Aug 26, 2025 at 6pm Regular Board Meeting

001It is now 6 PM on Tuesday, August 26, 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, and me, Brett Williams, president and presiding officer. Absent not participating in this meeting, board members Tina Capido and Rodney Gilchrist. For the record, a quorum has been established and is present. We'd also like to welcome our Colonel Mark Mlen, our Fort Hood garrison commander, and Christine Kaparco, our Fort Hood school lison officer. Thank you for being here with us. As a reminder, anyone wishing to speak at public forum must submit their signup sheet at this time. Anyone wishing to speak at the public hearing to comment on the

002budget and tax rate must submit their signup sheet before the public hearing on agenda item 6D. 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, the invocation will be led by trustee Marvin Rainwater and the pledges will be led by students Josephine Ortiz and Kiana Young from Alice W. Dow Elementary School. Please stand. May we pray. Our father and our God, we're grateful for the opportunity to be here tonight. We're thankful, Father, for the parents and the grandparents and the aunts and the uncles and the neighbors that have all come to celebrate the success of their students in KISSD. We just ask Father that as we begin a very busy and very hectic and sometimes a very

003dangerous school year that your loving arms will always be wrapped around KISSD and protect us and guide us. We just need the strength of your love and of your passion. These things we ask in Jesus name. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Indivis one nation under God, indivisible, and liberty and justice for all. I honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee Texas. One state under God invisible. >> I said you did it. >> Good job. 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, honors and recognition. Miss Rudolph, >> I think that may have been our

004first pledge by a student missing both front teeth. They were great. So, good evening to everyone, Mr. President, members of the board, Dr. Davis. We have several outstanding students and staff members to recognize this evening. But first, I'd like to remind everyone that our official district photos from tonight's honors and recognitions will be available after the meeting on our website, www.colenisd.org/foss. So to begin, we're proud to share that Colleen ISD has once again been recognized as a leader in fine arts education, earning two major honors for the 24-25 school year. For the third year in a row, the KISSD Fine Arts Department received the District of Distinction Award from the Texas Art Education Association, placing the district in the top 8% of school districts statewide for excellence in visual arts. Please help me welcome the

005visual arts leadership team. We have Angela Cadell, Jordan Love, Miranda Meyer, and Stephanie Wilson. We also have Morgan Davies, Amy Bennett, and Deborah Bareric. Congratulations. KISSD was also named one of the best communities for music education by the National Association of Music Merchants for the fourth consecutive year, recognizing our strong commitment to quality music instruction and access for all students. These recognitions celebrate the work of our incredible fine arts educators and the ongoing support of district leadership, families, and the community in providing students with opportunities to grow through the arts. So with us tonight are KISSD music leaders Eric Reynolds and Amy Triggs, Alice Morris, Lori Costansski, and Sherry Miller. Are you ready? Congratulations. Next, we are proud to recognize some outstanding students from the Colleen ISD Career Center FFA chapter who earned the Lonear

006FFA degree at the 2025 Texas FFA Convention. This is the highest honor awarded to high school student members of Texas FFA Association and it reflects the leadership, dedication and excellence they possess in agriculture education. So to qualify students compete uh complete more than 1,000 hours in supervised agriculture experience. They complete over 25 hours in community service and they participate in 10 or more activities beyond the local level and they demonstrate leadership throughout their time in FFA. Ken ISD had 15 students earn this recognition and we have five of them who are joining us here tonight. We have Gabriella Rivera, Aiden Rose, Kid Burke and actually three here tonight. So please help me welcome them. You got to stay there. >> Get in the middle. Hang tight. We got some more. Oh, nope. What? One more.

007And finally, we are so proud to celebrate a record-breaking achievement for our advanced academics program. Colleen ISD had 135 students earn AP scholar distinctions, the highest in district history and a 79% increase from the previous year. This incredible milestone reflects the dedication of our students, the expertise of our teachers, and the strength of academic support across all six KISSD high schools, each of which saw an increase in awards. Please join us in recognizing the following students by campus. So from Chapperel we have Grace Dilla, Phoenix Green, Jasine Singer, Tyler Smith, Andrea Torres Nvas, and Christian Zimmerman. All right, good AB from the Early College High School. We have Yianus uh Yanelis Desadus, Laura Gray, Jeffrey Kelly, Elijah Robles, and Marilyn Urina. Congratulations to this group. What are you doing? >> Nothing. All right. Great job.

008Next up, we have from Ellison High School, Briana Brower, Hunter Emble, Garland Potvin, Abigail Thompson, and Robia Warich. Perfect. Go Eagles. All right, we have a few more. They keep coming. From Harker Heights High School, we have Andrea Alisia, Jaylen Bennett, Madison Cho, Evelyn Cowanhan, Alexander Kim, Hannah Thompson, Tu Tuvita Voyan Nuva, Gabriella Watkins, Broadnecks, Rachel Yansy, and Gloria E. Congratulation Knights. This is a This is a great group. I'm so happy that it's a large group. They've worked so hard for this. From Colleen High School, we have a few more students to recognize tonight. Colleen High School, Daniela Calderon, Marie Noel Medlin, Zoe Sen Atkinson, Nicholas Cesma, and Kaylee Wood. Good job. So Congratulations. And next year we're going to look to double this number. So get ready. Um that concludes tonight's honors and

009recognitions. Thank you for celebrating with us. The board will now hear comments from those who signed up to speak. Per board policy, each public comment is limited to three minutes. I'll 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 form participants begin by stating their name and the city in which they reside. Once complete, your three minutes will begin. First individual I have is Rebecca Fay. Welcome. >> That light should turn green and then you should be good. >> Thank you. One moment, please. >> My name is Rebecca Fay. I live in Colleen, Texas.

010Good evening, Dr. Davis and members of the board. I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight and to clarify the purpose behind recent advocacy from lead librarians regarding the optional student school library advisory committee or Slack. First, let me ask you this. What was your favorite book growing up? Maybe a book that broadened your world view, allowed your imagination to take you places you could never visit in real life, or maybe provided an escape from it. And where did you get that book? A school library. Now, go back to your younger self. What if that same book was not on the library shelf, but in cue for approval? No matter your responses, I'm confident that timely access to literature from a variety of viewpoints played a role in who you are today. Next, Charlotte's Web, Where

011the Wild Things Are, and The Giving Tree. I'll bet the parents in this room can't count the number of times they've read these books with their children at bedtime. What do they all have in common? They're all in the band books list. Charlotte's Web by Eie White. Banned because talking animals were considered sacrilegious. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Synindak, banned for portraying a child throwing a tantrum, depicting children in a negative light, and allegedly promoting witchcraft. The Giving Tree by Shell Silverstein, banned because some interpreted the relationship between the tree and the boy a metaphor for an unhealthy marriage. These examples highlight the subjectivity of books. What is acceptable to one family may be objectionable to another. They say once a teacher, always a teacher. So, I'd like to provide insight and transparency

012on our library materials ordering process. Library materials are selected with fidelity following EFB local board policy as well as the Texas school library standards. When shopping online, if you will, through vendor cataloges, we often filter by age recommendations and interest level to ensure the book is a good fit for our students. The difficult part, age recommendations from publishers and professional reviewers are subjective and can vary greatly, which brings us back to empowering parents to choose what is best for their child, including title restriction and the formal challenge procedure. It is important to note that books in circulation are continuously monitored and when necessary re-evaluated and relocated to more appropriate campuses. Librarians are educators. No matter the vote tonight, we are committed to upholding the law while serving our students. Thank you for your time, for

013hearing my perspective, and for your continued support of our libraries and the students we serve. >> Thank you. >> Next, we have Stan Golabuff. Welcome, Stan Golib, Harker Heights. Uh, I'm here tonight to ask you politely to oppose the creation of a Slack. Um, this is not parental involvement. This is nothing but another attack on education professionals. Parents already have their say about what their kids can read. There's also a way if you don't want your kid to read a book for you to stop your kid from reading that book. The books are aligned with the TEACS approved by the state board of education. That process already involves parents in creating those tees. Um creating a slack and putting parents in at this last moment would be much like um a parent waiting until their

014child went to DAP to get involved in the process, which one of you so eloquently talked about just a couple weeks ago that you didn't want to see happen. and now you're advocating to do the exact thing with the creation of a Slack. We need to support public education. You are the trustees of the Colleen Independent School District, a public education institution. You have trained professionals with master's degrees who are making these decisions correctly. You do not need to get a group of overexited parents to doublech checkck their work. But if you want to create a Slack, you can do that. because you got elected. But when you do that, I will look forward to you talking to me about being your next superintendent because obviously we don't need a doctorate. We don't need a

015a certificate of uh superintendent. You just need to have somebody who's excited, passionate, and local about education. So, I look forward to being your next superintendent if you build if you put the slack in place. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next we have Arla Clark. Welcome. >> Thank you. >> Arla Clark, Belton, Texas. By asking the school board to select EFB local option one. Last week, experienced educators were advocating for students who need the resources Ken ICD school libraries provide. Had librarians been invited to speak, they would have explained 9,000 book titles is an estimate of the number of books the school board will now need to approve yearly. 9,000 is a fraction of the books ordered for the Colleen ISD libraries each year. 45,000 is a better estimate of books affected by SB13 and

016your decision tonight. Last year, three to four months were required to order, receive, and place books on library shelves. After September 1st, this will increase by two months. One month for parents and community members to observe and review a posted book list and an additional month for the school board to review recommendations and approve books on the list. The process is a bit different than purchasing books from Barnes & Noble. For years, your librarians have welcomed input and received book recommendations from parents, students, teachers, and others. Today, librarians question, how much time is needed to appoint parents to serve on a school library advisory council? How much time is needed for district personnel to train volunteers to align books with the texts, to assign grade levels to books, to understand proper collection development procedures? How

017much time is needed before the advisory council brings recommendations to the school board? Will students see any new or donated books in their libraries this school year? Next school year. Librarians are advocating for the students who came to the library on the first day of school to check out books they waited all summer to read. Librarians are advocating for the non-reader who while in the library saw a book series he hadn't read and is now in the library each morning reading the most recent books in the series. Librarians are advocating for the aspiring college students who need access to up-to-date SAT study guides. Librarians are advocating for all students. An advoc an advocacy council will be provided student demographics to consider when recommending library books, but your librarians know their students. your librarians are able

018to put faces with the demographic information. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next, we have Rayanne Palm. Did I pronounce that? >> Welcome, >> Rayanne Palm. I'm from Coppers Cove, Texas. Good evening. I wanted to start off by thanking the board and everyone today for all the thought and consideration you have put into SB13 and the impact it'll have on our students, schools, and libraries. I know that there are many important factors to consider and no easy answers. Last week, myself and the other leads spoke on SB13 in the technical side of things. Tonight, I am stepping away from that to speak on a more personal side. I know that there is much about the role of a librarian that most people do not understand. And to be fair, it is to be expected. We

019have such a unique role on campus and unless you are in it, it is hard to understand all that goes into it. I don't fully understand the complexities that come with being a superintendent, a principal, a counselor, or even a teacher nowadays, despite having taught before. If there were two things I would want everyone here to know about librarians, it would be this. One, we are not in the library to control books or to influence anyone with our personal beliefs. Most of us in the library are there to share a love of learning and reading. Often we have been inspired by a librarian from our past. A common thing in all of our library classes is that the library is supposed to be a safe and welcoming place for all who enter. All patrons, young

020and old, should see themselves reflected in the stories on the shelves. Our personal beliefs do not come into play when we do choose our books. I am terrified of snakes, but yet every year I order snake books because my children love them. A trivial example, I realized, but an important one nonetheless. The second thing I want people to know is that it isn't librarians versus the world. We want to be partners with our school community. We don't want to isolate staff, students, or community members. We do not want to take away their opinions, nor do we want to keep them out of the libraries. I am not just a librarian. I am a mother of five. I know the importance of parental rights and being able to instill your beliefs and your values into your

021children. My fellow librarians and I fully support parents rights when it comes to what they want for their child. However, one parent shouldn't be able to dictate what the other 40,000 students of our district are able to read. that is not fair to our students nor to our parents. This year, in fact, I was inspired by a fellow librarian to host monthly library nights for families, inviting them to come into the library each month to check out books with their children. I invite anyone here today to come visit the library with me and see the joy and excitement that my students have every time they walk through those doors. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Next we have Jericho Bailey. Did I pronounce that? >> All right. Welcome. >> Good evening, members of

022the board and Dr. Davis. I would like to thank you again for your dedication to our students and for taking the time to consider the long-term implications of SB13. Your leadership will directly shape how quickly and effectively our students can access the resources they need. At the heart of last Tuesday's board meeting is a shared commitment to our students. We have shared value in making sure students have timely access to diverse, age appropriate, highquality books that support their interests, growth, and learning. I want to share with you what I see every single day in our library. During the first week and a half of school when classes came in, I introduced our students to the brand new books we had at the start of the year. The gasp, the ecstatic yells, the pure excitement that

023filled the library is hard to put into words. That joy is what libraries are all about. And yet during the week and a half, every time a student asked for a new book or checked one out, I thought about what would happen under SB13, specifically option two. That moment of excitement would not exist. This is what option two is taking away from our students. Instead of seeing shelves filled with new titles, our students would face empty spaces and long waits if it ever comes. Parents will always have the final authority over what their child can or cannot read. That has not changed and it never will. But as librarians, our role is to serve every student by promoting the love of reading and ensuring they have access to highquality, diverse, and age appropriate books. At

024the end of the day, this is about our students. Students who deserve to walk into their library and discover new stories waiting for them. Please consider their voices and their joy as you make this decision. Again, I would like to thank you for your time, consideration, and commitment as you review SB13. I deeply appreciate the careful attention you are giving to this important matter, recognizing the responsibility it carries for supporting student learning, honoring parent choice, and ensuring that our librarians continue to provide equitable access to highquality resources. Thank you. >> Thank you. As we have no one else signed up for public form, we're closing public forum and moving to agenda item number three, which is a superintendent report. Dr. Davis. >> Thank you, Mr. President. First of all, welcome everyone. Thank you for joining

025us tonight. Uh board, we have a brief board update and at this time I return it over to the team, Mr. Heckinberg and Dr. Osborne. >> All right. Thank you, sir. Well, it is no secret that there are no students sitting in any offices at the district level. Um, all of our students are out at the campuses. So, sometimes that might beg the question, what are we doing? Um, we are keeping students at the center of the work. So, we want to take an opportunity and I might be shocking my team at this time to highlight some of the things we are doing to make sure student outcomes unfold. Starting with our division and learning services first. Um we took quite a bit of time in the spring to initiate a needs assessment out of

026the department and division. Um we have moved all the way through to the point where we are working on a weekly scorecard ensuring that we're driving the absolute right work every week every day in school leadership and supervision. Um we are also moving towards designated campus tiers and support. Um in this last week we have outlined five tiers of student I'm sorry campus levels um to make sure our cadence of school visit cadence of school visit excuse me um is aligned with the support that each version of campus is needed in curriculum and instruction. uh we know that if we don't get into classrooms and get out there to support campuses right away, we might slip away from the appropriate and accurate pacing to finish all the teaks that we need to within the school

027year or within a quarter. Um so our district instructional specialists, our district instructional coaches are already out at campuses supporting to ensure that curriculum is implemented with fidelity and in alignment with the TEICSS. Um, we're also proud to to share that in the last semester, we were selected to receive a grant, Texas Reads, Texas Leads. We went through several months and series of training with our elementary principal principles to transition K through three literacy from balanced literacy to structured literacy where we're focused on that phonics-based approach to reading. In combination with curriculum and instruction, we have our assessment and accountability team. Um later on today or this evening I'll be sharing quite a bit about accountability. Um but in light of the the recent data that we've received in light of our beginning of year

028data for our students we are providing technical assistance out to those campuses to ensure we are developing action plans that it's going to meet the needs of students on campuses. Another big ticket item coming out of assessment and accountability is the acquisition of a data dashboard program. Uh that program is called decision ed and it's not just designed to support our campuses um but also our district departments so that we have readily accessible actionable data just in time pull up the screen see attendance see teacher ratios um see funding on a daily basis. So we are working on the dashboards connected to every department so that we have just in time data. Next slide. A couple of more divisions or departments within learning services. All things attendance, discipline, registration, transfers and discipline hearings is in

029student support services. Um we are finalizing our 2025 2026ou with the juvenile justice uh alternative education program um to make sure that we align with the new state requirements that will be in place on September 1st. Um we are coming into our second year as well uh with RAWI truency prevention software. It allows us to monitor just in time data related to absenteeism and more specifically monitoring chronic absenteeism. I'm proud of my team with that and that will push out to campuses training on Thursday. In specialized learning, we talked a little bit last week about our work to make sure our substitutes and self-contained classrooms are out at campuses helping those subs. um our district office in special education. There's plenty of offices in there, but they are out at campuses and that has been

030the request and that will absolutely continue to make sure that we get people trained. In partnership with HR, we're preparing for uh enrollment counts for our programs to ensure that classrooms with the little too many kids and teacher ratio that we put another teacher, we start another classroom, we add another aid. So, thanks to the HR team. so we can make sure that we get those special education classrooms balanced. And last but not least in the state and federal programs, small but mighty department led by Christian Shen, um they are doing all things annual requirements. Um that team is in the process of reviewing our campus improvement plans which we bring to the board on an annual basis in addition to finalizing the compliance reporting for all of those federal funds that we received last

