001Board of Trustees is called to order. The presence of a quorum has been established. The meeting has been duly called and the notice of the meeting has been posted in the time and manner required. At this time, we will have Oh, we all public participation already. Okay. We are now at the scheduled time of our agenda for public comment. The board wishes to hear your thoughts and concerns. As per policy, all speakers must have submitted a speaker presentation participation form at least 10 minutes prior to the start of our regular session. All registered speakers should have received a card with the guidelines and there's no cheering um no response to the speaker. Although the board may ask clarifying questions, please be reminded that the board members cannot respond to any comments. Tonight we have Miss
002Carolyn Davis. Come on down and you have about three minutes. How are you? I will try. >> Uh, good evening, um, President Atkins, board members, and Dr. Crawford. The word is excited. It's a word I've heard used here quite a bit over the years. I, too, can finally use this word to say, I'm excited. I'm excited that by next year 2027, all K through 12 teachers will be certified. This is good news. I'm also excited about the three strategic initiatives described last year during your November schoolboard meeting. In describing these three initiatives, it was exciting to hear phrases like higher ed partnerships, developing diverse and talented pipelines of future educators, reforming selected campuses, clear instructional vision, and of course, grow your own. It is exciting to hear steps are being taken in this direction. It
003was super exciting to hear that resource school was probably priority number one with other models having a possibly soft implementation in year one and that early literacy model lab schools could be a thing right away. It was great to hear if any a lotments in year one, your focus would be on any school that may be suffering a little bit because of lower performance on their accountability ratings. This is especially exciting for a couple of reasons. One reason is because of the concern that I expressed previously about the most recent third grade star reading and math test results of African-American students being eerily close to that of specialed students. Also during the last year's November schoolboard meeting, a great deal of discussion ensued around high need areas such as math teachers, science teachers, bilingual teachers
004as it relates to the three strategic initiatives. The question was asked whether a focus could be placed on these high need areas. The answer was absolutely. Again, this is exciting and great news. Of course, these are high need areas due to a shortage of math, science, and bilingual teachers. I would like to take this opportunity to remind you about the shortage of AfricanAmerican teachers that exist at elementary schools like Brian Jack Owens, Andy Woods, and even Birdwell. All except one of these four elementary schools has either one, two, or zero African-American teachers. Why is having a more having more African-American teachers in front of classrooms important? Well, as I mentioned before, it has to do with who students see day in and day out in positions of authority, who they look up to. in this
005case as the head of their classroom. It allows them to see who they can aspire to be as they see various staff in authoritative positions throughout the school that look like them. This is especially true with young minds in elementary schools. Additionally, research shows if an African-American elementary student has at least one teacher who looks like them by third grade, it substantially increases the students chances of graduating high school and going on to attend college. I got every time I'm almost I will end this evening with where I started the last time I spoke before you. I made the request that Tyler SD release a statement to students and families about their plans as it relates to immigration enforcement on school campuses. Once again, I was excited to find out you released a document back
006in August entitled Family Emergency Preparedness Guide. Thank you for releasing that document. This document outlines a great deal of what parents should do, have on file, should have on file. It ends with just a small amount of information about what federal officials can and can't do on school campuses. During the November school board meeting, a Hispanic parent spoke to the board about fear that still exists in Latino families and neighborhoods and asked what resources and support the district is providing to make sure students feel safe and supported. With the parents still coming to speak on this topic, it says to me possibly some Hispanic parents and students are either not aware of the document released by the district or are not completely satisfied with the document. I don't really know which. So again in closing
007I am excited and look forward to Tyler SD future plans as it relates to the three strategic initiatives. In fact if I remember correctly in the very near future we will hear even more about these three initiatives. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have continuous improvement student outcomes athletics updates. First, >> actually we have uh coach Sam Gillespie. This is going to be coming up to the presentation table. Uh Sam Gillespie, our athletic director, will be providing um this semester for your per your board monitoring calendar uh an athletics update. Mr. Coach Gillespie, >> you bet. Uh President Atkins, board of trustees, Dr. Crawford, first of all, just uh wanted to say uh with it being board appreciation month, really really appreciate each and everything y'all do. Uh gave you a couple tokens back there.
