sucks. I can't put it any other way. And and I'll use the budget as an example. We have heard for the last year at Nauseium that we're losing $10 million in impact aid. And we have had people running around like chickens with their head cut off. And tonight we're going to see a budget that not only

065has every dime of that 10 million in it, it has 29 more million in it than we had last year, which means we're just $2 million shy of reaching the 31 million that we're going to lose in impact aid in the next three years. Now, I know it doesn't really work that way, but the point is messaging wise, we're not broke and we ain't poor. Stop acting like it. You don't need to be wearing a barrel and holding up a sign on the street corner saying we'll educate for money. We're not poor. We're not broke. Do we have some streaming services that we might be paying for that we don't need, like unused buildings or partially used buildings? Or do we have some dormant fees that we're paying? Maybe not having all of our people.

066We we're trying to hire too many. We're budgeting to hire too many people that we never going to hire. There are places to cut the budget and make up that money that we're going to need to make up so we can continue to pay increases in salary, cost of living, and also account for increases in supply. But stop acting like you're poor. Stop acting like you are in the same boat as the hundreds of school districts that have mismanaged their budget and act and and done things thinking the legislature was going to save them and the legislature hasn't. So now they're up the creek without the proverbial paddle. That's not us. Stop. Just use better messaging. And I said I wasn't going to do this, but uh welcome Dr. Davis. Um Axom Jacks. This is

067how I do it. My daughter tells me this is wrong, but we disagree. That's how we do it. But I do agree with my daughter. I don't know what a Bearcat is either. So you guys have a great evening. That one was for you, Mr. Williams. >> Thank you, sir. Before we go to agenda item six, which is a superintendent report, I do want to acknowledge uh the newest member to our team, uh Colonel Mark Mlullen, the garrison commander at Fort Hood. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We're excited to have you here and uh as I said, you're part of the team. Provide input to us and help us be a better a better organization. So, welcome. We'll now go to item number six, which is a superintendence report and first of school overview. And I will

068start first with Dr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. President. First of all, thank you. I just want to publicly first of all thank this board for the vote of confidence uh to lead the way as your interim superintendent and uh and to allow me to partner with you and also to partner with our leader senior leadership team. Uh this is day number two for me. So, I'm certainly in the throws of it and becoming acclimated. Um so, I'm very excited. I just want to say before I pass the baton to Dr. Osborne and Mr. Heckinberg. Um that I'm just asking our community to be patient with us as we start school tomorrow. Uh not only throughout the state, but throughout our nation as as we start school, it's just inevitable that there will be delays, uh

069hightraic areas and so on and so forth. So we're just asking for your grace and flexibility and also for your prayers. Um so so we know uh what that's going to look like. In my estimation, it's a win this week. If we can get kids, as I shared with the team, we get kids to and from school safely. This time of year, we tend to get in a rush. Uh there's lots of impatience. And so, I'm really asking as we pick kids up and releasing children, making sure they get to and from where they supposed to get, especially our smallest and youngest scholars. So, it's inevitable, it's important, it's critically important that we ensure that children get off at the wrong stops. We do bus sweeps, making sure no child is falling asleep on the

070back of that bus. Um, if a child is a car rider, don't send them walking and so on and so forth, guys. So, it's just slowing down and making those right decisions. We'll get to the ABCs, one, two, three. I promise you, we know we know what's the most important. We know what we're here to do. U, but we'll get to that. But that first week or two, it's about safety. It's about getting kids to and from school safely until we get some things get accustomed to to procedures again, starting a new year. So, with that said, again, thank you board and look forward to the team. We've had some a great first two days and uh look forward to partnering with you all as we move forward. So, at this time, I'll pass baton

071to Dr. Osborne and Mr. Heckinberg. Just want to make sure this works. Thank you, Dr. Davis. As Brenda brings up the presentation, um I just have to echo that sentiment. We are extremely excited about the first day of school tomorrow. I think every educator probably says the same thing every year. Where did summer go? Um the time absolutely flies by and yesterday felt like May and tomorrow is the first day of school. Um much like our special education athletes that are in Special Olympics in this picture, we are so ready to take the baton tomorrow from our parents and we know you are ready to pass it to us. Um, I have to say how proud I am of our staff, of our leaders, of our teachers in preparation for our first day tomorrow. So,

072with that, we want to provide some key information for our families so that they are just as ready as we are for the kids. So, as we make an effort to improve our communication at the district level and the campus level, we want to start with what families can expect on day one. I don't think that we can say enough times or too many times that our priority number one is a collective focus on safety and security um at the district level and at our campuses all across the district alto together. Um we have not lost our urgency and we want to make sure that we convey that to our our community and our families and our students as they return tomorrow. Um, we know that we have work to do in rebuilding trust and

073that means that we are inviting you in in partnership and our communication will increase, be more clear and more transparent more often. Um, as we enter the first day of school tomorrow, we are having our third full year of capturing kids hearts. Back in 2023 in the fall, the board and our central office members were trained. Uh last year we spread that out and started with our principles and our teachers. Um so we continue that effort and that is because we know that the most important thing we can do first is have a strong relationship with students. Um so we continue that work to connect and communicate with kids in a way that opens the door for learning ultimately as we balance that relationship with structure. Um, our families, we want you to know that

074we are improving our student culture through predictable routines. Um, so as we start school tomorrow, our families and our students, please expect heightened whole school systems. That means our approach to arrival, our approach to transitions, our approach to dismissal. Every time we are making a new decision on our campus in the operational realm, um, we have expectations for our students. We have expectations for our staff and teachers and expectations for our leaders uh in order to make sure that that predictable structuring is in place as a foundation for our learning. Um with that in mind, uh that means that our adults have to be visible and that is our commitment to families as we go into this school year. Um not that it was not our commitment last year or the decades before. Um but

075we understand how important it is for adult our adults to be in places that can support the learning and behavior of students on campus. Um that includes the campus staff that includes our district staff and we are thankful for the community members and partners that are present whether it's our adoptive school units or our men in black or our mentors or just our parent volunteers. Adults will be visible on our campuses as we move forward in this school year. And with that in mind, we definitely want to underscore that the campuses are not in it alone. Um, tomorrow we will begin dispatching and deploying over 80 district staff members um from our respective offices and cubicles to get out there in the trenches and support our campuses with the service of students. Um, we will

076do that on Wednesday, Thursday, and Monday. Uh, so campuses will be independent to work through their systems on Friday and then on Monday we will be right back out at the campuses visiting and supporting in any way that we can. We also want our families to know as we enter week one and we think about the expectations around student behavior and the operations of our schools, uh, we will be implementing and holding accountable both our staff and students for implementation of the student code of conduct pending approval tonight at the board's pleasure. Um, what that will mean ultimately is a phased approach to student expectations. We recognize we'll talk about the student code of conduct tonight and tomorrow is the first day of school. Um so we are in the 17th hour for sure. Um

077so what students can expect are a couple of things on day one. We will implement our clear and mesh backpacks on the first day of school. We will implement discipline expectations as they are outlined in the student code of conduct in addition to any campus nuances um for their expectations on their school grounds. And we will implement our cell phone policy at both levels. Um I'll leave that to the discussion that will come forth tonight. Uh I won't go too deep into that. But on the first day of school, we want families to know backpacks, discipline, cell phones. As soon as you walk in the door, the expectation is in place. Um, we have listed there two additional things we want our families to be aware of. Um, getting to class on time is important

078to getting the education we are promising our communities. Uh, that means do not be tardy. Um, this says tardies will count on the 18th. I want to make sure that I emphasize and clarify. We will address tardies tomorrow. We will address tardies on Thursday. We will address tardies on Friday, but we will not put discipline referrals in the system until Monday. We recognize that on some campuses, students will be new uh new portions of the building, new school community, transition from 5th to 6th. We we're giving grace in those areas. So, we can expect that our campus leaders and staff ask students to hurry along in those transitions and get where you need to be. Um but those will be simple conferences and reminders. Um but we will intervene on Monday along with the outlined

079expectations in the so student code of conduct. Um with that same thing in mind on Monday the 18th, we will be implementing the discipline referrals as outlined in the student code of conduct with relation to the dress code. So, we definitely invite our families to take a look at the dress code, take a look at the clothes that might have been purchased, and have those good conversations with your students about showing up the way that they leave the house. Um, but with that in mind, we'll address those things on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and we will implement the student code of conduct in that respect in regard to discipline referrals on Monday. We also want to share a few things with regard to our divisional organizations. I'll speak on behalf of learning services and then

080toss it to Mr. Hecinberg to talk about business and operations. In learning services, we have a multitude of departments. Uh but most specifically and most familiar to our families are the schools, school leadership and student support services along with a few others. Um, so with that regard, I have to emphasize attendance tomorrow matters. I'm going to say it again. Attendance on August 13th matters. Sometimes when we start school on a Wednesday, the family decides Monday is the best day to come. Um, and we understand we make those decisions as you wish, but we want to emphasize we need your students at school tomorrow. tomorrow counts. And if a student is not on campus tomorrow as um aligned with whatever campus they're assigned to and enrolled in, we will have to initiate the state required process

081of dropping any no-show from the system. Um that means the student did not show up. They are dropped from our system as an active student and they will need to reenroll on whatever day that they show up thereafter. Um, if it ends up being Thursday, Friday, next Tuesday, you will be a afforded the opportunity to reenroll, but it won't look as simple as just walking in the front door and going to first period class. We just want people to understand that. And also with that in mind, if you are a new student, we're excited to have you and your family. If for whatever reason you might be dropped from the system because you show up after day one, we ask that our parents and our students be patient with the registration process. Uh we want

082to make sure that every single student is enrolled. They are assigned to the appropriate classes or course schedules and that takes a little bit of time. So I do want to thank our counselors in advance, our registars in advance, our front office staff, our librarian because we'll probably take over the library tomorrow and the days thereafter as we enroll students. Um but just be patient with that process and know that it takes time and we want to do it well. With regard to student schedules and class changes, um I want our families to know that we have been in the scheduling process using that data for quite some time. I would say easily 90 days into the process of making sure kids are in the right classes with the right teacher in the right assignments

083that matches their needs and the data that they brought into this school year. Um there will be schedule changes or class changes but it will be on a very limited basis. Um the decisions in the school are practically concrete at this time. Um whether it's the entire master board and master schedule or the staffing that we've assigned to different course areas that is pretty close to 100% done. Um so our class schedules or changes will be available in extenduating circumstances or very limited basis. And then I would also add at the secondary level there is a structured window of time for which those requests can happen. Last but not least I have referenced on our slide our division responsibilities chart. Um, we have done some streamlining in the learning services division. So, attached to this

084board agenda item, you'll find a couple of things. Um, so I just want to point our families to those items. Um, the first that you'll see is our division responsibilities and supervisor assignments. Um, these are public facing documents. We want our parents to be aware of the supervisors of our principles, the support systems um and student support services. Who is over discipline, who is over attendance, who do you call if you have a question about advanced academics that is available on the division responsibilities chart that is in the board book for this agenda item. The other item that is listed there or available as a download is our approach to addressing campus concerns. Um my last bullet there on the on the slide deck says we asked parents to seek solutions at the lowest level

085for a district this large. I want to give a small example. Um, if we have 1% of our students tomorrow with a concern, that is 400 students. 10% would be 4,000. 1% is 400. And if all 400 concerns go to Mr. Heckinberg, he is inundated. And we ask that you solve at the lowest level so that we can be efficient in our responses, and our solutions that we want to provide our families. you will get excellent customer service and if you don't we want to know about it but we w also want to just ensure we're solving problems for kids and families because that's the gateway to making sure an education is great for them. So please make you make sure you've taken a look at that guide that invites you to start with the

086teacher then the assistant principal. If your answer is not sufficient, then you have the principal and then it would go to student support services or the principal supervisor for that campus. Um, please check those documents out. Again, they're public facing and we want to get off to a great, incredible year. Scott, >> got to wait for the delay there for the mic to come on. So, uh, we'll wrap up on Go next slide. >> Oh, sorry, that's me. Okay. Go back. There we go. All right. So, uh, from the business and operations side, what you can expect. Um, we we've kind of talked about patience. It's been a theme, uh, in the comments already, and we're going to ask for patience with transportation in August. Uh, we know there's going to be route delays. We

087know there's construction going on in Colleen. You know, Bunny Trail and Stage Coach are known commodities right now as our buses are practicing and rehearsing their routes. So, we're we're working on that. Uh, also with the buses, you know, we are running the AC. I do promise the ACs are running. They will be 20 degrees cooler than it is outside, but it's really hot in Texas right now. And so the buses aren't going to be as cool as we would prefer, but they are cooler than outside, and they're going to do everything they can to keep the doors shut, keep the windows up, to keep that cool air inside. But please be patient with us as we work through these hot days of summer and August. Um, we definitely encourage you to look at the

088Edge Log app for real-time information. You can track your bus by route and that's a great pl way to to see where your bus is as we go through these timelines. We will also be pushing information out as routes get delayed uh and trying to stay involved and get that information to campuses and to families to the best of our ability. Um we're 93% staffed overall. It's obviously we would love to be at 100, but we're not there yet. We're going to continue to work on that. We're going to continue to recruit. We're going to continue to find great educators who want to be here. Uh the positive note is that we are 61 more teachers than we started with last year. We're making improvements. We're bringing in quality people to work in this district.

089People who care about working with your students and your kids and you know to do the job. We also have a great substitute coverage plan in place both long-term and short-term subs to make sure that we have coverage in those classrooms to click class sizes appropriate. Uh next one is school nutrition. You know, we currently breakfast will continue for all, you know, for all all students at no cost. It's a great program and over the last two years, our supper program was at 13 campuses. Uh we're really excited to share that this year we're moving to 45 campuses are going to have that program across the district. So, you know, we're continually expanding those programs and trying to provide that to to our kids. Uh, I also want to share that, you know, over the

090summer on a very accelerated timeline, uh, you know, our maintenance team, the facilities team, they completely renovated 10 of our kitchens, you know, $ 122.9 million to put the best equipment in some of these schools to make sure that what we're providing for our children is commensurate with the type of district that we are. And, you know, that's another great initiative that the board allowed for us to do. Uh, last thing is, you know, we're going to communicate. We're going to communicate in a lot of different ways. We're rolling out new technologies. We're rolling out new capabilities through our communications team to try and stay up with the 21st century and how people consume information. So, our communications team will be sending out district emails with last minute back to school notes. Uh we'll be

091supporting multimedia requests on the first day of school and we will be consistently communicating on the website, various social media platforms, email, and text across the district. Uh it's our goal that you know what is going on, that we allow you to uh anticipate what's going on and have expectation management for your child in every situation. So kind of in summary, you know, we're we're working to bring this together. We are uh doing a lot of things great in KISSD to improve what we're doing for this school year. Uh we tell our folks all the time, you know, we either get better or get worse every day, and we're a get better kind of district. And so that's what we're going to keep working on throughout this year. And that's our promise to you. >>

092That wraps up the report. All right, we're not we're now going to move to item seven, which is discussion of school safety update. Mr. Heckinberg. Hold on. There we go. Good evening, Mr. President, uh, ladies and gentlemen of the board of trustees, uh, KISSD staff and faculty, and most importantly, our families and students of KISSD. Um, as we prepare to kick off another year of learning, we wanted to give you an update on where we sit on the school safety program. Uh, it's a lot of it's a utmost concern to a lot of folks and we've done a lot of changes. Some of them are still ongoing. Some of them are going to be future oriented and we wanted to give you a brief update of what to expect this year. First, KD has always

093had a safety culture. Uh we all recognize as professionals that school safety is important because we've got to establish the conditions for which safe learning can occur. So we've always been focused on protecting students and staff. Uh we want to foster that positive learning climate. You know, when kids feel safe, when they're protected, they're going to learn better. We know that. That's that's proven and we're working to do that. We are working to prevent incidences. Uh everyone knows, you know, we're trying to keep kids safe. There's no employee of KISSD who is out there wanting to see a child hurt. You don't get into the education profession, you know, for that. You care about kids. You're it's a profession. It's a calling for educators and and that's the folks we're bringing into Kate and we

094are actively working to to keep those numbers down. And then last, you know, it's strengthening the community. You know, the school's the heart of the town. You know, our schools, our 53 campuses is what we rally around in Colleen. It's what we follow to a sporting event. It's what we cheer on in in a play. It's what we listen to the band. And that community togetherness is what we want. And we know that safety has to be the bedrock of that as we move forward. We fully recognize there's been a call for change. No one is ignoring the incident that happened at Roy J. Smith last spring. For those that know me personally, my son was at Roy J. Smith when that event took place. So, I know firsthand what that impact had on those

095children and what it had to that campus. And one of the reasons I wanted to come to this district to work was to help the people that went through that and, you know, to provide any assistance we can because there were a lot of great people doing great work that day for the district through that process. But we know we had to make a change. Um, at the end of the year, we implemented a lot of enhanced measures to add safety and security to finish out the year. the the district team worked really hard to rapidly change to rapidly instill programs uh to add, but we knew we had to do more. Uh in early June, we briefed the board of trustees and they provided us clear guidance and support to allow us to explore

096a multitude of ways of which we were going to improve campus safety. Uh that included we visited other districts that had experienced similar incidences to us. We went to Robinson ISD, Mansfield ISD, Houston ISD, and in all of these cases, we, you know, we learned about what they did, what changes they made, uh, what programs worked for them, and, you know, it it helped us shape what we wanted to do moving forward. Uh, we explored a variety of systems. You know, we'd used we'd had systems in place previously, some older technology, a mix of new technology, and we explored what was available to us to increase the safety platforms on campuses, both secondary and at the elementary level. And then we took a thorough review of existing district procedures on all campuses. What do we

097need to do to change what we're doing on campuses that aren't related to technology? It's about behaviors and how we do certain actions and how we monitor certain things. And then there were statemandated changes. Uh the cell phone policy is one of them. We were out in front of that last year and now the state has mandated it, you know, statewide and we're out in front of it because of our proactive nature. So we're expanding that. We'll hear more about that later in our student code of conduct discussions. Uh other ones are emergency equipment that's required to be on hand. You know, the state issued out several mandates with regard to safety and we've tackled all of them over the summer to make sure conditions are set for us to start the year. So, where

098we are right now, um, so we've implemented several changes heading into the new year. Um, I I mentioned on the previous slide that we had that, you know, that guidance in that that meeting with the board from the time we presented our recommendations for safety changes to now, it's been exactly 63 days. 63 full calendar days. And in that amount of time, we've done a lot of work uh to get things ready. We're not done yet, and we'll talk some more about that in a second, but we've made a lot of changes. Our KISD police force has grown from 46 to 64 officers. Uh we're continuing to grow that team so we can have our own dedicated police force for the district to cover down on all of our events and campuses and provide that

099safety at a 1 to1 ratio. Um where we don't have that coverage, we're using uh the contracted security to fill the gap. So, every campus short of those on post is currently covered right now. Uh, we've increased the size of our KSD safety department. We hired 10 additional campus safety specialists focused on audits, safety reviews, policy reviews, spot inspections of the campuses, assistance with new technology. So, instead of having a 1 to 53 ratio, we now have approximately a 2 to10 ratio, and how they're partnered up with the campuses to provide more coverage. We hired more district investigators and a threat assessment team to continue to track those students that may need, you know, a modification that may need a little bit more attention, you know, due to things going on in their lives to

100more quickly get through our investigative processes on campuses instead of just having one individual to do it all. Uh, we've rolled out weapons detection systems on all campuses. Now, when I talk about we're not done yet, we are still working through that process. We have sprinted hard for 63 days to get this system in place. The systems are on all the campuses right now. Where we did not get to the level that we wanted to is the level of training on all campuses, specifically on the ed on the elementary side. Last spring, as I mentioned, we had already rolled out a different system, but the same concept for screening, weapons detection, and our secondary campuses were more ready for the changes that we brought to them this summer. Our elementary campuses, we owe them the

101proper training, the proper resource roll out, and the proper implementation to make sure that we are setting conditions for the elementary students. So we are working a phased in approach using a modified crawl, walk, run methodology. So those kids coming into the campus first day learn how to pass through the system without treating it like a jungle gym for some of those preschoolers and kindergarteners that they learn how the screening process works and what to expect from it. So it's not scary. So they learn how to get to their classroom on time. uh and we'll gradually as we work that training process with the campuses and the kids, we will slowly ratchet up the scrutiny provided on those campuses to make sure that they are receiving the same treatment as the secondary campuses. But we

102wanted to do it with uh a heart focus on those kids and what their what their experience would be like and how we rolled that out on the elementary campuses to make sure that we put them in the best position to succeed. Um, we have also rolled out silent panic alert technology. It was a requirement for us in the district that allows every classroom to be able to trigger a silent alert if there is something going on in their classroom. We already talked about the clear mesh bag policy on all campuses. We have the now clear water bottle policy for secondary campuses. That also is an additional safety feature. Um, the updated cell phone policy which we will discuss. And then coming soon, we're not done. You know, we're going to get through the list

103of things above the bullet and we're going to make sure those are are done properly. And then we are going to get into uh an enhanced visitor management system to make visitors tracking easier to get folks registered on campuses easier for visits. We're also working at an exterior door monitoring system that has, you know, is tied to alerts that if a student props open a door for their friend or someone that's not our friend, we're going to get a notification and an immediate location of where that occurred so we can respond properly. So campuses are more secure in areas where there's not an adult, you know, holding down that door. Uh, and these are all systems that we're going to roll out through the first semester. Next slide. Oh, sorry. flicker. So, what to expect?