031year to make sure we met the letter of the law in all those areas. Um so our effort at the district level is to ensure that we're supporting campuses, keeping business of the schools at the center of our work and we look forward to continuing that throughout the year. Thank you. Just a few more updates. Uh good evening everybody. Uh first wanted to highlight, you know, the Chapperel sidewalk project. You know, a lot of people take a sidewalk for granted that it's not a big thing. Uh I think Adam and his team will tell you that getting that project done, you know, took a lot of work and it's, you know, just another example of how we're invested in school safety, providing a safe alternative for folks to be able to pass from those two

032schools. Uh, everyone who has driven that road understands the amount of traffic, the lack of a shoulder, you know, the need for that and, you know, the effort that they put to to build that sidewalk and and link those two schools in that community uh is a great step to start the year. Uh, last week we talked about the kitchen renovations. I just wanted to show a picture of, you know, we've talked about it, but I just kind of wanted to highlight again, you know, the team that the facilities team and the school of nutrition team did for those 10 campuses to upgrade, improve the efficiency, the quality, you know, just the overall, you know, level of performance and excellence that goes with that. You know, I just wanted to be able to show you

033all what work went into that. And that's just one image and you multiply that by, you know, 10 to 20 and all the changes that were made on those campuses. uh it's already had an significant improvement to the start of the year and how those campuses are operating in those lunch times. Um last thing the other things I want to highlight is you know we're getting ready to set the 911 Freedom Walk. Uh it's going to be September 11th at 9:30 at Harker Heights High School. You know the further we get away from 911 you know it changes you know what it means to the community. You know, I know there are several folks in the audience who were serving or served after that date and, you know, to honor and recognize what it meant

034to those people uh is something that Colleen ISD does well and continues to do. And so on that day, we encourage you to come uh to wear your patriotic colors and to help remember and recognize those who who served and have served the community uh on that day. Uh there's going to be a great event, a great video. Uh not just because I'm in it, but also uh just recognizing those other folks, you know, in the district that are doing good things. Uh a small thing that I want to, you know, recognize the finance team for is, you know, this month every teacher saw a $200 uh increase in their pay. It's a one-time payment to help reimburse them for purchasing classroom supplies, purchasing materials. Uh it's a direct investment in the class. It's a

035small thing, but it it it matters. As the uh as the spouse of a of an educator, I know how much money people invest of their own into the education, into making sure their classrooms have the right materials and that those classrooms are set up. And it's just a small thing that goes forward as we as we start the year. And you know, it kicked in this August for all those teachers that were hired after 11 August, they will get it the next month. And we continue this process. So no teachers left out. we continue this all the way through March. So, we're taking care of those teachers as they come on board and get those classrooms set up for those students. Uh the last highlight is Friday Night Lights. Football is getting ready to

036kick off here in KISSD. Um for athletics, we kicked off online ticketing this year. Um our first event was the volleyball season opener. We had over 600 fans attend all using the system. Uh and it was a great, you know, first run of of this new technology that a lot of the districts in our area have already shifted to and we've adopted that as well. Uh fans can buy their tickets anytime, anywhere, skip the lines. We'll have the QR codes at every event so you can start from the parking lot till you get to the front gate. You'll have opportunities to purchase your tickets, you know, as you move forward up to up to the line to come into the event. Uh I wanted to highlight that this week we kick off the start of

037football at both stadiums. Thursday night, first game of the year, Shoemaker versus Round Rock at Joseph Sirl Stadium. Then Friday, we've got the double header of uh Chapperel versus Layman at SRLs. And then Friday, we've got Ellison versus Copper Cove of note uh for Dr. Buckley. I'll put in there that this is also the celebration of the Ellison class of 1985, their 40th reunion, and Ellison's homecoming as well earlier in the year. So, uh, I want to recognize them and the enjoyment they'll have this weekend of coming together in fellowship, uh, and solidarity and cheer on all of our teams, uh, this weekend. >> Thank you. We now move to item four, which is a consent agenda. Uh, all these items can be approved in one vote unless someone desires to remove one. So, consent

038agenda A, receive and approve minutes for the August 5th, 2025 board workshop at 9:00 a.m. B. Receive and approve minutes for the August 5th, 2025 special meeting at 1 p.m. C. Receive and approve minutes for the August 5th, 2025 special call meeting at 3 p.m. D. Consideration of resolution to recognize September 16, 2025 is information technology professionals day in Khen ISD. E. Consideration of resolution to recognize September 2025 as attendance awareness month in Colleen Independent School District. F. Consideration of the Texas Education Agency application for optional flexible school day program and graduation alliance, Inc. student re-engagement program agreement. G. Consideration of memorandum of understanding with Charlton State University regarding distinguished high school partnership program. H. Consideration of existing Collehen Independent School District administration building renovation project architect contract. I consideration of Alice W. Daus Elementary

039School data center relocation project architect contract. And J consideration of Franklin and Emily Pratt Learning and Leadership Center renovation project architect contract. Trustees, you have the consent agenda before you. Madam Secretary, >> Mr. President, I move to uh accept all consent agenda items as written listed as items A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J. >> We have a motion by Madame Secretary Adams. Have a second by Trustee Oliver 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 Tina Capido and Trustee Rottney Gilchrist. 502. Thank you very much. We're now going to skip down on the agenda to item 6B. 6B which is make sure I'm okay. Item 6B which

040is a consideration of pro proposed revisions to board policy EFB local instructional resources library materials and possible resolution establishing a local school library advisory council. Mr. Harper, welcome. >> Mr. President, members of the board, Dr. Davis, I bring back this to you for consideration tonight. Uh if you'll remember the last board meeting, we discussed this. There was one question uh at the last board meeting as to whether parents could uh choose a subject matter and essentially batch uh within the bookmark uh program that we're bringing in the software program whether uh parents could go in and search by a batch uh general category and then mark all of those books as not accessible to their student. Uh you can batch search but you cannot batch uh turn them all off I guess is the best

041way of saying but you can batch search search uh the example was human sexuality. You could search by that term and then it shows all the books and then you just go in and toggle each of those off. So to answer that question from before if you remember from last week uh Senate bill requires updates to our local policy EFB. Um and there are two options uh that are presented uh by the legislature essentially that one uh updating policy without a uh school library advisory committee um and one with the school library advisory committee. Certainly happy to try to answer questions andor ask friends to help me answer questions. >> Questions from trustees. Mr. Rainwater. >> I don't have a question. I have another remark I'd like to make if there are no questions. >>

042Okay. Madam Vice President, I'm I'm sorry, Mr. Rayar. I may have misunders You said at the end I was about >> As soon as I think Susan had a question. >> Okay, I'm tracking right then. My apologies. Madam Vice President, >> Mr. Mr. Harper, can you um explain to me the process of how these books are purchased? Uh the the list that the school district is is it the administrative staff that comes up with it? Is it the librarians who come up with the list of books? Who comes up with the list of books that we will be be buying that is age appropriate um high quality and takes and meet TEIK standards? who comes up with these books. >> So, our library and professionals are crafting that and then bringing that forward to administration

043who will then post it. Uh the new law requires that it be posted 30 days before the board accepts those or rejects them. And so, they will be posted for 30 days before the board then would need to approve or strike. >> So, the librarians do this. Do the principles, does the administrative staff at the here at the admin building look at that list? Does anybody else look at that list? >> I believe Dr. Kraton, you're about to address that. >> Oh, maybe I'm not writing. Yes, you are. >> Good evening. So, the librarians take uh student request into consideration, parent request, teacher request into consideration. they compile the list and currently um they submit the order and then campus administration approves the purchase. >> Okay. So the reason I asked that question is because

044I I personally love libraries. I personally buy books that sit on my shelf waiting for me to read. Um, but I do believe that our public library um is offering books to students and those students should have highquality education and they should align with TEACS and they should be age appropriate. And I've been struggling with this uh since we've had the this discussion last week. um because I don't want to add layers of bureaucracy to the school system when we're already struggle with a lot of other regulations, but I don't want children to have access to books that aren't meeting any of these criteria. Um and so two books were brought to my attention today. Um and I did a little research and then I asked Dr. Davis to tell me if those two books

045were in our libraries and he confirmed they're at our high school libraries. Um they're both rated um very high on shouldn't be in there. Um and they the the name of those two books are tricks and sold and they're sexually graphic. They have nothing to do with TEICSS. They do not align with TEICSS in any nature on there unless you're wanting to teach kids how to have sex or sell drugs or do that kind of stuff. Um and they are not high quality. uh they are not books I would have in my home and they're not books that I would think we'd have in a public library. So my concern um has shifted a little bit to ask who is making these assessments, who is looking at these books, who is putting these books in

046the library where a parent has to be vigilant on making sure that the child isn't reading that kind of stuff. I don't know. Um I mean we try to manage our kids with the cell phones. That's hard enough. Um, and like I said, I I love reading and I love the libraries and um I would support libraries, but I want to know how we control what we put in our libraries. So, please look at these two books and you guys tell me then if it meets TE standards or if it's high quality or if it's age appropriate. >> Thank you, >> Madam Vice President. I want to make sure that's a that's in a form of a question. So I think the trustees are owed a response. Correct. You want that response now. I'm under

047the assumption. >> I don't need it now. It's it's I just want people to understand that parents concerns are valid when they are concerned about books in our libraries. And do I believe in everybody out there and believe that you all work hard? Absolutely. Do I believe that you're educators and you make try to make good choices? Absolutely. Do I believe that you can read every book and look at every book that goes in that library? No, I don't. Um, just no more than any of these board members are going to be able to look at them all. But there should be some kind of precursor to what goes in the library because those two books when you all go back tonight, you guys Google them, you pull them up, and then you guys tell

048me if you think they're age appropriate, high quality or teique standards. Thank you, >> Mr. Mintz. So, I'd like to pick up where Miss Jones left off. That's not the only two books. There's two others that are equally sexually graphic and have little to no value. So, we have now just as we've spoken from the dis four books that we know of that are in our libraries that have zero educational value. Four. And that's just the ones we know about. I'm sure there's plenty more. My point is that, and I'm going to speak on this, and then I'm going to hold my piece. The notion that we should remove parents and we should remove our community from this decision-making cycle is offensive. Our parents are not, what was the word, o overexcited, right? Our parents

049are intelligent. Our community members are educated and they're capable of making informed decisions. This is not some attempt to ban books. That notion is ludicrous. We are not banning books. We are establishing a baseline of decency as as is appropriate in this community. Parents, if you want to go buy a sexually explicit book for your child because you believe it develops them and prepares them for college, then by God, go buy it. There's plenty of places to buy it. Heck, you can get all that stuff free on the internet these days. All we're saying here is that parents, our community who are educated, who are smart, should have input in this process. Somebody I don't remember what I don't even know what the total number of books in our libraries is, but it's probably well

050over a 100,000. If we're ordering 45,000 new ones a year, that tells me there's a heck of a lot of books here. We have 50 plus campuses. We have 47,000 student there or 45,000 students. There's a lot of books. The notion that we we are somehow stunting our children's development by slowing the addition of singledigit percentages of books is just nonsensical. We should bring our parents in. We should bring our community in. It's my bet that the people we would put on a slack would be pretty engaged in the process and they would not unduly delay any entry of books into our system. I am in favor of option two. We should vote for the slack. We should bring our community into this process. That said, our librarians are a tremendously valuable resource and we

051rely on them to provide us professional input on things. This is by no means cutting our librarians out of the process. This is not a this is not a binary choice. Our librarians still play a valuable and indispensable role in this process. But these things can coexist. We're not going to destroy our library program or our reading programs by putting giving parents a voice in what goes into our libraries. >> Mr. Rainwater. >> First of all, I don't think it's l ludicrous that uh we have trained master's degrees and plus higher levels of people who know our public schools, who know the qualifications and the the requirements of uh the books in the library. 45,000 books and you guys have pointed out four and I'm sure there's more. But it doesn't make sense to vote

052for option two. To me, all you're doing with option two is providing a group of parents the ability to censorship, which is so much what you guys object to. So now you're giving that censorship ability to a group of parents who may be offended for whatever reason or may have a political agenda. As far as I know, our librarians have been this successful with a as I recall three books have actually reached this this published policy. So my view is option one is by far the most reasonable and by far involves the least amount of censorship that our students will profit from avoiding censorship from an outside radical group. So we have talked about this till the cows come home. The cows are home. I just want to vote and get this over with. >>

053Madam secret quick question, Mr. Harper, and this may be for Dr. Kraton. So what is the process again and I apologize for removal once the book is identified and the swiftness or lack thereof of that process? So even with with or without the slack then when the law goes into effect if there is a challenge to a book that book is removed from the shelves while the process looks at it. Uh the slack is an additional layer I guess is the best way of saying that. Okay. Then so in the case of the books that have been identified, so I do want to know so who owns who owns the work or the procurement of those particular books that have made their way in that could be potentially challenged to be removed like is that

054the campus principal or is that the overall I just want to make sure who gives the final that's the group of books that we should order. So the librarian curates the list, submits the list for approval, and then the principal approves the approval of the books of the purchases for the campus. >> So it's each respective campus principal approves all the books that arrive on their campus >> after the librarian submits the request. Yes. >> Okay. But but I would I would like to just I mean if I can I don't know if it's absolutely >> appropriate at this time. We have added an additional resource. Mr. Harper mentioned that last time called bookmarked. Uh we piloted it last year. It is another layer of protection for parents that if there is a book that

055they do not want their child to have access to when it's brought to the counter for checkout, librarians, library aids would scan the book to see if it shows up in that particular system. If it does and the parent has said that they don't want their child to access that book, the student is not allowed to check that book out. So that's a parent's option to deny access to his or her child. But if there is a challenge from a parent or a community member about a book in a library, we have a formal process that allows us to review the book with a committee that's comprised of representatives from the campus, primarily the principal or principal designate with the librarian. and it may include a parent that's not the person who's done the challenge.

056And then we read that book and make a educated and informed decision about whether or not that book remains on the shelf or if it is removed. So I wanted to be sure we knew that there was a process if a book is challenged. And I wanted everyone to know that there's also an additional resource resource that we started piloting last year that will go live next week in September that will add another layer of protection for parents. >> Thank you. Mr. Harper, what's the trigger number again for the slack? How many people on a petition? >> 50. If there's a community support for 50 signing a petition for that >> that is separate from whether you all establish one or not. >> Correct. Madame vice president. >> So if a slack uh committee was

057set up who would be in charge of that committee >> uh essentially y'all would appoint uh nominate and elect members of that committee. uh if you'll notice that there have to be at least five voting members uh that the board appoints but each board member appoints an equal number. So I would see there's seven there at the very least uh with seven of you and it then goes in increments. So if each of you appoint one it would be seven. If each of you appoint two members it would be 14 and so forth and so forth. Um, and kind of looking through those, you may also appoint as a board optional members such as classroom teachers, librarians that are employed by the district. Um, certified school counselors, school administrators, members of the business community, and

058members of the clergy, should you so choose. Uh, back up to those seven that you're appointing, the majority of those must uh, be parents of students enrolled in the district and not employed by the school district. And who would be in charge of the group? >> You all would appoint a chair of that group essentially. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions from trustees? >> Mr. Ramwater. >> I just like to make a motion. >> Sure. >> Ready. I move to approve the proposed revision to board policy EFB local. Option one is recommended by TASBY Policy Services. That was pretty quick, but I'm pretty sure you said number >> number one, please. >> We have a motion by Mr. >> R. Have a motion by Mr. Rainwater. We have a second by Secretary Adams. Any

059further discussion by trustees? There being none, all those in favor, show of hands. We have three in favor. Those opposed? We have three in favor. We have two opposed. and Vice President Jones and Trustee Mintz passes by three to two vote, two absent and not participating, and trustee Tina Capido and Trustee Rodney Gilchrist. Thank you, Mr. Harper. We're now going to move back on the agenda to five, which is information items for discussion. A discussion of 2025 district and campus accountability ratings. Dr. Cross. Good evening again, board of trustees, President Williams, Dr. Davis. Um I am presenting tonight on our 2425 A throughF accountability ratings. Um that will be our primary focus but I will be covering quite a few other things. Um just to set the stage for this presentation. This is part two

060of two presentations that have occurred in the month of August. The first one took place about two weeks ago in which we talked specifically about student achievement data based on grade level, based on content area and based on performance levels whether it was did not meet approaches, meets or masters. This is the culminating presentation of that information. So I think to set the stage first think of all of those scores pouring into the accountability rating system and that's what we be we will be discussing tonight. So just to set the stage with our table of contents because it's been a while since we've talked specifically about A throughF ratings I am going to do a little bit of a teach explanation not only for the board but specifically for the public because this is new

061information. Um, I will give a brief overview of our Colleen ISD A throughF ratings. We will really drill down on the last three bullets you see up there, our DNF- rated campuses, the implications for those F ratings, and our pathway to improvement, what we plan for improvement, and what we have in progress already. So, without any further ado, a quick overview of the explanation of A throughF accountability. So the A throughF accountability system is the framework uh designed by TEA to provide a A throughF rating on academic performance of both the schools and the district. Uh in in essence and simply stated each campus and our district gets a overall rating. Um that overall rating as it's listed in that definition up there measures students learning in each grade and whether or not they're ready

062for the subsequent grade. Uh that overall rating is comprised of three different domains. Domain one student achievement, domain two, school progress, and domain three closing the gaps. I want to talk a little bit about each of them before we start talking about ratings. So domain one measures if the student met grade level expectations. So that is saying Terry Osborne fourth grade math 75% and that was met grade level. That is completely hypothetical but that is student achievement. In our student achievement domain one for our high schools we also measure graduation rate and our college career and military readiness. That would be anything related to advanced academics or our industrybased certifications. All of that data pours into domain one. Domain two is school progress and it is 2A and 2B. 2A is specific to Terry Osborne