008Hopefully you can use them, a couple hats, and uh but like I said, really appreciate everything you guys do for not just the school district, but us athletically as well. We've got some of the best facilities in the state, and you're a direct reflection of that. So, um I'm going to jump right in. I'm going to be short and sweet. If we have questions, please ask. But um I've got this broken down um from each sport. Basically what you're looking at uh it's got the districts from Tyler High and Legacy, everybody we compete against. Uh it's got our number of uh athletes that participated and you can see we start off with team tennis and cross country. Uh just want to hit a few high points on here and the numbers there. You can see
009what place they finished in district along with uh their record uh as well at Tyler High. Just want to say a few things about team tennis. They made the playoffs seven out of eight out of the past eight years which coach Kenyonas does a great job over there is getting more and more participation um this year in the team tennis. Khloe Wade uh it's not up there but she went undefeated uh all through the year uh team tennis wise and girls singles. So looking for great things from her. They graduated 22 seniors last year from that program. So which is a feat in itself, you know, to have those that many kids participate all four years. Uh and then was still able to get in the playoffs again that year. So that was a big
010accomplishment. He's up to over 40 kids in the middle school program now. So that's even growing. Uh which is great. Um, the other thing is he he wanted me to mention, man, we've got a lot of new branding around that tennis court there at Tyler High. It's got a bunch of pictures of past um regional qualifiers, things like that. So, if you get a chance, get out there and take a look at all that. Um, cross countrywise, uh, Coach Needer, man, if you hadn't got a chance to meet him. Every time you ask him, coach, how's it going? I'm blessed. I mean, he is uh he I don't know what we're going to do when he decides to hang it up because he goes 100 miles an hour all the time. I drove by, we
011did we had germ blast hit all of our facilities over the Christmas break that and people always tell you it's hard to get kids to come up, you know, at certain schools and all that. The day after Christmas break on that Monday, he had 22 kids out there running and it was her first day off of break. Just in case you're wondering what germ blast is. That's a disinfectant that we do of our locker rooms. [laughter] >> Sorry. >> I mean, I know it's cold and flu season. >> Yeah, that's true. So, we try to hit it to where we do away with all the staff, but he had about 22 kids up there running that Monday, the first day they're out on break. So, Coach Nryer does a great job. Numbers are increasing. The
012JV boys as a team finished second this year. And I'll get to some of that. you see the boys uh made it to regionals and I'll hit on that a little bit later along with Amy Vasquez who is a girl that's that's just exceeded every single year over there but uh he's got basically a year- round program going over there now and that's why they're successful uh over at Legacy you can see the district we've competed in coach Seismore man every year in year out does a great job with the tennis program he's got a lot of kids out um you can look up there and see his record varsity and all the JVS they finished first in every single one of them district-wise, never lost a match. Uh had the academic all state, you
013know, you can see the the ones we've got up there, second team, honorable mention. Uh he was also selected as a THSCA region 6 coach of the year. Again, that's back-to-back years that he's been selected uh for that honor. So, can't say enough good things about coach Seismore. He works hard year round. Uh has a lot of kids out. Uh always positive with them. And like I said, look continue to look for great things coming out of that program. Uh and then on the legacy side on the cross country, you can see up there the girls, they were first place, boys were fourth uh at the district meet. If you didn't get to go out there cross country, they they do it a little bit different as a team. So they they placed the first
014five, you know, you're you ever run, I believe, seven runners, but five of them are what you place with. The best possible score you can get is 15. Their JV girls came in one through ninth place at the district meet. It was one I mean just one after the other. They had a score of 15. The closest one to them I think was Rock Wall with 50. So, you know, 35 points separated first and second. And uh like I said, Coach Toy Bear does a really good job getting kids out running boys and girls. Uh they had some all district. Madri East was a regional and state qualifier as well. And I'll get to that a little bit later in one of the uh slides and kind of give you some info on that. But
015uh those two programs do a great job. Like I said, looking for great things uh from them. Um moving on the volleyball. Uh you can see there at Tyler High. Uh that's a district we compete in volleyball-wise in 10 5A. Uh varsity ended up in sixth place. Had a 15 and 22 record overall. 6-10 in district. You can see the JV how they finished. Uh all district selections. We had a superlative and a first team, couple second teams. We had some academic allstate as well. On the academic all-state team, those kids have to have a 92 average or above cumulative to be put up for that. And they're only seniors that are selected. So, uh did a great job there. Coach Don Stewart, if you didn't know, she attained her 400th career victory this year
016uh over at Tyler High uh which is a huge accomplishment uh in our profession in volleyball especially. Um, so like I said, the other thing I do want to mention, I didn't get to put it on the slide, but the Texas Sports Writers Association posted their all-state teams, and we did have some girls from Tyler High and Legacy that were on those teams. Uh, we had a third team selection from Tyler High, Kayn McClean, and then we had an honorable mention as well, Jaye Flores. So, had two from Tyler High that made that. Um, again, we've got to get we've got to do better as far as district placing. I'm not going to lie to you. We want to we want to be in the playoffs and uh I I think we've got to do
017some things with our girls in the summer encouraging them to play and stuff at a higher level to get to that uh point over there at Tyler High. So, that's what we're working on there. Um volleyball wise at Tyler Legacy, what a year. Um I'll get to it in another slide, but um some of those girls that played on that team weren't even born the last time they won a playoff game. So, that that goes to show you what kind of job they did over there. Um they had eight academic all district selections. Uh on the Texas Sports Writers Association they ended up with uh about five I think on the honorable mention we had Mikuel Reid, Aubrey Felton, Taylor Woods, Mattie Goyne and Kate Priest all were honorable mention all state selections on the
018Texas Sports Writers Association. So um and you can see the numbers up there for both. We've got good numbers at both programs. Um, I got to see a lot of JVB games this year. Um, I've got a daughter coaching now and man, what a joy to get to see her uh do that and man, have a successful year and pouring the kids and uh like I said, so that whole program is doing really, really good. We're looking for great things next year out of them as well. Moving on to football, you can see our numbers up there at the top at Tyler High and at Tyler Legacy. We do have to increase our numbers at Tyler High. The one thing I I want you to know that we're working on is retaining more of our