104We're going to have potential delays on campuses as we refine the process. I want to be transparent about that. Uh Dr. Davis talked about we're going to have some delays. You know, not every campus had this technology last year. A lot of them are doing it for the first time. A lot of them are doing it with more systems than they had last year. Some campuses only had to deal with one system. Now they're doing three, four systems on their campus. So, some of the procedures had to be adjusted. How the settings are set is still being adjusted, but we will continue to assess and update campus procedures to improve efficiency. Nobody wants a kid outside waiting in line. We want them in the classroom. We want them learning. We're going to get there and

105that is a focus, but we want to do it right. We're going to seek your feedback. We're going to seek your thoughts and concerns how we progress through the year. We're going to receive feedback from the principles, from those administrators who are in the trenches doing the work and how the system is working for them and how it's not. We're already getting that feedback now and we're making adjustments and planning for future adjustments based on that feedback we're getting from those campus leaders. Each campus could definitely look a little different. You know, we have we all have the same standards. We have the exact same expectations and what those standards are, but every campus is different. You know, we have 53 campuses with different layouts, with different staff that uh can be very similar in

106appearance, but they're different once you get there and talk to that principal about how they are doing different things. So, the procedures may differ slightly based on those things, but the outcome is the same. The standard is the standard for the level we expect them to provide scrutiny, to provide security, to provide safety. And last, you know, I think I talked about at the beginning, but it's a dedicated team of professionals who are committed to ensuring the safety of our staff and students. 99% of the people who get an education do it because they care about kids and they want to contribute to their community. They want what's best for those kids. And that is what we are working towards. Uh I tell my team, we are we're never going to be perfect, but we're

107going to strive for it every day. And we're constantly going to get better because we want to do what's right for those children. So, uh, that's it, sir. That's our summary. Opinion, any questions? And, uh, I'm looking forward to a great year. >> Questions from trustees. >> Thank you, sir. We'll now move to item eight, which is a consent agenda. A, consideration of school health advisory council shack membership roster for the 2025 2026 school year. B, consideration of Texas teacher evaluation and support system T test certified appraisal list for the 2025 2026 school year. That is the consent agenda. I'll entertain a motion. Madam Secretary, >> Mr. President, I move to accept the consent item lettered A consideration of school health advisory council shack membership roster for the 202526 school year and item B consideration

108of Texas teacher evaluation and support system test certified appraiser list for the 202526 school year. >> We have a motion by Secretary Adams. We have a second by Madame Capido. Any further discussion by trustees? There being none, all those in favor, show of hands. We have six in favor, none in opposition, one absent and not participating, and board member Rodney Gilchrist. Thank you. We'll now move to nine action items for consideration. A, consideration of the clean independent school district student code of conduct for the 2025 2026 school year. Welcome, Mr. Wales. Good evening, Mr. President, members of the board, Dr. Davis. Uh we are here tonight to present the hopefully the final uh representation of the student code of conduct for this school year. Um pending approval for uh from you tonight. >> Mr. Wells,

109I'll ask you. I know we had discussions last week, but I'm totally okay if you highlight the requested changes and we'll kind of go straight to those >> to make sure we address everyone's concerns, but I'll defer to your presentation. But I'm telling you, I'm okay with that. >> Absolutely. What we've gone here uh done here is highlight all of the changes. We we've kind of gone back and forth a little bit. So, I've brought all of the changes forward to you, but that's all we're going to discuss here tonight in case you have other questions. So, as we bring you the student code of conduct, as you're aware, there's been a lot of changes and a lot of discussion here over the last few weeks, especially with the last legislative session. Uh and there

110was been a lot of things that have been uh brought to us. So, we've gathered feedback from members of the board, members of the community, principles. We've uh presented to you a couple of times these different uh changes that have been brought and are seeking uh your approval tonight for the student code of conduct. As we look here are the changes that are being made are presented to you tonight. Uh graduation participation um anti-semitism, personal communication devices, uh door safety, uh parental involvement, transportation, student removal uh by the teachers, suspensions both out of school and in school. There are some changes there. the DAP hearing process, the virtual education for expelled students, the dress code uh to include the clear bag policy, and then the change to the EIG and vapes. On page eight, you'll

111see the graduation participation, and this is the language that is uh provided to you there. Um we have asked for uh brought to you the change that allows students that are placed at DAP at the end of the year and finish the school year uh assigned to DAP and their senior year if they've met all the requirements then they can return to their home campus and participate in that graduation ceremony with their with their home campus. >> Mr. President, do you want me to pause each time? How do you want >> uh I would give a pause and if there's any feedback at that time so we can uh address it if anyone has an issue that would be your time to give a head not so are we >> I know we've talked about

112these things multiple times so yes sir >> okay on page 11 uh we have included the uh definition uh for anti-semitism and it's included under the section for mistreatment of others it's also included in the glossery at the back of the student cond uh student code of conduct uh to describe and define that term as personal personal communication devices. We've talked about a couple of times tonight. Um obviously we see some changes to this with the state law that's being enacted um as we speak, you know, as we get ready to school year. Elementary students as is being proposed in the student code of conduct. We have written elementary students shall not bring or use personal communication devices including cell phones or any other electronic device not issued by the school while at school during

113the school day. The secondary students shall not use a personal communication device including a cell phone, smartwatch, tablet or other electronic device on school property during the school day and shall store the device in accordance with the method of storage established by the district. In our district at the secondary level, we are using the yonder pouches. And so that would be uh directed to them that the that device would be locked into that yonder pouch when they come onto campus. Uh unlocked when they leave campus for for whatever reason. Um and then anything that is too large to place in that yonder pouch would then not be allowed or be permitted on campus. After the last presentation, we also looked at the set of offenses for violation of this policy. Um, it was rather extensive

114and we have shortened it and and uh brought a little more meat uh to this to this policy. So, you can see there if a student damages the pouch, there's immediate consequences to include uh being fined and to replace that pouch. If a student is found to have their cell phone or personal communication device and it's not locked up, the first offense, you can see there the phone is confiscated. uh the parent is conf is is uh contacted. Uh it is noted with a referral but it is a minor code of a 2011 on the referral. Uh the student is assigned to one day of afterchool detention or lunch detention and the student is able to pick up the phone at the end of the day from the front office. On their second offense, however,

115we begin to escalate. The stu the phone is confiscated. The referral is going to be noted with a serious code of 198. Uh the parent obviously is going to be contacted as well. The parent must come and pick up the cell phone from the front office during the school day and we're going to schedule a meeting and have a conversation with the parent about the seriousness of this matter. The student will receive a minimum of one day of ISS for this second violation and the student will be placed on a campus probation of 45 days for this violation. On the third offense, the phone is confiscated kept in the campus uh in the campus office. It's noted on a referral with a serious uh serious violation code of 198. The violation of campus probation is

116also noted on that discipline referral. The parent guardian is contacted. The parent or guardian again must come pick up the phone. It will not be returned to the student. The student is assigned to three days of ISS and a campus level hearing for possible placement at DAP will be issu will be notified uh instituted at that time. The reason that we have done this and and stepped this up so much is because it is now a violation of state law. It's no longer just a violation of our code of conduct, so to speak. As Mr. Heckenberg referenced earlier, the propping open of doors is a is a major concern. And so this statement is in the student code of conduct. Students shall not prop open exterior doors by any means or open the door for

117any other student, staff member, or visitor unless they are directly told to do so by a staff member. Uh this is now a violation of the student code of conduct. The parental behavior agreement as allowed by uh House Bill six, we do have I want to explain just a little bit here. The way that it's represented to you and being presented to you tonight is option A. You have the the language in the student code of conduct of option A that allows the use of a behavioral agreement. We'll outline the the parameters of that um with an assignment reduction of up to 10% if the that contract is met by both the parent student and the campus. Or option B is that the district has not adopted this policy. by state law, we do have

118to have a statement or one or the other in our student code of conduct. We cannot we have to refer to it one way. I did have uploaded uh you see there's a reference uh to a handout there that does have the specific language and here is the specific language. Um again the top uh paragraph here is what appears in the student code of conduct. But if the will of the board is to uh not adopt this policy then we would replace it with this the the statement that's at the bottom of the page. Mr. Mintz. So, I think I' I've said just about everything I need to say about this adnauseium, so I will keep it short. Um, I firmly believe that uh it should be option B. And it's my belief that by

119the time a child or a student is getting placed into DAP, the parents have had ample opportunity to intervene. Now, only now when we get to the final where there's some consequences, which we can talk about later tonight about how DAP is run. Um, now we're allowing the parent in to swoop in and again save the child from any consequence. And I think that is absolutely wrong. It speaks to low expectations of our students. It speaks to low expectations of our parents. It takes teeth out of DAE placements that teachers and staff may wish to use. Um, so I would, my opinion is this needs to absolutely be option B. One thing we did discuss that I don't see reflected here, although maybe it's it's in the handout. Um, I would say option B, but

120perhaps a carve out for if it's something that's a first time mandatory placement like for a vape or or something like that. Um, where parents did not have a chance to intervene earlier in the process. So, that would be the caveat that I would put on onto option option B. Um, furthermore, I think option B, we should state that this is our policy. And this is I prefer stronger language in there that says we are not we are purposfully not adopting this because we expect better things from our parents and better things from our kids and we expect them to intervene earlier in the process. Thank you, >> Mr. Renwater. >> Help me a little bit. Michael sir >> would the assigning person which is now the building principal have the option of saying to

121the parent and the child who's a you know has made a mistake and but that's the only one for now have the option of saying to that parent under those circumstances look if you'll agree to this we can take off 10 days while in other circumstances like serious offenses crimes and repetitive misconduct the principal wouldn't have to do that it can it work like that? >> Yes, sir. So, if you see there's a note um this there is a note there that the campus administration has the ability at that hearing to be able to make that determination. If there was something that was so severe so pervasive that they said I'm signing I'm recommending I'm assigning you to 45 days and I want you to serve the entire 45 days that note can be made.

122Absolutely. Uh also there is a note at the bottom uh Mr. M. We did say that this was only available for that first assignment of the school year. So students that were coming back on a second or subsequent assignment after that would not have this policy in place or have this option. >> Right. So So that's and I'm sorry I didn't mean to jump in, but that so that's I read that and I and I agree with with that. This is this is a one-time deal, but and I think Miss Capito brought it up earlier the last time we discussed it for a mandatory placement. First time mandatory placement. kid brings a vape into school, peer pressure, whatever. Parents haven't had a chance to intervene. My whole the whole reason of this is we if

123the par we need to again expect more of our parents. We've got them if they're not intervening in the beginning, they shouldn't be allowed to intervene at the end after we've cost time, energy, and you know, lost instruction in classrooms and and blah blah blah. But my point is if I thought we talked about a carveout. So, if it's a first time and or it's a mandatory placement first time, I would I would be a little more willing to allow a parent uh to provide some input. I >> I would caution to say that some of those mandatory placements though, if we use that as the category as a first time, some of those can be very very severe uh for mandatory DAP placements. And I think I I don't know if that might not

124lead us into a gray area. >> I I understand your point. Thank you, >> Madam Capito. >> Madam Adams had it first. >> Are you sure? Okay. Um I'm okay with this um language, but is there going to be some type of and I don't know how to say maybe a chart or something for the principles to kind of help guide them because yes, it's at the discretion of the administration. I never want to take that. However, I also want it to be pretty equitable across the district because that is something that often gets brought up is something happens at one campus, maybe not at another campus. We do want to try to be as consistent as possible, understanding that circumstances are a little bit different. Um, I do like the language much better. Behavioral

125agreements are only offered for initial DAP placements. Um, so I can support this. >> Yes, ma'am. We'll take that back and and work on that document. Madam Secretary, did you have a question? >> Mr. Mintz, um I want to make sure I understand you're saying so I know you referenced for first time placements and saying, "Hey, you know that then maybe you look at the parental agreement." Uh but if a student has had repeated violations, that's when you're saying you don't favor them having the opportunity to have the uh the behavioral agreement for a involvement. >> No, what I'm saying is so normally when a student gets placed in DAP, it is that's there's they've gone through the whole discipline progression, right? So the first phone call home which is usually the first step in

126the discipline progression in a classroom a parent should intervene at that point. But if we go down phone call to parent letter to parent write up meeting with this with the principal and then we are getting to something that warrants placement in DAP the parent has had ample time to intervene and stop that. What I'm saying is so I agree if it's a first-time placement only, but what I'm saying is I mean I would be comfortable with the whole thing being written out, but um I that's what I consider multiple of multiple placements it's a non-starter. Do I understand that correctly, Mr. Wells? >> Yes. >> Okay. Yeah. I I still think for the first time there's been plenty of time for parent intervention. >> Yeah. And that's what I want to make sure you're

127>> that's how you stay and I apologize. That's exactly how I was uh understanding what you were saying. So, any other trustee feedback on this one? Let's let's get to the end and we'll come back and figure out because we'll probably need to potentially amend something how a motion looks to figure out which route we go. Fair enough. >> Yes, sir. >> All right. >> The seat belt requirements on the bus. Again, this is a reference to Texas Education Code 34.013. Uh students are required to wear their seat belts on the bus if the bus is so equipped. Um and again, we've talked about the number of buses in our fleet that are equipped this way. This is a mandate by the state. So, we're just coming into compliance with that state law. Student removal

128by teacher. Um, this one we've spent some time on, and I want to again uh explain and and answer questions if we can. There's there's two reasons being added to this this this policy that teachers can remove a student from their class. if the student's behavior repeatedly interferes with the teacher's ability to teach the class or with the other students ability to learn or the student demonstrates behavior that is unruly disruptive or abusive toward the teacher, another adult or another student in the classroom. Those are two additions. When the student is removed within three school days, there must be a meeting. The uh the meeting must be between the appropriate administrator on campus can be the campus behavior coordinator or the CBC or the campus principal as designated or and it will also be with

129the student's parent the student and the teacher that removed the student from the class that is in the Texas education code and and that's on the initial notice of this. Once the teacher has made that written notice that the that the student is going to be removed, then we have this this this um this meeting. We've added the the uh statement here at the end uh from feedback from the board. The teacher does have the option to provide input for this meeting through a written statement. So, they're still going to be providing uh input. They're still going to be making their statement as to why the student is being removed, but they can do it in writing if they choose not to be at the meeting. >> Mr. Rainwater. >> I'm sorry. Go ahead, sir.

130>> Go ahead, Miss Raywater. >> Well, would you go please go back two slides? >> Yes, sir. >> On that student's behavior repeatedly somewhere, I'm looking for the word documented misbehaviors. >> Okay. >> So, everybody will know. >> Yes, sir. >> Madam Secretary, >> thank you, sir. I'm also looking um Mr. Wells for those definitions in the back. Um, we may think that everyone has a common understanding of unruly, disruptive, and abusive, but it may not be common practice. Do we have it in the glossery anywhere? That's what I was saying. >> I don't believe those terms are in the in the glossery. Typically, we are defining terms that are school, but we can add those if you like. I would think because we're talking about a removal that we'd want some teeth that says

131here's the definition so that all of the staff that's out there using it would have some backbone and teeth to it that says this is the definition we're using because my unruly is different than your unruly. >> Mr. Wells, I'm going to ask board counsel to to come forward at this time. I think she has some feedback for us. I just wanted to speak to Mr. Rainwater's comment about the word documented. House Bill 6 removed that language. That is that is a significant change in teacher removal. Um for the last 25 years probably at least the the criteria was documented repeated interference. That word has been removed by House Bill six. while she's there. >> Madam Secretary, >> so while you're there, how do we begin due process if if it's not, are we just

132to assume there's documentation or we don't have to have it or >> That is what House Bill Six says now. >> Well, there you go. >> House Bill Six. Um, I think the intent perhaps is to give more authority to the classroom teacher and lessen the burden to seek removal of a child from their classroom. That's my understanding of the intent. >> Thank you. >> Any other Mr. Mintz? >> And it's very brief and I want to go back just back a slide. What's the penalty for propping open a door? It's a serious >> serious >> it's a serious offense. So it would fall under that category of serious offense. It's discretionary. >> Okay. >> Um for DAP placement all the way but it could be >> depending on the severity when the when the

133administrator does the investigation what was the intent what was what was involved in everything. It could be perfect all the way. Thank you. >> Yes sir. >> Dr. Osborne. >> Micah for board context. Do you mind providing the data on the number of teachers that have initiated a student removal in the last two years? >> We've had three. >> Sure. Mike again, sir. Okay. uh once the student is removed uh there is a return to class procedure that is put into place and the student has been formally removed by the teacher. We included this language in the student code of conduct because there was some conversation around that process uh no later than the third class day of the student being removed. conference uh must be had. The conference that's being had is not going

134to include the teacher that is doing the removal. And there was I think there was a little bit of lack of clarity on that uh in in previous presentations. And so that teacher that's making that statement that's removing a student cannot be involved. So it is a campus administrator, campus principal or the CBC and two two teachers that are uh selected by the by the principal. They will come together. They will review the documentation. They will review the incidents and determine what is best for this child. That child can be placed in ISS, can be uh suspended uh out of school. They can be returned to class with different structures if that's the that's the decision. There's a lot of things that go into that decision. Is this the best class for them to be

135in? Is it the only class for them to be in on this campus uh where we can take care of their specific needs? things like that are going to go into that decision. Uh all the way up to maybe determining if this child needs to move forward for a DAP placement. That can be a part of this this decision as well. Okay. And there you see the we added the language of who is included in the committee uh to be able to review this placement. Also, we added the paragraph about the right to appeal. So, the parent or the student has a right to appeal this change or this removal from the classroom uh just as part of their due process like they would for any other removal. They have an opportunity to um speak

136their talk about their side of the story and and and uh have their day. On page 26, we see the uh the ability now for the campuses to out of school suspend students in uh below grade three. These two bullet points have been added to the two that were already existing. Conduct that threatens the immediate health and safety of other students or documented conduct that results in repeated or significant disruption to the classroom. Uh we can now uh assign those students to out of school suspension where we couldn't the last couple of years. Um there is a a a requirement by the campus though with these younger children to investigate and make sure that they have care at home. We cannot send a child home that is below the uh grade three and then where

137they don't have care. We're going to make sure if they don't have proper care at home then they would be brought back to campus and assigned to ISS. We now see a change and this is a significant change in the length of ISS that students can be assigned to. The cap has been lifted. Students can be assigned to ISS indefinitely. However, if they are assigned uh more than 10 days, every 10 days there has to be a review by done by the campus administrator to ensure that that student's academic progress is being met, their behavioral uh plan is being met. um if they are a child with that receives um services for being disabled, they have to ensure that those disabilities, those accommodations are being afforded to that child while in ISS or we are

138uh removing uh some of their free and appropriate education days, their FAPE days that has to be documented. We document that through a process called SMART ISS. That is a part of the the documentation that we do for their due process. And so the every 10 days that principal is going to review that and ensure that the placement in ISS is still appropriate. We have made a change to the DAP hearing process. Uh this is where we on page 29 to 37 everywhere that the district hearing officer was was mentioned there as as presiding over that process. We have changed uh made the change for approval to the campus principal being the being the hearing officer, excuse me. Um that is decision of that campus administrator um and we have added to again through uh

139feedback from the board. The campus administrator or design shall serve as the hearing officer. So this could be uh requested to be the district hearing officer by that campus principal. It could be the severity of the situation. It could be the relationship with the parent that they that they know that this is probably not going to go well and they wanted the district hearing officer to hear this this situation. Uh there's lots of reasons there. Uh it could be another campus principal as well if we designate that. Um but putting it in there as campus administrator or design will allow us the opportunity for that principal to request another hearing officer. Yes, ma'am. >> Madam Secretary, >> I know we had discussion on that. Um excuse me, Mr. Well, I'm in agreement for hearing officer.