063score from fourth to fifth grade in math or reading. Um it is applicable when a student takes a subsequent grade level test. Did I do better? Did I do worse? Did I regress? Did I make leaps and bounds of progress in one year? That would be domain 2A. Domain 2B is specific to the school's performance relative to other schools that are economically disadvantaged have a similar population in that area. Um, so if our school is identified as 80% economically disadvantaged, the school relative performance would be compared to other school schools that are like that. um demographic set. Um in domain two, you can be rated on the higher of student by student or school relative performance. So we're putting individual school data in there or individual student data in the domain too. Domain three called

064closing the gaps. This is our federal accountability rating. Um, but it also talks specifically about how students are doing in our specific subpopuls, whether they are meeting the target on grade level or above. It's essentially a remix of domain one and domain two. Um, but the primary difference is we look at whether kids are meeting grade level and above where you would get credit in domain one for approaches, low approaches or high. um that is different in domain three. So just that quick overview. So let's get a quick example. So we have a example campus here um where you see on the far left side I'm going to work through that this campus in domain one student achievement got an A93. In domain two school progress got a B85 in domain three closing the gaps

065received a C78. Remember, all of that student data is pouring into the calculation of that domain grade. So, when we get ready to move across to your bottom right hand corner where you have your overall rating, you're working with those individual domains to come up with that calculation. So, if we look at domain one and two, in order to move towards your overall rating, you take 70% of the higher of domain one or domain two. And I have that represented in the graphic on the top right hand corner. In this situation, this case of this school domain one student achievement was higher. So when you take a look at the graph in the table below, that's where the 70% weight comes from and not from domain 2. Although the school would have gotten that rating

066in that area, it is not calculated into the overall for domain three. closing the gaps where we're looking at those specific school excuse me specific student populations meeting grade level or above that always gets a weight of 30%. So if you take a look at the table 93 * 70% they got a weighted score of 65.1 and then that 78 time 30% weighted score of 23.4 4. That is where they got the 88.5. The state was generous, rounds up to an 89. It seems pretty simple, but there are some really nuanced calculations that go into it. Um, but this is the highlevel. How do you get your overall score? How do you get domain one, two, three, and how those fit together? Because we're talking about A throughF accountability for the first in quite some

067time. Um, I do want to give some historical context on the A throughF accountability rating system. Um, I have a little table here that takes us back about six years and we're going to compare the test date to the release date so we understand how this has trended over time. So, if we go back to school year 2018 2019, the majority of tests took place in spring of 2019. in that school year. They released in August of 2019. So A throughF scores would have come out what we would consider right on time, beginning of the next school year, ready to make actionable plans with that data that you've received back. And then the world experienced the pandemic. Uh so in that column I have 201920, 2020, 2021, 2021, and 2022. In all three of those

068school years, there was a variety of approaches to not releasing the ratings. Um, in the first two, 2020 and 2021, ratings weren't issued for any campuses because of CO 19. In 2022, as we moved into postpandemic society, so to speak, only the campuses that received an A, B, or C got official ratings. 23 22 23 in the middle of your column is when we really stepped into the post-pandemic version of state assessments. Similarly, we took the test in spring of 2023, but I've highlighted in that yellow color our athletic gold. Um the major difference that occurred from 23 different from 2019. Um, what you see there is that we just released or received official A throughF accountability ratings for 2223 6 months ago, April of 2025. Um, I'm sure most people recall um there was

069an injunction that was placed on ratings and that pre prevented the state or TEA from releasing those ratings to the public. And that was because two things occurred and school districts essentially filed a lawsuit to prevent the release of the ratings. Um there was an accountability refresh. So our cut scores for those calculations in each domain changed. Not only did the accountability system change and the cut scores the nature of the test changed as well. We went from what you would recall as a standard multi-choice ABCD to what we call STAR 2.0. Um where there are drag and drop multi- select constructed responses. Both of those things happened in the year of 2023 which prompted districts to say hey TEA what about us? Um and that also prevented further issuing of ratings in 23 24.

070You'll see the tests were taken in spring of 24. Those were released two weeks ago on August 15th. Similarly, last school year's ratings came out two weeks ago on August 15th. Um so I've walked through it, but I think for our public, it really is important to answer the question, well, what does this mean? And why does it feel like or seem like you're hearing this for the first time? That is because we have not talked A throughF ratings in quite some time because they have not been officially released. In the last 5 months going back to April, we got 22 23 and then we got 23 24 and 2425 in this beginning of the school year. Now, despite us not getting official ratings, I really want to make sure that the public, the board,

071um, any person listening that is a community member and invested in Colleen ISD, even though we had not received ratings, that did not mean under any circumstances, we were not responding to student data. We were getting performance levels or uh, percent comp complete or accurate on tests. We got back information that allowed us to intervene and make curricular or leadership decisions related to assessment. So let's talk now that we've set a foundation about the actual A throughF ratings for Colleen ISD for this last several years. So what we have here is 22 23 all the way to the previous year. Um so three years ago we were rated a 72. Two years ago, hopped up just about three points to a 75. And then in this last year had a decrease of one point in

072our overall score. Um but please keep in mind that one point decrease is pouring lots of tests, lots of data, graduation rate, industrybased certification, school progress compar comparison to relative performance of other schools. So it's one point um but there are a lot of nuanced data pieces that create that one point. What we would say in this last year is that we were essentially flat but honoring the notion that we did go down and for us that is not okay. So looking at the data more specifically A, B, C, D, and F. These are our letter grades by campus um that are attributed to that overall C of 74 for the year. So I'm going to work from left to right on this. Um it shows you three years of data as well. Um we

073have gone down by one in our A's, campuses that received an overall score of an A. We've remained flat from the last year to this year or two years ago to last year um in campuses that received a B. And then go over with me to the far left side and look at Fs. We went down from four Fs to just three and then nine nine D's to six. I went the other direction because when you're going down in DNF, you're typically going up and that's what you see in the C column. Um, we went up in the C range, but that was the movement of DNFS to acceptably scored scored campuses. So trimming that back a little bit and talking specifically about how were our campuses that do receive ratings rated independently. How did

074they do with their overall score? So last year 24 25 of our campuses received an A. 13 of our campuses received a B. 24 of our campuses received a C and six received a D and three received an F. Um I pulled this one out separately because in our discussions we look at this and we say hm this looks quite a bit like a bell curve normal distribution of data. Now this is not the bell curve that we want. So I'm not saying that that's what I'm seeking to describe. I but I do want to compare our grade levels when we move forward. So just keep the idea of our total district ratings for our individual campuses. Normal distribution looks like a bell curve. And then of course over on the right hand side those

075encompass the se the 74. So the question might be well why even spend any time talking about what went well? Um like I said these are student scores. This is work and effort for our campuses for our teachers for our aids for our staff members for the operational teams that hold the system up. Um so what I think it is worth um like you said u Mr. They don't have to be binary. They can They don't have to be mutually exclusive. So, I want to just pause for a point and honor some of the things that did go well, but we're going to spend a lot of time talking about what we're going to do differently. Among those 49 campuses that got a rating, 22 did increase in their overall score. Um, we had some

076exceptional improvement in our high schools, and I'll get into that a little bit more. 50% of our 12 middle schools did increase their score in highlighting two of those that were high needs. They're still not performing where we would want them to be, but they did see a four or more point increase in their overall score. 10 of out of 10 out of our 31 elementary schools improve their overall score. And then last but not least, and probably the big big deal here is that 21 of our campuses had at least one distinction. And that distinction means in their campus group, they're like campuses across the state, there's 40 of them, we were in the top 25%. So that actually totals 48 distinctions for 21 campuses. So there's work there to be proud of. Um,

077but I don't want to stay there too long because we're here to talk about what we're going to do different. So to set the stage for talking about how we move differently in the future, uh I want to bring you back to that idea of the bell curve. Um go back two slides. Boom. There it is. That's normal distribution for all of our campus that get ratings. And then let's take a look at the concept of a bell curve. When we pull each group out by grade level, if we look at elementary on the far left side, it's a bit positive skewed when we think about the bell curve. When we look at high school on the far right side, it's very positively skewed in the distribution. And it's very easy for us to highlight

078where we need to do our work as we move forward. That does not negate the work of elementary. That does not negate our effort to make sure kids are college, career, and military ready. But we know that middle school is where we have great challenges. And that is evidenced by the negatively skewed bell curve. Where we have no Fs in elementary, we have no A's or B's in middle school. Where we have no Fs in high school, we have six D's and Fs in middle school. Um, that is a reality for us and we will address it. Um, Miss Jones, as you would say, the people behind me are leaned in in the foxhole. Um, so we recognize where we have to go with this thing. So, just a a few takeaways from our A

079throughF data 2025 and previous. There are some areas worth celebrating. High schools, the two high need middle schools that improve those 48 designated distinctions. Big deal. Key takeaway bell curve. It pained me, President Williams, to write, type, print, publish a majority of average. And I'm sure it pains you similarly to see that because you call yourself, and I call myself a winner. That is hard to write. So, it's a takeaway and it's uncomfortable for us. The one that's even more uncomfortable is the far right side. Middle schools are struggling. When we look at sixth, seventh and eighth grade reading, math compared to all other grades reading and math, we are performing behind the success other of other grade levels. So those are some major takeaways for our data um as we move forward as we

080move forward. We are drilling down on our D and F rated campuses while keeping in mind we don't want anybody to slip back. So the C's are in our corner of our eye. They're on the periphery, but we want to talk a little bit about the DNF- rated campuses. We're going to go back three years here, and we are taking a look at 22 23 DNF- rated campuses. And again, this was the first year really post pandemic. Um, at that point, we had 14 total campuses that were D or F-rated. And at this point, you can also see we have D and F-rated campuses at every school type. high school, middle, and elementary school. Going into 23 24, we see a decrease in DNF- rated campuses. Not by many, just one, 13, 14 to 13.

081But there's definitely a difference in where high schools began to perform when we look at 23 24. Um, but it's important to point out while three high schools were no longer on the list, more middle schools and more elementary schools are on the list. Um, I know Dr. Kraton would want me to say this is about the time that we started asking questions about curriculum and this predated my time here. Um, but in conversation with curriculum, our previous superintendent, this was when the decision was made. we must standardize our curriculum. We must move to highquality instructional materials and pull back the nature of autonomy. So there was a response at this point to what we were seeing with the data specifically at elementary and middle school. And then coming into last year or data that

082we received from last year 2425 we've reduced from 13 DRF campuses down to nine DRF campuses. Again I think it's worthy of pointing out in the year prior eight elementary schools. This previous year three elementary schools. But what has not changed is that trend with middle school. So pressing in on that exact same challenge that we know exists. So let's talk about specifically what are the implications when you do have long-term underperformance or what we would identify as unacceptably rated schools. We've identified seven schools that have yearover-year unacceptable ratings. Um they are listed there for you. Rancier, Mayor, Eastern Hills, PaloAlto, Live Oak Ridge, Hay Branch, and Dallas Elementary School. I am going to spend some time talking from right to left on the chart with each of those. Rancier three years ago 64 saw

083a decrease to a force failure and I'm going to talk about that. Um force failure of 59. They did see from one year to the next a four-point increase. And that's what I did highlight as high need school. Still not where we needed to be. We are leaned in, but there was a four-point overall increase. And there is a lot of data that pours into that overall increase. Mayor 59 to 52. We see a forced failure 59. I do want to note at this point, what does it mean for a forced failure? The system is not actually as simple as the 70%, 30%. uh and then you get a calculation. Um it is not as simple as what we would think about for school. What we would talk about with a high school student. If

084you get a 59 at the first semester, you got to bust it. If you can get a 85 or so in the next semester, you can average the pass. This system does not permit averaging to pass quote unquote if you have scores that are too low in specific domains. So with the case of Mayor Middle School, that force failure rule came into play where they jumped from an eightoint increase when we think about how the calculations just work point blank to a 60. But you can't average the pass if you're not high enough in most areas. And that force failure results in a 59. You see that as well for PaloAlto and then you see it a couple of places across the board at other campuses. What that says to us is you can't be

085great in one area and not be great in all. And we recognize and know that to be true. Eastern Hills one point increase, PaloAlto flat. We are highlighting and leaning in paying attention to the trend data for live oak ridge um where we see 74 69 force failure and then 61 that is front and center for us although it does not fall in the three four-year unacceptable ratings. That is a drop that is not un that is not acceptable for us and we recognize it. Hay branch 55 to 68 68 to 61 similar se Alice W DAO 73 to 70 I'm sorry 73 to 67 67 to 64 so those three schools listed at the bottom they are front and center for us and addressing and identifying well what's going on what happened there so

086when we think about a campus that has had yearover-year unacceptable ratings TEA lays out a very clear blueprint for us. This is not an area that they play around with and they don't hold the information back. It's not intended to be a surprise. What might be surprising about it is because we got three years of data practically at the same time, but the rules of the game have not changed. Year one of an F rating, we implement a targeted improvement plan. Year two, you have an opportunity to do a targeted improvement plan or a turnaround plan and I'll talk about that on the next slide, but they are very different. Year three, this is where we see oursel with one of our campuses or I'm sorry, two of our campuses, Mayor and PaloAlto designated in

087the same colors to align with what you see here. based on the ratings that we have recent recently received. We must implement and design simultaneously a turnaround plan. Um that is also the case for our other campus Eastern Hills which we'll be doing because it has two years of consecutive FS. Where we never want to see ourselves is year four implementing a turnaround plan or year five where you can read that information. That is daunting. That is appalling. That is embarrassing. That is not good for communities and we do not want it for clean ISD. We see the news about districts that are in that scenario and we recognize that is not where we intend to go. But it is important to make sure that it gets stated that we receive the third F, but

088we are in year four. Year four means if we get an F or a D in this year, we are designated year four for our two campuses that have just gotten year three ratings. So, we're teetering on the cusp and we we don't take it lightly at all. So, a quick recap. Recognizing that we cannot stay where we are, we must act decisively and aggressively. We have multiple campuses at risk. In 2025 alone, we had nine campuses that we consider on the watch list because they received a DRF. Regardless of how many, there are nine that got a D or F. In this past ratings year, we have three campuses that are in the multi-year unacceptable ratings, which does trigger elevated intervention. And that means, as listed on the far right side, decisive action is

089required by us as an administration, by you as a board, and that definitely lands in both of our courts. We're in this together. Um, multiple years means that we must submit a turnaround plan. So to spend a little time talking about what that means, the components of a turnaround plan I have listed here. It is different from coming to the board and talking about the targeted improvement plan which you're accustomed to hearing because a turnaround plan requires strategic and intentional action with the school's infrastructure. That's not just the strategies for curriculum. That's how you run the entirety of the school business and operations. That is different and separate than a targeted improvement plan. It is elevated in seriousness. And it is a big deal. We have two options for that infrastructure action that has to

090take place. So, I'm going to walk through that for both the board and the community. The first is a restart. and that is a campus restructured so that you can address the accountability challenges, issues, problems. Restart version A would be a restart run by our district. Um that would require us to apply for a grant. The grant program is called LASO. One of the lasso grants is called ACE, accelerating campus excellence. Um it's been highly successful in quite a few districts across the state. Um, but the purpose of that grant is to bring use those grant funds to bring higher performing staff to that struggling campus through incentives, through stipens, through elevated salary. Important to know about this version of restart, it does not stop the accountability clock. So, if we start a restart first

091and foremost, we could not initiate that. We can apply for the grant this semester. The grant opens October 1st, but it would be intended for the restart to initiate August of 2026. So, best thing to say to the group to the group to the group, we're on our own. We got to make it happen in 2526. However, we could initiate a restart, but it won't pause the accountability clock. So, what we do right now absolutely matters. the second version of Yes, sir. >> No, a fabulous job of explaining it. If you could just go a little deeper as it relates to the ACE as it relates to requirement of at least 50% or more of those teachers having to be TIA, right? So, that's critically important to incentivize because we need our more high performing

092teachers incentivizing with pay through the ACE. And so I just want to be clear that 50% of that staff or more would have to be as far as teaching in the core content areas would need to be TIA. >> Yes, sir. Absolutely. The absolute intent of that program, that grant program is to get the highest performing teachers wherever they are in your district. As long as they're certified to go to the next place in alignment with certification requirements, they need to be excellent, proficient, accomplished, distinguished, above, come to work every day, meet the standards of professionalism. It is not a system or a plan that gives 10, 15, $20,000 to the teacher. That's average. Hopefully I said that politely. Restart B um is not a district-run restart. It's identified as an 1882 partnership. Um, it

093comes from Senate Bill 1882 with which authorizes school districts to partner with a charter entity to run the full operations of that campus. It goes through a full contract process where a school district and that entity negotiate well, how are how are you going to run? How are we going to run? What's our part? What's your part? Do we do the grounds and you do all the teaching? Do we hire the principal? Do you hire the principal? Do you hire all the staff? It is a full contract process for every element of school operations. And then you end in a contracted agreement that shifts all of the responsibility of the teaching and learning and daily school operations to the charter management organization. different from districtr run. This version of a restart does pause the accountability

094clock because for the school district you have seeded the teaching and learning and operations to another entity. So it's not on you so to speak. Um that is one of the pros of this scenario or what is offered through the 1882 partnership. Um, however, it's a charter school inside of a school district. There are several across the state that have been successful. Um, there are several that have been challenging. But what is important to talk about with this charter partnership or 1882 is it is designed to do academics and academic business pretty much only. Um so it is not the standard social experience that would happen in a school that we know of and are familiar with. Any other things Dr. Davis before I move on? Perfect. So that is one option of the restructure