019players from eighth grade into freshman and freshman into JV. I looked at the numbers breakdown from what we had in middle school last year to what we had freshman wise and we lost close to 45% of those kids. Um when we talk about numbers and we can't have that. We've got to find a way. The most you can lose in my opinion is anywhere between 10 and 20 percent. You don't want to lose any more than that. And if we can do that, I think we can get the numbers up at Tyler High close to 180, you know, to 200 kids. And that's what we want to look at. But they did end up uh making the playoffs first time since 21 this year. Um and ended up going up and playing a unbelievable playoff
020game. Man, it was it was fun to watch. Hated the ending, but uh played a district champion and took them all the way to the wire. Um, but you can see up there the varsity how that record was. The JV, um, freshman, uh, we had some all district selections. The all-state teams have not come out for that yet, so we're still waiting on those. Um, and they had some academic all-state uh, players as well. Uh, at Legacy, you can see the district we played in there. Uh, varsity ended up 2 and eight on the year, 0 and six in district, and we've got to get better, period. Um, you know, uh, I have I have beginning of the season meetings with head coaches and end of the season meetings with head coaches. And one of
021the things we talked about, we put metrics in place that we feel like this is what we've got to get to in order to get to where we want to get to. Um, and what I mean by that is I look at a lot of things. I'm a numbers guy. I I taught math, taught algebra 1, algebra 2. So, I look at things number-wise and numbers don't lie. I've always said that. And when you look at our district, um, you know, you it is it's a good district, but we don't control that. And and you can't worry about things you can't control. We worry about things we can, and we've got to find a way to get better. We're we're going I know our defensive staff at Legacies already went up and visited with University
022of Texas Peran Basin. Unbelievable program. This is only their 10th year and they made it all the way to like the fourth round of division 2 playoffs and uh did it with a lot of guys that not necessarily were some of the best in division two. So, those were those were great great great visit that they're visiting today with some people. Um, and we've got some things set up with also some high schools coming up. And um, also in our offseason, I even give both programs, Tyler High and Legacy, hey, in the offseason, here's what we think we need to do. We need to improve in speed. We need to improve in conditioning, things like that. We need to tie in our track program more. Um, and and basically have those football players in that
023track program to make them better. Um, and I'll touch on that a little bit later as well, but that's uh the number breakdown. You can see we had some all district selections, some academic all-state selections as well. Um, the numbers are good there. You know, we had 241 boys play football this year. Um, but we've got to we've got to be better as far as a record goes. And we've got some things in place that I think will help us come next year on those things. Um, mainly, and I'll be honest with you on that, I look at numbers. We've got to be better coming out of the gate. uh our two worst quarters in at at Legacy were the first and coming out of half both offensively and defensively. You know, those are things
024I break down and look at and said we've got to do better there. Um moving on, this is the district championships and state playoffs we had for Tyler High. Like I said, tennis, they were by district finalists. Seven of eight years they've been there. Prosper, Walnut Grove. I was able to go up there and watch them play that day. Um that's who they fell to in by district cross country. I we couldn't find a record. We looked up we we got a hold of Phil Hicks too and he even tried to help us but there is no record we couldn't find one of the last time the boys at Tyler High qualified as a team for the regional track meet. So this could be the first time ever they've ever qualified as a team. They
025finished second in district and then ended up going to the regional meet in Arlington. Um they ended up beating Lufkin who beat us at district as a team. So, um, like I said, Coach Needer has that program really heading in the right direction. Um, and then on top of that, you know, um, at Amy Vasquez, man, what a runner district. She was a district champion. Uh, she run a 1846, I believe there were 50 run one runners at district. She went on to the regional meet, placed fourth at the regional meet. Uh, she ended up running, I believe, a 1842. There were 171 runners there. She finished fourth out of that many. went on to the state meet, finished 17th at the state meet, ran a 1842. There were about 150 runners there. So, she's
026just a junior. She's coming back. So, we're looking for good things out of her as well. Um, and then football-wise, like I mentioned, made the playoffs for the first time since 2021. We're hoping that springboards those guys and gets them going in the right direction. Um, and then at legacy, you can see all the accomplishments, uh, district championships and state playoffs, team tennis. Um I I looked it up. Charlotte, four out of the five years we finished as regional semi-finalists. We keep running into the woodlands. Um and and they're good. I Dr. Crawford was up there the day I was there at that at that meet and man, it's just um we've got to find a way. I I don't know. We've got to find a way to get over that hump because we keep
027getting hit right there. But you know, when you're when you're going that deep in the playoffs every every single year you're there, like I said, four out of the past five years they've been there. So they're they've got good things uh there. They were ranked number 16 in the final rankings in 6A in the state, I believe. Um, and then cross country, the girls team, they were district champions. 2015 was the last time the girls won district. So, it's been about 10 years since they won district and they won district as a team. Uh, Madre East was finished second at the district meet. Um, if you were there at the meet, I I couldn't I thought she won it. They were neck andneck. Both of them had the same time. I think it was 1836.
028Both runners had the exact same time. They went back and looked at video and uh a girl from Rock Wall, I guess, edged her out by a hair. Um but uh she finished second at the district meet. She finished 12th at the regional meet out of 177 runners. She ran 1849 and she finished top half out of 151 runners at the state meet that uh this past year. So uh had a really good really good year. Mason Maldonado as well from Tyler Legacy. he was a regional uh finished third at the district meet um and then ended up uh going to the regional meet uh as well. So, he had a great year also. And then in volleyball, like I told y'all before, man, some of these girls weren't born the last time they were
029won a playoff game. Um I think it's the first time they've won a playoff game since 2007. So, um Leo's done a really good job since he's come in and we're looking for good things out of them coming. Moving on to middle school. Um, you can see the district we play in up there. We've got three Long View schools. We've got, of course, our four Tyler schools. We got White House. We've got Jacksonville. We're losing Jacksonville this next year, just so you know. Um, they went down a classification, so we're actually losing those guys. Um, but in volleyball there, you can see, uh, had a really good year. Seventh grade, Three Lakes were district champs. The numbers are really, really good, um, at each one of those. Uh eighth grade Moore was district runner up.