140I still am not convinced that pulling a principal to go over and hear another principles DAE possibility for placement is the best way to do business. It just uh appears or might appear to a parent that we are not being above board. And so I'm I'm I'm greatly concerned about that and I hear you say it's still a possibility and I would hope that we would use that super sparingly or not at all. I'm just one member. >> I I would tell you our intent out of our office is that if a if a principal request support in this area, we're going to have that be heard by the district hearing officer. Um, we did poll all of the principles in the district and over 80% were not only comfortable with taking on this role,

141but were also comfortable with if they needed then that campus level hearing would be heard by the district hearing officer. That was their response. And so we're going to take that feedback from them as well as the feedback from the board to implement that. >> And they felt comfortable being impartial, not feeling any pressure. I know you. Let me make this assignment. If I don't, you're gonna be upset. >> I won't answer >> the reality. The reality of that, I'm I'm sure you all had that discussion, >> but that's the real deal. >> I won't answer for the principles on that. Uh, Miss Adams, what I will say is in my in my experiences as a principal, what you just explained is every time we go to the table for this type of meeting, um,

142so we take those things very seriously. This is not something not a process that we take lightly as principles. Uh and in our discussions with principles, they understood what we're asking them to do and the the the added burden of bringing this to them, but also the possibility of allowing them to be the decider in this process and the and the uh potential of that. >> And I'm sure you're going to go over the appeal process here in a second. >> Yes, ma'am. >> On that decision. Thank >> Mr. Mintz. >> Okay. Okay, so as I stated before again ad nauseium um I think this is a galactically bad idea. Um so on the campus level if the removal is d initiated by a assistant principal and the principal then would be a hearing officer

143you have a what is the likelihood that that principal is going to shut down their subordinate who's bringing something forward? If they do that, then does the subordinate keep bringing things forward? Probably not. That's a bad idea. If the principal delegates that down to an AP, the AP is then in a position where they have to potentially render a decision that's in opposition to what their boss and their raider thinks. That too is a bad idea when you send it to another principle. So kind of we just talk through that to its logical conclusion, right? There's the principal has to get take time to get familiar with the case. Then they have to go across the district drive, hear it, which takes, I don't know, an hour, maybe more. Then they have to make it

144up, made a decision, write something certainly, and then come back to their campus. So how much time does that cost a principal? And yet we're going to sit here and say our principles are instructional leaders. we're just putting it on another principle when we have an existing structure that is purposebuilt to handle this. Um so I think that's another reason that it's a terrible idea. Um principles asking their peers to go, hey, I don't want to do this. Can you do this for me? What is the likelihood that you're going to get a fair outcome? I think it's between slim and none. Not to say that our principles can't be objective, but these are their peers. These are the people that they work with every day. I don't think that you're going to get a

145fair outcome for it. I still beyond the speed. I don't I don't know what the problem that we're trying to solve is. If it's that we're not processing these things fast enough, well then by God, let's just hire one more hearing officer um and an independent, neutral, detached person who's looking at this with no pressure whatsoever on them. I just for the life of me can't understand why we're doing this. I think punishment should be hard. I think DAP should be a place where kids don't want to go, but by God, we should give them the proper due process in getting there. And we're stripping that away. And we're just fabricating, we're creating all of this work for I'm still not sure what. So, I am a hard no uh on this. We should keep

146it with the district hearing officers. Madam Capito, >> can maybe we get some clarity about why this has come forth? Um because I think that's maybe what some of the question is is like why are we wanting to do this? How is this benefiting our staff, our families, our students? What is the benefit of this? >> You want to speak to that? I know we talked last time about how we got here. >> Absolutely. Um, I first want to go back to um, Micah's point about the seriousness that the principles come to the table with when they conduct a hearing. Um, they do not take it lightly. Um, so I just want to continue to reiterate that there is a clear understanding of the responsibility of the role of the principal ship and when you

147are executing a hearing. Um, I think that's important to say first. Um, second to that, we have had numerous conversations with our campus leaders around this topic going back into April, early May about how we might not only streamline for efficiency but ensure that our best judgment at campus is related to discipline is being executed um when a recommendation happens. Um, I would never want to place our campus principles in conflict with the district hearing officers. Um so I definitely am hesitant to go into that form of detail here. Um but there is sentiment at our campus leadership level um that they would prefer that the recommendation for a placement at DAP rests with them at the campus level. Um there have been very few overturned by district hearing officers previously. I think the number

148is between 30 and 40. However, the number of modifications that have happened um at the hear district hearing officer um does cause pause around the administrators being the best judgment about how to move forward with improving behavior and making good decisions for discipline for students moving forward. Um in addition to that, uh streamlining and efficiency is most certainly a concern concern. Um that information was received uh to us in our um process walking through our response to um the discipline incident of significant magnitude in March. And that recommendation is something that we proceeded with uh ideulating around and what that might look like. And in addition to not having a two-tier process, we want to be most aligned with dis district districts that are a reflection of our population and enrollment size and the practices

149that happen in districts with over 40,000 kids. >> So, I want to make sure I heard this right. You you're telling me that the leadership, meaning our campus principles, this is what they want, correct? That's their recommendation as a whole. We we've spoken with the principles on more than one occasion um based on the feedback we received from the board. We did an additional poll about comfort and how we might proceed with that in the best way before making a deci decision that was misaligned and I feel very confident that we have not misunderstood the sentiment of our campus leaders. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mintz. So, I'm just gonna ask a yes or no question. Is there a are we not processing these things fast enough? Is that the problem we're trying to solve?

150Because I I'm Dr. Osborne, with all due respect, I don't I don't hear an answer to the question. If what we are, what problem are we solving? Is it that it's too slow or is it that principles want to make those decisions at the campus level because they don't and I don't understand with being in conflict with the district hearing officers. There's no conflict. the district hearing officer. That's their job to make that decision. Again, I just I would like just prefer a simple answer to this. >> Mr. Mintz, if I could, I just as I understand Dr. Osborne's comments was that won't say conflict, but decisions that are made by hearing officers aren't necessarily reflective of how our campus leadership feels as though certain disciplinary issues that are reaching them should be handled. And

151I think they prefer to have more control and the ability to be able to control what I'll say to control how they rate the severity of offenses. That's kind of how I'm >> Yes, sir. You're correct. Uh in addition to that, I think that it's important for campus leaders to continue to be able to have relationship with their parents and families and regardless of the placement decision. Um, keeping that decision at the campus level allows that relationship to continue to be fostered um, as the student is transitioning and transitioning back, transitioning to and transitioning back. But I would also add um, it is efficiency. It is agreement with what should be happening modification or overturning. Um, and it is about relationship with the family and the final decision about what might happen with the placement.

152>> Mr. MZ, >> so I'm still a little confused, but I think I got it now. So, what principles are saying is principles want to be the judge, jury, and executioner. Um, meaning which is another way of saying they want to control everything at the campus level. um because sometimes the folks that are neutral and detached, the district hearing officers may see things a little bit differently. So, what we're going to do now is we're going to establish 54 different campus standards as opposed to standards or uniform decision-m that's made by hearing officers that are not emotionally attached to families to the children. They are making a decision that's in accordance with the code of conduct and the rules that this board has established. That's that's the that's I think the decision that we're being

153asked to make. And I don't I don't know that we should power all that down. You're going to end up with this varying interpretations of things. Um, and again, I think it just denies a fundamental due process that we're we're trying we're trying to put these things in place to make sure that if kids go to DAP, they've earned it. >> Any other feedback from trustees? Madame Vice President, so over the years we've spoke about consistency in our disciplinary process and how important that was and that we want that. And so when I look at this and I think DAP um whether it's mandatory or discretionary the campus uh principal is going to be the person who is the deciding person as to whether this child goes to the D the DE um then I

154don't think we're having consistent policies across our district. Um and and I'm not sure um why the principal would want to be put in that position, but again, I'm not in their seat, so uh I'm not going to um weigh in on that. But I would like to see consistency across the district. And if each principal is deciding um then I don't think we have consistency. >> Madam Capito, >> okay. Is there maybe a way that this could be a joint effort between the campus principal and the hearing officer? I mean, I hear that principles want to have input. They know their families. They know the circumstances. They even know maybe that Johnny is changed and life has gotten rough or his mother passed away or whatever has occurred that maybe sparked some of these

155things. I understand wanting them to have that. I don't want to put principles in a position where they get they're subject to scrutiny on anything or the consistency of the district. Can't we do something where this gets to be that it's the principal and the hearing officer that they have to jointly come to an agreement and that that principal's input is valued at that level? I mean, I can see that I'm I'm a former educator, but I I we also what what will the hearing officers do if they're no longer hearing cases? So the answer to your question is yes, we can do that. Um they're already going to be still a part of the process. So initially when the initial um decision is made at the campus level to move or at the campus

156to move a child forward in the process to the principal for the for this hearing. They're going to collect all of the documentation uh everything and that's going to be forwarded to the district hearing office to the to the district officers to be reviewed to ensure that not only are the the violations that are there are they in line aligned with district policy state policies to be moved forward for a placement but is all of the other pieces of the due process in in place at that time. When we talk about the DAP we have we're going to go into more detail about that process. Um, so they are a part of that process. So there is a communication and a and a conversation that's being had there. Um, we're not going to at this

157time be a part of will it be 30 days or 45 days. But I will also say that currently as we stand today without this being in place. The principal already has that decision. the the the recommendation of the AP when they come forward is a recommendation for the principal to approve to make a recommendation to the district hearing officer. So, they're making a recommendation for a range of time, a range of assignment already could be uh minimum 10 days. Some of our offenses go all the way up to 90. So there's already that uh that ability of that principal to make that decision based on that individual situation, the pattern of behavior, the investigation that was brought to it, the the all of the details surrounding that specific incident, um who was involved, what

158what what occurred, what was the previous um information that we had on this situation. All of those things have to be considered for that principal to make a decision. So, when an assistant principal comes forward, they might bring something forward and say, "I'm recommending 45day placement." The principal may say, "I'm not based on what we have here." They could say, "I'm going to move forward for 30-day placement, or we're not going to move forward in this process at all, and we're going to do these things." They already have that ability in place. What we're saying is instead of taking that decision and moving it forward to another hearing process, which is identical to that one just being heard by another person, the principal is making the decision for the placement. But you're also saying that

159before that decision can be made by the principal that all of the data and information was reviewed by the district hearing officer. >> Yes, ma'am. >> I think that if that language was in here, it may make a little bit more sense. something to the effect of the campus administrator or designate shall serve as a hearing officer once the packet has been approved or you know reviewed by the district hearing officer because this doesn't look like in this policy that there is a district level input even though maybe it's somewhere else and I'm just not seeing it and there's another sentence there >> we we we can add that language if necessary >> I'm going to let um Dr. Davis has been waiting patiently uh and I think he'd have some input maybe. >> Yeah.

160Yeah. If I if I may um add a little insight, I know we we talked just yesterday somewhat about this as and what you're talking about now is what what and during my time we call the gatekeeper model. Now I think we're good. So let's talk about the mandatory that's easy that's very black and white. Really what we're talking about is discre discretionary placements. those shades of gray where it can get muddy and where it may be some disagreements and ultimately and then we're talking about ultimate you all are describing when we talk about a gatekeeper model at the end of the day who holds the power to make that final decision. Now in my experiences principles are referring the child to DAP and those discretionary the hearing officer in my experiences we're we took

161time to review all the things they they just shared and if we can't come to an agreement that's where I'm suggesting that's where I think the rub is where would the power lie because the reality is guys let's just talk let's just talk about human behavior I'm not suggesting that let's just talk about implicit biases and and when you're in the throws of something. Obviously, our principal doesn't come to school wanting to mistreat children, but we have to also be candid and open about just human the human psyche when you're close to a thing, guys. And so, thinking about those implicit biases, potential biases as you relate to as as supporting your team and so on and so forth. So, how are we best able to make those decisions? That said, I'm just suggesting that

162ultimately, typically, I would say the great majority of time, you're going to come to a consensus that hearing officers and that principle. But for those few those those those few number of times that we just can't come to an agreement. That's where to me the ultimate decision has to be where was where does the board feel comfortable that decision lies with if we can't come to a happy medium because there are shades of gray and someone's going to have to make that final decision say well hey you either re you know overturn this now at your level because if it gets to level two anyway you will likely not be supported. Does that make sense? So, so I'm simply saying in my humble opinion, most of the time we'll get there together, but if for

163some reason we cannot, I would suggest that that decision lies with that that hearing officer as as an oversight. That's the way my experiences have walked through. >> Mr. Mintz, >> so I guess it's a question for for Dr. Davis. So, as I understand what you're saying is in in in practice, >> when these things come up, the PR if the principal, if everybody's kind of in alignment, the district hearing officer is going to hear it, but it's just going to be a rubber stamp moving through >> where the district hearing officer, we're asking them to call or her to call balls and strikes is when there's when there's disagreement. That's right. >> Right. >> So, we're still providing a layer of protection. Principles are still getting input. This is this protects principles from having

164to make these decisions. Um, so I think I think our current model is just what you described. I I believe somebody can tell me I'm wrong. >> Madam sec Well, hold on. First, let's I want to get an answer to Mr. Mint's question, then I'll go to Madam Secretary. >> I I'm not I I don't know that I have a a definitive answer to your question, Mr. Mintz. Um, you're asking if our current model where we we go to the campus level principal to make a recommendation to the district hearing office if that provides a layer of protection for the principal. >> No, no. What I'm saying is in practice when these the cases come to our district hearing officers, they've got input from the principal and if the district hearing officer looks at it

165and says, "Well, yeah, I mean, I agree with that." um then it they move through kind of it it that recommendation from the principal would just simply carry through because the district hearing officer would read the principal, have the hearing and say, "Well, yeah, that's that's where we're at." Um it's only like Dr. Davis described where there's where there's a a disagreement that the district hearing officer gets the final call. I think that also leads to a more uniform, like Miss Jones was discussing, a more uniform decision-making process. Dr. Osborne, >> I'd just like to clarify what Dr. Davis um and maybe I misunderstood. I heard or interpreted that the campus principal would be the hearing officer and if there was disagreement about what to proceed on, then it would the difference would go to

166the district hearing officer, but the hearing would be with the campus principal otherwise. Is that what you were describing? Yes, that that is that is correct. And and the setup that I was accustomed to that I've been accustomed to the we start out that that hearing off and I would tell you if you poll most districts probably in the state of Texas the hearing the level one hearing officer is typically the principal but many of us have gone to that gatekeeper model because of these things. discretionary placements perhaps because they need guidance. Sometimes, not often, but of sometimes they are too close to it. And so that hearing officer would review that information, make sure they're they're in alignment that that you're following the looking at those mitigating factors, intent, and so on and so

167forth. And if for some reason there is a disagreement there, if we just can't come to an agreement, then adhering officers with that supervisory role trumps that decision. and Dr. Osborne. Um, >> might I request that we take a look at the hearing flow process um, as we discuss this so that we could look at the chart and discuss simultaneously? Brenda, is it okay if you bring that up for us? Uh, the campus level hearing process flowchart and it's an attachment for this item. Madam Secretary, >> I think I'm still struggling with the rationale. I think if if it had brought been brought to us with the data that shows we're seeking expediency, we had a backlog. We've got two hearing officers. their backlog. If we could have seen the rationale of why we're changing

168it, I just think and you know, as a former hearing officer for the school district, you want that impartial person being the one that makes that decision because when you think about the parent and how the parent might feel or not feel about the decision, the principal will say, "Well, we took it to the hearing officer." They're impartial. They're not a part of our they've reviewed all of the file. Whatever. Whatever. This decision has been made. Here's your appeal process. That's what we've had for decades. And I don't understand why we've just in a fatal swoop taken the campus level out. We put the principles in the driver's seat. To me, as a former, again, hearing officer, we're rubber stamping. Boom. And just placing kids. and I'm still struggling with it. You know, I'm not

169sure if we're going to get the result that we're expecting when we take the hearing officers out of the equation. So, I guess it's still yet to be seen. >> There's a flowchart, Dr. Osborne. >> Thank you, sir. Um so on the right hand side if we just take a look at the general education student um this entire flowchart takes in mind that the offense has taken place and the assistant principal has had a conference such that uh the recommendation is a placement at DAP. Uh so if we look at the second box under general education um that campus leader would submit all campus level hearing checklist items to the hearing officer and to the hearing office for uh review at the district level with the requirement that the hearing office approve um all of

170the contents to include the data, the discipline history um and all of the mitigating factors that resulted in a recommendation for the placement. Um, so the model or the flowchart as it's described here is a gatekeeper model in that same way. And I think what we might add with the uh opinion and uh background of Dr. Davis is that maybe there's an additional bullet there that says in the event that there is discrepancy about how to proceed with a discretionary placement, we defer to the campus, I'm sorry, defer to the district hearing officer for the decision. >> Mr. Mintz, >> so the district the district hearing officer still has to do everything except make the decision. I mean, that's how I read it. Um, again, nobody has articulated to me a reason why we need

171to change this. I don't see an upside. Why are we broke fixing something that that seems to work to work well? Um, again, I I got it, but it just seems like the district hearing officer doing everything except the hearing. And we're going to take that and put it on a campus principal who I'm sure we'll have some other briefing where we get folks to come up here and say my god the pr the campus principles don't have any time and now we're putting another requirement on rather than have people in a system that's purpose-built to handle it makes no sense. >> Dr. Osborne >> in effort to offer a um idea around compromise and based on the feedback that we received following the Smith investigation um the two-tier process is a challenge with efficiency

172and uh presents the challenge for the student remaining on campus after a significant incident. Um so if the campus was not to conduct the hearing then the recommendation from the administration would most certainly be for us to eliminate the campus level conference because in having a campus level conference we create a two-tier process and feedback that we've received from families is essentially they're going to a trialike setting twice reviewing the exact same information only to find out at a later date what's unfolding. Um so if there is discomfort with proceeding with the principal as the campus hearing officer and we want to defer to a district hearing officer then our recommendation would most certainly be to remove the campus level conference which is a version of a hearing >> Mr. M. So we're having a

173campus level. So current practice is we have a campus level conference where parents come in admin campus administrator hears it and then they send a recommendation up to the district hearing officer for final decision. So I thought we were do is that the process? >> Um to clarify uh the current process is three stages following the infraction. There would be the initial parent conference that's conducted to review the referral. Um the administrator in that scenario, which is 100% of the time the AP um going to inform that family that the recommendation is for DAP placement and that recommendation in stage two goes to a campus level conference. Um that conference is formal in style. it is conducted as a formal hearing and the authority of the principal in that scenario is to agree with the

174recommendation of the AP and then move that forward to the district level hearing officer. Um so it's a three-stage process and two of those very strongly resemble the same thing which is a formal hearing setting. The whole purpose of having that is to provide that input to the district hearing officer and to listen to families. >> The hearings hearing officer is the determining factor in placement. Um so I would not consider it or describe it as input. It is the the district hearing officer is the decider >> is the ultimate arbiter >> is yes sir. >> Okay. But but the there's the reason that we do things on campus is so that the district hearing officer can be better informed and make a better decision. >> Repeat the question one more time. >> Sure thing.

175The reason we do the campus level hearings is so that the district hearing officer has as complete a set of facts as they can. input from the campus leadership perhaps teachers from parents so that we fully understand what is happening that's leading to this placement >> that is not the purpose Micah do you want to talk about it a little bit >> absolutely so but the the campus level conference when it's conducted that's recommendation by the AP we're recommending so then the principal is making upholding adjusting or denying that recommendation and then bas bas on the outcome of that if they are being recommended for that placement then that assistant principal would take that um decision and it's and it's just we're making sure that we're informing the parents then we would if the student

176is a student with a disability they would uh have to go to either an MDE or an MDR to ensure that all of that's being followed if there's no link found there then the the district level hearing would be uh conducted at that time the assistant principal then would take all of the same information that they've pre presented to the principal. The parent is still there. The student is still there. They still have an opportunity to answer to and have an opportunity for input to all of the investigation and the um uh the evidence that has been placed in front of them. And then the district hearing officer will hear the recommendation from the principal via the AP and decide do they uphold that, do they reduce it, change it, or do they deny it

177and send a student back to the campus. So that decision process is really being done twice. Um and and Dr. Osborne is correct. Many times leaving the campus level conference as a principal, the parent would say, "Why did we do this if I've got to go do this again uh in a in in a few days? They're taking off work." And so that creates that uh lack of efficiency in that process. >> And and also I think we've talked about going back to the incident in March. It's to expedite the process. Correct. Yes. Madam Capito, >> where is the student in between the time of the campus? I think maybe that needs to be clarified from the campus level hearing then to the district level hearing because if if your rationale is we need to

178remove students and keep safer campuses now I can get behind some of this a little bit better. So where's the child at this time? >> So previously uh the child after 3 days was returned to class. we could not put them in a in an al alternative setting like ISS or OSS for more than three days at a time. Now we are we do have the ability to place that child in that ISS setting for that determined amount of time. Um however, we do that review every 10 days. I will tell you that there it is it's I'm reviewing files now where it has been six weeks from the time of the incident because of all of these steps that have to be conducted to the final determination of placement. >> Okay. So then that's

179what we're trying to solve is how long it takes for a child to actually have whatever that consequence is. >> Make that shorter, reduce the number of meetings for parents to attend and make this a quicker process. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. >> Let's let's get through everything. We're going to come back and visit that. Yes, sir. >> Are you okay with that, Mr. Mintz? Madam Secretary, >> I mean, I'm not okay with it, but >> Well, I mean that we'll come back. No, I'm saying that we'll come back to that one so they can get through all those and we'll come back to that. We've had a chance to process some information, then we'll come back and make some decisions. >> Mr. Take us back to the slideshow >> slide deck. We're not quite

180to that slide yet. Uh, put us on 20 and I'll see I'll go back if we need to. >> Okay, that's exactly where we're at. Uh, the virtual expulsion program uh that is being allowed to us by the state. Now, if a student is placed and is expelled and and assigned to JJAP, uh the juvenile justice alternative education program, uh and they are not enrolled for whatever reason, the the JJAP program does not take them or if they are because they could be full. There are capacity restrictions there. We may be told that we don't have we don't have a place for them. We could also be told a student went there, they were assigned to be there for 60 days, they're 20 days in. We've got somebody that is more severe, their infraction was

181more severe, and this child is being released and coming back to your district. Pre, as we stand here today, that student would go to DAP in person and continue their days uh and finish that assignment. This allows us to uh provide that child a virtual education uh instead of sending them back to the DAP in person. the the virtual education would be conducted by the DAP uh by the teachers at DAP and we would receive uh ADA funding for that while that child was being serviced that way. Okay, we made an uh adjustment to the dress code as we talked about earlier. Uh the addition of the clear or mesh bags to the dress code uh is found there in exhibit C on page 70 in the studio code of conduct does lay out the

182parameters for that uh that expectation. And then the last one here uh previously the uh violation first time for an ecigarette vape was a mandatory placement. Um we now have the ability on first uh the first uh incident to place the child in ISS for 10 days. Uh while they are in ISS, I don't have the full While they are in ISS, they will also conduct our vape uh anti-apee education program. It's a a lesson that they will do every day. It's a separate section of that every day for the 10 days. As an agreement of this, we're allowing them uh to to utilize this. they must complete that by the 10th day or they'll be brought forward for possible placement at DAP um because they're not they're not meeting the expectations that we've placed

183uh for that second and any consequent uh subsequent uh violations of this would be a recommendation for DAP placement um and again I want to stress this is for possession or use by a single student if they are distributing or selling that's a mandatory placement and this is for nicotine vape vapes and other nicotine products as well. Um, and so, uh, this is not for those vapes that are containing THC. Those would go under the control substance and that would be a mandatory placement. >> Now, we are >> okay, let's let's go back to the first um, one that we had discussions on, and that's the parental uh, agreement document. And I want to make sure and trustees if we can just kind of lock in here and get this one behind us. Mr. Mintz