095of the infrastructure and that's what makes a turnaround plan different than a targeted improvement plan. The second option is a reassign. That is the fancy TEA language for close or consolidate the school and move them to a higher performing campus. TEA outlines that in best practice those schools those students would go to an A or B campus. Um TEA outlines that you have to be prepared and have uh disagregated what's going to happen to that campus when the kids from a failing school go there. Um so it's not a it's not a way to circumvent the system. Um there are constraints on how you approach your consosure or closure or consolidation when you're moving those students to a higher performing school. >> Would you go ahead? But I know you plan to go a bit

096deeper on this particular piece with the uh our uh optimization plan, but I think since we have the community and everyone engaged in this in this presentation, I would say go ahead and get into the potential u rejection of our tap because get into that. >> Yes, sir. Um, so if you take a look over on the bottom right hand side, you'll see that not only have does the written plan have to go, does it have to have community feedback, this TAP plan is not something we get to write and then call it stamped and approved. TAP plans or turnaround plans must be approved by the commissioner. We are required to submit a turnaround plan for our three campuses, Mayor, Eastern Hills, and PaloAlto. And should we move forward with a optimization process not aligned

097with the vision of the commissioner, there is an opportunity for the commissioner to reject that reject that information >> because I want to be clear that and and the commissioner the reason there have been some districts that that that play a game if you will. The reality is the thought would be and and I'm not suggesting to the board once you hear the optimization plan to not still get input from the community and potentially look at closing some campuses, but the commissioner can reject a tap plan if we so choose to close campuses that have historically failed because the thought of that is now the campus being closed because they're failing and the systemic issues have not really been addressed. So he's not going to allow you to play this game, what he perceived as

098this game of suddenly, oh to restart the clock, let's just close those campuses, redistribute those children to other campuses. In his eyes, in his view, no, you still have a systemic issues. You haven't dealt with the real issue at hand and changing the system. Does that make sense? So I just want to be clear that that potentially may not be an option because we don't have A and B campus middle schools to redistribute those children to. So in essence, he highly likely will reject the closing of those campuses. >> Thank you for those additions, sir. Um I would wrap this slide up by making sure that everybody understands that in the 2526 school year, we have the potential if we don't perform to be rated unacceptable for a fourth year. um all of the options

099that exist here, whether it's restart district run, restart 1882, reassign, all of those would be for August of 2026. So that means one thing, we have to get it right. Not only because of what we're up against when it comes to accountability and years of unacceptable ratings. Our kids matter. every single one of them, every school that they're in, every community north, south, east, and west. And with that in mind, we have acted with aggressive intention in several areas. And first and foremost, that being communication. Um, we started with the board uh last week in our discussions. We proceeded to making sure that we discussed with all of our executive leaders, the 30 plus EDS and above, so that in every department and across our district, people know where we stand and what we have

100to do for schools. Too much is at stake. We moved from our executive leaders to meeting with DNF principles on Friday. Over the last two days, we've met with additional school leaders that aren't even impacted because they need to know also. And here we are on Tuesday, August the 26th, not only sharing more information with the board, but making sure the public is updated. In addition to that, we've taken steps for technical assistance. We have some consultants we've invited in and will start that process on Friday talking to people that have done this kind of work with our type of demographic. Um, Dr. Davis and myself intend to visit some schools over the next several weeks to make sure. That doesn't mean our plan is not good, cuz I think it is. We think it

101is, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. That doesn't mean it can't be better. Um, last but not least, one of the things that we're moving to implement is a school improvement task force where we bring in key people not just from the campuses that are struggling, but also from the departments that make a difference. Finance makes a difference, HR makes a difference, school leadership, curriculum and instruction, technology to make sure that on a weekly basis, we're talking about the data and we are expediting and driving rapid solutions for barriers that exist for campuses. Those things are things that we are talking about right now, what we've experienced and worked through in the last 10 days. I do think it's very very important to highlight that over the last 12 months in response to the student

102achievement data we've been making moves. Um, I have posted uh on this bud budget item, Callum on this board book item uh an extra and Brenda, if you don't mind bringing that up to talk just a little bit about what we've done and I'm not going to go through it at all, but this attachment is available for our public and it puts out there in a way that no other district has done to this point all the secret sauce of the last 12 months in work. Um, our turnaround plan has to be aligned with the effective schools framework. Um, so for every lever we've outlined in the far right column, and you can just scroll down, Brenda, we're not going to read it. It's for the people. >> You're okay. in every lever of the

103effective school framework. All of the actions that we've taken, not just in the learning services division, but what has been the work in HR for compensation, what has been in the work in HR for teacher pipelines, what has been the work in um our other areas of the district that play into the different areas of the effective schools framework. You don't have to. It's okay. No big deal. Go back to the slide. My point in in saying these things is we want the public to know that we didn't start moving when we got data 10 days ago. We have been on the move over the last 12 months in each of the areas that are high leverage for school improvement and those things are going to continue. >> Just real quick before we, you know,

104Dr. Dr. Osborne wraps this and kind of dovetales it into the next agenda item. What we wanted to talk about is, you know, this is not a learning services problem. This is a clean ISD problem and we're all going to work on its solution together. Uh, school improvement is going to take all of us across the district. And so, we just wanted to very briefly touch on the other things we're working on to make sure that we're supporting this across the entire district. First thing is we got to have safe schools. You know, when kids are safe, they're going to learn better. They're going to be more focused on the education. That's first and foremost. It's number one. Transportation. We can't afford to miss instructional time. We know that. We are working to shorten those

105bus rides every day to reduce the time spent on buses to maximize the time in the classroom. And we will continue to use every resource to shave that time down. School nutrition. I think we've highlighted that over the last several weeks. you know, kids are healthy, kids are getting good meals, they're not hungry, they're focused on learning, they're in the optimal condition uh to learn and improve. We've got to continue to staff. We know we have challenges. We are continuing to work on it. We are not going to stop to work to hire quality educators to be in those classrooms to help lift up all these campuses. And then finally, optimize facilities. We've got to provide an environment for learning, maximize the resources we have, put kids in the best place in the best facility

106where they can learn. And it's going to take all of us and learning services has the support of the rest of the district to make sure that we get to the end state that we need to do. >> Thank you, sir. Uh so like Scott said, we're all in this together. Um, we have taken some action in the past. We have taken urgent action in the future. And we're also positioned to take additional action as it relates to the infrastructure changes that are needed to meet the measure of a turnaround plan. That is directly in line with district optimization. And I by no means want to steal the thunder of the CSG group, but I do think for the public understanding how the two items connect is important. When we started talking about district optimization

107six months ago, we were focused on a particular thing, the loss of impact aid, $31 million here pretty soon, $50 million over time, maximizing our resources. We have buildings that are 70% utilized, half as many kids as what we intended to be in that building. We also have buildings that need major repair and we still experience a trickle down of our enrollment. And that is what we went into optimization really thinking about. How do we maximize optimize our physical and fiscal resources? And through the process of optimization, bringing in our community groups, our budget advisory committee, our principles, the board, we identified five priorities to evaluate schools against academic outcomes, highquality facilities, culture for the campus, culture related to families and students, and then resources for readiness. And we really saw those things as equal.

108We talked about all of all five 1/5. When it comes to accountability, we really need to think about where that big star is. Academic outcomes and how optimization is a best next step or a possible step for making sure we meet the urgency of A throughF. So, we've seen it previously when we think about enrollment and resources, but I'm inviting the public as we continue to walk through this process to see optimization as well as a best immediate intervention for the action that is needed for the impl implications through A throughF. Not just because we got ratings 10 days ago and we got a whole bunch in one year, but because kids deserve it and so does this community. Thank you. questions from trustees. >> Mr. Mintz. >> So, Dr. Osborne, as I I look

109at it, um just a few very brief comments. It's interesting to me that we're taking we're pushing the we're pushing folks some of the D's and Fs into the C's. Now, it so happens that a lot of those C's sit in middle school. I would when I looked at that the way I saw that was we need to and you hear me talk about all the time is expectations. We've focused so much on the edges that were accepting we're saying well C is okay for now. >> It's not okay for now. Right. So let's kind of I think start to to kind of change change that mindset. That's that's how I saw that when I when I saw that when you push D's and Fs into C's I'm like well why aren't the C's popping

110up to B's? >> That makes sense. Yes sir. >> As as a mindset. Absolutely. >> A B I would say this um presentation was very good. We continue to get better at this because it helps our community understand what we're up against. So were there I'm sure I know this is a team effort. Is there anybody here that you would like to recognize that did a good job putting this together because this is very helpful for the community. I absolutely have to recognize everyone in the room, specifically the learning services department who helped put the pieces together about the actions we're taking. Um, specifically the learning services department, Don Sills is typically up here presenting the data. Don and her team, she's got a small but mighty crew. Um, I have to thank the business

111and operations group. Um, not just for the things that were said. We get in this room and there's about 30 of us that are executive director and above and we lean into the work and we figure out how to solve problems. We don't always come to the s solution everybody agrees on and that is you know y'all know that. Um but everybody is about kids and about making this community happen. So I would thank every member of the team most certainly. >> And then we got a bunch of principles here. I see too. Would you all stand up for a sec? Y'all y'all are starting to move the bubble in the right direction. It's slow, >> but it's moving. >> So, keep pushing hard. Thanks. >> Thank you so much, sir. >> Madam Secretary, >>

112also to echo my kudos um the collaboration. I know it is a huge lift. Uh we are in the midnight hour and it is critical that our steps be impactful, that our steps are intentional and that we are inspecting, that we are measuring, that we are adjusting and monitoring. Um all of these plans that I've heard tonight are from the 50,000 foot view. Um, eventually I need to hear, definitely not tonight, but I need to hear what is the middle school approach. So, as a middle school, former middle school principal, all of those that just stood a moment ago, I have walked in your shoes and I am carrying you on my back. We're going to do this together. I know everyone's working hard. Our hearts, our hands are to the task, but I really

113need to see the meat of it for middle school. What's changing? Um, we have six schools that are rated C campuses, three D's and three Fs. So we need a uh very intensive care um prognosis. What are we doing? How are we changing? What does it look like? How does it impact the teachers, the students? Are we doing block scheduling? Are we giving more time in math? Are we giving more time in reading? Small groups. And I know that may be more meat than I need to see so I can sit and talk with someone. You don't have to bring it to the whole board, but I definitely want to hear about it and I want to be there to celebrate those successes. So, thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Madame Vice President, >> um

114I just want to um engage the public in this process as well. This isn't just about our educators. This involves parents as well. And the when we look at the middle school, we have no A's and B's. >> We have a large group of C's. And so we need to move those C's into the A's and B's. And as Mr. Mint said, we need to be moving those all over to the left hand side. So I'd like to say to the parents out there, uh, please engage with your students. Please help them with those book reports. help them um stay focused on what they need to do. Um have them work on the weekends. You know, it it's a professional world out there and when professionals leave their job at 5:00 or six o'clock, they

115go home and feed their family and then they usually work a couple more hours on their professional job before they go to bed. So, the kids that don't want to do homework after they went home, um I'm sorry, get used to it because that's society. Um, and uh, so I'd really like to emphasize that and I also want to re-emphasize what Dr. Davis said was that we can't move we can't just close those schools down and move those kids to an AB campus because we don't own an AB campus. So it is what we have. It's, you know, our pie and we have to eat it and we have to work hard on it. And so thank you to the staff out there that's leaning forward in that foxhole uh to help make this all

116happen. And uh but again parents, I really u want to emphasize the parents and I think um Dr. Osborne, you had emphasized to me that it's seventh grade particularly that's particularly that's struggling the most. >> Yes, ma'am. That's correct. >> So that I'm assuming is going to be where we'll put a lot of emphasis. I personally thought it would have been sixth grade, but it's actually seventh grade. So, um, in fact, >> for all those seven great all those parents out there have seventh graders, please, please, um, follow up on your students. Thank you, >> Mr. Rainwater. >> I just want to acknowledge that there's been some progress, certainly not as much as we want, but I'd like to think of that as movement to the right direction. But my question, Dr. Osbborne is it

117seems like if the elementary schools are strong or stronger than the middle schools, it seems like some of the things in terms of curriculum and measurement and objectives would naturally go to the middle schools, but apparently there's a gap there that I I can't wrap around my thinking about what really happens there and why it doesn't transfer on up. It's a it's a big change. Um from five to six we see the implementation dip and that's related to the next set of grade levels. Same thing from 8 to nine. But in recognizing how important that continuity is, we have established a K8 curriculum for math and reading. So not so no longer are students dealing with the implementation dip and going from a book that looks this way to a book that looks like college

118text. Um, so that is one shift that we've tried to make and have made in this year to increase our vertical alignment. For that reason, Dr. Hman, I just want to say to the principles, well, and they're here is just embrace the challenge. Won't be easy, but just embrace the challenge, but take care of yourself along that journey. Um, and stay focused and let us know what we can do to help you out. Uh, but I appreciate you. >> Thank you. Dr. Davis, anything? >> Dr. Davis, anything you want to add, sir? >> Uh, sure. First of all, thank you. uh board for your sentiment and uh certainly I've had an opportunity to talk to to most of the principles at this point uh as far as our DNF campuses and I just want to

119say uh guys I appreciate you taking on the challenge and I want you to know publicly we got your back and we're going to get this done guys. As I've told the team um it's not a matter of desperation or panic but it is a sense of urgency. there is a difference. And so we will have a laser-like focus and we'll continue to work through some things. We'll certainly to to Mrs. Adams point get more detailed on what that looks like. Also, um I hope our parents are watching. As the saying goes, guys, the first step to success is showing up. And so we can't educate you if you're not here. And so I'm really, really, really asking our parents to ensure that our children are coming to school ready to learn. And so this

120is a shared responsibility. And so we need your support and we're certainly uh going to do our part and we need to to to go be handinand with our parents and community. And so again, I just want to continue to say guys, it's not a time to panic. It's a time to be urgent though and we will do just that. So again, thank you board for your support. We will get it done. >> Thank you Dr. Davis and Dr. Osborne. We'll now go to 5B which is discussion of district optimization scenarios for future consideration. Dr. Buckley, welcome. President, Mr. Members of the board. Um, this evening we are joined by Civic Solutions Group. If y'all want to come on up. Uh, Mr. Olen Parker and Mr. Justin Tyak. As you know, Colleen ISD has been

121working with CSG to conduct a comprehensive review of campus programs aligned to the priorities you previously approved and Dr. Osborne referenced in um her last uh slide, which is academic outcomes, highquality facilities, strong leadership and staffing, family and student engagement and resources for student readiness. I also want to say that this has been um a full year. Last year we did this working with multiple departments that are here in this room with multiple campuses to create those campus profiles that you've been briefed on. Um it wasn't by chance that Miss or Dr. Osborne went ahead of us because everything that we're discussing ties in together. So tonight, Mr. Parker and Mr. Tyk will present several draft district optimization scenarios. And we want to emphasize that these scenarios are not recommendations. They are simply options for

122consideration based on the data that has been collected to create the campus profiles. No decisions are being made this evening. As part of this process, we are hosting town hall meetings over the next two weeks to share these scenarios broadly with parents, staff, and community members to gather feedback. and the agenda item following this will be asking for approval for our three town hall meetings. Um, additionally, we will launch a survey at the conclusion of this presentation that will be available for the community uh at large to provide input and that scenario that survey will stay open. Administration anticipates bringing the scenario recommendations after our town hall meetings and we've collected data from the community. We'll bring those recommendations to you late October. These recommendations may include some, all, or none of the scenarios currently

123under discussion. Any approved changes would go into effect for the 2627 school year. And so now, it is my pleasure to turn it over to Mr. Olen Parker and Mr. Justin Ty Ty Tyak from Civic Solutions Group. Welcome. >> Thank you so much. Uh, President Williams, members of the board, Dr. Davis, it's great to be here with you. It's great to be back here in Colleen, uh, and have this conversation with you today. U, Dr. Osborne, Dr. Buckley have me have done a lot of the heavy lifting tonight. So, uh, you can thank them for shortening my presentation a little bit. Uh, I just wanted to go over our agenda briefly. Uh, as Dr. Dr. Buckley mentioned the items for tonight are not for we are not making a decision tonight. This is for you

124as board members and for the community to receive this information. Uh and we will immediately begin our community engagement process. Literally as soon as I sit down, we will open up the survey for community members to take part. But the agenda for tonight you have in front of you. We'll start with a a review of the priorities very very quick. uh and then we'll talk about the community engagement that has already happened to get us to this point. Uh then we'll talk about thei the situation the landscape that the district is facing and the the course that the board will be charting moving forward. After that we'll spend the bulk of our time in sections three and four. Section three are the draft scenarios for our elementary schools and section four are the draft scenarios

125for our middle and high schools. Then we'll do sort of an overall summary of all the scenarios and we will follow up with opportunities for engagement for members of the public and next steps for the board as well. Uh so just a quick review of the priorities we are here tonight. This process was established because this board wants to better utilize its resources to improve outcomes for students, teachers, families, and the community. That's what everybody in this room wants. That's what we've been talking about for most of this evening. I'm going to simplify this even more. District optimization is about these two things. One, putting as many students as possible in higher performing campuses and putting as many students in as possible in your higher quality facilities. You have seen this slide before. You saw

126this at the May board meeting. But for those members of the public that are just tuning in now, I want to talk about what district optimization means. A lot of times people hear district optimization and they think, "Oh, this they must be closing schools in response to declining enrollment." I want to be very clear, school closure and consolidation is one part of district optimization, but there are many other parts to it and almost all of the examples that you see on this slide will be incorporated into the draft scenarios this evening. Uh so that could be expanding popular programming. Again, if a popular if a program is popular with your families, you want to expand access to that program. Uh if you need to reszone students to get more students in an empty but beautiful