030So had a really good year there. Um at Bolter um that they were the only ones that didn't have our C teams. Every other team had C teams. We had A and C teams at at all three out of the four middle schools. So numbers and participation are good. We've got to get numbers up at Bolter in volleyball. But like I said, they had a great great year. And when I broke it down, I think um you know Moore had out of their six teams, two of them had winning records. Hubard out of their six, four had winning records. Three Lakes out of their six, I think five of the six had winning records. And I think the one that didn't was 500. So, um all of them had really good years. Uh football-wise, you
031can see the numbers. Our football numbers are are are really good. We we do got to find a way to retain more kids at Bolter. You can see that was the lowest number at 39. they weren't able to play a B team mainly due to linemen. Um we did have one of our uh one [clears throat] of our admin over here. His son was slinging in on the Hubard Huskies and they had a great year on the B team there. I think they were one one game uh is all they lost, but uh had a really really good year. Um but football-wise, like I said, Bolter, they were ended up district runner up in the seventh grade. Um out of those teams, they had three teams. Two of them had winning records. Moore had a
032A and B team uh on both seventh and eighth. Had one of those guys had a winning record. Hubard and three lakes. They each had, you know, four teams A and B, seventh and eighth. And combined, I think Hubard had three of them had winning records out of the four. Three Lakes, uh, three of them had winning records out of the four. The one that didn't was 500. So, those programs, as far as win loss goes and winning records, uh, are are some of the best since I've been here as far as turning that program around down there with football. Um, and then cross country, you can see Hubard and girls, they were district champs, uh, in cross country, more boys were district runner up. So, out of the four spots you could get, we
033got three of them in our district. So, that was really, really good. Um, and then, like I said, we also Hubard uh, they ended up having, um, I one of their runners was a district champ. Uh, they had another one that was district runner up. The more boys had the district champion in cross country, and I think Hubard had the runner up. uh in the middle school. So, um like I said, a lot of good things there. Uh we do have to increase numbers. The only thing I can tell you is we're going to find a way to get more numbers at Three Lakes and cross country because I know that number needs to go up. Uh not sure why that dip was there, but we've got to find out and get it. You know,
034in cross country, you need 20 or more uh to compete and compete well. Um and then just to just to follow up, man, we've got a lot of things going on right now. Um the the spring is really really hectic right now. We've got basketball. I think they're about in the middle of district. Just just so y'all know, our Tyler Legacy boys and girls are leading district right now. Our Tyler High boys, I believe, are sitting in third right now. Um so looking at good things out of all those teams. Um we had a great, you know, we've got basketball, soccer, tennis, golf, track, baseball, softball, all of them are are kicked off now. So we've got all that going. The other one thing we did do uh since basketball's winding down, I was able
035to we hosted a track clinic u January the 10th at Legacy wasn't really sure we had never done it before and I was able to bring in uh Don Hood who's a head track coach at Harding University. Um and I was also be was able to bring in the UT Tyler staff. We had 51 coaches show up on a Saturday uh to go through that and it was it was really good man. Don Hood uh was coaching at Brownwood when I was there. He's been a head coach at Texas Tech, at ACU. He started the program at Laterno. He's a head coach at Harding. And what I loved about him was he's been a middle school coach before. He's been a high school coach before. So when he went in and talked to our coaches,
036he said, "Hey, I understand, man. You guys in track only get these high school athletes maybe four months of the year if you're lucky. I got mine year round." He said, "You know, middle school wise, you get them in February. It's over in March. At the end of March, you got them two months." So he gave them some info to where hey this is the way you need to work out kids to get them at peak performance by the time they hit that district meet. So and the UT Tyler staff was awesome. David Kaiser uh one of the throwers came in. He was a three-time Olympian that threw on the Jamaican national team and our coaches really got a lot out of it. Um and then uh district middle school basketball tournament's coming up. It's
037winding up and they have that next weekend on Saturday here at I think the girls are playing at Tyler Legacy, boys are playing at Tyler High. So, if you get a chance, come out and support those kids. Um, and then our youth basketball leagues kicked off. We're two weeks in. Um, and got about 500 and something kids playing. So, it's it's going really good. Any questions, >> comments, concerns? >> I have a question. >> Yes. Do we know why there's such a dip in football from 7th to 8th grade in Bolter and Hubard? >> Well, >> because you look at more in Three Lakes, they I mean Three Lakes went up by one, you know. >> Mhm. >> But more I mean that's a big dip. >> You're talking about the numbers. >> Yeah. And
038and that's what we've got to do a better job of on retention uh is keeping those kids finding a way to keep those out. Now, I will say this, the n the numbers in seventh grade seem to be going up a little bit each year. And I think a lot of it's due to sixth grade pre-athletics that we have at every campus now. But we've got to find a way to keep those kids engaged from seventh, eighth grade. Like I said, you you're always going to lose a few. It happens everywhere. But when you when that loss rate is more than 15 20%, then you've got to look in the mirror and figure out, okay, why are they why are they not playing, you know? >> Yeah. Anyone else? Mr. Las, >> just a few
039questions. How much of this do you attribute to demographic trends um at at any of the campuses? You look at uh Tyler High and you got half essentially the players that you have at Legacy. Your demographics are totally different than they were 10 years ago. A lot of kids look like me don't play football. That doesn't mean they don't like football. I love football. 49ers just got beat last week. But they don't play football. They play soccer. >> Mhm. >> Or football, however you want to call it. How much of this do you attribute to demographic trends at all campuses, whether it's at um Moore, Balter, and Tyler High? How does that play into your get sometimes I feel like we're trying to get kids to play a sport they don't want to play? I