184is suggesting that we don't utilize the parental agreement option in here. I want to make sure that everyone understands that when you get to this point where it's the placement, this student would have already had upwards of three opportunities, discipline issues where parents have been notified and parents would have had an opportunity to be active in their students conduct in our in our facilities and try to work towards improvements in their student behavior. >> That is correct. >> Correct. And so by removing this, we're saying that if you've had three offenses and no parental engagement and now it's time for DAP, we're saying, "Hey, we are not doing an agreement at this juncture." That is what men Mr. Men's recommendation is. I don't want to speak for you. I want to make sure I'm stating

185it correctly. >> Yes, Mr. President, you've you have stated that correctly. I would I would ask now, what if parents have been involved all three steps of the way and they get to that that juncture? Would you have an issue with the potential parental agreement at that juncture? Parents busting their tail trying to get their kid to behave right. They've been actively involved working. It's been documented by principal or AP. Then they get to the DAP. >> I at at that point I don't know. I mean, you have a parent that can't affect the child's behavior, but now we're going to they're going to come in and affect the behavior for a 10% discount. To me, that seems kind of counterproductive. Now, I think what is re again, I'm one of seven. you know, option

186B, well, maybe not even option B, but I think some um hybrid where it says, look, if it is a mandatory firsttime placement and parents have not had the in a place like that where parents haven't had the chance to get involved because that's going to happen. There's going to be kids who do one-time things where the parents, it comes out of the blue and a parent might be very effective at that. And I think we should give them I'm not trying to take rights away from parents. What I'm trying to do is make sure that we have standards and disciplines in this in the school. So if it's a first time, if it's mand first time, I think we're already established there. But if it's a mandatory placement, then I think the parent should

187should have the opportunity to get involved. If it's a first time and it's mandatory, 100%. But if they've been involved throughout the process and now let them getting involved again at the end when they've been ineffective at stopping it, I mean, doesn't make a lot of sense to me. >> Does anyone have an issue with Mr. Men's proposed uh revision to option B uh in place of the existing A >> what? >> Yeah, I think it would just be a modified A. >> Okay. >> Because we are adopting a policy. >> The specific language. >> Okay. I thought you were saying a modified option B, but you're referencing >> modified. Yeah, because A says we or B says we've not we've chosen not to. I think we're choosing to but with some common sense. I

188hate to use that word and I apologize with some uh you know with with some kind of thoughtful parameters on it. >> Correct. So it would be well A and B doesn't matter. It's the language that you want that would become what we would consider to adopt and so I just want you to state that language and that's what I >> Does anyone have any issues with that first? kind of I really like the principle stated there to revoke or disciplinary placement period is at the sole discretion of the school administrator. >> So I would leave it at that. So you >> so that would and of course for mandatory you couldn't do that. You wouldn't want to do that. >> So you favor option A as >> as published. That's exactly any other Madam

189Capita. Um, could we try try to get everyone in here? Is where it says no behavioral agreements are only offered for initial DAP placements and are not available for repeated placements within the school same school year. Could we adapt that to say and are not available for repeated placements or discipline action or disciplinary incidences where the parent was not involved or active or something like that. So that then we're basically saying if that parent has been we've been trying to notify the parent for repeated incidences if that parent has not been if they've been ghost the whole time because what we're saying is we don't we want them to be involved. Right. >> M I'm not Mr. Rainwater. >> I have to say I just don't feel school administrators need to be micromanaged to the

190extent we're talking about there. Thank you, sir. Mr. Mintz. >> So, I I think I mean the the last sentence is is pretty good. It would say behavioral decreements are only offered for initial DAE DAE placements, comma, are not available for repeated placements within the school year and are otherwise only available for firsttime mandatory placements or something to that effect. So, again, the example I think of is like a I guess a vape doesn't even trigger a mandatory replacement, but something that would >> if it was a THC vape one time, no other issues out of the blue, kid has one, a parent should be allowed to be get involved at that point. But if it's his, you know, if he's had all these other issues that lead up to it, sorry parent, you've lost

191your your opportunity to try to get your 10% off coupon. Okay. Now, let's go to the um the hearing. >> You go to the hearing. >> Well, I don't know that we resolved that, but we're about to get to a motion and we're that's going to kind of solve it. Someone's going to put a motion on the floor. >> Yes, sir. >> The hearing process. >> Where are we, Brit? I'm sorry. We are >> back to the >> we're going back to try to give last bit of input on the hearing process and I want to make sure I think your comment you referenced not to put words in your mouth you referenced the the campus level I think maybe you're referencing this one that he just went to the hearing process but I want

192to make sure I'm not off on that in terms of the parental agreement for your input on that. >> Yeah. Well, I I like the the parental involvement in discretionary the building principle as published in a previous slide. >> Option A, I guess we call it. >> Okay. So, Madame Vice President, >> may we go back to the clear bag policy that we had up there earlier? >> I know ahead. >> Okay. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Let's We're going to get this one out the way. I ask that we please get this one and then we'll just because I >> I think this is a pretty important one. I think the the clear bag, but any other feedback on this one? I know Mr. Mintz has has offered his feedback. Any

193other >> No, sir. I'm I'm done. Thank you. >> Okay, M. >> Madam Capito, >> Madam Secretary, >> time will tell. >> Okay. All right. clear back. >> Sure. >> So, um some of the questions that um I had in reference to our clear bag policy and I know we did that uh towards the end of the school year and refresh my memory on why we did that. >> The clear bag. >> Yes, sir. >> I was not a part of that decision at that time. So I don't know the conversation that surrounded going to clear bags at the end of the school year. >> Dr. Osborne. >> Uh thank you. Uh as we revisited the circumstances in which uh we faced the incident in March. Uh as a senior staff, we reviewed options and

194um recommendations for similar districts and similar circumstances. Uh our senior staff honestly made probably a list of 20 plus options as we proceeded with what increasing safety and security measures might look like. Um we reference uh districts locally and um outside of this area. Uh, one of the common threads was moving towards a clear or mesh bag policy um and also coming into alignment with the practices that are uh similar in athletic stadiums or at large events and concerts um that expedite the process of understanding if there might be uh a weapon or contraband or a prohibited item. Um so among uh lots of things that ended up being a part of the discussion this was one of the um precedents for uh an incident like we experienced. >> So to that um to that

195statement we allow lunch boxes and we allow purses. Um is a lunch box 6 in by 9 in? So, we've had quite a bit of feedback around this and we recognize that 6 by9 is not the easiest to locate. Um, in our most recent discussion as a leadership team, uh, we tossed around the idea of stating 6x9 2 to 12 by 12. uh which might better accommodate our community and the availability of lunch boxes or non-transparent um bags that could be brought into the building. So, that is an adjustment we're prepared to make and have discussed. >> So, I I understand that we want to do it for security reasons and I understand that a lot of parents have gone out and purchased uh clear bags or mesh bags, etc. But if I am a

196student who wants to bring a gun to school or a knife to school, that lunchbox will do just fine for me. Um, and my pocket will too. So, I don't know if we've ultimately made our school safer by requiring a clear bag. Um, because if I'm intent on doing something, I'm going to do it. And if I'm bringing contraband, the same thing. I can put it in my pencil case. I can put it in my little purse. I can put it in my pocket. Um, and it's it's there unless I go through the metal detector and it snaps me. Um, it's there. So, I don't know. I I don't know. I just the clear bag issue. I just I just don't know if we're real effective with that. >> Any other input from trustees? All

197right, trustees. We've heard the information. What's your desire? Mr. President, I mean, I'm happy to make a motion on some of these things and we can just put it to a vote and stop the wailing and nashing of teeth. >> Mr. Mintz. >> Yes, sir. I want to make sure I don't know if I need to look to Jory Moore, our council. So, it's a student code of conduct and the question was posed by Mr. Renard. we take them one at a time or as or should we just try to vote it up with the changes then if it doesn't pass with the changes and you >> I mean certainly someone could make a very extensive motion right that says I move that we have passed the student code of conduct with the following modifications

198you could certainly make such a motion I mean this board's right is to approve the student code of conduct and it's being brought to you with recommendation ations and typically that would be at this stage voting it up or voting it down but you certainly could have the right to make a extensive motion to say excluding this provision or excluding that provision. And how would we get then we'd come back to the >> and if that fails >> m Miss Moore would it be appropriate to make a motion so for example on the parental agreement make a motion regarding parental agreement options as outlined in page 19. Um I move that state what we think it should be vote it up or down then move to the second one which is of some I think

199there's three of them. there's the the parental agreement and then there's the uh DAP placement. Just make two separate motions, vote them up or down and then vote on the conduct with mo with um acknowledging motions as previously voted on by the board. >> Yeah, I think you could do that. I mean, you could certainly if if that's what the board has to do to get clarity on peace mill these issues, you could vote on each item and then make an overall with the proceeding motions. I move, you know, with those understandings, I move to adopt the student code of conduct. >> Okay. >> Right. could >> like a a big motion and amend individually. >> I think I think as as long as the board is doesn't have objection, they can do how they

200Yeah. As long as there's no objection from the board, I think you can with no debate from this board about the Roberts rules of order, I think you can do it without objection however you'd like. >> Okay. Thank you, ma'am. Madame Vice President, I was going to ask if it would be feasible that we just pulled the item uh that Mr. Mintz is referring to. Uh we approve it with that item being pulled out and then we come back to that item separately. >> Well, I think that's >> I think we need a student code of conduct tomorrow. >> Yes. Well, is your question that's what we've just talked about is extracting it out, voting on it independently, but you're saying pull it out to not vote at all tonight or you saying pull it

201out and then go back and vote on it? >> Yes. >> Yeah, that's what we're that's what we're talking about right now. >> Correct. >> M Jones, I think we're just doing it just in the reverse order. I think we're going to vote pull them out, vote them separately, and then vote the whole thing. for staying. >> Can we can we entertain the student code of conduct as presented with the following mentioned extractions for sole considerations? Are you willing to present it that way? >> I can I can um make I think I can make a motion to that effect. >> Will you capture the uh parental agreement? The uh the hearing I think it's parental agreement. the hearing and I think you want to backpack. >> No, I just wanted clarity and I want

202it to be stated in public because public is asking why do we have to spend the money on clear bags? >> Mr. Ranwater. >> Okay, so here's what I think that's >> I think that's a motion. >> That's a motion. >> I just want to confirm that. >> Mr. President, >> get a second. >> Mr. President, >> hold on one second. I I just wanted to get clarification. >> So, Mr. President, with all due respect, I think Mr. Rainwater started this out as a question. He said I what if or I would like he didn't the initial discussion was and I said I would like to make a I would make a motion for it. So if you >> as as chair I think it's a really slippery slope but I think we were I'm

203going to defer to Mr. ments in all due respects that he was preparing a motion when I paused to get clarification from Miss uh Madame Vice President that she wanted to add the clear backpacks which caused the pause which is then when you shot in not shot in well we'll say darted in or and >> but I just asked the question and it was a question. >> Yes. So we're >> standing Mr. 22. >> So I think we are fine. Thank you for for the clarification, sir. So >> and I think part of the reason is let's just get an up or down. >> Yes, sir. >> On it. >> So Mr. Mintz, it is to you. >> Mr. President, I move um that as it relates to the proposed student code of conduct, I

204move that we vote to amend the requirements. Give me one moment. I lost my place here. I mo to vote to amend as currently reflected on page 19 supplemented by handout A regarding parental agreement options as allowed by House Bill 6. I move that we allow the use of behavioral agreements under the conditions of A that it is the first placement in DAP and B that it is for mandatory placements first time where a parent has not been allowed the opportunity to correct the offensive behavior. >> Did everyone Does everyone understand that motion? Repeat it one more time, sir. I apologize, but I just want to make >> Mr. Yes, sir. Mr. President, I move that we amend the student code of conduct as presented, specifically the parental agreement provision currently described on page 19

205and supplemented by handout A. um and as permitted by House Bill Six that we allow the use of behavioral agreements for the students first assignment to DAP and for any assignment to DAE that is a mandatory placement and the students firsttime placement where the parent has not otherwise had an opportunity to be involved. I just want to make sure I have clarity because you said for their first placement to DAE and that means they potentially could have been cancelled the three steps up to that. That's why I want to make sure you how I heard it. I want to make sure that >> Yes, sir. So, it's the first the first placement meaning that they've not had another placement in DAP this year and that it is a mandatory placement. So if it's a first

206time and mandatory, >> I I think you're not saying what you want to say because if it's their first time going to DAP, they could have been through three steps of issues with the principal in which the parents were not involved >> for maybe I I I believe I did mistake it. First time and mandatory. It it is your motion, but I I don't think that's what you've articulated previously when you're saying they're because it could be their first time going to DAP, but they've got they could have gone through three different discipline issues. What I'm saying is if it's a first time and mandatory, meaning that if they are it is a mandatory placement where there's been, as Mr. Harper illustrated a DA a uh a THC pen that requires an immediate placement that

207then and under those conditions would we allow a parental agreement. >> Okay. So I I think you want to strike saying first time. I think that's >> I think I'm I'm probably just being duplicative because first time is this only applies under for first time anyway. >> Madam Capito I think go ahead. I'm sorry. Is some there's also going to be some and correct me if I'm wrong Micah is that if this the law requires that we are unable to adapt a DAP placement. So it has to be an eligible placement. Is that correct? >> No. On even mandatory there there is a range of days. >> Okay. So we can still do that. Okay. >> Yeah. >> I apologize. Sir you want to start from the beginning? >> Yeah. I'm pretty confused but go

208ahead. Yeah. >> Okay. Would you? Um, okay. Mr. President, I move yet again um that we modify the student code of conduct as presented specifically page 19 uh regarding parental agreements supplemented by handout A and as allowed by House Bill Six that we allow the use of behavioral agreements only in instances where the placement is the a mandatory placement. I think that's my motion because we're we're already protected by the first the first first offense only. So I think that is only we are allowing it for mandatory placements. If it was the second time then you wouldn't be eligible anyway. >> We have a motion by Mr. Mintz. >> Question. Can I ask a question? I think I need to wait to see if I get a second first, then I'll open up for questions.

209I have a motion by Mr. Mintz. >> We have a second by Secretary Adams. >> Further discussion, Mr. >> What about discretionary assignments? Would that omit them from the if we adopted this as policy? So if it is a discretionary then I'm assuming let me think through that for a second Mr. Rainwater. If it's a discretionary placement then a parent should have had an opportunity to intervene. So it would not include discretionary would only include mandatory as as the example that Mr. Harper described earlier where it's a THC vape pen, I think, is kind of the perfect the perfect example. So, we've got a motion by Mr. Menz. We have a second uh by Secretary Adams. Any other questions? There being none. All those in favor, show of hands. We have one. Is that up

210or down? M. Well, I know if you're waving, that's >> that's one, two, three. That's four in favor. Those opposed? We have one opposed, those abstaining. So, looks like it passes by vote of four in favor, one in opposition, and Mr. Rainwater, one abstaining, and myself. So, there you go. 411 >> and one absent and not participating, and trustee Rodney Gilchrist. >> Okay, >> so it passes. So now we go to the next step which is the uh we address parental agreements. Now we're talking about the hearing. >> Madam Capito, >> do we h can we bring this back or table this one and and use what we currently have until we come back and have maybe some more discuss I I feel like we're rushing a decision. >> I I don't know. Anything is

211possible, but we've got an item before us. I'm entertaining motions. >> Mr. President, >> Mr. Mintz, >> I move that we maintain the current DAP placement process using our district hearing officers without change. >> We have a motion by Mr. Mintz. We have a second by Secretary Adams. Any further discussions? All those in favor, show of hands. >> We have one. >> How it is? >> Yes. >> Not as presented, but as is. >> Are you sure you know what you're voting on? So, we have >> Go ahead. I'm obstaining there. >> Just hold your hand up or don't hold it up. All those in favor? >> We have three in favor. Those opposed? We have two opposed. Those abstaining, we have one abstaining and madam capo. We have one absent and not participating. So

212I >> I don't >> that's a so fails due to a lack of majority on a vote. >> Make a motion. >> I want Is it those present? Is it a simple majority? It's a simple majority of those present. >> Simple majority >> four, but three I mean >> you have to have >> You're right. >> You got it because it's an even number. >> Correct. >> So it passes it. I'm sorry. >> It fails on a 321 vote due to a lack of the majority of the quorum that is present. >> Never too old to learn. Okay. Now we have the remainder of the student code of conduct to consider. >> Madam Secretary, >> Mr. President, I move to adopt the proposed U student code of conduct as presented. >> The remaining items that

213were not taken up. >> Yes. So, we have a motion by Secretary Adams. We have a second by myself, Brett Williams. Any further discussion by trustees? All those in favor? Show of hands. One, two, three. Those opposed? >> We have three in favor, two opposed. Those abstaining, >> I I'll >> No, no, no, no. I I need you to just give me a hand on four, a hand against, or a hand to abstain. >> I would call I would recall the vote. >> I'm We have a motion by secret. >> Come on. Let's lock in. Let's lock in, everybody. Let's go. Come on. I know it's tough, but let's lock in and focus. We have a motion by Secretary Adams. We have a second by myself, Brett Williams. Any further discussion? >> Nope. I actually

214didn't mean to say that, but yes. >> So, in doing so, we've already voted one item. Uh, and the second item that we lost or we had three, two, one, whatever those crazy numbers were. So, that's still now in the body of this motion. >> That's correct. >> The motion that's going forward now. It's still in that body of that motion. >> Correct. >> As written. As written and as presented, >> which would make the principles the carrying off. >> All right. Thank you. >> As presented, >> but we extracted those items out and voted for those separately, >> but it failed and Miss Adams voted then to >> because it's now back in >> to to vote for to pass the uh as presented with that amendment. Uh, >> that's why I >> No,

215no, no, no. Okay. So, I'm going tell you that's not how I'm in. I No, we I thought I'm under the understanding that we extracted out the two items, considered those, and now we're considering the rest of the student code of conduct minus those two items. We can ask the maker of the motion what her intent was, but because there was a motion on the second extracted item and it failed, >> it now remains in the student code of conduct as written. >> Correct. >> And there was a motion to approve the student code of conduct as remains. That's >> if that's not what Miss Adams intended, she can clarify that. >> Mr. President, I mean, I'd like I believe the motion's been voted on. Can I make another motion? >> Well, it hasn't. I've

216got to get clarification because >> because Miss Capido voted for, but at the end and I don't know. >> Okay, let's let's back up. Let's back up. Let's get clarification on the motion. State let's just state your motion one more time. >> We need to recall the motion. We need to recall the motion because when it failed then it became a part of the proposed >> coc. >> That's correct. >> That was my motion >> and that's correct. >> Meaning the principles being the >> because it failed. Yes. >> Correct. >> So the way they proposed it is the way that I included it in my motion. >> That's right. >> Because it failed. >> Yes. Okay. I I madame counsel because it failed now she's presenting it as her motion as presented which means

217the principles would have that authority. Correct. >> Yes. But the the agreements have that has changed per the first vote. >> So that is okay. Yes, >> I'm on the right page. Thank you for your clarification. So does everyone understand the motion that's in front of them? It's to prove the remainder of the student code of conduct which does include as presented by staff that principles would be the hearing officers. The topic that we spent a significant amount of time discussing. That is what her motion is presented as. So now are there any questions before I call the vote? >> What about the question of the uh parent involvement for the 10% >> that vote that got voted down in the first action that Mr. Mintz presented? >> No, that got approved. >> I mean

218got I'm sorry. It got voted down. We didn't vote for it as presented originally. It was altered to be what Mr. Mintz desired it to be. We passed his amendment to the original presentation to the student code. >> It's going to be in the student code >> parental agreements as his amended motion. >> Yes. >> So, Mr. President, we've voted on Miss Adams motion. Correct. >> Well, we're about to call for the clarification vote because I didn't really get >> the first motion you voted on. >> The second one we have not. That's what we're about to take. >> Okay. So, the sec we're voting on it again. Yes, sir. >> Well, >> she retracted it. >> What? No, no, no, no, no. We we didn't retract it. The first one was voted on. The

219second one which failed due to the 321 vote and then she has now presented. This is our third action that she's put out there on this and it is as presented minus the item that was amended per Mr. Mintz the original one. That is correct. I see Madam Secretary saying that is correct. So does everyone understand the motion? All those in favor show of hands. Okay. Two in favor. All those opposed. Four opposed. One absent and not participating. So we don't have >> You do not have an approved student code of conduct. Mr. President. >> Yes, sir. Like to make a motion. I move that we pass the student code of conduct as presented with the exception of the parental agreement amendment previously voted on as well as that we maintain the current DAP placement

220as it exists today and not as it is presented in the current student in the proposed student code of conduct. >> A motion. >> Mr. Mr. President, I I move that we approve a student code of conduct acknowledging or in um incorporating the previous vote regarding parental agreements and and so this is a change to what is currently presented that we maintain the DAE placement um process as it currently exists without change. >> We have a motion by Mr. Mintz. Does everyone understand what that motion is? >> I have a question. >> Well, let's see if we get a second first. We have a motion by Mr. Mintz. We have a second by Madame Capido. Questions? Madame Vice President, >> when you say without change or as it exists, is it in reference to the

221document before us or previous? It is my intention is that >> last year's as it's being executed today, it will be executed tomorrow. >> Thank you, >> Madam Capido. >> When we vote on this, I just feel like there's not enough clarity right now. It sounds like that the staff wants some type of a change, but we need to approve a code of conduct. Can they bring it back to us later and we amend the code of conduct if necessary, or is this it for the whole year? I sorry I'm not trying to make it complicated. >> I wouldn't want to do that. I would say let's adopt a student code of conduct. Let's give our let's give our team our administrators. They've got guidance. Let's let them go. >> I think it would be