127building, you should do that. Uh if you want to redesign a campus because what you've been doing uh at that campus is not working, that is part of district optimization. So again, these are all elements of district optimization and you will see them reflected in the recom in the excuse me, the draft scenarios that you see tonight. I want to talk briefly about the community engagement that has happened thus far. Uh up in the top uh top left of this slide, you'll see slides from some budget advisory committee meetings that happened beginning in February. Uh starting in February, we met with budget advisory committee members. Uh and moving forward from those meetings, we've met with district administrators, we've met with teachers, we've met with district staff, uh we've had individual conversations with board members, and

128really we wanted to gather information about what is important to this community, what are the priorities of this community. We use that to not only identify the five district optimization priorities, but identify what the community wants to do to address the impact aid uh the decrease in impact aid that the district is seeing. And so we gathered that information. Uh we heard the prioritization of the community and that has informed these recommendations, these draft scenarios that you see tonight. Uh the sort of higher quality photos that you see here uh were taken by your district's uh fantastic photographers. These are from the long range facilities planning committee. Uh this committee met first in the month of July. It will meet again this month talking about district optimization and that committee will continue to meet throughout

129the course of the year to chart a path forward for the district and its facilities. In addition to those in-person meetings, there's been other engagement happening on the district optimization process as well. On the left hand side, you see those uh school profiles that have seen a lot of engagement from the community. We're very pleased about the engagement from the community on these school profiles that are a reflection, an objective lens of how each school compares to the priorities set by the community and approved by this board in May. In addition to those school profiles, uh there has been information about the district optimization process in the gold standard newsletter that goes out to district staff and families. Uh there is a live district optimization website that has been live since the month uh since

130early July. And then there have also been posts on social media about the district optimization process, not just from the district to the community, but also the community discussing district optimization amongst themselves. We've seen a lot of engagement from the clean ISD community. I want to thank the clean ISD community for their participation in this process because the more voices that we hear in this process, the better the outcomes will be for students. You've heard uh both from Dr. Buckley and Dr. Osborne about these five priorities that this board approved in May. Uh I won't spend too uh too much time on this slide, but I do want to point out one thing that we heard loud and clear from the budget advisory committee, from the other community engagement that we did, is that school

131culture is particularly important here in Colleen. Uh more so than we've even heard in other districts, but school culture means different things to different people. To some people at school culture is are the staff on campus happy? Are the staff on campus staying at the school? are they voting with their feet to uh continue teaching at the school year after year? To other people, uh school culture means are my students happy? Are my students coming to school every day? So, we have both of those reflected in the district optimization priorities because of how uh how often it came up in the community engagement sessions that we did. Additionally, if you look on the farthest on the right, resources for student readiness, that is the priority that is about finances. And what we did is we

132took a l we took an objective lens to every campus and looked at the the per child expenditures to ensure that the uh that schools were being funded equitably and that those and that those schools that were outliers either because there was a really high uh cost per student number or a really low cost per student number uh that we wanted to make sure we shined a light on those to make some decisions. Maybe that's the right thing to do, maybe it is not. So these five priorities uh have provided this board and this community with an objective lens for the performance of each of its campuses according to what this community views to be a thriving school. This table uh is a reflection of where every school elementary, middle, and high uh fits on

133the sort of priority matrix. How many of them are meeting zero priorities? How many of them are meeting? One, two, three, four, and five. Obviously, you want as many schools as possible to be on this side. And now that these priorities have been set and now that there are metrics there, schools will be able to take action to make sure that they meet those priorities. What you see here, every school that is highlighted is reflected in some way in a district optimization draft scenario. So, all of these schools will show up tonight whether it is because they are uh receiving students, they are receiving new programming, they're part of a consolidation, uh they're part of a closure, all of these um schools that are highlighted uh will show up in the slides this evening. Okay,

134so charting a course for the district. This is a slide that was shown at the first budget advisory committee meeting in February. You're all very familiar with the loss of impact aid. Just to emphasize one more time for the community, there is a $31 million budget reduction needed over the next four years and that total is $50 million once all hold harmless are expired have expired. The draft scenarios that you hear tonight will more than make up for this uh 31 million or $50 million reduction. You will see that the goal is not only to uh meet the challenge that you have in front of you, but also to use the funds that are freed up through district optimization to pour into your schools, to pour into your students, to pour into your teachers, to

135make sure that dollars are going to children, to make sure that dollars are going to increase the number of high-quality seats and increase the high-quality facilities that you have at your disposal. Before we get to the uh before we get to the scenarios though, I do want to talk about another threat to the system that exists that is talked about less than the impact aid and that is the long-term enrollment trends facing the district. And I will just explain this graph briefly. The black line represents the births within Khen ISD for every year since 2014. The athletic gold line that you see here represents all of the kindergartens kindergarten students that enroll in Khen ISD five years later. Now obviously students move in, students move out, especially in a community like Colleen which has such

136a large military presence. But what you see is two things. One there is a slight decrease uh over the last few years in the percentage of students enrolling in Ken ISD. But the larger and more sort of existential problem that is with outside of the control of the school district is there are fewer children being born. There are roughly 600 fewer children being born every year in Khen than there were 10 years ago. And while there is some loss to home school, charter school, private parochial school, while that exists, the largest driver of the decline in enrollment in Khen ISD by far is the decline in births. Uh you cannot educate a child that has never been born. And so that is uh that is a reality that the district is facing. If uh so

137the the latest data that we have for births is 2023 when there were about 3,800 births. Uh if the district maintains the same capture rate of those births to kindergarten students, you will have 800 fewer kindergarteners in 2028 than you had 10 years prior. Now 800 students is a lot of students and it's even more when you think about that just being in one grade level. So it's 800 fewer kindergarteners in 2028. But the next year it is very likely 800 fewer kindergarteners and 800 and fewer first graders and then 800 fewer kindergarteners, first graders and second graders and on and on and on. So the declining enrollment problem will hit your elementary schools first. This is a review of capacity in your district. Uh typically districts strive to be somewhere between 75% full to

13890% full. It's just a matter of how efficient you want your campuses to be. Generally, if the district is at 100% capacity, that is not a good thing because there's no room to absorb students. There's no room to handle when there's a new housing development. So, you want to leave a little bit of capacity. right now as the the blue line represents high school capacity. You see the building utilization rate here on the left. The black line represents elementary school capacity and the athletic gold line represents middle school capacity. And these lines tell a story. So what we just talked about is declining enrollment is going to hit your elementary schools first. Right now you see your uh elementary at almost exactly 80% capacity. I think it's two students away from exactly 80% capacity. But

139because of those smaller birth cohorts working through the system, you pretty quickly within the next five years will have 1,800 additional excess seats in the elementary school level alone. You can see following the middle school trend, it stays relatively stable for the next five years. And then 10 years down the road, you're expected to have 500 fewer middle school students. And then high school capacity, because you have larger cohorts currently enrolled in your school system. Right now, according to the demographer that came to the board in May, your high school capacity is actually expected to increase over the next few years as those larger cohorts work their way through the system. Before we get to the draft scenarios tonight, I do want to make one thing very clear. Based on the draft scenarios that you

140will see, we anticipate that every high-quality teacher that is in Colleen ISD will have a home next year. If you look at all of the draft scenarios, because we are making schools more efficient, because we are putting more students in our highest quality and highest performing schools, when you get more students, sometimes you need to create more teaching positions. And so all of the draft scenarios that you see tonight will create 189 additional teaching positions at those schools that are not there currently. We expect based on these draft scenarios and based on the historical retention rates of Khen ISD that there will be 175 teachers in need of placement. So already there are uh teachers who are looking for employment for next year. There are already the se the spots to accommodate them. In addition

141to that there are currently 220 uncertified teachers at the elementary and middle school levels and 138 uh unfilled positions at the elementary and middle school levels here in the district. I know as board members you're very familiar with these numbers. What I am saying from this slide, the slide that this story, excuse me, the story that this slide is telling is that of those teachers that are impacted by the draft scenarios that you will see tonight, they will still have a home in Ken ISD and they should not be concerned about whether or not Colleen ISD will be able to accommodate them as long as they are high-quality teachers, as long as the district was planning to retain them. Anyway, now we started this process uh in January because of the impact because of the

142realities of impact aid funding and I mentioned earlier that these draft scenarios will more than make up for it based on the work that we've been doing with your finance team. Uh we've been digging deeply into the uh data, not only what are the projected savings, but what are the added costs of some of these draft scenarios and the one-year impact of the draft of all the draft scenarios that you will see tonight. If they were all implemented, that would represent a $29.7 million savings or reduction in costs for the district. If you extrapolate that over five years, we are we would see a $118 million reduction in costs for the district. This does not include the financial modeling related to ACE or 1882 partnerships. There will there may be some costs associated to the

143associated with those recommendations to the district but uh we are very confident that the challenge of the reduction in impact aid will be met by the draft scenarios that you see even once the 1882 and ACE financial modeling is complete. Not only do the district optimization recommendations that you'll hear tonight, the draft scenarios that you'll hear tonight, not only do they save a significant amount of money for the board, but they also, getting back to our two key purposes of district optimization, represent almost 2,700 students moving to higher performing campuses and almost 3,200 students moving to higher quality facilities. I'm now going to get to what I said was the meat of the presentation, the elementary school draft scenarios. These are scenarios that again are for you to receive tonight and we believe the public

144will have the opportunity to engage with them immediately after this meeting both online and starting next week in in-person community meetings. Our first draft scenario involves the proposed closure of Peebles Elementary. Uh, and students that currently attend Peebles would be reszoned to Brook Haven, Clifton Park, and Colleen Elementary. I want to orient everybody to the slides that you'll see. So, in these black and gray boxes, you'll see the rationale for every draft scenario. I'm not going to read every bullet point, but you'll see the rationale. and those uh board members or those members of the community that want to engage more deeply with these scenarios will be able to read them uh after the presentation. You will also see a map showing proposed zones for the impacted campuses. You will see um it looks like

145we have some formatting issues with our slides. I'm not sure uh what's happening, but you will see how each uh school compares to the priorities that were set by the community and approved by this board. And then in the blue box you will see the projected budget reduction uh over the course of five years. You will also see a second slide that has more detailed data about how each school performs on the priorities. You will see how each school is impacted in terms of its enrollment and its utilization. And lastly, if the data is available, you'll see the projected five-year savings. So going back to the recommendation is the draft scenario that we have at hand. Uh this is first and foremost a facilitiesbased recommendation. Peebles is the oldest elementary school in the district. It

146is uh one of the lowest quality in terms of building quality. Um, however, given that Peebles received a B letter grade in the most recent accountability, what we are recommending is that the the bulk of the Peeles administration be picked up and moved over to Brook Haven where most of the schools uh where most of the students will be moved so that those students can still have access to those teachers potentially to those administrators and you would have a Peebles at Brook Haven situation. That's an easy way to think about it. If you look at the map, Peebles is here in yellow. It will be combined with the Brook Haven enrollment zone. Additionally, Colleen Elementary will accept the bilingual students that are currently zoned to Peebles because Colleen already serves a large bilingual population at

147that campus. And then you see those in the blue. These students right here that are currently zoned to Colleen Elementary would be reszoned to um Clifton Park Elementary. So what we have here is Peeles students moving from a lowquality facility to a higher quality facility at Brook Haven. Uh those those students at Poples who are uh bilingual will be moving to a much nicer facility, a brand almost brand new Colleen Elementary. And those students at Colleen Elementary will be moving from a like facility to a like facility, an almost new facility to another almost new facility. One other thing to point out is based on the demographer that came to the district in May, uh Brook Haven is expected to lose an additional 100 students in enrollment in the next five years. So this uh

148proactively fills up an elementary school where we know declining enrollment will hit them hard. to look a little bit closer uh at the information here. I'm not going to go deep into the priorities. Those are already available on the school profiles. I know board members, you've already been engaging with them. If you look in the bottom left, you will see that Brook Haven goes from currently at 67% capacity to almost 94 uh% capacity. Clifton Park uh fills up again, moving more students to our highest quality facilities. and Colleen Elementary uh stays roughly level. It does lose a few students uh because of the reasonzoning and the incorporation of the bilingual students. And then lastly, I won't go this deep on every slide, but if you look at the financial impact, you will see we anticipate

149uh net operating savings of $4 million annually. Uh there are additional facility investment savings of roughly $4.8 8 million because if a building is not occupied and again Peebles is one of your oldest facilities, you no longer need to necessarily build a new or uh install a new roof, install a new HVAC, go through all of the sort of deferred maintenance uh that a school building of Peebles's age requires. And then lastly, we incorporated this into our financial impact analysis is the potential sale of the property. And many of you may be looking at that number and thinking that's particularly low. Uh that is intentional. We took a very conservative invest uh a conservative approach to the sale of properties because it varies so widely and we used historical data uh provided by the district

150to come up with that number. The next draft scenario is 1B. The reason why it's labeled as 1B is because you we would not recommend that you do 1B without doing 1A. Uh and that is the closure of both the Peebles and Hay Branch facilities. And you would reszone the students at both of those campuses to Brook Haven, Cavazos, Clifton Park, and Colleen. For Peele students, the resoning would look very similar to what I just described. uh except a small portion of those students would go to Colleen Elementary. Hay Branch is in pink right here. So some students that currently attend Hay Branch, if this draft scenario moved forward, would be zoned to Brook Haven. Some students, a small number of students that live in section 148 here, would be zoned to the almost new

151Khen Elementary. And then the bulk of the students that live immediately around the Hay Branch campus would be zoned to Kavazos. Uh we recognize that that is a longer drive for those students and that is a decision for this community and this board to make. Uh is is there value in keeping students in their neighborhood to go to school? Absolutely. Is there value in keep in sending as many students as possible to an A-rated elementary school? Absolutely. So, this these are decisions that the community and the board will weigh in on over the next couple of months. Um, I think another important uh piece about this draft scenario is you see it provides a significant uh budget reduction over the next five years uh to the tune of $46 million. Uh I do want to

152point out here Cavazos right now is an A-rated campus. It is currently 55 almost 56% full. This recommendation would increase that to almost 84% which would then meet the building uh the facilities uh high quality facilities priority that this board approved in May. I do also want to point something out. Uh it comes up from time to time in these draft scenarios. We are looking not only at letter grade but also at the meets masters percentage of each school. So in this case, Hay Branch uh has a meets masters percentage of 27% and most of those students moving to Kavazos moves them from 25 excuse me 27% meets masters to a campus with 64% meets masters. Additionally, every uh whether you're a Haybranch student moving to those receiving campuses or a Peele student moving to

153those receiving campuses, in every case you're moving to a school where even if it has the same letter grade, it has a higher meets masters percentage. The next scenario involves a consolidation of Cedar Valley and Timber Ridge. Uh Cedar Valley is in this sort of yellowish green here. Timber Ridge is in blue and the draft scenario here takes Cedar Valley offline and consolidates it with Timber Ridge. Timber Ridge is a newer facility. It's 12 years newer, younger than Cedar Valley. So, it is a higher quality facility. And I just want to point out Timber Ridge does not currently meet the high quality facilities priority. that is basically because it is in that strange space where it is not new but it's new enough that it hasn't had significant investment over the last 10 years. Um,

154also in this scenario, these students in sections 241 and 242 would be reszoned to Modmore Wood, which not only is this line a more natural uh barrier, a more natural boundary, excuse me. Uh, Modore Wood is also a newer campus, a higher quality facility, and a higher performing campus. So in this scenario you once again are moving every single student to a higher quality facility and uh a higher or equally performing campus. Uh similarly in this recommendation I know the uh the accountability scores have been updated uh in the last week but in this scenario it also opens up the possibility of a Cedar Valley at Timber Ridge so that you know teachers and some or all of the administrators would follow the students from Cedar Valley to Timber Ridge. This draft scenario not only

155fills up your campuses, it also provides an estimated $17.7 million in savings over the next five years. Scenario three involves campuses that are uh on post or bordering uh Fort Hood. This draft scenario involves the closure of Venibal Village Elementary School and the students that are currently zoned to Venibal Village would be sent to Iduma, Maxdale, and Meadows. If you look, Venibal Village is a unique enrollment zone. This it's this yellow S shape right here. Venal Village is the only campus uh in the district that has students that both reside on post and reside off post. So, every day students are uh coming from Colleen proper and going on to base to attend school. In this draft scenario, all of the Venal Village students that are currently that currently live on post would be zoned

156to a school that is on post and all of the students that live off-post would be zoned to a school that is off post. Uh this came up in our community engagement thus far as something uh sort of a peculiar quirk of the school and generally we heard if it's possible to keep students that reside on Fort Hood attending Fort Hood schools, we want to do that and vice versa for those schools that live off post. Uh this action would require a small boundary update for those campuses that are on post, but it also helps to fill up some of your higher performing campuses. We know Meadows is a very uh popular school based on enrollment demands and we also know that Clark is an A-rated campus and so this uh draft scenario does fill

157up both of those schools as well. Uh you can see here it moves students uh moves 100% of students to higher performing campuses. It brings the utilization of these campuses that are on post closer to 100% still having some wiggle room. I do want to point out uh this ovetical pulby hobby you see here the projected utilization is 10 almost 112%. Uh as part of this recommendation we as part of this scenario we would actually recommend that you move the early childhood special education that is currently at hobby to Montigue village. So Montigue village would actually receive roughly 12 students. It's roughly 12 students but it is uh three to four classrooms. So once those if the programming was moved uh hobby would be within 100% of its utilization. This draft scenario also includes uh