040don't know that that's our necessarily our role is I think our role should be more what is our student population interested in? Let's have a really robust sport facility for that. You get what I'm saying? >> Yeah. Yes, sir. I do. And and I'm a fir I'm one of those guys. I'm a firm believer, man. Kids don't change. I mean, kids are kids. Um I think a lot of it nowadays is just sometime one of the big one of the big hurdles we deal with all the time is transportation. Um I'm not going to lie to you at some of these uh other schools, you know, hey, I've got to ride the bus. I can't make it. But, you know, you go back and if it's something, well, like you said, you really want to
041play it and you really want to be there, you're probably going to find a way to get there. Um, I think we've got to do a better job of working with parents, probably getting them more involved to to get them in there. We've even seen a dip this year, and the reason I mentioned that transportation, I think a lot of it has to be parent involvement, too. Uh, you've got to get your parent involvement up because we had a dip this year in our youth league basketball of about 80 kids, which kind of shocked me because it's always went up every year. Um, and I was like, what's going on? And we even offered to some of our schools like Bolter and a couple other places, uh, hey, if you're having a problem with financial
042assistance, we can find a way to scholarship you and get you in and let you play. But you got to have a way to get there. And that's that's been a big hurdle is getting them there to practice there to the games. >> Do you look at your numbers? For example, uh, Tyler High has 118 players and I'm assuming that's at the varsity level or is that across the board? That's across the board just like Legacy. Yeah. >> Wow. So, do you look at that and say, "Okay, they're a 5A, little 5A, a little 5A, big 5A." >> They're 5A division one. >> Okay. So, they're 5A division one. Do you look and say, "Okay, how does that compare to a peer school that's a 5A division one? Do they have 118 or do they
043have 700 kids?" So, and historically, how does that look? Because I almost feel like we're out of touch there. that that seems like a bimic amount of kids to have at all grade levels for football. I mean, you almost seem like you couldn't even have a you're playing Iron Man football at that point. And so that that's one of my questions is do we compare this to our peers to other peer schools and say how many does Long View have? I think they're a 5A 6A. >> I'm sorry. Uh Hallville, one of the other ones that is a 5A. Do we compare our numbers to them and say, "Okay, we're running 118. what are they running because the more kids you have obviously the more opportunity you have for talent. So pure schools also how
044does this compare to um other sports you know we have 118 at Tyler High in this what other sport is similar or the the same um on that and then also and I'll let you get to answering that on your cross country stuff um I I was a cross country athlete I know you don't believe it uh but when I was in high school um do we look if we're really serious about being competitive competitive in these areas. Do we look at pro programs like Conro McCulla uh uh uh the Woodlands uh Kingwood and see what are they doing in their lower levels? I think it's demographics. I'll be honest with you. I think in those districts, I think it's demographics just like Lee Legacy was years ago where you had a big population of
045kids that wanted to run cross country. And sometimes I feel like we're working against each other, against those demographics. But my question is, do we look at those other programs and then we try to mirror what they're doing in their lower grades? Uh that was the the second question. Thank you. >> Well, the the first one you mentioned, do we look at other teams, you know, comparable to us, same size, stuff like that? You bet we do. Um and and there are it varies. It depends on and you brought it up, demographics at different places, you know. uh we'll run into some schools that are just like us that have very similar numbers. We'll also run into schools that have maybe have a different demographic makeup and their numbers are quite a bit higher than
046us. They might have like this year we were fortunate we played a full schedule freshman JV and varsity. You know, we had I think our lowest numbers at Tyler High were in our JV. We had about 30 play on the JV, but you know, the rest the varsity 50 plus, you know, freshman I think we had over 40ome. So, um, like I said, that that's where when we look at it, yes, we do look at others our size. Um, and it just kind of varies depending on the town. We ran into a couple games this year where our JV from Tyler High didn't get to play because the team we were playing didn't have a JV, you know. Um, so you do run into that. Um, and like I said, I think where that problem
047arises too is we've got to do a better job keeping those kids out, you know, as freshman. When you look at those numbers in football for Moore and [clears throat] Bolter in the eighth grade, just look at those numbers. Well, if you look at those two numbers, you know, that's 93 kids. So, if you only lost about 20% of those kids, you know, you're you're talking about having 75 kids, you know, play freshman football, which is be great numbers over there, but we've got to find a way to retain those kids. We're losing them somewhere, whether it be in the summer, whether it be transportation, things like that. So that's what we're looking at to try to remedy that problem. >> What do you think? >> Go ahead. >> What do you think your biggest
048sport is? If if we threw soccer, basketball, ba baseball per kids, what do you think your biggest sport is as far as kid in involvement? >> Both places it'd be football. Just sheer number. Um because like I said, I think I think when you look at them, uh Legacy especially Tyler High, like I said, there's 118 that played this year. I think in the soccer program right now, Sherman's got about 90 between 90 and 100 kids. I mean, it's close, but football football at both places has the most participants in both. >> Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> Just going to add that the best linebacker in college football this year is Hispanic. played his high school ball at Witchaw Falls. So, it's not like it's completely cultural. It is colloquial. Um, so there it's