222difficult to change your student code of conduct in the middle of the school year. >> So we have a motion by Mr. Mintz. We have a second by Madam Capido. Any further discussion by trustees? Mr. Rangwater. through the student code of conduct. >> Would it revert back to what's in place? >> Yes. Um, you need to approve you need to approve a student code of conduct. That's required by law. >> Okay. You have a motion by Mr. Menz, a second by Madam Capido. Any other questions? All those in favor, show of hands. >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Point of clarity. >> Secretary Adams. >> So, this motion is establishing that we're going back to campus level hearings >> the way we did previously and the district hearing officer having the final say at placement. >>

223Is that what your motion consistent process? >> Okay. >> Any other questions? All those in favor? Show of hands. One, two, three, four, five in favor. Those opposed, one and myself, Brett Williams. Those absent and not participating is Trustee Rottney Gilchrist. So passes by a 511 vote. Thank you for your good work. Thank you, Mr. Wells. So now we'll go to item B, which is a consideration of a second addendum to substitute staff placement agreement with ESS South Central LLC. Welcome, Mr. Will Baker. All right. Thank you, Mr. President. Dr. Davis, thank you. And board members, thank you. Uh we are um as you know, we have an agreement with ESS to co-source our substitute placements. We are suggesting an amendment to our agreement in terms of pay for our great substitutes that work for

224us. So just to review some facts, we did increase our overall fill rate by 11% over 23 24. We're not satisfied with that. We're looking at the stats. We saw some really good movement in fill rates though at the end of the year. So from March to May, our fill rates for teachers went up between 80 and 95%. That's what we were targeting and we'd like to hit it for the full year. So our the good things that we have going are our current subpool is now three times as large as it was at the beginning year of the year last year. Uh that is that is crucial that we keep uh getting that subpool increased. However, we know that our current subpay lags behind our our neighboring districts by about 10 to$15 per at

225every level. So, we also know that our pay for assistant and secretarial positions is not high enough for folks taking the job and you can see that in the stats as we're presenting them. And we didn't give a sub sub pay increase last cycle. So, what we'd like to do is raise the pay. We think that will fill the the the pay rates, the increase the uh fill rates in all the positions, not just the teachers, but also in our secretarial and aid jobs. So without further ado, unless you need me to stop and talk about any of those issues, uh I'll present what we're proposing. At the top of this chart, you'll see what we currently have. Um we have for non-deree folks, we have 90 degree for a te 90 uh dollar a

226day for a teacher. Uh $80 for aid or secretary. A full day uh teacher for with a four-year degree gets a $100 a day. And then if we have a certified teacher, they get 115. What we'd like to do and what ESS has proposed to us and they would like to see is kind of a a graduated uh rate uh as we go through the year is to encourage folks not to just take two or three jobs and then quit on us uh or uh where we sink all the money and and time into training them. We want to reward folks who take more jobs through the year. So you can see as we go through the year uh if you're a non-deree folks you'll start the first 10 days at 95 then you'll go

227to 100 till your 30th job and then when you take your 31st job you go to 105 you get over 50 days you get 110 now in that first column I want to really uh explain this correctly the long-term full day uh rate is at 100 degree $100 at the one to 10 mark but when you get to uh 11, it'll start increasing by $5. So, you'll get a little Does that make sense? You'll get a little bump in there. Um uh for if you take a long-term um assignment, then for our four-year degree, we do same kind of thing. We start at 105, then 110, 115, and then if you get all those 50 days, those folks are really, you know, give us a lot of their time, we'd get them reward them with

228$120 a day. And then if they take a long-term assignment, we give them 135. And then I I won't read them all, but you can see the rates for the uh full day state certified teachers. So this is what we're proposing. We think using this kind of uh uh uh salary agreement arrangement will encourage more folks to take more jobs through the year. Okay. And so that's what we're proposing. Any questions? >> Questions from trustees? Mr. Mintz. >> Mr. Have you been generally pretty satisfied with with ESS and with the program? I mean, obviously, we have to put some money into it to attract more, but I'm sure on the management level, has it been successful? >> I was pleased towards the end of the year. I we we would hold meetings with them, hold

229meetings with them. They got better and better and improved to the end of the year. I've had an end of year meeting, went over their performance with them. I put forth what I expect this year, which is for us to meet those standards that we saw in March, April, and May of last year. I And let me add, Mr. Mintz, if you will. I'm sorry. Uh we also looked at campuses where they they were lagging behind the the district average and we asked for a targeted plan for each of those campuses and we have that from ESS. >> Any other questions from trustees? This is an action item. Madam Secretary, >> I move to approve the second addendum to the substitute staff placement agreement with ESS South Central LLC's presented. A motion by Secretary Adams

230have a second by Madame Capido. Any further discussion by trustees. There being none, all those in favor show hands. We have six in favor, none in opposition, one absent and not participating in board member Rodney Deal. Chris, thank you. We'll now move to C, which is consideration of a letter of no objection for Dong Jing Semikim Texas Inc. Foreign Trade Zone designation. Mr. Heckinberg. Good evening, Mr. President. I've got again Tyler Robert with me from the Colleen Economic Development Corporation. Again, they're seeking a consideration for a letter of nonobjection for the Dong Jim Sim Kim uh as they pursue an FTZ exemption. is again as we briefed last week uh currently the FTZ would allow them to be exempt from inventory tax and allowed deferral of import duties on products entered the US. >> Questions

231from trustees. Mr. Rimwater >> what's the length of time? >> Uh currently today the company has not designated a length of time. They have indicated to us that it is a potential short-term um use as they develop out their systems. Obviously with the um changeover in contract between Samsung and Tesla uh that has kind of actually activated the site um and so that will potentially expedite the need to develop more systems uh to in their processes to distill the products that they have. So we have been told potentially uh around 5 years that they would use the FTZ uh as they get new systems online and the new development. seems like their inventory would grow a lot in five years. >> So, what we've shown you right now is current max capacity for the tanks

232that they have on site, which is at $46,000. Um, obviously, any good accountant uh for a company um based on how you project out when you take the snapshot for your inventory levels. That'll change throughout the calendar year as it transitions from their site to uh other companies such as Samsung. Um, so what we're showing you to the school district is the max uh potential for the impact of the school district. Uh, but we would anticipated that it being much much less um, just depending on where they are in terms of their sales to the company. >> Any other questions from trustees? This is an action item. Mr. Menz, >> Mr. President, I move to approve the letter of no objection for Dong Jin SEM Semic Texas Incorporated as presented. >> We have a motion

233by Mr. Mintz. We have a second by Madame Madam Capido. Any further discussion by trustees? All those in favor, show of hands. One, two, three. We have five in favor. Those opposed? We have one opposed in Vice President Jones and we have one absent and not participating in trustee Rodney Gilchrist 511 vote. Thank you, Mr. Harder. >> Thank you. >> Uh we'll now go to D, which is consideration and possible action regarding a resolution approving the sale of the real property surface only together with any and all improvements for the property commonly known as Sugarloaf Elementary School 1517 Barber Lane, Colleen, Texas. Welcome, Mr. Rich. >> Thank you, sir. So, as we briefed at the uh board workshop on October 27th of 2020, uh following the consolidation of six elementary schools into three as part

234of the 2018 bond, the board approved a resolution to declare former Bair and Clifton Park elementary schools as excess. Uh per government code, this is the first step that we must take in order to auction or exchange real property. At the time, we did not include uh former Sugarloaf Elementary School as part of that resolution as we explored other options. Uh this item includes a resolution that will declare former Sugarloaf Elementary as excess so that staff can take the next necessary next steps to advertise the property and host a public bid. Um east each of the three decommissioned properties I've mentioned cost the district approximately 90 to $100,000 annually. Uh so if we are able to sell all three, it'll result in an annual savings of roughly $300,000. Uh the administrative recommendation is to approve

235the proposed resolution authorizing the sale of district-owned property. >> Questions for Mr. Rich? This is an action item. Madam Capito, >> I move to approve the proposed uh resolution authorizing the sale of district owned real property that is in excess to the needs of the district as presented. >> I have a motion by Madame Hedo. I have a second by Secretary Adams. Any further discussion by trustees? There being none, all those in favor, show of hands. have six in favor, none in opposition, one absent, not participating in trustee Rodney Gilchrist. Thank you, Mr. Rich. We'll now go to E, which is consideration of provoke proposed revisions to board policy FD local admissions and board policy FM local student activities. Welcome, Dr. Buckley. >> Thank you. Um this first uh proposal is really a cleanup. When

236we passed the um Senate Bill 401 for homeschool, we placed that um based on TASMB's recommendation in FM local. Since then, they have revised it and they put the language for the homeschool that we have to put in. They've moved that to FD local. Um so if you if you want to look at the actual procedure um it's taken the top of FM local and it is placing it over in FD local with a caveat added to FD local to refer caveat in FM local to refer to FD local for that same language. They just put the homeschool portion in a different policy. Um so we are first asking for approval on um that swap. >> Questions for Dr. Buckley? This is an action item. Madam Secretary, >> I move to approve the proposed revisions

237to board policy FD local admissions and board policy FM local student activities as recommended by Tabsby uh policy services. >> We have a motion by Secretary Adams. We have a second by Madame Capido. Any further discussions by trustees? There being none, all those in favor show hands. One, two, three, four. We have six in favor. Those opposed, Mr. Mintz is in opposed and absent and not participating is trustee Rodney Gilchrist. So 611, I'm sorry. 511 vote with Mr. Men in opposition. We'll now go to F which is consideration of proposed revisions to board policy FNCE local student conduct personal telecommunications electronic devices. Dr. Buckley, >> this is a revision of FNC local to address the state um law of banning cell phones. They have totally um scrapped the old policy and replaced it with the

238new policy here. Um and so we are bringing that forward um for approval. >> Questions for Dr. Buckley? This is an action item. >> Madam Capito, >> I move to approve the proposed revisions to board policy FNCE local student conduct personal communication electronic devices as recommended by the TASBY policy services. >> We have a motion by Madame Capido. We have a second by Secretary Adams. Any further discussions by trustees? There being none, all those in favor show hands. We have six in favor, none in opposition, one absent and not participating in trustee Rottney Gilchrist. Thank you, Dr. Buckley. We'll now go to G, which is a consideration of the Texas Association of School Boards Policy Manual Update 125 affecting local policies as listed below. One, BDAA officers and officials duties and requirements of board officers.

239Two, BDB, Board Internal Organization Board Committees. Three, BDF, Board Internal Organization Advisory Committees. Four, EI, Academic Achievement. Five, FDE admissions, school safety transfers. Six, FEC attendance, attendance for credit. Mr. Harper. >> Thank you, Mr. President, members of the board. Dr. Davis uh was asked at the last board workshop about two different questions con uh concerning these. First of all, the BDAA, the officers and officials uh updated policy, how that compared to our board operating procedures and they are in align with each other. So in fact, the board operating procedures uh specifically refer to BDAA for officer election. So they are in compliance with each other. Uh the second question was in regards to FEC attendance, attendance for credit, a question about the percentage of uh percentage of attendance credit that was given uh for the

240request. Um they are still entering numbers for this year. So, it's pretty far off from the numbers the last two years, but in the 2024 uh school year, uh there were a total of 1,48 uh different requests and 85.9% of those were approved. Um and the year before that in the 2023, uh there was a total of 1,095 uh requests or appeals and 88.8% of those were approved. Questions for Mr. Harper. This is an action item. Madam Secretary, >> I move to approve the addition, revision, or deletion of local policies as recommended by TASBY policy services and according to the instruction sheet for TAPS localized policy manual update 125 as presented. >> We have a motion by Secretary Adams, second by Mr. Mintz. Any further discussion by trustees? There being none, all those in favor,

241show of hands. We have six in favor, none in opposition, one absent and not participating, and trustee Rodney Gilchrist. Thank you, Mr. Harper. We'll now go to H, which is discussion of fiscal year 2026 accelerated instruction budget. Miss Vayton, >> thank you and good evening. Nope. There we go. Um, first item we're going to talk about tonight, um, every year before we can adopt our regular budget, uh, we are legally required to, uh, adopt some funds from our state compensatory funding. Um, and so the district has historically done that by adopting or approving $100,000 that is set aside for uh students that have not passed their end of course exams. And so this is just an awareness evening uh item tonight um that on the 26th when we come for adoption, this will be the

242first item budget related that we will ask for approval on. >> Questions on the accelerated instruction budget? All right. Thank you, Mr. We'll now go to I, which is a consideration of proposing the fiscal year 2026 district budgets. One, general fund budget. Two, school nutrition fund budget. Three, debt service fund budget. Miss Veyton, >> thank you again. Um, so we will, as you said, we will look through the three funds that the board is required to adopt. Uh, those being the general fund, which we talk about very often. Every district in the state is going to have a general fund and this is used for regular operations of the district. In addition to that, the board is required to adopt a school nutrition fund which uh accounts for those federal funds that are related to

243the uh national school lunch program and then the debt service fund which is to account for um incoming revenues and uh related expenses for outstanding voterapproved bonds. So, we'll start out talking about the general fund. Um, we talked about before at this point our approved U M rate, uh, the maximum compressed rate from TEA and then the 5 cents that we can add locally that the board voted to do. Uh, so our M rate will remain the same at 6682 per $100 valuation. Um, talked about this item also. The homestead exemption has been increased this year to $140,000. Um and then just a reminder, um we are funded primarily based on our ADA. And so as we uh local taxes go up or down, uh the state revenue is inverse related to that. So I

244just I think that's a common misperception. I like to to repeat that to the community. I think oftentimes they think as as property taxes go up that that means the district gets quite a bit more revenue. Um, and so just want to point that out that that's a misconception that sometimes occurs. Um, here are our budget assumptions as we've looked at in the past. Um, again, we've talked about the tax rate, the homestead exemption. Um, we do have the starting teacher pay at 59160. We do have the uh raises that were previously approved as well as those that were required by House Bill 2 included. and then the additional four uh additional $25 towards employer contribution towards health insurance included as well. Um and one reminder, one change that we did make um towards the

245bottom the vacancy factor, the unfilled positions, um we have increased or decreased whichever way you want to look at it um to 94%. So we expect that uh rate to increase just a little bit. This next item is uh 10 years worth of enrollment and ADA information. Um you can see across uh the chart for the most part um they track very well in line. Um the difference is you can see 2019 and 20 um kind of the impacts um after that that co COVID has had and those decreases after that. Um and then do uh notice 2425 there was fairly significant decrease and we expect that de decrease to continue uh into our 50 our 202526 budget as well. This is information that we went over as well last time. Um just uh changes

246in our certified property values that we receive each year from the tax appraisal district. Um, again, the homestead exemption has has changed uh throughout the course of this. In 2022, it was 40,000. Uh, 23 and 24, it was the 100,000. And then our 25 values are at the 140,000. Um, and the important piece to this is the bottom right uh number, the freeze adjusted taxable for the current year that we're looking at. Um, overall the value that we will be taxing or that will be taxed on our behalf has gone down just over 3.3%. Here is that same information uh represented graphically over the last 10 years. Again, very very um significant increases over the the early years um and then not quite as significant the most recent years and then actually the decrease going

247into this year. So this is our overall tax rate comparison. The two things that want to point out on here um the tax rate for our M will remain steady. Um again typically as values increase there is some forced compression of the tax rate on the M side. Um since our overall value taxable value did decrease um they don't uh there's not any additional tax compression so our M rate will remain exactly the same. Um we have finalized calculations on our interest and syncing tax rate. Um there is a very very minor increase and we'll go into that more as we talk through the debt service fund. So here is the actual comparison of our numbers. Um revenues are across the top. You see the first column is our current year adopted budget. The 2526

248budget proposal is in the middle and then the anticipated increase or decrease. Um the top portion is the revenues. You will see the local revenues overall decrease of 7.9 million. Again, we kind of talked about that we anticipate the values overall have gone down and and part of that's related to that homestead exemption. Um, very much on the other side of that on the state revenues have gone up um over 38 million. The biggest pe part of that is is like we've talked about that inverse relationship with the property taxes. The biggest piece of that is House Bill 2 that came out of the legislature. And then our federal revenues, there's a slight decrease there. Um, included in those federal revenues, that does include our negative 10 million for our impact aid. There are some

249increases related to our rate revenue that comes in um indirect cost that's associated with our grants as well and some a very minor increase in our charge revenue, school health and related services revenues. The expenditures at the bottom are summarized by what we call our object code. Um this is description of what we are purchasing. So whether we're you know what we're buying, whether it's payroll, whether we're buying equipment. Um you can see the largest increase in expenditures as I think you would expect is the payroll and the benefits. Uh again primarily as a result of House Bill Two. Um the next category that that's highest is our professional services. This is going to include since we outsource with ESS, this is our substitute funding. Um so there's a little bit of an increase there.

250Um just overall related services from um potentially legal services, audit services, any curriculum um consultants, etc. would be in this category. Um and then an overall expenditure increase of 29.2 million. Um and so you'll notice at the bottom the actual change in what we are proposing is just a slight decrease of $186,000. Here's that same information uh just shown um graphically. Um, as you would expect, our payroll is our largest expenditure. We've often talked about the percentage that is spent on payroll. Um, as you can see here, our planned expenditure for next year um are slightly over 84 84 uh%. They were at 83 this year. So, we've again added a little bit to what we've spent on payroll. Um, the remaining items uh we've kind of talked about the professional services are the next

251highest group. Um and then we've got other operating which is typically your travel related uh either staff and or student and then a small portion that's spent on equipment. So this is this is that budget by what we call function. So the first one tells you what you were buying. This tells you the purpose of your expenditure, why you're buying it. Um and this is the by function code is what the board is legally to uh legally required to adopt. Um and so we have here all of those by function and again the increase or decrease over the current year adopted is in the far right column. Um instruction the very first one is by far the largest increase at just over 22 million. Um again, most of that's going to be um your teacher

252raises, staff raises, um aids would be in there, but again, the largest piece of that's going to be our House Bill 2 increases. Um the next highest change is towards the bottom. The other thing I want to point out, function 52 is our security and monitoring. Uh as Mr. Heckinberg pointed out at the beginning of the meeting uh quite a bit of expenditures were added regarding our um safety safety team safety equipment um and then our our police force as well. So overall increase of 29.2 million as far as expenditures are concerned in the general fund. >> Mr. President, M, could you just talk briefly about uh line item 13? That's a pretty significant increase. Could you just tell us what that is with a little more detail? >> Um, function 13 is going to

253be anything with curriculum and instruction. So, that's staff that could be staff related to um those that uh supervise curriculum and instruction. It could be the actual purchase of curriculum as well. So, is that the addition of the PLC personnel or is that we just bought more stuff? >> I don't know particularly. I'm going to say it's not the addition of the PLC's. >> I can get more information. I can bring you that next week. There's no questions. I'm moving on. Um, school nutrition fund is next. I want to point out uh community eligibility provision which provides free breakfast and free lunch at campuses is still provided continue to be provided at the same 37 campuses that it was this current year. um the child and adult food care program. This will be new. We're

254really excited to bring this to you. Um it's currently on I think 11 13 campuses, sorry, 13 campuses currently. Um and so our school nutrition team will lead that. Um and then over the course of um probably September bring on additional elementaryaries and then Octoberish time frame bring on um additional secondary campuses. Um and so that would be free meals for students um after school participating in in after school programs or just staying at school um any of those kinds of activities. So excited about that one. Um free breakfast. We do provide free breakfast at all of our campuses. And then on the far right piece of information, just the number of staff that are involved in this program um with the campus staff and the office staff. Uh the school nutrition team has over

255500 staff members that they're working with. Madame Vice President >> Kellen um on our food our school nutrition fund um especially the adult and child and adult care food program for the supper program. >> Yes. >> Um are we reimbursed from by the USDA or from the USDA for these programs? Yes, we would be reimbursed >> in in it in its entirety or are we having to fund some of this program? >> No, it will well, it will be re reimbursed in its entirety. Um, part of that depends on what we would have to spend on it. Um, there is a reimbursement rate. So, as long as we manage to spend less for it than the reimbursement rate, it would be a money-making activity. Um so somewhat depends on on how the program is one

256run but I fully expect it um to cover the the >> and that includes product and staffing. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> And and I had a question. Well I'll wait till the end. Go ahead. >> Madam CO >> last year I remember that when you brought us some of the school I'm going to let you get to the next slide and then I'm gonna >> Okay. Um same type setup for our school nutrition fund. Um revenues are um local revenue, state, federal. Um local revenues we expect to increase um partially related to breakfast in the classroom programs. Um and then partially um related to this afterchool care. The biggest increase is the federal revenue. That's kind of what you were just referring to, Miss Jones. um this supper program um

257we expect an increase not entirely but uh the majority of that increase is related to uh assuming the role over the supper program. The expenditures below as you would expect payroll benefits increases are related to uh the board approved raises that were done earlier this year. The largest increase is in supplies and materials. Um again that's going to be related to that um supper program as well as some other programs you know and just costs in general but most of that's related to the supper program and then the biggest decrease under capital outlay if you remember last year part of the budget we talked about uh the excess fund balance and that we had in fact this summer did there were 10 kitchens uh that we didn't complete equipment replacement and so that activity will

258not be in in the next year's budget. So that's the majority of the decrease as far as the capital outlay. So brings you to a net um for proposed for next year is an increase of $277,000 to fund balance. Um but it does look like a large um increase when you're looking at the increase decrease, but that's why it's related to those kitchen equipment replacements. >> Mapo, >> do we have any other kitchens that need Last year we talked about all of the kitchens and supplies and equipment we needed to order and some of it may have been on back order. So with those 10 kitchens, are we done or do any of our other campuses I mean if we're having that much of an increase, are there other ones that need to be done?