158seven excuse me $16.2 million in projected 5-year savings. there is no benefit to there is no uh revenue from the sale of this property obviously because this property is on Fort Hood. The next scenario does uh does not involve a school closure school consolidation. This scenario is about eliminating preK3 programming from all campuses on Fort Hood. This was a recommendation that was initially brought up by the um by the budget advisory committee in February and March. Uh it was sort of emphatically supported by the budget advisory committee. Um, and with this draft scenario, you not only increase the capacity at your uh, campuses on Fort Hood, you open up classrooms for uh, pre-K through fifth grade students, but this draft scenario would also allow all campuses on Fort Hood to be pre-K through fifth grade,

159pre-K fourth through fifth grade, so that you no longer have sort of a bubble of fourth graders at some campuses. This projected budget reduction uh would bring $18.8 million in savings to the district over five years, which could then be reinvested in other programming, whether that is prek3 at other campuses around the district or other uh choices that the district makes. Uh as you can see here um all of the campuses on post that currently have prek3 programming are reflected uh their projected enrollment and projected utilization right now is TBD because it's dependent on other scenarios and it's also dependent on uh where the incoming preK3 students uh would be attending school. This next elementary scenario is about programming specifically at the Willow Springs campus. And this draft scenario involves building out the existing bilingual

160programming at the campus. So that it currently Willow Springs has bilingual pro one-way bilingual, excuse me, one-way dual language programming from kindergarten through 2 grade. This would extend that from kindergarten all the way through fifth grade. Um, Willow Springs currently its emerging bilingual students are significantly outperforming the district average. And so this would allow uh that performance. It would uh not only double down on that opportunity, but it would allow those families in the district that benefit from this programming to uh take advantage of it. I do want to point out this recommendation would cost roughly $1 million over five years. And that is essentially because to add one-way dual language programming at those additional grades, it involves adding additional staff. You see how Willow currently Willow Springs is not meeting any of the district

161optimization priorities. Um, and Willow Springs was uh considered for a number of different options and this is the one based on community feedback, based on the engagement we've had thus far, this was the one uh that made the most sense. So just a summary of all the elementary scenarios, all of the schools that are highlighted here in athletic gold are receiving uh roughly 100 students or more. So that is making our campuses more efficient and again getting to those two goals of putting more students in higher quality facilities and higher performing campuses. Those schools that are highlighted in blue are part of a consolidation. And then those students in black or those schools in black are receiving additional programming. Those schools in gray are uh part of scenarios involving closure. Before I get to the

162middle and high school draft scenarios, we're going to take a little bit of a detour. And again, Dr. Osborne did some of the heavy lifting for me. So, I know this presentation is long, but it will actually be shorter than it was going to be. Uh, if you look at this slide, this is um a much more simple version of the information that Dr. Osborne so effectively communicated tonight. U, on the left, you'll see the middle schools. On the right, you'll see the elementary schools that are part of the campus improvement planning that are uh that the district is paying attention to due to recent TEA accountability. Uh the schools that are on the top are uh most in need of action or most urgent action. The schools that are on the bottom uh according

163to TEA, there is more time uh to work on these schools. Palo Alto, Maynor, these these campuses have three consecutive years of an academically unacceptable designation. Eastern Hills has two years. Rancier and Hay Branch each at one year. Live Oak Ridge Middle, Alice Douse, and Brook Haven are all sort of on the watch list. Um, so again, just very briefly for those that not that uh weren't here for Dr. Osbourne's presentation, there are two potential options for uh restarting those campuses that have been consistently underperforming that have been listed as academically unacceptable by unacceptable by TEA. There's the ACE option that we'll be discussing tonight. There are 1882 options that we'll be discussing tonight. This board could take one action for those schools. It could take the other action for those schools. or it could

164take both actions for these schools. So, this is a buffet of options that are available to the board uh that are that can be incorporated into a turnaround plan with TEA. Obviously, ACE you heard about earlier. It involves bringing the best possible talent to chronically underperforming campuses. It not it's not only about talent. It's about increased afterchool support, increased wraparound services for students, um and additional resources for the campus. 1882 partnerships. Again, you partner with a approved turnaround charter operator uh from uh excuse me, not from they need to be approved by TEA as a turnaround operator. They come in uh while the district still has responsibility for the facilities. The district still has some other contractual obligations, the budgeting, the calendar, the staffing are all determined by that turnaround charter partner. Again, both of

165these interventions satisfy TEA accountability concerns if they are part of the TEA approved turnaround plan. Additionally, both of these are eligible for school action fund dollars from TEA. So, you will see in some of the modeling uh as we move forward, we will incorporate estimated uh grant funding from TEA if the board moves forward with either of these uh options. I want to do two quick case studies about both of these models. So the first I'll start with ACE. We'll talk about an elementary school in Aldine, Warsham Elementary School. Aldine is a similarlyssized district outside of Houston. Uh in Aldine, Warsham Elementary School was a chronically underperforming campus. 95% of its students were considered economically disadvantaged. 60% of those students are immer were considered emerging bilingual and it had a history of D and F

166ratings. ACE was implemented in the first year of COVID. Uh so poor timing but the district very quickly saw results. So it was a chronic F or D-rated school in 2018 and 2019. By 2023, Warsam Elementary School was an A-rated campus. Uh, not only was it an A-rated campus, but Aldine ISD through their district optimization process actually chose to send more students to Warsham, which previously had been a chronically underperforming school. And uh, because of consistent investment from the district in the ACE model that the school continues to be B-rated in 24 and 25, a very high B- rating. An 1882 model. This is uh, Ectctor College Prep Middle School in Ector County ISD. It is a smaller ISD um but it is representative of the success of the 1882 model as well. So ectctor

167college prep prior to the intervention uh 76% of its students were economically considered economically disadvantaged. A third of its students were emerging bilingual like Warham Elementary it had chronic underperformance F and D ratings in 2018 and 2019. The 1882 partnership was implemented in the first year following COVID uh and saw like with ACE quickly saw success. Uh so Ectctor College Prep moved from a chronic F or chronic D to an overall B rating in 2022, 2023 and 2024. The Ectctor County ISD board ended that partnership in the spring of 2024. So last year the school returned to district control and the school uh once again received a D-rating. So as you can see in both of these cases whether it is ACE or 1882 there was rapid success. And what we would recommend regardless of

168what the district chooses is that you make a sustained investment in that choice so that the students continue to see sustained success. You're going to see different scenarios tonight. I'm going to go quickly over this slide. That's on purpose and we will talk more in depth about each of these draft scenarios uh with the same format that you've seen. So tonight you'll see three options for Eastern Hills. One option is closure. One option is ACE. One option is 1882. You'll see three options for Palo Alto. The same three options. And then for mayor, we're recom we are bringing forward two draft scenarios. Uh one is the ACE model and one is 1882. Mayor is not currently a draft scenario for closure simply because of the way that enrollment zones work and where students reside. We

169could not make it work without having extremely gerrymandered school zones that didn't make sense and would have resulted in extremely long bus rides for students. So again, you'll see this slide again. Um, but I wanted to make it very clear that I talked about a buffet of options that the board has uh that you'll see draft scenarios related to closure, related to ACE, and related to 1882. All of which would need to be incorporated in some capacity in and would need to be approved by TEA as part of your turnaround plan. So, scenario 6A involves the closure of Eastern Hills Middle and the reszoning of students to nearby middle schools. Eastern Hills, you see in the yellow enrollment zone here. The bulk of Eastern of Eastern Hills middle school students would be reszoned to Nolan

170Middle School, which is a newer campus, a higher performing campus. Again, accomplishing those two goals. Um, additionally, students would be zoned to Rancier, to Mayor, to Union Grove, to Liberty Hill. This would bring a projected budget reduction of $16.1 million over five years. An additional part of this recommendation, excuse me, this draft scenario is that Easter the Eastern Hills Middle School campus could be repurposed as a new Harker Heights elementary school campus. Now, obviously that would involve some investment from the district to convert a building from a middle school to an elementary school, but we know that Harker Heights Elementary is a is an overenrolled school. It is over 100% capacity. It is an older facility, and based on uh sort of the the grounds of the campus, it would be quite expensive to tear

171down Harker Heights Elementary and build a brand new one. It would save the district a significant amount of money if it were to ultimately invest in a new Harker Heights Elementary if they repurpose the Eastern Hills uh facility for uh Harker Heights Elementary. Now, I want to be very clear, the potential savings from that action are not included here. This is just about the operational costs of this draft scenario. Additionally, you'll see in this scenario, this is the one instance where you see students with a higher meets masters percentage moving to schools with a lower meets masters percentage. And the reason why we felt comfortable bringing this draft scenario to the board is because those students that would be moving from Eastern that small number of students that would be moving from Eastern Hills to

172either Maynor or Rancier would be benefiting from new programming such as an ACE or an 1882 partnership. So that is why we felt comfortable moving forward moving that forward to the board. As you can see, this moves your middle schools on the north side of the district, the north and east side of the district from roughly 70 low 70s to mid 80s% utilization to high 80s to mid 90s utilization. And again, based on the slides that we saw earlier, middle school utilization is expected to start decreasing in roughly five years. The next scenario involves the potential closure of Palo Alto Middle School. Palo Alto is here in gray. The bulk of Palo Alto students would move south to the Patterson campus. A small number of Palo Alto students would move to the uh close to

173new Roy J. Smith campus. Some of these students on the sort of uh northwest side of the Palo Alto district would be moving to Live Oak Ridge. And then what this draft scenario also does is fill up your brand new middle school. It fills up Dr. Jimmy Don AOK middle school because it is a newer campus that right now is very underenrolled. And based on the demographer that came and spoke to this board in May, Jimmy Don AOK is expected to remain at least 500 seats below its planning capacity for the next 10 years. So when we talk about moving students to higher performing campuses and higher quality facilities, this uh draft scenario accomplishes that. Now the projected budget reduction for this scenario is less than you have seen at other campuses. And the reason

174for that is because this scenario also involves moving the DAE from its current older facility, lower quality facility to the Palo Alto campus. Uh so there would be some costs associated with converting Palo Alto from DAP to or excuse me from a middle school to a DAP facility. However, the district would still save money and students, whether they'd be DAP students or Palo Alto students, would be moving to either a similar quality or higher quality facility. You can see here, Palo Alto has the lowest meets masters percentage of any middle school by a fairly significant margin. So even though it may have the same letter grade as another uh as another campus on this list, it is at least 10 percentage points lower in terms of meets masters. And then once again, you see not

175you're moving your utilization at the middle school level from anywhere from the low 40s to roughly around 80%. to now you have a much uh more efficient use of your middle schools including 300 more than 300 additional students at your highest quality middle school uh Jimmy Don AOK middle school. So the next scenario uh which again you saw on that slide that I sort of breezed over one is to the next scenario is to uh use district funds and likely school action funds from TEA to implement the ACE model at various middle schools. And you see once again the sort of accountability clocks from most urgent to least urgent on the left here. Um, we believe that TEA would fund roughly would fund over a million dollars of this intervention, but I want to be

176very clear, the ACE model based on our preliminary um research works out to roughly $1,300 per student. So that is significantly more than the um than the one plus million dollars that you would receive from TEA. it would be an investment in these lower performing campuses. Based on the fact that uh based on the case study that you saw earlier as well as other data from around the state, the ACE model has been very successful and again we will um we will do a financial analysis not just for the three years that you will receive money from TEA but for the five full five years because we believe in that sustained investment in these campuses. The other option which you've heard about tonight is the 1882 model. Um so it is a almost mirror recommendation.

177You could use again you could use ACE at these campuses, you could use 1882 at these campuses or you could use both. You could incorporate both into your turnaround plan. Um in again in this model you would manage the facility. you would work out a contractual agreement with a turnaround operator and that turnaround operator would have autonomy over the staffing, curriculum, budget, and school calendar. It's important to note that if this model were to move forward, those students that are zoned to a Palo Alto or to a Maynor or to an Eastern Hills, if you went move forward with 1882, those students would still be zoned to those schools. So again, just to reiterate the slide that you've seen, the three draft scenarios that you have before you for Eastern Hills involve either a closure

178and the potential conversion to Harker Heights Elementary, the ACE model or the 1882 model. For Palo Alto, the draft scenarios are a closure and the potential conversion to a a new DAP facility, the ACE model or the 1882 model. And for Mayor, again, because of the peculiarities of where students live, where the schools are built, and where the enrollment zones lie, the draft scenarios that you see do not involve closure, but involve the ACE model or the 1882 model. Here you see the same sort of summary slide. We just wanted to make sure that for the public that is watching, they had all of these middle schools and their performance on the prior according to the priorities that this board passed. And then the projected enrollment here is based off of the enrollment provided by

179your demographer in May. The last scenario that that we're presenting tonight involves this board taking an affirmative decision about high school programming and sort of reimagining what high school programming looks like in a district to expand access to career and technical education, expand access to STEM, and expand access to dual enrollment. We heard from our community engagement how important and how successful some of these programs are and we consistently heard that we want all of our students to have all of the opportunities available to them. We want to lean into those things that are working well. We want to expand popular programming here in Ken ISD. So what this draft scenario involves doesn't involve any construction. It doesn't involve moving students. It just involves the board making a commitment to do a long-term study to

180implement uh changes to its high school programming to expand access to CTE, STEM, and dual enrollment. We have projected that this would cost roughly half a million dollars to the district. However, we are currently investigating and believe that there will be uh funding sources that will help mitigate this cost. There are often whether it is state funding or philanthropic funding, there are often groups that um you know believe in this type of programming that will help alleviate the cost for districts so they can expand it. Essentially part of this recommendation could involve uh those sort of labor intensive programs at the career center such as your auto tech, your cosmetology, your welding. We want to create more room for those popular programs. And so what one option would be moving those programs that require less

181equipment such as accounting, moving them back to a campus. And that not only a traditional campus that not only expands opportunities for students on a traditional campus, but also increases the number of seats that can participate in the welding program, participate in those more equipment heavy programs. Again, this is this scenario doesn't change any enrollment zones, doesn't change any uh aspects of the facility yet, although that could be a recommendation of the long range facilities planning committee. This is about the board taking an affirmative step to do a long-term study with the intent of expanding these popular programming, the these popular programs that have come up so often in our community engagement. Again, just for the community, we've listed all of the high schools here so they can see how the high schools perform against

182the priorities and the projected enrollment of your campuses. I do want to point out in looking at utilization capacity, we do have some campus, three of our high school campuses are over 100% of their um planning capacity. I imagine that is something that the long-range facilities planning committee will continue to discuss and that this board will continue to dis to discuss uh over the next several years as well. You see here a summary slide for our middle schools. There are two schools that are that have draft scenarios related to potential closure. There are four schools all of which are on some level of the accountability clock in TEA that are recommended for new programming. And then these schools in gold all become more efficient, allowing the district to pour more resources into those schools uh

183and pour more resources into ensuring that we have as many students as possible in our highest quality facilities and our higher performing campuses. And then you see a summary for high schools. Again, this is not a recommendation about zones or construction. This is a recommendation a draft scenario about expanding access to high quality programming. Okay, so we've made it almost all the way through. I do want to give you a quick summary. Everything that you just saw leads to up to six facilities being taken offline. the potential for two repurposed facilities, up to five schools with additional programming, whether that be ACE or 1882 or bilingual programming, five schools with expanded CTE programming. And when we talk about efficiency, 16 schools receiving at least 100 students or more. The purpose of district optimization is not

184only to make your is not only to respond to the loss of impact aid. Although, as I've said, this more than uh makes up for the challenge that the board is facing due to that decrease in federal funding. The purpose is also to become more efficient to expand access to your high quality seats and your high quality schools. Again, just to summarize, almost 2,700 students at higher performing campuses and over 3,200 students at your higher quality facilities. Now, this is going to be something that benefits for the more people we hear from, the better off our ultimate outcomes will be. We've talked about that. Uh so I want to share the opportunities that the community has for engagement uh as well as some next steps. So community engagement opportunities there is a if if you're

185a member of the community or if a member of the community comes up to you board members and wants to know more about district optimization there is a website that is currently live kenisd.orgoptimization org/optimization that has all of the school profiles, has news about the um community, excuse me, news about the town hall meetings. It has a a bevy of resources for community members. So, if somebody has questions about it, I encourage you to direct them to the website. Additionally, as soon as I sit down, a survey will go live and will be live uh until the month of October. We're going to distribute that survey on social media, uh, at community town halls, via traditional media. We want as many people as possible taking that survey. It will be available to people on their

186phones on, uh, via computer, in English, and in Spanish. And then, as Dr. Buckley has already mentioned, there will be a series of town hall meetings starting as early as next week, uh, if that schedule is approved by the board, which you will see here momentarily. Um and that will give members of the community who are impacted by these recommend these draft scenarios or who care about these draft scenarios that will give them the opportunity not only to learn more about district optimization but to engage in small groups maybe seven or eight at a time with a staff member from Ken ISD because we want to make sure that everybody that wants to engage in this process not only engages in the process but feels like they've been heard throughout this process. So they will

187not be standing in front of a microphone like I am right now and talking at people. They will be engaging in smallroup discussions with experts from Ken ISD. Uh, I've mentioned this before, but the district optimization website also has all of the school profiles that that um have already received a lot of traction from the community, which again are a reflection of how every single campus performs according to that objective lens that was determined by the community and approved by this board in May. Here you see a link to the survey. This will be publicized widely. Again, it will be open for roughly six weeks and we want it to be as accessible as possible and participants can provide feedback on one scenario that if they would just want to talk about high school programming,