049not that we need to do away with it because of our trending demographics. I will say when you start comparing um both sides of town. I mean, you got 2,800 kids at Legacy, you've got what's probably equates to 2,000 at Tyler High. So just off the top, there's a 400 kid difference in male students to play football between both schools. There's a delta there already. So I know it's been it's been tradition and Tyler to always compare both sides of town. Sometimes that's good and sometimes it doesn't make any sense to do so. So I think you've got to kind like you're asking the same question is looking at that data and I don't think you you think about not having those programs that a place that's got such tradition like Tyler High in football
050because your demographic changes need to get them out until you start seeing places like El Paso, places like the Metroplex, uh Houston, uh Austin that that are predominately [clears throat] Hispanic start not playing football anymore. [cough] But you've got like Dallas Sunset, Arl Turner, Carolton [clears throat] Newman Smith, they've they've gone Hispanic. Arl Turner's never been able to play football. They've tried hard, but uh that they still play. So I, you know, I think when we start talking about the experience and and and the wins and losses, that does matter. There's no doubt about it. If we're going to do it, we need to try to do our best to win. But it's also it's it's a community hub on Friday nights uh to to have those games at Rose Stadium, etc. So, I think
051we need to keep keep trying to increase the numbers there. And that was just some thoughts that I wrote down there that we can find those Jacob Rodriguez's out there that want to play football for us. We've had some really good Hispanic football players here in Tyler since I've been here. And so, it's good questions. Uh numbers need to get up. It it again, things don't change until adults attitudes change. And forever, we just refuse to go and do that. I think Coach Woods has done a a pretty good job of of doing that early on in his in his three years here. You brought up the fact that we played a full schedule of sub varsity uh before coach Woods got here. That was not always the case. It was embarrassing for us to
052have to call somebody to say we can't play a freshman game or a JV game because of grade or because of numbers. So, there's some trends going other than the wins and losses that need to happen. I think a good a good target for you uh for coach for us is to at least get to 150 because that that gives you 30 more players to pull from at a at a 5A school and because of enrollments changing uh residencies in Tyler gentrification uh of you know parents not having the kids in those schools on the north side of town. We'll need to take a look at at at at that as well as far as boundaries go because we didn't build our high schools for 3,500 kids. If the trend is that way, you're gonna
053have to start t making some considerations to be able to go and redraw boundaries once again. Um if it doesn't grow or nothing wrong with going 5A division two, then you get put in there with White House and you get put in there with uh with the Hallsvilles and some other folks instead of having to play your Highland Parks and having to play get on the road and go drive to Joshua to play. So, there's advantages and disadvantages of the size of our schools. I know when I remember the the drama that came out of East Texas whenever they went 5A and John Tyler went 4A, everybody thought that was a slap in the face. And sure enough, it was the best thing that could happen in John Tyler. They were able to compete in
054a lot of sports. So, we'll keep taking a look at it to see what makes sense for us and and and try to do the best we can to get more kids out, >> which um if I could ask just a few more my perspective and I I I could totally appreciate what you're saying. I think a guy just won the national championship with the last name Mendoza. So, they're they're out there. I think it's Slim Pickings. >> You go find one of those guys. >> Yeah, I wish I wish I had a cousin like that. But my thing I look at also not just from a kid and a parent like what do they want to do? Like if they're really into basket weaving and we have hundreds of them that are into it.
055It's like you better have a good basket weaving program. But I also look at it as if I'm correct football's our most expensive sport. I mean football cost the most money compared to the other sports unless I'm mistaken. Uh, basketball's very inexpensive. It's a basketball. Soccer, same thing. But our most expensive sport is football. And traditionally, I agree with you, we were we had some good programs, but that's the past. We're we we're in an era where we really hadn't had much success at a high level. And I don't want to keep chasing something that was if our data tells us, hey, you need to readjust and look at this because I I feel like we could have a very vibrant, involved, robust soccer and cross country program at John Tyler. I really do. I
056think the demos are headed that way. Uh doesn't mean you have to uh not have a great good competitive football team. They have them in the valley and it's solid Hispanic. But to be able to compete in this area because the valley is just beating up on each other. They're not going to Dallas outside Houston areas, East Texas. I'm go over to Long View, go down the street to Marshall, uh, Texas High. So, and those are, you know, just examples. My my deal is not let's leave football alone. idea is let's look at the data, the changing demographics, what our kids are interested in and the parents and let's let that guide us in the direction of what do we think we ought to be good at. >> Okay, >> you'll see a VPA presentation
057here in just a minute. Let's not forget we've got those auxiliary things that do matter to kids and to parents and to our community like the brigadetses, like the bells, like our cheer teams, like our marching bands that are chocked full of pretty diverse groups that the Friday night experience means something to them. Um, so I I do I I appreciate your your wondering and your directive to look at the efficiencies uh on the on the dollars that we spend, but I I I do think that that's part of it as well for those kids that don't choose to play football that the big blue band, those kiddos are love Friday night football games. Uh so the brigadetses and sort of the cheerleaders. So, um, it it it's a communitywide event and we certainly want
058to make sure that we're we're spending our money effectively. Uh, but but we also also need to look at some of those, uh, subjective outcomes about the the total experience that a kid gets during during their time here. It's not just based on an A throughF rating or or wins and losses. We love winning's fun. I hate losing and I'm tired of it, but there's there's so many other intangibles that I think are important as well. We'll continue to refine those as well. I haven't said anything. I have a couple of questions. Uh first, we we have soccer still within the district, right? Soccer. We have soccer teams at all our campuses in high school. >> Okay. If you could get us the statistics on that, we'd appreciate it. I don't I think I didn't