259>> I'm going to say there are always going to be parts or pieces of equipment that we could um replace. Um I know there was an evaluation done. They hired that professionally to go through and rank um all of the kitchens and recommend which ones needed the attention. uh the most and so then based on our funding that was the sources that we did this summer and part of that I think um had to do with timing as well obviously we needed to get that done during the summer um so I'm I feel confident as we continue to go through budget process um and evaluations that we would be bringing similar recommendations forward >> thank you >> madam secretary >> for the new um supper program you said 13 campuses are they all Elementary. Are

260they elementary, middle, high, or >> the ones that are current? >> You said there were 13 campuses that would be doing the supper program. >> Yes. >> So, a variety of camp. >> Well, I mean, correct. There's 13 that are current and then the additional um as the year progresses, we will add those in as well. >> But they're all different grade levels. >> All different grade levels. Correct. Here's that same summary very similar to the general fund. This is that the object code represented graphically. Um very similarly um you see a large portion spent on payroll. Um but as as again we talked through the budget a large portion the largest portion is actually spent on um supplies, materials, food etc. Um but it is obviously very um supply and staff heavily oriented program.

261Uh same information presented but by the function code. Again this is the purpose of the expenditures. There are uh the revenue is the same at the top. The expenditures there are only two that are typically used in your school nutrition program. Uh those being 35, which is designated food service, which as you can tell by the proposed budget of of just over 33 million, that's going to be the largest piece. That's going to be your day-to-day operations. Um any of those kinds of of activities, even your equipment piece would be in there. Um the 51 really is basically your utilities um and some and particularly some equipment, maybe maintenance and those kinds of activities. um an overall proposed um change in fund balance again 277,000 for school nutrition >> and Dr. Davis, >> I'm sorry.

262I'm sorry to make you go backwards, Miss Ba. Just a quick question for clarity for me. Back back to the universal free breakfast for all campuses and reduced. Does does that require I don't quite remember. Uh as it relates to parents still they no longer have to fill out the free and reduced forms or do they still have to complete those that do >> for for the universal breakfast? No, there are no required forms for that. We provide that free for all students. Uh no, what you're talking about is free and reduced lunch applications. We have some campuses, it's on the cover page, um 37 campuses that fall under the community eligibility provision um which is a um I'm going to call like a direct certification type program based on overall um number of students

263at that campus that would qualify. And so the the percentage is high enough that it's to our advantage um to offer that free lunch to all of the students on that campus as well. >> And that and that question is grounded in I know a few years ago when this came about. I'm just wondering how does that going to universal long no longer have to complete the forms. How does that impact accountability? Now you it's not reflective per se of our true given a true glimpse of our eco dis student population. Does that make sense? I'm just saying does I'm just curious from the staff how is that partitioning negatively and I'm not suggesting let me be clear to the public. I'm not suggesting this is a bad thing universal free. I'm just wondering what's

264the unintended consequences as it relates to accountability system and potential funding >> for the other campuses. We do have a family income survey form. Sure. Um, and in fact, our campuses are in the process of of having parents fill those out. Um, and so those would be used for the accountability piece for those campuses. >> Well, do we feel like we're capturing the numbers or getting those forms back? That's ultimately the question. I just know some districts when this occurred, they we had a hard time because parents no longer have to fill them out to eat pre andor reduce. So, are we truly capturing and getting those foreign back to impact? Does that make sense? >> I'm I'm going to say yes on both sides. I know as far as the school nutrition team, um

265they have dedicated staff. They reach out multiple times um either um written correspondence, phone calls, those kinds of things and and very very diligent in reaching out and getting those forms completed. Um and very likewise the family income survey as well. Um we've we've got staff that monitor that. So we know um you know which students have have completed that, which ones have not um and and are continually monitoring that and giving feedback to those to those campuses so those forms get completed and turned in. >> Thank you. I digress. Appreciate it. >> So the last fund we're going to talk about is our debt service fund. Again, this counts for uh the property tax revenue that comes in and then the principal and interest payments that go out each year for our voter approved

266bonds. Um the you see on the left there, this is our total through we've got debt scheduled out through 2004. Um some of those were voted directly and then as we have had opportunities over the years to um either refund or what we call refinance those we've taken advantage of that uh opportunity. Uh the proposed tax rate for our interest in syncing fund uh will go up by 0.2 cents not two cents but 0.2 cents. Um so which is very very minimal. So just roughly did did calculations. So on like $100,000 house it's going to be $2. Um so half a million house would be $10. So it is very very minimal uh the impact that that will have. Um and then on the right you see there our typical annual payments again um the

267intent when those are scheduled out as we've had bonds are to keep those payments very steady um over the life of those bonds. And so annually that's about a 26 to 27 million payment. Do want to point out that debt service uh we've talked about on the the M side there's tax rate compression mandated by the legislature that does not uh impact our interest in syncing. Um there is uh very much that same component we talked about the inverse relationship. So as our property values go up or down, uh state assistance related to um debt would go up or down as well. Um again, very much offsetting. Um and then just a kind of a reminder, part of uh the property tax as well on the M side, we have the 321 discount that also

268is applicable to our debt service fund. same comparison. Um, this one we've got by function because there really is only one one function than one object um within the debt service fund. So, we've only got one comparison. But you see our revenue um is expected anticipated to go down by just just under $900,000 looking at at 27.9 in revenues. Um expenditures looking at uh the 27.5. Um so at this point projected to add uh 361,000 to our fund balance which you can see is compared to what we adopted last year that's very much a decrease of 1.1 million. And so with that said um I know you probably can't see this um but this would be the approval format. Um, this is the three funds and the function totals off on the left that the

269board would uh we would anticipate the board approving on the 26th of August. Then the last thing I have put in here, you've seen this before, these are the event dates. Um, again, uh, tonight we're here um to propose budgets. Um, we have a the required newspaper ad is expected to be published in the Colleen Daily Herald on Friday. At that same point, we will put a summary onto our website. Um, and then anticipation of budget adoption on the 26th. >> Tell me what questions you have. >> Questions from trustees. Madame vice president. So, Kellen, um, probably mid July, we had a briefing and we were talking about a balanced budget and I was ecstatic, absolutely ecstatic. Um, and now we're at a $4 million deficit. Um, and I know the administration is going to

270say, "We're going to shake that out." Um, where do we plan on shaking that out at? >> This is the same idea that we did last year. If you remember last year, we adopted the $4 million deficit that allowed us to use prior year fund balance state comped fund balance >> um intentionally to pay for instructional coach salaries. This is a continuation of that. So, it's absolutely on purpose and the intent is to use prior year fund balance >> because under the restrictions of the fund balance, we have to have a negative in order to access those funds. >> Correct. >> I just want to make sure. >> Correct. All right. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> This is an action item. >> Madam Secretary, >> I move to officially propose the fiscal year

2712026 district budgets for the general fund, school nutrition fund, and debt service fund as presented for consideration at a public meeting to be scheduled for this purpose. of a motion by Secretary Adams, a second by board member Mintz. Any further discussion by trustees? There being none, all those in favor, show of hands. We have five in favor, none in opposition, two absent and not participating, and trustee Marvin Rainwater and Trustee Rodney Gilchrist. So, it's a 502 vote. Thank you, Miss Fton. Uh, let the record reflect at 8:57 p.m. Mr. Rainwater had to excuse himself from the meeting. We'll now go to agenda item J which is consideration of proposing the 2025 tax rate of.8778 consisting of 87.8778 cents consisting of maintenance and operations at 6682 cents and debt service at.2096 cents for the fiscal year

2722026 revenue budget. Miss Ven >> um as we just discussed um talked about the M rate would remain the same very slight increase to our INS rate um which would be a an overall total of 8778 and we would adopt this as well on the 26th. >> Questions from trustees. >> This is an action item. Madame Vice President, >> Mr. President, I move to officially propose the 2025 tax rate consisting of maintenance and operations at 0.662882 and debt service at 0.2096 for a total tax rate of 0.8778 for the fiscal year 2026 revenue budget. We have a motion by Vice President Jones. We have a second by board member Mintz. Any further discussion by trustees. There being none, all those in favor, show hands. We have five in favor, none in opposition, two absent and

273not participating, and trustee Marvin Rainwater and trustee Rodney Gilchrist. 502. Thank you, Miss Ven. We'll now go to K uh which is consideration of scheduling public public meeting to discuss and adopt the fiscal year 2026 budgets and tax rate. >> You're still here, M. >> I am. As part of the budget adoption process, uh we are required to have a public hearing um and get anyone's input from the community that would like to speak. Um and so part of that is um having a newspaper ad or article in the newspaper. Um to notify that, it has to be at least 10 days before our budget adoption. We've got that ad scheduled to run on Friday. Um which will again notify the public of our August 26th proposed adoption and the opportunity for them to attend

274the public hearing. >> Questions from trustees? This is an action item. Mr. Mintz. >> Mr. Mr. President, I move to officially schedule August 26th, 2025 as the date of the public meeting to discuss and adopt the fiscal year 2026 budgets and related tax rates. >> We have a motion by Mr. Mintz. We have a second by Madame Capido. Any further discussion by trustees? There being none, all those in favor? Show of hands. We have five in favor, none in opposition, two absent and not participating, and trustee Marvin Rainwater and trustee Rodney Gilchrist. >> Thank you, Miss Vton. Is that >> Thank you for your hard work. >> Absolutely. >> Yes, ma'am. We'll now >> lot of other people involved in that besides me. >> Well, thank you to you and your entire team. Thank you.

275And please share that with them. Yes, ma'am. >> We'll now go to item 10, information items for discussion. A will be discussion of spring 2025 state of Texas assessments of academic readiness star results for grades three through eight and high school endocourse assessments. Miss SS, welcome. >> Thank you, Mr. President, Dr. Davis. Board members, this is a this presentation will be a highle review of our district results. On this slide here, these are just some of the topics that we will discuss at any point in time. Should you have any questions, please feel free to ask. We want to look at some general information and we'll start with a timeline. So here, what you see in April, we administer the star test. Then we receive our early results and that kind of gives us a

276glimpse of the data from the students. Then as we shift into our preliminary star score reports, that right there is more about review and appeal. And so you see that that will run simultaneously with our rescore window. And during that rescore window, we have the opportunity to um change a score code, maybe from an absent to a score, but we also have the opportunity to do a rescore. In this case, we have our extended constructor responses. Um that's the written responses that the students give on the RLA or ELA test. So, if a campus says they want to have a rescore, they would submit it during that window. If there was a positive change on that score, then it would be reflective in the final score and that is the conclusive results that will then

277translate into our A throughF ratings. And so now here we are on the cusp of actually getting A throughF ratings for the first time since 2022 in the month of August. So um they will be publicly released on texaschools.gov on August 15th. Being that I'm sharing with you spring results, this demographic page and the next slide will actually be representative of students that were enrolled in the fourth nine weeks at the end of the fourth nine weeks. So, we do have um both the percentages and also the student count should you want to look at both. When we're looking at our economically disadvantaged, we're sitting at around 62%. Um military connected want us to be very careful with that. how we look at it through accountability and how you look at it through impact aid

278are very different. So we do see that roughly 50% of our student population at that time is military was military connected special education we have roughly 8,800 students that were identified under the special education umbrella and then our emergent bilingual had roughly 5,500 students. As far as our student population, roughly 85% of our students fall within the African-American, Hispanic, or white subopuls. So, now we will look at the overall star performance. So, I just want us to kind of wrap our brains around the all students, all subject concept. This is where we take um all 20 assessments, all 20 star assessments from grades three all the way up to high school. And then we take all of those scores of all of the students and we do a comprehensive calculation. And so it will look

279like this. When we look at the right hand side on that chart, you can see collectively all students, all assessments, at the approaches we were at 70, at the meets we were at 41% and at masters we were at 15%. So you can see our data is remaining relatively constant. So to summarize what you will see on subsequent slides, reading does continue to be our strongest content area. Science we had marked improvement across all of our performance levels. Math does still remain an area of concern, especially in grade seven. And we do still have performance gaps among our student groups, particularly students receiving special education services and our emergent bilingual students. And you'll see that on the next slide. So I want to make sure that we're orienting ourselves with this slide. So we can

280see on the lefth hand side we have approaches are above and the right hand side we have the meats are above. Students who are in the meets are above also does fall within that approaches are above. Very want to make sure that we understand how that works. If we shift over to the left hand side under the approaches are above we will look at that first column on the left that represents the district. So if we're looking at the top of that bar, we see that that represents 70% of our students were at approaches or above for 2025. If we go down to the bottom of that bar, you will see that negative one. Basically, what that is telling us is that in 2024, our district at approaches or above was at a 71%. So

281we had a 1% decrease. Then we want to actually take our sub populations, our subgroups, and we want to compare them to how the district performed. And so in our approaches are above, you can see that our emergent bilingual and our special education populations do have a higher deviation from our all students, which is the district. But not only did they have a deviation, but if we go down to the bottom of those bars, we also see they regressed from 2024 to 2025. As we shift over into the meats, you can see again the deviation from the all students, which is the district, among our other sub subops. But I really want to make sure that we're highlighting that special education column there. Not only do we have over a 20% deviation from all students,

282we also saw that it regressed. Now we'll break it down by content area and grade level. When we look at our reading performance, this slide here is actually showing us all students who took a reading test for 2025. So again, let's orient ourselves with this page. If we look at the district bar, the numbers within the center is the percent of students who earn that performance level or above until we get to masters. So we can see the purple is approaches, the meats is in blue and the masters is green. As we shift over to the right, we can see the positive or ne negative numbers that is reflecting a difference from 2024 data to 2025 data. So here you can see when we um look at just the district, we did have a decrease

283at approaches and meets. When we're looking comparatively against the state, we can see that we're in relative alignment between our approaches levels. But as we move to meets and masters, we actually have that sevenpoint gap between the district and the state. Now, we want to start breaking it down by school types and our grade levels. So, again, always want to make sure we orient first. When I'm looking at this, and Brenda, I don't know if you can slide, but that um there's a block on there. I think you just have to hover off of it. Thank you. I want us to first look at the bottom of this slide. There we go. Thank you. when we're looking at that approaches meets and masters that is the threshold a student must earn in order to meet

284one of those performance levels. So I want to just give us an example. We have total possible points. Remember I said we have 20 tests. Every one of them could potentially have a different denominator. Total possible points. The numerator would be how many points the student earned. So we're simply just doing basic math. We're taking the numerator, which is the points the student earned, dividing it by the total possible points. So, if I'm a student and I did that math and I earned a 35%, I just passed the test at a 35% in the approaches performance level. I would use that same mathematical concept to do the meats and the masters. So when I'm looking at this bar, what I'm looking at and how I would read it is if I look at the purple

285where I see 78% 78 78% of the students scored a 35% or above. 49% of the students scored a 52% or above and then 18% of the students scored a 71% or above. So in looking at our elementary results, we can see that grade three and four had improvements at both approaches and meets. Our fifth grade had a bit of a variation in the results among the performance levels. Shifting to middle school, we can see that we had grade six had a general overall improvement. Grade seven did see a slight improvement at approaches, but we saw that decrease at the meets and the masters level. We really want to start seeing an improvement at our meats and our masters. That is something that is going to help us in accountability when we get to domain

286three academic achievement. Then when we're looking at grade eight, we did have a decrease at approaches, but we do see an increase at the meets and the masters. And then shifting into high school, we can see we for English one, there was a decrease at meets and masters, while English 2 saw a decrease at approaches and meets. Shifting into math, you can see here that we had a decrease um at the approaches and the meets. We do have a deviation from the state. You can see at the approaches we have a 5% deviation. At the meets we have the 9point difference and then at the masters we have a sevenpoint gap. Looking at our elementary scores, third grade did have a decline at the approaches in the meets. Fourth grade remained relatively stable. fifth grade,

287even though it outperformed grade three and four, it did have a decrease at both the approaches and the meets, and it did have that slight increase at the masters. Shifting into secondary, you can see that we had improvements at grade six and grade 8. Grade seven, just as we mentioned at the overall summary con, grade seven continues to be an area of concern in regards to math. And then for algebra, there was a decrease at the approaches, but we can see that more students are um meeting and exceeding their performance levels at the meets and the masters. science, general improvement at the district and the state, all positive. Um, we do still lag behind the state. Again, looking at the three grade levels that are assessed in science, you can see that there was an

288improvement across all performance levels, particularly looking at grade five, the approaches had a 12% increase and biology had a 10% increase at the meat's performance level. social studies we do see again a 3 to 4% deviation between the district and the state and we had a a decrease at the approaches and the meets performance level. So before I discuss data on this page, I think it's very important for us to look at those thresholds at the bottom because US history does have the lowest threshold for approaches among all of our content areas. So when we look at this data, we can see that grade 8 had to make a 43% to get approaches whereas US history had to make a 29% to get approaches. So we did have a general decrease among all performance levels

289at grade 8 and we did see a decrease at US history in the approaches and the meats level. >> Any questions or comments you would like to make? >> Questions comments Mr. Mints? >> Miss Hills. Thank you. That was very it was I think that yeah that was a great uh great way to convey the data. So thank you. Um could we go back to the e where we talked uh the slide number where we towards the beginning where we were talking about we made the comment that the keep going back all the way towards the beginning it had the different demographics right go that one right there. >> Perfect. >> So as I draw a line from 70 being the district average down to the 43 being the the special education approaches or above

290and then that same line from the 41 to the 16. Is that a normal gap or is it exceptionally high here in in KISSD? >> This is pretty consistent of what we have seen over the past few years since we've had the redesign and also postcoid. We and when we look at our comparative districts, we do see that they have some gaps. Um they're starting to close them as well. um some tighter than others if we look at some on the higher end of our comparative um districts. But what is alarming here for us would be more so that special education um gap is what we're looking at. So as far as the other sub population, there are going to be deviations among our other districts in the state of Texas. >> But that one's

291notable. >> That is notable. >> Was your >> It is and and that is something that is being addressed with Dr. Lorenson and her team in conjunction with curriculum instruction and assessment. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Any other questions from trustees? Madam vice president, >> that same chart. >> Yes, ma'am. >> On that same chart, um EB, what does EB stand for? >> Sorry. Emergent bilingual. >> All right. And so we have all the different groups on here. um aa uh Hispanic um we don't have Asian or others >> the percentage so I'm going to go back a couple of slides if I may I broke it down this way because of 85% of our subopuls are our three largest um those are our three largest subopuls rather and so they are going

292to have the biggest impact on our star results which then will impact our accountability which is why I broke it down that way. >> All right. Thank you. You're welcome, >> Carl. >> Thanks. Sorry. Um, just looking at the data, is there a way to portray it by graduation year? So, you're like seeing the same group of people yearbyear. >> So, we can look at um our seniors and how they performed and if they were retesters or not. But the way that it's assessed, most of our students are done testing by their junior year. >> No, no, I'm sorry. I wasn't clear. Um, >> sorry. >> Just, you know, when you're in first grade, your graduation year is 18 years, you're second grade, et or 12 years. >> That will be a subsequent presentation. Okay.