188they can talk about high school programming and then go about their business or they can comment on every single scenario or they can comment on three scenarios. It is a choose your own adventure type scenario and we will be sure it is a choose your own adventure type survey and we will be sure to um do some detailed data analysis and bring that community feedback to this board um over the course of the next several months. We've talked about the the community engagement meetings, those town hall meetings. This is a proposed schedule. It is an item for action from this board tonight. There will be right now the the schedule the proposed schedule involves three meetings. One at Khen High School on September 4th, one at Harker Heights uh High School on September 8th, and

189one at Ellison High School on September the 11th. Lastly, board members, this is the timeline that you've seen before at board meetings. We are currently uh publicizing these draft scenarios and the survey will launch this evening. Over the next month, we will have those town hall meetings. We will continue to have the long range facility planning committee meetings and we will we will revise these draft scenarios based on board and community feedback. I want to be very clear when we come back to this board in October, the scenarios will not be identical. This is a this is true community engagement that will be happening. And if the scenarios are identical in October, that means we probably weren't doing a very good job of listening. So you will see some changes between now and October, you

190will your your feedback will be incorporated into those changes. Whether you choose to attend a community meeting or in an additional one-on-one conversation that you have, your feedback will be heard and incorporated. Uh and then lastly, we will bring uh recommendations to this board uh in October. They will become part of the turnaround plan, part of the community engagement that Colleen ISD submits to TEA. So this was a process that started because of impact aid. It did not start because of uh a response to tea accountability, but this is a process that is very flexible and can be incorporated into the turnaround plan that is developed. And then lastly, once the board votes, once the plan is approved by TEA, obviously then implementation begins almost immediately to make sure that facilities are ready to make

191sure that students and families know what to expect through the course of this school year uh prior to their implementation beginning in fall of 2026. Throughout this time, starting in February and all the way through the board meeting in October, we've been gathering board and stakeholder feedback. We will continue to do that electronically and in person. This concludes my presentation. I thank you so much for listening to it. Uh I am excited about the clean community's participation in this process. Uh my colleague Mr. Tayak and I we have been in we have done this in a number of districts not only across the state but across the country and the Khen ISD community has been more engaged than basically any community that we've been a part of and it is engagement from staff from parents

192from community members engagement across all ages and across all races and I think we will have because of that detailed engagement I expect that to continue I think we will have a much stronger set of recommendations than most communities benefit from because of the engagement from this community. So, thank you so much for allowing me to be uh with you again tonight. Uh and I will turn it back over to the district team to take us through our next item >> before we let you maybe we'll let you just go off with no questions as we try to be a little more efficient. But I mean bad joke questions from trustees. Mr. Just one one brief question and this is just maybe another layer to this. We've talked about how the feeder programs or how

193the how the schools feed into one another. I didn't hear it addressed, but I just would ask that we if we're going to make this change, let's let's make the change kind of let's just take a bath and do it all at once. Um because in terms of and again I'm to use a an educator term spiraling the curriculums and those things I know nothing about. Um, but I know they're important. So, let's just make sure that we kind of overlay that into this process. >> Thank you so much, Trusty Menz. That is definitely something that is part of our conversations both uh up until this point and moving forward. Um, obviously, there are some instances where drawing perfect feeder patterns uh is counter counteracts the desire to put students in higher quality facilities or

194higher performing campuses. That's not universal, but in cases where that does come up, that's a conversation that we're having both with district staff and with our community. >> Any other questions from trustees? I appreciate you for your time. Um, and I'm kind of on Mr. Minces and so how it does impact I want our our team to be make no joke about it. UIL snapshot day that we have our stuff taken care of and that that we're tracking. And then the most important thing I would just say is Dr. Davis, our team, it would be my desire that this presentation gets dropped in every principal's email. I'd really like it tonight because see this is this is their world. This is, you know, there's probably some people out there have some pretty emotional feelings going

195around. And then if we can get our communications team to snip this particular presentation and I want to drop that to them as well. So, I don't want them to have to look for anything. I want it to be right there for them so they can hear it, digest it, come with any questions that they have, be as prepared as they need to be for the town hall meetings and just their engagement because regardless of who moves around and what seats they get in, they're the ones that are going to make this plan anything if it does become anything. And so, I just don't want them to have to look for the material. I don't want these folks to have to leave and start calling people and say, "Did you see the meeting? Oh my

196goodness." you know, instead I want them to say it's in my inbox. You know, I mean, I got it. I can see the presentation. I can see the video. And so hopefully that's not too big of ask for uh for our team on that. So, >> thanks, President Williams. Just so you know, we have been working uh deeply with the communications team. There is a communications plan. We'll be sure. Essentially, by the time we get to October, if you are a member of this community and you want to engage about district optimization, you will have heard about it in some capacity, whether that is from an email, from a community meeting, from social media, from traditional media. We we very much intend to saturate the space so that those people that want to engage not

197only with the slides that you see here, but the detailed data behind the slides, they will have that opportunity to do so. >> Thank you. We appreciate you. >> Okay, that was an information item. Uh, Dr. Davis, before we move on, is there anything >> you want to add? I'm sorry. >> Maybe I'm ahead. Are we Don't we have to move to approve the scheduling? >> That's the next step. That's the next item. Yes, sir. Anything, Dr. D? Okay. >> Okay. We'll now move to 5B, which is discussion of district optimization scenarios for future. No, I'm sorry. Six. I'm sorry. Thank you. We'll move to item 6A, consideration of scheduling town hall meetings related to district optimization scenarios. Welcome back, Dr. Buckley. >> Thank you so much. Um, yeah, Brenda, do the slide below that.

198So, I I want to um just reiterate, we are sharing this exact presentation Thursday morning at general staff. All principles will be there and all central administration will be there. So it'll be a very large room and this entire presentation in its entirety will be discussed or shared. Um the discussion we hope will take place at the following campuses on the following dates which you saw but there's a little bit more detailed discussion. It is a lot to digest and discuss. So we have broken it down by scenarios that ideally feed these high school campuses or impact these high school campuses. So we will kick it off uh next Thursday, September 4th at Khen High and we will be discussing Peebles, Hay Branch, Mayor and Rancier. Those will all be the campuses discussed and that

199is all we're going to discuss. We're not going to get it. And then we're also going to talk about the STEM um and Willowis Springs. We'll throw that in there too at all of them. When we get to Harker Heights on September 8th, we're going to talk about the Cedar Valley Timber Ridge merge, the Eastern Hills, um and the long-term high school planning. Just pretend that's on Colleen High also. Um and then at Ellison on September 11th, we'll discuss Venal Village, Palo Alto, and Willow Springs. So, we want and we're going to share this. Karen already has it. The community will be aware so they can attend whatever town hall suits their interests. Um it's a lot to do in a two-hour block for all of them. So, we're breaking it down into into this.

200And so, we're asking for approval to move forward with these town halls. and I can take any questions. >> Questions from trustees. This is an action item. Madam Secretary, >> Mr. President, I move to approve the proposed scheduling of town hall meetings related to district optimization draft scenarios as presented. >> We have a motion by Secretary Adams. >> Second motion. >> We have a second by Mr. Rainwater. Any further discussion by trustees? I just want to add a comment. I just want our community to understand this is an opportunity to get better. It's an opportunity to get better. Any other discussion? There being none. All those in favor? Show of hands. Got five in favor? None in opposition. Two absent and not participating. And trustee Tina Capito and Trustee Rottney Gilchrist. 502. Thank you very

201much, Dr. Buckley. Thank you for all your work and what you'll continue to work on. Uh we'll now move to 6 C as we've already taken up 6B 6C which is consideration of interlocal agreement with region 18 education service center for teacher incentive aotment services. Welcome Mr. Baker. >> Good evening president Williams, Dr. Davis board members, thank you so much for this opportunity to talk to you about our proposed continuing pro uh partnership with region 18 and specifically the Texas Center for Educator ED Excellence, which is a satellite office of region 18 that's actually housed in Austin, Texas. So, what we wanted to do is give you a quick update of where we are on uh the TIA. Uh right now we have about 471 designated teachers and TIA stands for the teacher incentive aotment.

202Uh we have 471 of those teachers and we pay out about $4.4 million in bonuses that they have earned uh through the teacher incentive aotment program. As we know through this last legislative session, the TEA commissioner is looking at expanding the TIA program. they're going to add in an extra designation. So, we can expect a lot more growth and hopefully a lot more bonuses headed our way for our teachers who work so hard. We know though in KISSD and as so eloquently stated by one of our teachers in a previous board meeting at open comment at uh public forum, not all of our KISSD teachers are currently eligible for this bonus. And we need to work to where every teacher in our district is eligible for that bonus. So we know if that if we

203do expand that TIA program all our teachers will leave for all our teachers we hope that leads to higher retention rates across the board and we also hope that in in turn increases student uh performance. So we want to also attract a bunch of teachers to KISSD by expanding the way in which you can uh qualify for a TIA bonus. We know though with expansion comes certain risks. uh that means we're going to have a lot more data to house and analyze. And if you you think about it, every teacher who has a class, we have to look at that class, we have to look at how it's constituted at the beginning of the year. We have to provide a measurement and then we have to follow that class through the year. And as you

204know, kids come and go through the year. And so at the end of the year when you do that follow-up test, you got to figure out which of these tid kids are going to count for this teacher. And that that can become very complicated when you're talking about a district as big as Colleen is. So what we want to do is take advantage of the partnership we have with region 18 because they have they have a tool specifically that will help you manage that data and help you analyze that data. And they have experts. They have a team of experts that will help us roster those students, look at that data over time and tell us, hey, when you when you submit this to TEA and specifically they use Texas Tech, when you submit that

205data, if you do it in this way, you're going to be more likely to be approved and get your TE teachers that bonus. We have to have consistent data, though, and we have to have be confident in what that data is showing. So this agreement and slow me down if I'm talking too fast. Uh this this uh agreement will get us access to that region 18 and they are they are designated by TA TEA as the data hub for the state. So if we have this partnership with them, we'll get access to data very quickly and we'll also get analysis of that data where they can come and tell us, hey, set your cut rate for this test for these teachers at this spot and this spot. That will increase the chances of you being

206approved by the state. Uh they'll be able to analyze our student growth over time like I spoke to before. They'll help us calculate the different designations. They'll help us with the verification of data at the end of the year that we have to turn into the state and they'll also give us a really solid digital platform that our principles can use and our teachers can use to track their progress. Um, so I'm here tonight answer any questions but also ask for your approval to enter into this local agreement interlocal agreement. >> Questions from trustees? This is an action item. Madam Secretary, >> I move to approve the inter local agreement with region 18 education service center for teacher incentive aotment services as presented. >> We have a motion by secretary Adams. I have a second

207by Mr. Rainwater. Any further discussion by trustees? There being none, all those in favor shs. We have five in favor, none in opposition, two absent and not participating, and trustee Tina Capido and Trustee Rodney Gilchrist. 502. Thank you very much. We'll now move to D, which is consideration of proposed final budget amendment to the fiscal year 2025 adopted budget. Welcome, Miss Vayton. >> Thank you very much and good evening. Um, this will be, as you said, our final budget amendment for the fiscal year 25 budget. So, that's the one that we are in. Uh I want to tell you a little bit about the process. Um we took and this I believe was as of August the 11th. Uh looked at transactions for the year through that date. Um then made a projection as far

208as what remaining payroll would take to get us through the end of August for those days this year and then looked at the purchase orders that were still outstanding and and made a projection on which ones of those will be received. the items or the the order will be received by August 31st. Um and so that's included. And so that's the biggest two pieces used in coming up with these final numbers. And so if you actually um in your packet, if you look at the budget amendment, um I'm going to go through a few of the bigger items. Um most of the items we looked at are related to unspent payroll. Um that being in the area of instruction. So that's going to be professional salaries as well as pair profofessional salaries um aids etc

209that are in that category um instruction is almost entirely made up of of unspent salaries. Uh same thing the next biggest number as far as the amendment column is a $ 1.6 million decrease to school leadership again uh primarily made up of unspent salaries. Uh the next biggest change as far as the amendment is 34, which is transportation services. That's an increase of just over a million dollars. Uh that's going to be related to overtime um and e extra payments particularly at the beginning of the year uh when we had many bus drivers that were out um or or unfilled positions. Um and so there were office staff, mechanic staff that were having to drive as well. Um and so then to do their regular job that would require overtime. Um and then uh the

210next largest change would be in the area of maintenance and operations. Plant maintenance 51 as about a $2 million decrease. Again, this is going to be primarily unspent salaries. The biggest change on this uh amendment is the security and monitoring which is under function 52. You see an 11 million increase there. Um made up of some of this is contracted security. Uh just under a million dollars of this was contracted security again at the beginning of the year related to to uh the safety and police function. Um there is about in total there's about an eight $18 million um change related to the whole weapons detection system as well as additional police staff fall under security and monitoring and then um police vehicles as well. Um I believe we bought I believe seven um additional

211vehicles this year as well. So that's the largest uh increase that's that's recommended. Um and then the only other one um you'll notice 71 which is debt services. There is an increase that was not budgeted of 3.8 million. Uh this is related to a required audit journal entry closing entry for the year um related to school-based instructional technology arrangements. And so this will be um this has funding there then so that when that journal entry is recorded we have a budget. So with that we are looking for final amendment uh looking at a total projected change in fund balance of 9.7 million um in related to the first the adopted budget and then the first amendment that was approved. Um so a planning proposed u change in fund balance for this current year of 2.6

2126 million >> questions 2.6 to the good. >> So >> yes, um also included um you will see just a a small school nutrition and then there's a debt service amendment as well. Um the school nutrition piece is additional expenditures related to the kitchen equipment replacement. Um and then the debt service pieces on revenues and it's just basically a change between local revenues and state revenues um to account for how the funding has come in in the 321 discount. >> Questions from trustees? >> Tell me when you're done, Miss Maiden. >> I'm done if you all are. This is an action item. Mr. Mintz. Mr. President, I move to approve the final budget amendment for the fiscal year 2025 adopted budget as presented. We have a motion by Mr. Mintz. We have a second by

213Mr. Rangner. Any further discussion by trustees? There being none, all those in favor, show of hands with five in favor, none in opposition, two absent and not participating, and trustee Tina Capido and trustee Rottney Gilchrist. 502. Thank you. We'll now go to E, which is a public hearing to discuss the budget and tax rate for fiscal year 2026. As a reminder, anyone wishing to speak during the public hearing should submit their signup sheet at this time. All comments must be must be related to the fiscal year 2026 budget and tax rate. Miss Vayton. >> Okay. Um this presentation you've seen most of it before. Um I have removed several slides but many again are repeats just to keep uh the overall picture the overall integrity of of the process. Um, and as we get to

214new slides, again, like I have done in the past, I will point those out and go into a little bit more explanation on those. Um, these are, as we've talked about, these are the the board budgets that that are required to be approved. Those being the general fund, which accounts for the day-to-day operations of the district. Um, any school district in Texas would have a general fund. In addition to that, the school nutrition fund which accounts for the national school lunch program revenues and expenses and the debt service fund which accounts for the revenues and principal and interest payments for bond uh voter approved bonds. uh within the general fund our maintenance and operations tax rate we are recommending the same tax rate for M that we have had this past year that being 6682

215per $100 valuation um there is included the homestead exemption of 140,000 uh that was the result of this most recent legislative session um and then our state aid always is a reminder um again we are funded primarily based on ADA, our our attendance. And so as local taxes go up or down, state revenue uh has that inverse relationship and and does uh so as well on the general fund budget assumptions. Um looking at the the major assumptions that are here, uh the budgeted property tax collections. This was a change that we made coming into fiscal year 25. uh to increase that to a 99% collection rate. Um we did as as Mr. Heckinberg pointed out, one of the assumptions is the teacher supply reimbursement um of $200 per classroom teacher. And so we have included

216that once again. And then um the unfilled positions or the vacancy factor looking at 94% again that was a change uh the current year that we were in was at 95%. This is a history of the enrollment and the ADA. Um as you can see they they very much align and track accordingly other than 201920 uh which was related to COVID year. Um and there were some ADA adjustments as allowed by TEA and so that's why there's a little bit bigger gap during those years. Um, also want to point out this most recent year, um, you do see that there is a larger decrease in the enrollment, uh, than the ADA. Um, and that's attributed to towards the end of this most recent school year. Uh, there was a a really good push and our

217enrollment um was in the 93% range. And so that allowed our our ADA to um not decrease as significantly as our enrollment. These are the historical tax rates for Colleen ISD. And you see the visual there at the bottom. The main piece of information to get out of this is um the significant trending downward or decrease over the last eight years. Um and so even going into fiscal year 26. Um and we are recommending overall a 0.2 cent .002 002 um increase that overall it's still a very very low tax rate and and um again smaller than it has been in many years. This was part of our uh required public notice and you can see the average taxable value of residences there. you compare last year and this year. Last year the rate was

218the value was 152,000. Uh this current year it's going to be 126,000. That information is provided to us by Bell County. Uh the middle row you see there are proposed tax rates. Um and again the 0002 proposed increase. Um, but due to the average value and the homestead exemption that gets applied to that, we'll actually overall uh have a decrease for our homeowners of $219. This is the property tax rates for those districts that are around us. Um, you will see other than Coppers Cove, we have the lowest overall rate of all of these districts. Um and as far as uh both M the debt rate and uh in total uh we are well below the average for all of these districts. Um the other thing there are several districts you can see at the