059see it in this report. >> It'll be in the next >> in the next one. Why? >> Next one. This is a report from the first semester. >> They play in the spring. >> Oh, okay. Yeah. So, it's coming up. Okay. Well, yeah, that that data similar to this we just got would be beneficial. The other thing is uh in reg and I say and I asked about the data on soccer simply because I I hear a lot the complaint of years ago when we changed Rose Stadium to uh the track field. >> Yes, sir. >> To a to that eliminated us holding district track meets. I hear this all the time. >> Yes, sir. and and yet again we we need to monitor that and see the soccer because that's why we changed it
060and and as far as I understand we couldn't do regional or or state track meets on our field at Rose Stadium simply because we changed it and I hear that all the time. So, we need to monitor that soccer thing and and see if we can make it useful within the district somehow to for the change that we accommodated uh the loss that we received and associated with that. >> Well, and if you haven't been over to Hubard >> Yeah. >> to see what we've done there, we're hosting four track meets this year and I think it's the first four it's the first time they've hosted a track meet probably since they did away with Earl Campbell relays. >> Yeah. Uh, so we do have we've we've got a track facility now that >> soccer
061teams at middle schools and high schools compete. Uh, Tyler High plays pretty good soccer on the boy side. They've been average on the girls side. Both legacy girls and boys that have a >> quite a few Hispanic students that play soccer, >> right? >> They they compete. Just giving you an anecdotal thing here. I will say this, >> coach, address me if I'm correct me if I'm wrong. Our soccer teams prefer to play on campus. Legacy does prefer to play on campus. They would much rather prefer to play on campus. Tyler High plays all their games at Rose Stadium, but but Legacy, they play all their games on campus and they prefer it that way. >> That makes sense. Really does. >> The second second thing I ask this every year about the the coaches
062in high school, working with the coaches in middle school, and the the number of people that students that transfer from middle school to high school, the numbers seem to drop off. Do you think that's a good working relationship between the high school coaches and the middle school coaches and the students apparently? >> Uh do you think there are areas of improvement that need to be made and what they might be? >> Yeah, always. You know, one of the things we changed this year, or I say we change, I that that I kind of put an emphasis on more than anything was we we have got an unbelievable setup here with our high school coaches being able to be in the middle school per at least one of the middle school periods. That doesn't happen everywhere.
063Uh and that's a, you know, credit to you to you all for allowing us to do that. But one of the emphasis I made was before we were there and it was almost like we were just monitoring. I I'm not going to lie to you. It was just there to make sure everything's going good. I have kind of stressed to them that when you're down there, you're down there to coach. It's not to now you're you're and at the same time you're coaching those coaches, right, >> to make sure they're doing it right. But at the same time, you're coaching those kids to where those kids know you and it'll help with the retention rate come next year. Uh because there you're not a stranger. You're not that one guy that shows up at games
064and shows up at practice every now and then. They he knows me by name or she knows me by name. So, uh as far as a relationship goes, I think we have a good relationship. You know, at the start of the year, we do a professional development uh with every with football, with basketball, with volleyball, um with track and field, with all that, with our head coaches running that, talking about their expectations, talking about their program with all those middle schools that feed that program. I >> I can only speak for Hubard just because my daughter's there and she plays all the sports and they are there all the time. that those legacy vol the legacy volleyball coaches there the legacy girls basketball coach is always there they are always there watching them and I
065always see Trohan on the field sometimes the boys in football so they're there >> we actually have coaches from Tyler High too that are that go down and they're in the sixth grade pre-athletic class at Bolter and more >> right and I'm not seeing the drop off being at Legacy as much as I am Tyler High so that the reason I was concerned about that particular school in particular Yeah. >> And the relationships. >> I mean, we're fighting a lot of a lot of things. There's no doubt about it. No excuses because I'm sure that every generation fights certain things in culture, pop culture. Uh it's getting difficult. It's why you're seeing band numbers are decreasing statewide, athletic numbers are decreasing statewide. We're trying our best with some different strategies that and opportunities and resources
066deployed out that don't happen at other school districts to try to keep that from happening. >> Yeah. So, no doubt that's important. >> Yeah. Thank you. Uh, Coach Gillespie, and I I agree, Marty, we we have challenges. We've always had challenges. Um, but we do. >> Um, but I still feel like we're in a place where we should we should expect greatness in every program. We've got enough students that we should expect greatness. And I would just say since you've been here, are there things other than demographics that to you might affect the quality of the product that we're putting out? Are there things going on coaching wise, programwise, um, you know, anything you've seen other than demographics that could affect a team going, you know, two and eight? Well, I yeah, I mean, one
067of the things that I'm a little different on, and I told Dr. Crawford this, every Monday when I come in to work during football season, I watch the film. That is one thing I do. So, I'm able to sit and look and uh I'm a scheme guy. Are are we in where we should be? Are we just getting out, man? Things like that. Um, you know, and one of the things that that I told him was, you know, we've got to we've got to revamp. Sure. I mean, defensively, I didn't think where we we needed to be, especially at Legacy. you know, um, Tyler High is making a change there as well. But, uh, th those are some things. Yeah, we we've got to do a better job of there. Now, as far as changing