293>> Absolutely. That's a great question, but we do not portray it here because this is just our spring results. It's just one snapshot. High school students actually take have three times to take it um during an accountability cycle. So we can start tracking starting third grade. That's when we start STAR. And we can look at how that cohort is actually moving towards their graduation because then you have to take into consideration factors such as retention to determine if they're graduating on time and if they were able to pass the test once they get to high school the first time. But just separate from from high school, like the way it looked at you could just see the the the performance as they move through, you know, if you had like in fourth grade poor tests,

294then in fifth grade, you'll probably have poor tests. Is there a way to look at the difference between how they did in fourth grade and then how they did in fifth grade and how they did in sixth grade? >> We do. We have that capability. Yes, sir. >> Dr. Osborne. Um, Don, do you mind speaking a little bit about how that is captured in domain two and we track that specifically in math and reading with subsequent tests? >> So, what I showed you was really a lot of domain one, but it's only a a portion of domain one. I don't want us to think that star is just the only assessment that goes into domain one. But as we look at domain two, which is our growth of our students, we are looking at a

295basically a transition table. So when I made the comment about are we want our students performing higher at that meets and masters what we're looking at for growth is we're trying to see if students will move from the did not meet to approaches. Are they going to move from approaches to meets to meets to masters but if they stay at meets then we can get a point for that. If they stay at masters we can get a point for that. The concern is, and I know that we've talked about it, when we talk about those thresholds, they have a tendency to change just slightly every year because we talked about postequating. We will not deal dwell on that at all. But here's the thing. When we're looking at the scores, if they regress from masters

296to meets, then we do not get points for them. So once we have students performing at higher levels, we need to maintain that. And so that is really the goal. So whenever we're looking at data, we want to see um and going back to what Dr. Osborne, Dr. Kraton were pushing out um consistently any assessment that is given, we really obviously this is a minimum. We want a minimum of 70% of our students performing at that approaches. We want 40% of our students um at the meets and we want to see about 12% at the masters because that's then going to translate into our accountability system of a C. And I know that we want to aim higher than a C, but we have to start somewhere as well. And so, as you saw our

297scores, we have some room for improvement to growing along that continuum from approaches, meets, and masters. >> You're welcome, >> Mr. Mintz. So, 4012, >> those are kind of obviously that there's some variance in there, but that's benchmarking. >> Yes, >> that's the right word. Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions from trustees? Thank you. Great presentation. >> Thank you. >> We'll now go to item B which is discussion of 2025 2026 clean independent school district disciplinary alternative alternative education program process improvements. I've seen this guy for a few. Welcome back >> members of the board. >> Dr. Davis, how are you doing tonight? Awesome. Okay. We are here uh I'm here tonight to talk about the uh DAP program, the disciplinary alternative education program uh and uh bring some information to you, answer some

298questions about the current program that we have. We're going to talk tonight about the review of the uh House Bill six changes only in regards to how it impacts and how it's going to impact uh our enrollment at DAP. Discretionary versus mandatory placements, uh the hearing process, um student experiences at DAP and the transition from DAP to home campus and our requirements in that area. Objective tonight uh we want to explain the DAP process uh and and and our focus on safety and security within that building. Present expectations for parental involvement partnership throughout that process. Address supports for students academic, emotional, and behavioral needs. Outline orientation and exit meeting procedures from beginning to end when they're enrolled at DAP. Present the transition plan for successful student reintegration to their home campus. And explain continued monitoring

299and support for students beyond that probation period. what are we doing for children uh after they have completed that district probation. So, we've covered and talked a lot about the House Bill Six changes. We we reviewed that obviously tonight in the student code of conduct. So, what is that going to do to our enrollment at DAP? Well, there's a couple of things that is actually going to be a positive impact on our enrollment DAP. the EIG and the Vape rules changing uh now allowing us to use uh ISS and that 10-day placement on campus instead of placing them at DAP obviously will lower enrollment uh and number of placements there. The virtual education for expelled students returning to KSD as I explained earlier tonight, students that are returning uh before they have completed their expel

300expulsion assignment or uh not being uh enrolled at all in the JJAP. um they can be virtually educated and so they're not going to be enrolled directly at the DAP. Uh and then parents uh through the use of the parent agreement that we uh will work through and and work and talk about by um being able to reduce that assigned days uh in those certain situations by up to 10% would allow us to uh bring that enrollment down just a little bit. But things like felony offenses that are now occurring off campus, those are now going to be mandatory placements. And so we already have some of those that we are working through right now because we've had uh some students that have been engaged in this over the summer. And so we are uh

301looking at holding hearings this week to to do those placements. Student code of conduct comes from chapter 37 um Texas education code and it states that a student may be placed um when their behavior meets specific criteria outlined in this u in this uh chapter. the placement is going to either be mandatory, which would be required, or discretionary, which is allowed by uh the administrator or the district's discretion. So, when we look at some of these these items, discretionary versus mandatory, uh discretionary, we're going to lump into one category and say that's the administrator's discretion. Um and so here are some examples. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but these are some examples of things that that we see uh students engaging in. Um, cyber bullying is a discretionary placement. Um, engaging

302in bullying that encourages a student to commit suicide or attempt suicide. This is a discretionary placement. Let me stop on these first two and say these two sound in writing like that's discretionary. But the point here is is that the campus administrator has the ability to investigate the situation and determine the the severity and all of the circumstances surrounding this. So you could have uh a a very young student that says something out of context, not knowing really truly understanding the weight of their words, but would fit this definition. So we got to have some uh le leeway at the campus level to have that discretion involving uh in criminal street gang activity. Uh any behavior that's classified as a serious offense, and this is kind of what we've talked about before, that's a local

303code for us. So these are serious uh things that go out of that minor category. Minor category would be things like tardy ID violations, dress code violations. Now, even though they can stack up and become serious violation, then and of one of of itself would not be, but other offenses could be considered serious and they would be even on the first first um violation could be a serious u would be a serious uh issue and could be a discretionary placement DAP and then assault with threat uh with a threat of imminent bodily injury. So, uh, not only are is a child assaulting another student, but there is the the threat of the im imminent bodily injury would fit into the discretionary category. Things that are mandatory which are required by law uh to be a

304placement at DAP if they commit a felony on campus. Um, if they sell, give, deliver um under the influence of THC or alcohol while on campus or another controlled substance. I put this here and if you see in parentheses it says amount not resulting in a felony. So if a child is if a student is in possession of of marijuana but it is a less than measurable amount that wouldn't constitute necessarily a felony charge. So it would not go into that first category of committing a felony on campus. But however that possession of any amount of marijuana on campus is a mandatory placement. Fighting or assault we put these two here. These are local um and we have made the statement uh obviously over the last year we've actually escalated this in the number of

305days placement uh and so to portray to our students and our families the seriousness of these things occurring on our campus behavior that will not be tolerated and even on the first offense we are going to take a take a serious stand here. I want to point out the difference between fighting and assault. This is not criminal assault. This is a local definition of assault and I often have to explain that and talk parents through that. We're not filing charges on your child for assault. This is the difference here is in a fight you have two or more students that are in a mutual combat. One student hits another student, the other student hits the student back. That by definition would be a fight. If a student, I'm sorry. If a student hits another student

306and the second student decides, whoa, I'm not, you know, hey, why'd you do that? And that's the end of it. The first student has still committed the same offense as they did before, but it would be defined as an assault because the they didn't return. There was not a mutual combat. It was only one student involved. That's important because our coding becomes very important. And when you have two students involved, they both have to have the same linked uh event. But in an assault, there would only be one. They commit a behavior that is defined as public ludess or indecent exposure on campus. Um, that would be considered a mandatory placement. And then conduct is defined as harassment against an employee under the penal code 42.07. Now, this I've been in contact with Chief uh

307Haidor about this and this is this is interesting because we hear a lot when a teacher or staff member gets hit or assaulted, but in order for it to fit into this category, they have to follow through with the investigative process and the charges. If they don't, doesn't mean that the child's getting off scot-free, but it may not fit into that mandatory placement category if that staff member doesn't follow through. I'll pause for I'm talking really fast, but I want to nope, no feedback. >> Federal Yes, sir. Really quick question. >> Yes, sir. On the example you gave just in case some parents are watching. >> Yes. >> I can see a question coming up >> that scenario child. The difference of what you described versus self-defense. Does that make sense? >> In and which

308one Dr. Davis? >> And then the one student obviously assault. That's pretty simple. >> Yes. >> You hit I don't hit back. Yes. >> I'm talking sometime it gets muddy, the waters get muddied at the lace my child assault that they had to defend themselves. Does that make sense? >> Yes, sir. >> Going through that process of mitigating factors because that is one of them. Um but anyway, go ahead. >> Absolutely. And and I would I would only say that it's always muddy when you get into these situations and investigating. So the the investigative um responsibility of that campus is to determine first of all was it self-defense. So just because a child returns um returns that act you know that physical aggression does not mean by definition that they weren't involved in a fight.

309It could mean that they could be involved in a fight by definition. But the statements of everybody involved, potentially having video of the incident, uh prior knowledge, prior activity that led to that, where was it located? All of those are investigative details that could lead to that determination of whether it's a fight or whether one student was involved in a self-defense situation. Yes, sir. Did that answer sufficiently? Thank you. Okay. Federal and TEC uh Texas education code due process requirements. So when we talk about due process um what are we what are we required and what are we doing here in this situation and so what's what the interesting thing here of this of this slide is that federal uh requirement the state requirements under Texas education code for due process actually exceed the federal

310requirements. Um, and so by the Texas Education Code, we are bound to the lefth hand column there of we're going to uh give the notice of alleged conduct to the student and the parent. We're going to explain the evidence. What did we gather? Just like we were just talking about what was the evidence that we gathered to make that determination that this was the code being used. Uh they have to have an opportunity to respond. You know that that what did happen? What's their side of the story? Provide a statement for us as well. Um there is a hearing if if we move to the level of expulsion they are required by due process to have a hearing for that. Uh and they have a right to representation uh at that hearing. Um they have

311a right also to present their evidence and if in the in the uh instance where they are expelled they have a right to appeal. Expulsion is the only one under Texas education code that they are given the outright the right to appeal. Um the others would flow through the local district policy for uh concerns. Um any any questions or or thoughts on due process? We're going to talk a little bit more about that due process, how that goes. Here's the flowchart for our hearing. This obviously is going to change after our previous conversation. um it's going to look a little bit different, but um we will make those adjustments as we discussed earlier today and bring the campus uh the district hearing officer back in to make the decision. Uh however, I do want to

312say that the the process itself is still very similar to what we were talking about earlier. You're going to have the offending incident or the triggering incident, whether it be mandatory discretionary. Um the assistant principal is going to contact the parent. They are going to schedule a campus level conference. Uh the princ they present the material to the in to the principal make a recommendation. The principal will uphold alter make whatever decision and if they're moving forward then it will be forwarded and the the AP will take that then to the district uh hearing officer uh to be heard and then the final determination will be made. Um this is just a representation of all the things that have to be done during that process. uh all the paperwork and documents that have to be

313filed on behalf of that student uh to ensure that that we are making uh that we are taking care of all aspects of that due process along the way. Um, this also represents and shows that if a student is special uh is is special education or a 504 student that that has to be taken into consideration before the hearing um to find out if the behavior that we exhibited or triggered the referral is linked their to their disability. And if it is, then we have to flow back into an IEP or 504 meeting to determine what uh accommodations we can put in place to help that child. This again obviously is going to change. This is uh but this is a still a representation of all of the things that we take into consideration when

314moving a child forward for DAP placement. Um and so all of the documentation part of that due process that has to be in place and documented before that placement can be made. Um, you have to have the student data worksheet which complain contains all of the the students information uh academic information as well as attendance. The uh SOC SEOC acknowledgement card. The parent and students sign that they have read and understand the student code of conduct. Due process hearing procedure and parent rights before that uh district level hearing is conducted. They have to they have to read and sign a uh the form that that shows that they understand what their rights are as they move forward. any RTI or MTSS. RTI is response to intervention. MTSS is multi-ter uh student supports. Those are processes

315that we use when we're recognizing that a student might have an issue, especially behaviorally, academically as well. Um what are the processes? What are what interventions are we putting in place to see if we're helping the child? That documentation needs to be there as well. that fits into a category if you have a child that has had a repeat is showing a repeated pattern of behavior. We don't just let them continue down that pattern of behavior without helping them. So, what are we doing? What are we stepping in to do? Um, that's the documentation piece for that. um IEP. If the student is special education student or a 504 student, um they have to have all the complete documents from that file uh included in this hearing report uh including the BIP, which is the

316behavior intervention plan. Again, once we go through RTI and MTSS, if we have uh diagnosed that student, go through the process and the student is now entered into special education or 504, that behavior intervention plan will outline those goals and the specific um interventions that are in place and and we're going to document that we're using those interventions and those accommodations for that child and what the outcome is. The smart ISS tracking documents, I've talked about that. If a student is signed uh that is uh a student with disabilities is assigned to ISS, we have that documentation proving that we're using uh and providing those accommodations while in ISS. Any truency prevent prevention me measures oftentimes we see students that are uh behaviorally challenged. They're also have attendance issues. And so what is the tracking

317documentation? What have we done there with the parents to get that kid to class? Um campus probation contract. oftentimes the campus again will use this as an uh as a device to get the parent and get the student to understand, hey, enough is enough. If you don't stop what you're doing, we're going to we're going to move forward in this process. And they sign a contract, the parent signs it, gets a copy. Um if that has been done, that needs to be a part of this uh hearing hearing folder as well. And then the student transition plan and student success plan, that is documentation that is contained in that student's u permanent file. and travels with the student as well. Once we have gone through the hearing process and made the determination that the student

318is going to be placed at DAP, um the student is withdrawn from their home campus and they go to the DAP campus for enrollment and orientation. The enrollment process is very similar to enrolling at any one of our campuses. Um but the orientation process is obviously different. We do have a requirement that that parent, a parent and the child attends the orientation before they can begin school at DAP. It's very very important that they understand exactly what the expectations are and exactly all of the processes that are involved at DAP. It is very different than their home campus. They need to understand exactly what they're stepping into at the campus. Uh during this meeting, they do receive a a parent handbook uh again that outlines all of these expectations and procedures. The the orientation process

319is going to focus on some main areas. The behavior expectations uh obviously of that student coming into the DAP, the academic expectations. We cannot forget that this student is coming to school to be educated and the academic progress has got to be met along the way so that when that turn when that student goes back to their home campus they're in good academic standing and we didn't create or cause or hinder uh or a roadblock for that student academically. The definition of the dress code we're going to talk a little bit about there. Yes, there is a required uniform for DAP. If they do not come in dress code, they cannot attend that day. It's not a successful day. arrival and dismissal procedures. Obviously, um they're going to be very different. So, what are they?

320Where do they enter the building? How do they enter the building? What's the process for that? It's not going to be like their regular school where they just show up and come into the building. There's a specific process. For some time, cell phones at DAP have been prohibited. So, this is this is a piece of technology they're not allowed to bring. We do not use yonder pouches at at Gateway Middle School or high school like we do on our other secondary campuses. There's no need. they cannot have the cell phone. So there's no need for a yonder pouch. So the dress code, I've given you a side byside here with the elementary dress code and the secondary dress code. Um they the elementary black pants, they are allowed to wear shorts. Um solid white top.

321There's no logos or graphics on the top. It can be a collared shirt or a t-shirt, but there cannot be any graphics or emblems. If they're from third grade through fifth grade at the elementary level, if their pants have belt loops, then we do require them to wear wear a belt. Um coats and jackets, they can wear them to school, but they take them off when they come into the classroom and put them away. They do not wear them throughout the school day. Uh no head coverings at either elementary or secondary. I just ran out of a column over there. No head coverings, so no hats, no bandanas, no uh headbands, things like that. And also at both campuses, there's no jewelry allowed. um that n first and foremost can be a distraction, but it

322can also be a safety concern. If you have students that are uh involved in a in a physical altercation, it could be a could be a concern there as well. The secondary campus, uh you have uh black pants. They're not permitted to wear shorts, no cargo pants. We don't need extra pockets and things like that uh for our students at DAP. They wear a black top. Um so, a little bit different there. collared shirt, t-shirt, crew neck shirt, but again, no graphics, no logos, uh things like that. They do have to wear a black or brown belt. Um and if you see down the pants must be worn at the waist. They cannot wear shorts under their pants. And so um that creates a creates a problem uh when they do that. So one jacket

323or sweatshirt can be worn, but no hoods. So no hooded sweatshirts while they're uh in the building at DAP. This is strictly enforced every single day that they come to school. So when we talk about structure and uh safety uh and and on the campus um both both the elementary DAP and the and the middle school and high school DAPs, we have multiple KSC officers on duty throughout the day. Um especially present during arrival and dismissal uh where where we have kids uh coming and going off of campus. Student cell phones, as we said, are not permitted on campus. We conduct daily metal detector and wand sweeps. Uh again, this has been a common practice at the uh DAP campus for some time. The students come in, walk through the metal detector, they are wanded,

324they are padded down if necessary. Uh every day when they come through, they take their uh at the middle school and high school, they actually remove their shoes to check and make sure that nothing is hiding there. So, we're going a step above and beyond on that building safety every single day. We are going this year, this school year, we're going to change at the middle school and the high school to a block schedule uh where the class periods are doubled up. That will not only allow them to have more um more uninterrupted time in the classroom to work on their academic time, but it it cuts down on the transitions and in the passing from one class to the next. We'll talk a little bit about transition periods here in just a second. Students

325are tiered uh at the middle school and high school. They're tiered based on severity of behaviors. So, we do have a a location where if they have committed a severe uh severe felon felony, something like that, they could be placed into a different area where there's not as much movement. Um, and so you're not those students that are at DAP for a a lesser infraction. Sorry, let's say the uh 20-day placement for that first time vape. We'll use that as an example since we did earlier. They're not going to be sitting in classroom or on the same hallway with a student that's uh committed a a title five felony when the students arrive to the building in the morning. Um and I used the middle school and high school uh for um for the example

326here to go through the specific um entry and arrival and dismissal procedures because their their enrollment is much higher. And so um every student is screened upon entry as I talked about before. So, they come in, they enter, they go through the metal detector. The handheld detector is used, they remove their shoes, they're padded down if necessary. When the bus arrives, uh, middle school students remain on their bus. They don't come off their bus. Um, we don't want middle school students to be lined up down the hallway waiting to go through this screening. Uh, that's where some of the misbehavior can take place. And so, we keep them on the bus. We work with transportation. There is an aid on the bus uh to help us provide that uh security as well. Um, the good

327thing is with transportation, this is the last stop on these runs. So, if we take a little bit longer to get those kids off the bus, we're not holding up another campus from getting uh students to school on time. The they as they can allow, they will have administrators that will go and remove they'll take groups of three or five students, bring them in, run them through, go back and get the next three or five, and bring them in in stages to keep the the numbers down so that we can uh stay on top of things. the high school students do a little bit better job with this arrival procedure. So, they do actually get off the bus and come and stand in line. However, if there are issues at any time, we can go

328back to this other piece and that's at the uh administrator's discretion. All during this time, I want to note that administrators are in the hallway. They're they're moving throughout the building. They're in this area. They're out they're out at back where the buses are coming in and the parents are dropping off and they're uh doing the monitoring of the behavior uh and making sure that the kids are flowing in uh to the building in a in a in a proper way. At the end of the day, you have students that are really fit into three categories. You have bus riders, you have walkers, and you have parent pickup. And so during the enrollment process those the parent is going to declare what type of child you know where their student fits. Now we know we

329can declare today and tomorrow that could be different. So every single day if the par the parent has a requirement if the child's going to be as a bus rider normally and today I'm going to pick them up I have to notify the school and every morning the campus sends out to the teachers their students and where they fit on that day and so the teachers are aware before the end of the day exactly which category uh those students fit into. Um the but the administrative staff monitors the hallways again during this dismissal process and the exit points. All of the exits are done through the back of the building uh at Gateway Middle and High School. Uh the middle and high school students are kept separate during this. Those middle school students exit during

330one door and go one direction. The high school students exit another door and go the other direction. So here are the three categories again. So let's the the this all this process begins a few minutes before that final bell of the day and so we start getting uh students so that we can get uh the bus riders uh on the bus and get them home in a timely manner. But uh parent pickup begins depending on if the parents are already showing up they'll hold the walkers. If the parents are not quite there yet then they can release the walkers. Um, so that's kind of a little bit different, but if the walkers, the walkers are released, if they are walkers and they're declared and the teachers know, they know which students in their classroom are

331walkers, uh, they are released as a group, they exit the rear of the building. Like I said, middle school goes one way, high school goes the other, and they immediately leave campus. They're not allowed to stay, hang around. Uh, they have to immediately leave campus and and head home. the parent pickup. As a parent pulls up into the pickup line, the uh the staff member will verify the parent who they're there to pick up and they radio into the classroom. The teachers are staying in the classroom with the kids during this time. The teach the staff member uh relays into the classroom and says gives the student name. That student is released, comes out, gets in the parents car, and they go on. Next parent pulls up and the process is repeated. The bus riders

332remain in their classroom until that bus pulls up. when they're that the first bus pulls up, they will make a call into the building. Everybody that rides bus 101, they will leave the classroom, walk down the hallways, again, monitored by the campus uh staff uh and administrators get onto their bus. When everybody's on the bus, that bus pulls away, the next bus pulls in, and they continue the process. Um, when I talked to Miss Herrera, she said they have anywhere depending, this fluctuates throughout the year depending on their enrollment and the needs, but they'll have anywhere from three to about seven buses at the end of the day transporting kids. So, we talk about the transition periods throughout the day. This is that that class that that time normally would be a passing period on

333a regular campus. Um, all staff are on duty during this time. They're in the hallways. They're at their doors. are making sure that students are moving from one location to the next. High school students have a three-minute passing period. They don't need they don't need the time. They the school is much smaller. Where they're going is point A to point B. Get to your next class and and uh get ready. Middle school students, we do not release all at once. They're released by grade level. And so down in in in their part of the building on that campus, the sixth graders are released first. Once all the sixth graders are to class, then the seventh graders are released to go to their next period. and then the eighth graders are released to go to their

334next period. If a child is called out of class, let's say they're called to the nurs's office or called to the front office or counselor's office, um they have to be escorted. They will be escorted from their classroom to that next location uh and carried kind of handtohand carry to make sure that there's nothing happening in between and that they get to their location. Um if they need to go to the restroom, same thing. During lunch, they release to the lunchroom one class at a time. They go to the lunchroom, they go through, they pick up their lunch, go back to that classroom and have and have their lunch in the classroom. Uh once they're back to the classroom, then the next class goes down to pick up their lunch and continues the process. Restroom

335breaks throughout the day. Again, with a block schedule, there's not as many, you know, there's not as much time. So, they do have to during the day go and take some restroom breaks. So, they take their class uh scheduled. it is supervised by the teacher and the aid um to make sure that that uh the students are going in one at a time that we're not going into the in groups in the restroom and and getting into trouble. We're really trying to mitigate all of these issues before they before they happen in the bathroom. All the high school bathrooms are locked throughout the day. So if they need to go to the restroom, they have to get permission. They have to have somebody escort them there, unlock the restroom. They go in when they leave.