219top they have have asterisk that's kind of small but these are districts that are um having bond elections coming up in November. So it is anticipated that at some of these that the debt rate or the INS rate will increase. This is new. Um this is kind of a breakdown of the revenues in the general fund. A little more detail than we have seen in the past. Um, you see as far as local revenue, the tax collections and and the 321 discount that's related to those tax collections, uh, in the $76 million range, investment income is just over $11 million, which is very flat. Um, because of the additional revenues with House Bill 2, we will have funds uh, more funds available to invest. Um and so even though the rate has been reclining declining

220reclining has been declining we expect our investment income to remain flat. Um and then there's other revenues 4.2 2 million. That can be athletic gate receipts, those kinds of things, utility uh building rentals, facility use rentals, and those things are included there. Um if you look to the right, you can see that um overall our local revenue is at just a little over 17%. For comparison, last year that was at 20%. Um, so our local revenue has gone down again as anticipated based on tax rate compression. Under the state revenue, you can see foundation school program, that's our uh state aid and all that comes all the different um allotments that flow through state aid. um TRS on behalf. That's another required entry as far as closing um entries for our fiscal year for the

221audit. There's an offsetting expenditure that uh goes with that and the exact equal amount. Um and then there are minor other state um revenues as well. the 358 million the you can see there six 69% um last year this was at 65%. So again that um the intent of the legislature uh the state is pumping more money into the district um and hopefully giving some relief to uh the local communities. And then the federal revenues at the bottom you can see our impact aid at 60 million. The school health uh and related services that's students that qualify for Medicaid. That's um services provided to them. And then other revenues which would be primarily indirect cost related to our federal grants uh for a total federal of 66.7 million. um and that uh equals 12%. Last

222year that was at 14. So that's pretty steady um for an overall revenues of 516 million. >> Yes. >> So Ken, we're expecting $60 million in impact aid money this year. >> Yes, ma'am. >> And so what was it last year? >> It was about 68. >> 68. Okay. Thank you. This is uh general fund budget comparison and the revenues across the top. Um compare last year to this year. Um and then the increase or decrease related to that. Uh revenue increase expected is 20 overall 29 million. Uh the expenditures there are listed by uh object code, what we call object code, and tells you what you were purchasing. Um and so obviously for the expenditures, you as you would expect, the payroll and the benefits are the largest piece of the general fund. Um

223and then total expenditures for the general fund are 520.5 million. Um, do want to point out for the proposed budget, I know we've talked about this before, uh, we are recommending a deficit budget of 4004.2 uh, million dollars absolutely intentional based uh, to come from prior year fund balance related to our state compensatory education funding. This is uh this is new um and it combines I guess the information from before with the function codes on the left and the and the object codes on the right. So within each of these um areas you can see where the largest um dollar amounts fall. I'm going to talk through some of these. Um, again, as you go across the very first row, the instruction, as you would expect, again, the payroll costs are 276 million. Um, but

224there's also contracted services of 16. Um, related to um potentially subs would fall in this category since we've now got ESS. Um, any other contracted services, potentially special education, etc. would fall into the contracted services area. So, that's the two biggest pieces out of function 11. Um, and if you go all the way across to the right, you will see that function 11 makes up 58.3% of our budget. Um, likewise, if you look down at the columns, you have those percentages as well. And we've talked about several times that the payroll costs make up 84% of our budget. 84% 84.1% um for our payroll cost um which has increased um over the last few years um as school districts have had to get more sufficient efficient and then also partly related to the increase from

225house bill to the raises that were required. Couple of the other changes. Um do want to point out about the middle row. Um within the transportation piece, you do see there's a capital outlay piece um of 725,000. So that's intended to buy additional vehicles. Um the other thing wanted to point out um related to the plant maintenance. Um you'll see again the primary piece to that is going to be the salaries which is the first column. Um but then also um within the contracted services act that's going to be um things such as utilities um I think insurance falls in that category etc. any kinds of repairs um that we'd have to contract out. So overall, just um wanted to kind of give that differentiation if you will um of how the general fund is

226budgeted as far as expenditures. School nutrition fund, we've talked about this before. Uh the main things to highlight uh free lunch C program at 37 of our campuses and then the child and adult food care program the separate program um that over the next three months um will be staggered and will then be at 47 of our campuses. School nutrition budget again this is the comparison by object code. Um, as you would expect on on the expenditure piece, the payroll makes up the largest portion of that proposed budget of of 12.4 for next year. Um, but also supplies and materials very much um a a function of this obviously because of the program related to food um and non-food items um and and there is an increase there related to that evening or that supper

227program overall. recommending a slight increase to the school nutrition budget of 277,000. Uh this is new. This is that same comparison. I don't think it gives you um much information because there are only two functions within uh school nutrition. So it just supports again I guess that same idea that uh if you look across function 35 which is the food services piece um it's almost or kind of in the half and half range between payroll and then the supplies and and food debt service fund. We've talked about this um looking at uh the the INS tax rate uh proposing a 0.002 002 increase to that. Um, we need to make sure that property taxes collected plus any state aid that's anticipated um is sufficient to meet our current year debt payments. And then also part

228of that has to do with the cash flow. Um, oftentimes most well most of your taxes come in at the end of January or right at the beginning of February. uh which is also when our payments are due and so part of this has to do with the cash flow as well. Very similarly here are the revenues and the expenditures. Uh the revenues again are from two sources either property taxes or our state uh facilities assistance. And then the expenditures of 27 million are the principal and interest payments. Uh again, re recommending uh a slight increase of 361,000 to fund balance. This we looked at last time. I'm not going to go into the all the detail, but the biggest pieces of what's included in this budget. Obviously, we've we've talked before about the safety

229and security piece. Um lots of additional dollars uh put into obviously equipment, but personnel as well. improvements within the police department. Uh whether that be uh again staff, vehicles, weapons, etc. Uh significant pay increases across uh all of of the employees of the district. Uh and those u mandated by House Bill 2. In addition, the $25 increase to the employer contribution for health insurance. talked about uh additional tier one and tier 2 instruction um advances. Uh the I think significant the 27 FTEES that are for the middle school math and reading PLC's um looked at special education and trying to get those students more of them to attend their neighborhood campus. um staffing for groundskeeping um to upkeep our building appearances and then again that strategic use of our our prior year fund balance uh

230to support staffing and maintain those roles and then the changes at school nutrition. And so with that um this will be the proposed budgets um again for the general fund looking at the 4.2 two deficit in total. The 277,000 increase for school nutrition and the 361 for debt service. And that's it. And I'll take whatever questions you have. Questions. All right. I will now open the floor to the public hearing for comments related to the fiscal year 2026 budget and tax rate. First sign up to speak Stan Golov. Welcome Stan Golab Harker Heights. So, I'm going to ask you to not adopt the 0.2096 INS tax rate. I would ask you to do the 0.2076 that previously was for last year. The difference is about $225,000 in revenue. And I would point out that in

231the budget amendment for 2025 that you just approved, there's $2 million in surplus in the INS fund. You can pull the chart back up after I get done talking if you don't believe me. But you have the money. We've already given you the money between the state and the taxpayer. We've already given you the money to ensure that at a 0.2076 INS tax rate, we will be able to make our $27 million bond payment. There's no need to raise my taxes. Even though it's minor, the principles there. And I would hope that that you all would demonstrate the integrity that I know you have to not reach into the taxpayers's pocket unnecessarily because one day you're going to come to me and you're going to need money out of my pocket probably for a bond.

232And when you literally nickel and dime me this way, I'm not going to support a bond. Okay? And I need you not to take any money that the legislature promised me through tax relief because my city council is trying to take half of it already. And I'm talking to them. You guys aren't nearly as bad as they are. But the bottom line is tax relief was voted for. I don't need you to increase the INS tax rate. You have the money and it's not going to cost you a dime and you're going to look great to the public. So I would ask you 276. You don't need 296. That's that's a crazy tax increase tax rate increase. $225,000. Come on. You got two million left over from last year. Thank you. As we have no

233one else signed up to speak, we're closing the floor to public hearing. We'll now go to item F, which is consideration of fiscal year 2026 accelerated instruction budget. Welcome back, Miss Fayen. >> Thank you. Um, since 2014, school districts have been legally required to budget state compensatory education funds before adopting any other funds. Um, and so KD complies with this um by budgeting $100,000 towards students who did not pass their end of course tests. Um, and so I would ask for your approval. Questions from trustees. This is an action item. Madam Secretary, >> I move to approve the budgeting $100,000 and compensatory education funds as a budgeted line item within the fiscal year 2026 general fund budget to provide accelerated instruction at the high schools for students who did not meet end of course requirements.

234>> We have a motion by Secretary Adams. I'm about to give me a second in here today. We have a second by Vice President Jones. 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 Tina Capito and trustee Rodney Gilchrist. 502. We'll now move to G, which is a consideration of adoption of fiscal year 2026 district budgets. One, general fund budget. two, school nutrition fund budget. Three, debt service fund budget. Mr. Vayton, >> just would ask that you approve the budgets as we just uh reviewed through uh the public hearing presentation. Uh total proposed budget uh would be for revenues 578 million for all three funds. 581 in expenses for all three funds. Other uses

235of 75,000 uh for a total proposed uh budget change to fund balance of 3.5 million. >> Questions from trustees? Mr. events. >> Miss Men, based on the public comment we just heard before we adopt budgets, could you just explain what risk we would assume? I mean, it's a very small difference, but can you tell us what the risk would be to adopt the lower INS budget? I'm sorry, low lower INS tax rate. >> I I want to make two comments. One, um we don't have $2 million at this point. That is a budget amendment. Um so we will see where we actually come in at year end. Um so that's the first comment. Uh the second comment relates to uh what I said during the presentation. Part of that has to do with cash flow

236as well as uh the fund balance. As a point of reference uh last year uh at the end of our audit we had just over $33,000 in fund balance for INS. That's it. Thank you. >> Any other questions? This is an action item. Mr. Rainwater, >> I move to approve the adoption of the fiscal year 2026 general funds, school nutrition fund, and debt service fund budgets as presented. Have >> a motion by Mr. Rainwater. Have a second by Mr. Mintz. Any further discussion by trustees? There being none, all those in favor, show of hands. We have five in favor, all those opposed. We have five in favor, none in opposition, two absent and not participating, and trustee Tina Capido and Trustee Rodney Gilchrist. The budget is adopted. Miss Fab, congratulations to you and her team

237on a job well done and to everybody. >> And it was a team. Absolutely. HR team, the budget team, finance team, a lot of people involved, senior leadership as well. So >> appreciate appreciate all of that. >> Mr. President, could we I mean there's absolutely there's teams or people >> who you want I'd like to I mean there's some some actual humans that do the work. You want to >> public because I'm scared I'd leave people out. >> Fair enough. >> Thank you very much. Uh we'll now go to H which is consideration of a resolution to adopt the maintenance and operations tax rate of 6682 cents and debt service tax rate of.2096 cents for a total tax rate for a total tax rate of 8778 cents for the fiscal year for the fiscal year

2382026. Miss Fton, >> thank you again. Um, I would recommend that you adopt the proposed tax rate as presented and discussed. Uh, the stat statutoily required language is included in the motion and in the attached resolution. Um, one of the things I I do want to point out, um, within the the recommendation, uh, the percentage is required, um, be it's based on enrollment, student enrollment, um, and so is reflective our of our enrollment decrease. >> Questions from trustees? >> Mr. Kathy, we discussed this earlier and I'm hard-headed, but it's not an actual 98% increase of the total >> because of the relationship of the I'm going to say no new revenue tax rate and our enrollment decrease. It's really based on the uh per student basis. And so it it's an increase based on a

239per student basis. It's not an increase overall, but again, this is the the language that's required. >> Is it fair to say that taxpayer is not going to get not going to see an 11.8% increase in their taxes? >> They I can't really speak to each individual taxpayer. Again, we've looked at at average residence values. Um, >> Miss V, >> being that the rate is a very very minimal increase, I would not expect that. Uh, but again, it would potentially depend on the individual taxpayer circumstances. >> I think the best way to explain that is it's because it's generating additional the same tax rate that would have generated the same revenue from last year would have been lower, but we're staying where we were. Values have gone up. So it it results in more funds

240that are collected and that's where that percentage comes from and that's why they call it additional it's additional taxes versus the no new rate which would actually take you backwards. Did I say that right? >> Yes, you did. >> Did that help you out, Mr. Rainwater? >> Yes, sir. Thank you. >> Any other questions from trustees? This is an action item. >> Mr. dry water to the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of a tax rate of 0.8778 which is effectively an 11.98% increase in the tax rate and to adopt the related resolution as presented. We have a motion by Mr. Rainwater. We have a second by Secretary Adams. Any further discussion by trustees? There being none. All those in favor, show of hands. We have five in favor, none in opposition, two

241absent and not participating, and trustee Tina Capido and trustee Rottney Gilchrist passes by 502 vote. Once again, thank you, Miss Vaden, for your work and your team's work getting it across the finish line. Job well done. We'll now move to agenda item seven, which is discussion of future board meeting agendas and trustee remarks. And we will start with uh future agendas and Dr. Davis. >> Thank you, Mr. President. If it pleases the board, I don't want to treat you like first graders. Instead of reading all this, if if you have any questions or need any clarifications, please let us know so we can move forward. >> Any questions on the upcoming agenda for September 9th, which is an amazing thing because that means we don't have a meeting next Tuesday. Mr. around water. >> I

242think uh Harper would be so glad that I made this comment, but I I have concerns about the level three parent grievance filed by Miss Hitchcock. I uh she has multiple grievances. >> You might be getting us in trouble there. I see I don't I just saw Joey's head whip around. And I know you had mentioned, Miss, >> but just tell him. So I know he wants So if he can keep going, keep going. But >> well, it sounds like he wants to venture into a specific agenda discussion and that's not posted on this agenda, I don't believe. >> Okay. Well, we're going to listen to your council. I just I saw your head moved around and so I said, "Let me >> Yeah. I Mr. Ray, were you going to ask questions about a

243grievance that's not on this agenda tonight? question. >> That's going to be the future agenda. >> A future agenda. Yeah, I would I would recommend that you have a conversation with Mr. Harper outside of this meeting to answer that question. >> Thank you, sir. >> Anything else, Mr. Rimwater? >> No, sir. any other uh comments about future agendas from trustees? >> Okay, we'll now move to trustee remarks and we'll start with Mr. Mintz. So, I just want to I think follow up on something that we said here, we talked about today with the district optimization. Um, and like myself, like all the other board members have had a chance to to talk to those uh those folks that are putting that together. And I think I just want to make sure that the community understands

244the level of work that's gone into that um and how important a how important it is and b how important their feedback is. It is going to fundamentally reshape this district um in a way that's better for our students in a way that's better for the financial health long-term and short term of this district. So I just want to encourage folks to get involved. Um, don't come by after the fact saying, "You did all these things without talking to me." Um, there is a multitude of different ways for folks to get involved in the process and let their voices be heard. So, I would encourage them to do so. >> Thank you, Secretary Adams. >> I'm good, sir. Thank you, >> Mr. Rimler. >> I'm good. I feel like we're kind of at a turning

245point in our school district and to make that successful, it's going to involve our communities and our staffs and our kids. But it's so critical that we make those changes and that we do them in such a way that our schools and our staffs profit from them because I think the real the reality is of the situation. It in a sense we're losing money every day that we don't make these changes. And the last thing that I ever want to as a board member and just as a guy that's been around a minute, but and I never want to be in a situation where the agency comes down and takes over KISSD or takes over a school because if you'll read about the things that happened in Houston, uh I mean there were radical radical

246decisions made by the commissioner who appointed a man who had no educational experience at all who was a corporate time and uh it was a mess. I mean, he straightened the schools out, but it was a high price to everybody to pay. And I'd rather get these things in place and not put our staffs and our people in those situations. And it's going to be a lot of work. >> Thank you, sir. Madame Vice President, >> not a lot. Just u think it's amazing. We've got a got a condensed agenda and we got through this evening and it's only 9:53 right now and uh we still have a few other items I think here to talk about but um uh kudos to everybody and the staff and thank you all for presenting it to us.

247Appreciate you. Always love Ken's presentations. >> I just want to echo what Mr. Mint said talked about providing feedback uh for this optimization plan. That is extremely important because this is not walking in to look at a plan and going what might be I mean it is a pretty detailed plan for you to come in and clearly say hey I have a problem with that or hey I like that. It's not a hey we're considering doing some things. It's like look here is the proposal and I think that's the best way to get feedback. So I just encourage everybody to do that. And then to our entire KSD team, in the words of Drayton Mlan, I'd just like to encourage you to keep charging, Mr. Superintendent. Anything you got? >> No. Thank you for for

248this short meeting as well. That's all I'll say. >> We're not done yet. So we we'll go to eight now, which is close session. The board will now convene in close session for agenda item 8A, discussion of personnel matters as allowed by Texas Government Code 551.074 and agenda item 8B, deliberation regarding the purchase, exchange, lease, or value of real property as allowed by Texas Government Code 551.072. No voting will take place in close session. Any action the board wishes to take as a result of discussions in closed session will take place after the board reconvenes in the open meeting. The time is now 9:54 p.m. and we are in close session. And if everybody's okay with it, we'll stay right here. The time is now 10:59 p.m. and we are reconvening from close session. No

249action or voting took place in close session. We'll now move to agenda item nine. Madam Secretary, Mr. >> President, move to adjourn. We have a motion by Madam Secretary. We have a second by Brett Williams. All those in favor, show of hands. We have five in favor, none in opposition, two absent and not participating, and trustee Tina Capito and Trustee Rodney Gilchrist. We are adjourned at 11 p.m. on the 26th day of August, 2025. Thank you.