336that person that unlocked the door goes in to check to make sure nothing was left behind, that nothing was damaged uh or anything like that. They come out, they lock the door, take the kid back to the classroom. So, if a student is assigned to DAP for, let's say, 45 days, the only way to count those 45 days is it is is by counting them as a successful day. And in order for it to be a successful day at DAP, they have to meet the behavioral expectations that day. If a student goes to school that day and gets a referral, that is not going to be count. It's going to be counted as a as an attendance day, but not as a successful day towards their 45day placement. So, the the behavior expectations have to

337be met. No discipline referrals on that day. They're present for more than half the day. So, what we're looking at there is that we're getting credit for that student being present at school during that day. Um and so uh that that that is the standard right now uh that they have to be present more than half a day. And all academic expectations have to be met as well. We're not going to allow students to go to class, sit in a classroom, and do no work just because they didn't get in trouble and they were there for more than half the day get a successful day. And now they've stayed there 45 days and they have no grades to show. And now they're in academic trouble when they go back to their home campus. So in

338order for it to be a successful day, they have to meet their ex academic expectations as well. We have a lot of processes in place that help students change their behavior. We have to understand that this is a temporary placement. We are not sending students to gateway or uh elementary DAP for a permanent change of change of assignment. This is a temporary. So we want to help them provide them supports to change their behavior for so that when they go back to their home campus they can be successful. So we have a social emotional learning specialist or SEAL specialist as we as we often refer to them. They provide lessons, they provide group sessions, they provide one-on-one student mentoring opportunities uh to help build those emotional, social, and academic skills. We're going to use the

339capturing kids hearts uh programs as we are on all of our campuses uh to work with those seal u lessons and provide those activities for the students. Again, we're going to it's there's goal setting. There's reflection on their behavior that got them to the place where they are today. How are we going to change that? What do we want to do? There's there's a lot of work that is being done there from that social emotional standpoint. We want to track their academic and behavioral progress. We're not one one. We need both because a student that keeps up with their grades but hasn't changed their behavior is going to go back to their home camps and be back at DAP before we know it. And that's the that's the cycle that we're trying to to to

340break. Targeted interventions to address challenges. Um again, we're we're talking with the students. We're we're reflecting on their behavior. What what was going on during that time? What led them to be where they are today? And what can we do to change that? We we know that they've gotten there, but this may be the person that they connect with for the very first time, that they listen to, and if we if we can get their ear at any point, we're going to take it. Staff and community agencies to remove barriers and advocate for student success. Um, just as a as a short list, we have uh Advent Health that does come in and help us from a behavioral standpoint. Um we have other community agencies that come in and volunteer uh to provide services for

341our children to help them uh gain the access that they need um and resources that they need. Um it could be there's a myriad of things that could could be provided to the students or we find out because they've been placed at DAP and um this is our opportunity to help them under Texas Education Code 37.023. This is a section that requires that we have a transition process in place and a transition plan in place when that student returns to their home campus. They finish their 45 days successfully. They're in good standing academically. They're ready to go back to their home campus. We don't just pat them on the back and send them back to their home campus and say good luck. We have to help them through that process. We have to make sure

342that going back to their home campus is not going to be a sudden return of responsibility as we often refer to. Uh and and they're going to they're going to be successful when they get there. So, they're going to have a transition meeting before they go and we're going to talk about the the processes, the change, the goals that they set, what went well for you here, what what changed for you, and what needs to continue happening in your life so that you can continue being successful at your home campus. It's led by the social mo the the specialist. Uh it this meeting must include and we have documented uh uh evidence that it does that it's got to have the student, the parent, the AP, the counselor and the teacher all have to have

343input in this process when the student returns to their home campus. Some other practices that we have in place, uh we have weekly targeted interventions during the 45day district probation. So we're talking they're back on their home campus now. they are going to be assigned or be uh be under a 45day district probation. Um during that period, we're going to meet with them weekly to talk about their progress, talk about what's what's going on. That specialist is going to stay plugged in and engaged with that student to make sure that they have what they need. There's going to be a weekly progress report that is communicated to the parent, can be written, sent home, or it could be in person with that parent to discuss the academic, the attendance, and the behavioral progress of of

344their child. postp probation monitoring. Once they reach that 45day, we again, we're not going to pat them on the back, say, "You've done a good job." Uh, you know, we're going to continue. Now, we're going to step it back. We're not going to continue being right there beside them as much as we have before. It's not going to be a weekly meeting. It's going to be more periodic than that, but we also want that student to know that they still have the support that they need if they have an issue. So, it's going to be more of a we're going to back up and monitor, watching the grade book, making sure their grades haven't started to slip. Are they still coming to school? Is their attendance good? And making sure and monitoring they're not getting

345any disciplinary referrals. The principal's report, this is a report that the does for the principal. Uh they're going to have an family engagement log where they're providing the information of the parents and families that they're communicating with throughout the throughout that time. the academic performance of the students that have returned from DAP, how are they doing once they've returned to their home campus, any interventions that have been provided, what are we doing to help these students, and then the outcomes and changes of all of these things uh collectively and how is it helping those students when we provide when we have a student that exits from uh DAP and goes back to the home campus, one of the things that we do uh is to provide an exit survey for the parents. We want to

346collect some data from the parents, gather some feedback through their lens. What was the experience like from them with their child being at DAP? Did they was there timely and you know and and and and direct feedback on their students behavioral attendance and um academic behav academic progress. Um and then we're just going to collect some overall perceptions. What can this gives us a good insight into being able to say where do we need to grow? What do we need to get better? uh what are some things that we can do uh to help students be even more successful when they're back on the home campus. The specialist on the home campus is going to continue to monitor the academic, social, emotional, and behavioral success. Again, we're not turning the student uh loose and just

347letting them letting them go back to their old ways. The word recidivism is extremely important data point for us. Um, if if if you ask me what is a for a goal next year, I want however many students are assigned to DAP, I don't ever want I don't want any of them to go back a second time. I want this process to be impactful in their lives, provide structures and and changes so that they do not go back to DAP. And if we can start there and and and and working through that process and break the cycle where we have students that are going from DAP back to home campus, back to DAP, back to home campus. Those are students that are falling further and further behind academically. They're falling further and further behind socially

348and we're we're letting them spiral out of control. Um holding kids accountable is extremely important and I do believe if students do not follow the student code of conduct, then we need to make sure that they they are held accountable for that behavior. But what we don't want to do once we've recognized that that's a capability or a possibility for them, we don't want them to continually slip down that trail. So in summary, um we want to focus on strengthening student accountability. We want again we want to make sure if we have students that are misbehaving on campus, we have got to step in and take care of that. The the we have the policies in place. let's adhere to those and hold the kids accountable um even when it's uncomfortable. It it's it's the

349best thing for that student. It's also the best thing for the students that are in their classroom as well that are following the rules uh every day. Uh we're engaging parents in the process. We've talked a lot about parent engagement tonight. I'm I'm a I am a firm believer that at any point when we are able to get the parent engaged in the process, no matter where it is, that is a good thing and we're going to take that opportunity. We want to support their academic growth uh and behavioral changes. And we want to incorporate safety measures um at home campus and on DAP campuses to make sure that we have a strong and secure campus and that students can go to school every day safely like they can on their home campus. Um and

350then again, we're aimed at reducing repeat incidents and promoting that long-term student success. A student making a decision, poor decision or mistake at one point in their career should not impact them for the rest of their career. they should learn from it, change it, and continue to move on successfully from that point. Now, I will pause for questions and comments. >> Mr. Mintz, >> so I've been beating this drum for a while. I'm going to say my piece and then if there's no organizational impetus on the leadership level to change this, then we we live with the consequences. So, I'm what I'm looking at I got I understand that. I'm looking at the presentation that was given to us back in March called DAP reimagined. So my question I guess my question this is this

351still going or is this still the model that we're executing within the four walls? >> Are you talking about the DAP reimagine? >> Correct. >> So I I I was a part of a couple of those early meetings and a part of that process uh through my work with capture arts and and student success. Um, so I don't know specifically what you're what you're referencing there. Um, what I do know about the uh DAP reimagined piece and Dr. Dr. Bugl, I know you were involved in that so you can speak to it if you'd like, but the that piece was came out of the Gibson audit and the transition piece that we spoke to here was really the biggest first step for us in that DAP reimagined to bring that and make that a meaningful

352part of this process to again impact that recidivism and that student success uh long term. >> Right. And the other thing is I don't know what >> completely understand the trans I mean it's legal. It's by law. We have to have it. >> Absolutely. >> I understand it. Um but so what what I'm reading here is we aim to transform the DAP by f focusing on social emotional learning creating a supportive environment for students. So and I've heard I think I think people even come up in public comment and say and I can't tell you how many times I've heard indirectly and directly man my kid loves being at DAP like they they'll go back like if that is the campus principal here I thought I saw her earlier. >> She she did but we

353let her go. She has school tomorrow. I mean, she has kids on campus over so I I we we let her go. >> Noted. >> Yes. >> Um sits here the whole meeting and then is not here for this. Um if the kids want to go back, then you can put all the supports. You can have we can have all and and look, I'm glad you got your chest protector on tonight. Um we can have all the supports. We can do all of these wonderful transition plans, but if the kids want to go back, we're spitting in the wind. And you know, I mean, like again, and I've kind of said it tongue and cheek, but it's not like we're doing yoga here. Like, have we lost our collective minds? If the kids want to

354go back to DAP, I understand trying not to, and again, this is not you. You're just the guy standing there. Um, but we have got to align this. We can sit here and and argue about how strict our student code of conduct should be. But if there's no punishment at the end of the line, if there's not a place where kids go, man, I want to go back there, right? >> Like, I'm going to get my and and why are we not taking everything that's in here? It's all good. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying it's misplaced. Take it and put it into the CLA into the into the campuses so that all of these things are preventing the children, the students are from going to the AP. And if we don't fundamentally

355change how we view this and people aren't repetitively saying, gosh, my kid likes to go there. It's not there's no deterrent effect. So, we're just completely wasting our time. Let's take all of these resources, move them onto the campuses, and stop it before it even gets there. We say, you know, and and this this whole pipeline to prison nonsense. This is not a pipeline to prison. You know what a pipeline to prison is? Allowing bad behavior to continue with no consequence. That's the pipeline to prison. the kids are going to go to the D AE and then they're going to go to the JJ AE. And if we can't put some stop in there, then again, we're just wasting our time and money. There's got to be some leadership emphasis on this. I'm one man

356out in the wilderness, I feel. And and I guess that's the end of it. It's nothing's going to change here today. Um and again, I would loved if the campus principal was here um sat here the whole meeting, not here today for the discussion about her campus. So some of what you said Mr. Mintz in terms of for the campus we started last year with just the transitioning from DAP and back to reduce recidivism from the Gibson audit. This year the second part of that was a lot of these things that we started with that transition plan is into the schools. We redefined the SEAL's uh job description at the campuses so that it's starting there that the case load is the atrisisk students. We have taken that case load that any kid that is

357coming back from DAP they are starting this plan now so that throughout the school year they have a mentor they have the SEAL counselor plus the regular counseling pieces. So all of the things that we started at DAP from recidivism has shifted to the campus to prevent them from going back to DAP. So it was a starting there taking that big umbrella pushing it to the school so that tier one it's starting at the campuses so they don't go back and then the last phase is now what's the next part for DAP because it was a whole lot to do so we just started with those pieces then shifted it to the school and making the focus this year safety and how do we make the adjustments at DAP that are needed so that it's

358not what it was before. >> Okay. Thank you. That's a wonderful explanation. Um I I think that's a step in the right direction. Um >> are we Shoot, I lost my train of thought. Um >> okay. I think as we we continue to So So my I guess my question is then why do kids want to go back? Like what are we doing in the four walls that is creating that situation? One part of that is the fact that if I'm in the classroom, um I have 20some kids in the classroom and it's a teacher. At DAP, it's smaller numbers. So, for some of the kids, it's just safety because I'm not in a crowd of people. Some of them want to go back because I'm seen every day. I have a one-on-one person because

359it's a smaller number versus being in the classroom and I'm struggling and I don't want Sally and Sue to know that I really don't understand the content. So, I'm going to act out in front of everybody versus a DAP is a smaller group. They have tutors in there and it's one-on-one and they're getting a more u personal instruction versus the typical classroom. And then they're away from some of the people who they feel peer pressured from because I'm not with them anymore. I had to look this way for them and now I'm over here. I can just be me a little bit more. So, for some of them, it's not that I like DAP. that environment gives me a safe feeling because I'm not in this big thing that I really don't feel comfortable in.

360>> And that's and I was say and that's something that's probably difficult to replicate on a student's home campus. >> Yes, sir. >> Yes. That I I guarantee you if you ask most kids, they don't want to go back. They're hesitant to go back to their home campus because they're going to be thrown back into the big pond. So, it's a little pond. We're working on the behavior. we're talked to about their choices. They they're studying. They're doing their work. The distractions are removed. They're escorted to the bathroom. So, so their focus and and I it's a bad analogy, but I kind of look at it like going to to rehab. You go to rehab, you you figure out what you need to do, and you're hesitant to go back to the same friends, the

361same temptations, the same group. And we're trying to build that um that knowledge where they have a voice to say no and no, I'm not going to go do that. And we even I remember talking to kids saying you can just say my mom's going to kill me. I can't go back to Gateway. You know, we try to give them those words. So I think it's more of just that adolescent fear. Um and it and it is it's small because and that's good. We don't want it to be large classes. There's not as many kids there. So, I think um I think it might be worth a one-on-one conversation with some kids to see the difference between the two, but the SEAL counselors I think um and the committee here that worked on this were

362really trying to empower it. So, we have that support talking to the kids. They did not have a lot of support when they went back and we're trying to put that there. you're on a case load now when you go back to kind of gently hand off so you don't get sucked right back into the old environment. >> And we think that the transition we've we've improved that that transition. >> Yes, sir. >> For sure. Okay. Dr. >> improved but the work is not done. >> Fair enough. >> Yes. >> I think what's important for for everyone to understand because I understand Mr. tremendous passion uh for DAP. Mr. Gilchrist is not here and he's pretty passionate about this one as well is that we just want to make sure that we are not trying

363to incentivize kids to want to be in DAP. We we want when there's conduct that's detrimental to a productive classroom, we don't want kids to feel as though they are rewarded for that. And when you go to DAP, we want you to feel remorse and go like, I want to make sure that I don't make that mistake again. And I think that's where Mr. Mintz had concerns based on some of the things that were communicated were transpiring at the um at Gateway. It was like, you know, hey, you could argue that that makes someone feel almost more welcome in there. Now, I do appreciate all the knowledge from uh Miss Felder and Dr. Buckley about why that may be the case for some students. And I think that provides a lot of clarity and that's

364really good. But I I don't think there's anyone who sits up here uh that's in disagreement that we want to make sure that we are not incentivizing bad behavior that is causing problems on our main campuses because there is a level uh of expectations that needs to be in place for how you should conduct yourself to be a productive member of our campuses. And we just want to make sure we don't reward it when you are removed for conduct that is detrimental. And and I I feel Mr. Men's uh pain on this one because it's been hard to get it back so we could really get to a point of saying, "Hey, here's a really good consensus of what we want to do." But I think it's safe to say that there is a consensus

365that we just want to make sure it's not an environment that's rewarding for your behavior. We don't want to compromise your academic journey, but it should not be a rewarding experience in terms of, hey, I'm here doing whatever you may be doing. Right. >> Does that provide enough guidance to the staff? >> Absolutely. >> And Mr. Menson, did I did I miss anything there? >> You did. And you know, I'm not a cheerleader, but I appreciate the work, right? And Miss Felder, thank you for like that's kind of the thing that I that I need to hear that we are and I think I don't want to speak for the board, but I mean we want to make sure that we're we're all and you've heard me say this kind of lining up all the

366arrows. We've got to have better higher expectations of our kids and our parents. >> And if we're not doing all these things in concert, you get this kind of uh what's the word I'm looking for? Dissonance. There's a co a dissonance between what what we say and what we do. So, thank you both. Um, and I look forward to continued improvement. >> Yes, >> madame vice president. >> So, I have a question about the busing. So, the children that um are going to to da dae. Um, where do they get picked up at for bus stops, their homes or at their home campus or how does that whole whole process work? >> They have different bus stops depending on the area. If it's only a couple of kids, it might be right at their house.

367If it's several, it might be two or three kids at a bus stop that's totally different from the regular bus stop. And their time is different from the regular kids pickup time and drop off time. They're picked up earlier, they're dropped off later so that they're not mixing with the regular uh campus kids. It's totally separate. So, we're driving buses all over central Texas to pick up a few kids to get them over to DAE because they didn't behave in the main campus. >> Yes, ma'am. >> And why would that not be the parents responsibility at that point? >> Dr. Osborne, >> thank you. Um it is uh unique in Colleen ISD that we offer transportation for students that have been uh placed at DAP. I because I was under the impression and shame on

368me for not knowing this, but I was under the impression that parents were responsible to get those children back and forth, pick drop them off and pick them up. And you just said there's seven buses sometimes that are there. That's seven bus drivers. That's driving all over Central Texas, spending taxpayers money on gas and and staffing because their kids didn't behave in school. So parents aren't being punished uh for controlling their kids or and maybe in some cases they shouldn't be punished for controlling their kids because some kids are just out of control. I get that. I truly get that. But there's got to be some pain in this for everybody involved in this process. And so I don't know. I just I just can't believe we're busing these kids all over Central Texas. That's

369my rant. >> I I would just say I think we're going to own their test scores and their academic failures regardless. And you might want to ask yourself about the community which you reside in, the ability for them to be able to get to a campus uh if there's not transportation. Um, I'm not saying that their behavior should be condoned, but at the end of the day, when they commit a serious offense, they go to JJAP, JJ A. We pay for that, and we pay for spots there. >> Uh, not saying that this group can't do it. That that's a bigger conversation that we'd have to uh to have, but I would just think you might want to look at the uh economic status of your the students in your district. and we might have

370some parents whether it's right or wrong. They may not they may be okay with their kids being shuen and not going to school. We're going to own the ADA, the average daily attendance and all of that stuff and the associated consequences. And so I think we might have to pick and choose our battles. I'm all for stronger discipline and making them behave, but I do want them at school uh for sure. Uh but we could always look at that for the future and see if that's maybe something there's an appetite for that uh from this board. But I I do caution this group against just there's a fine line I think that we're walking. I agree with a lot of the things that Mr. Menz and Mr. Gilchrist have communicated, but I get it. Hold

371parents accountable, but there are parents that could do everything right and their kids do everything wrong. And we just have to balance that. And I just I want to be fair. uh to our community and our approach on some of these things. It's just my two cents. Any other input, feedback? >> Dr. Osborne. >> Um I would be remiss if I did not take responsibility for instructing Miss Herrera to head home in preparation for tomorrow. >> Anything else? >> Dr. D. >> Sorry, real quick. I know it's late. Real quick question as it relates to to Dr. Buckland. Someone else brings up a brilliant point as it relates to those students a smaller learning community and them feeling. So my wondering is I'm getting accustomed to all the terminology. Gateway is a term we use

372for DAP. Is that correct? Okay. >> Our middle school and high school campuses are at Gateway. Yes. Gate Gateway Middle School and Gateway High School is the name of the campus that our secondary students are assigned to for DAP. >> Awesome. And then do we also have a campus to that very point many schools then have an alternate school for children who don't function well in a traditional high school setting or middle school setting where it's a smaller learning community. Does that make sense? Do we have that camping? What is that called? >> Pathways academic center. >> Pathways academics for children whatever maybe perhaps are behind on credits and all those types of things. >> Yeah. So that's the same concept. So if those children at DAP are feeling that they're getting that type of

373feel, right, and that will be enticing for >> transition from that. >> Absolutely. That makes perfect sense. >> That makes perfect sense. >> Any other feedback? >> Thank you, Mr. WS. Miss Felder, we appreciate you. Gotcha. Okay, we're now going to uh go to item C, which is discussion of future board meeting agendas and trustee remarks. Dr. Terry Osborne. >> Thank you, sir. Um members of the board, if you'll take a look at the agenda for Tuesday, August 19th. Um after public forum we will have a superintendent's report and u myself and members of the senior staff will review the first week of school including successes, opportunities for improvement, enrollment data and any preliminary um important data points to share with the board. Um moving on to action items 3A, we will be bringing forward

374a discussion uh of a partnership with graduation alliance. Um that partnership is designed to re-engage students and increase our graduation rate through a program that is geared for dropout recovery. In item 3 B and C, um school attorney Mike Harper will be bringing per proposed revisions to board policy EFB local and that's in alignment with the Senate Bill 13. Uh skipping down to D. Uh we are going to continue discussion around the employee clinic provider request for qualifications rank order and request that we do not bring that forward to ensure we continue conversation first in the board officer meeting and then uh additional discussion that would be struck um looking at E FNG in the action items in light of our plan to move to one location as a district level leadership team. Uh we

375have a couple of items to uh what we would call backfill or renovate our existing buildings that would no longer be occupied and Mr. Adam Rich will bring those architect contracts for consideration. Um and then skipping down to 4 A, um Ken will continue budget planning discussion. Um we'll review agenda items and then close session. Thank you. Any questions in regards to the agenda for the 19th of August? Okay. Trustee remarks. Madam Capido, Mr. Mintz, Secretary Adams, Madame Vice President, tomorrow's a big day. To all the educators, it's a new year. To all our students, it's a new year, a new opportunity to be great. Go be special. It's a great opportunity. Enjoy the journey. Uh we appreciate you. Thank you for all you do for our kids and kids. Uh take advantage of what

376the kids are going to provide to you. And to all the staff, those that have been here till 10:21 tonight, and tomorrow's the first day of school, thank you for your patience. Uh I apologize for keeping you out so late. So hustle out of here and get home and get ready for the kids on the big day uh tomorrow. Dr. Davis, anything you want to add? >> No, sir. I'm good. >> Okay. Next, we're going to move to 11, which is close session. The board will now convene in close session for the following agenda items in section 11. I'm going to call all of these items. Does not mean we're going to talk about all of them. A. Discussion regarding duties of acting interim superintendent as allowed by Texas Government Code 551.074. B. Discussion of

377personnel matters as allowed by Texas Government Code 551.074. C. Discussion of school safety and security as allowed by Texas Government Code 551.076 and 551.089. 089 D. Attorney consultation for pending or contemplated litigation as allowed by Texas Government Code 551.071 E. Deliberate regarding board and superintendent communications, board operating procedures, board member duties, and responsibilities as allowed by Texas Government Code 551.074. No voting will take place in close session. Any action the board wishes to take as a result of discussions in close session will take place after the board reconvenes in the open meeting. Time is now 10:23 p.m. and we are in close session. Stay here. I'll defer. The time is now 12:24 a.m. on Wednesday, August 13, 2025, and we're reconvening from close session. No action or voting took place in close session. No action

378is needed. We'll move to agenda item 12. >> I move to adjourn, sir. >> We have a motion to adjurnn by Madame Secretary. We have a second by Madame Capido. All those in favor of adjourning, show of hands. We have five in favor, none in opposition, two absent and not participating. And board member uh Marvin Rainwater and board member Rodney Gilchrist. We are adjourned at 12:24 a.m. on August 13, 2025. Thank you.