068demographics, again, I go back to kids are kids. I just keep going back to that. You know, I I think you can you can take some of those kids, as long as you're doing it the right way, I think you can take some of those kids and win. >> Yeah. I guess I'm jaded a little bit because I was here when both programs were really good at football. And you know, watching a 12 month period of a state champion or a state runner up and seeing how they did things makes it really tough for me to to throw in the towel because I still see a lot of areas where golly, you know, if we could just emphasize these five things, you know, and do them um do them the right way. I mean, you
069could win a lot of games. I still feel like >> I I totally agree. You know, one of the things I've I've I've kind of charged both programs with um you've got you've got to have your football players involved in track. >> It's it has to happen for you to get better on the football field. It really has to happen for you to get better in every sport, but that especially and you know, one of the things we told them, we want to see every race below the 800 uh needs to be full. every relay needs to be full at every level. You know that you can find those kids. >> Well, thanks for doing the track clinic. That's encouraging. Um >> because a lot of people, I think, don't understand what a real track
070season and track schedule workoutwise looks like. >> You're right. >> They don't know. They didn't ever get to do it. They just get out there and they tell them to run some and then they go in and you know, I mean, it's what I've seen. So you're not you're cheating your kids from having a great experience by winning in a competition that you know builds character and so hopefully we will do better in that. Do you think that football's keeping you your cross country and soccer teams down? Do you think it's keeping them from being good? >> No. No. >> Okay. So it doesn't >> No, >> it doesn't have to be one or the other. >> No. I not at all. I I mean I many numerous schools I've been at, you know, we
071were we were highly successful in both. So I don't think one affects the other. I think it goes back to the type of kid. I mean what you know, you want to I can tell you this is being a football coach for as long as I was. The reason football coaches go after so many kids how you need to play especially the athletes. If there's an athlete wanting to get to the next level, look at the number of scholarships. And that's all you have to look at. There's a ton of them in football. When you talk about the other sports, they're just there's not many there. I'll use one of our assistant ads, Donnie Little. He didn't play football till he was a junior in high school. Got a new coach in, got him interested
072in it. You see what he did? He went on to the University of Texas, was the first African-American quarterback to start there, and went on, played in the CFL, and unbelievable guy. And he'll tell you, if it wasn't for his high school football coach talking him into playing, he doesn't know if he'd be where he's at right now. So, um, but no, I don't I don't think one affects the other. The other thing I see in college too is great football programs drive enrollment. You can just you can make up every excuse you want or try to gloss it over, but that's just the facts. At least in Texas, and I think it is nationwide, [clears throat] >> that's just I mean TCU goes to the national championship, their applications are up a,000%. SMU goes
073to the conference championship, their applications are up 400%. That's the only indicator that tracks with and I think you can extrapolate that a little to our local area. You know, if you have a really good football program, you're going to attract people to your school. I mean, it's just a fact. Whether you like it or not in East Texas, we're still we're still there. So, uh, I don't think we would have the athletic facilities at either campus if we did away with football or deemphasized football. You're not going to get a field house like we have. >> No. >> You know, an indoor at both places, weight rooms that are, you know, off the charts. It's just not going to happen. So, I would encourage you for us to be great at everything we do
074um and to find reasons why we're not and continue to make this district um the best it can be from an athletic side and it'll help the rest of the district. >> Yes, sir. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> No. Thank you so very much. >> You're very welcome. >> Thank y'all. >> Thank you. Visual and performing arts. >> Uh Mr. Jones, deputy superintendent, will be provided this uh actual presentation tonight. [clears throat] >> Okay. >> Musician that he is, um the DJ that he is, Mr. Jones is going to provide this opportunity because Mr. Dean has a prior family engagement that has to do with college interviews and applications that's pulled him out of town. Could not get away from this as far as that goes for his own kids. So, we're going
075to let Mr. Jones provide this presentation since VPA resides in his org chart. >> Yes indeed and woohoo I get to follow Sam. Um board president Atkins trustees uh Dr. Crawford, it is absolutely my pleasure to bring you this uh this is actually the fall update uh for visual and performing uh arts and uh I am the not uh Mr. Dean. I am his proxy tonight. So I have my notes right here. I'm going to rely heavily on my notes and I'll certainly be ready for any questions that you guys may have. And of course, I I I'm not bilingual, so I will probably not try and pronounce Well, I'll do it anyway. That the word that's in here, Mr. Nome, why you're laughing? Okay. The um art begins the the the year at full
076speed. In addition to the regular class uh period instruction and content, art programs across the district set up displays for Hispanic Heritage Month as well as participating in Dia Delos Mertos. That one, that's what I was talking about. Uh exhibit at the Tyler Museum of Art. Uh this year, four legacy students collaborated to provide an ornament uh for the state capital uh Christmas tree. Uh and for the seventh consecutive year, Tyler ISD was awarded a district of distinction by the Texas Art Educators Association. Out of 1200 plus districts eligible to apply for the award, only 109 districts earned that achievement. Tyler is one of 16 districts that have earned this award every year it's been offered. The only district in East Texas. Then Veterans Day is right around the corner uh with many art classes
077collaborating with music to provide decorations for the programs. Miss Atkins, why are you laughing? All right. Uh whether it's a big event like the Rose and Christmas parades or smaller venues as uh area such as area nursing homes and campuses, the VPA department continues to represent the district and provide goodwill throughout the community. You see some of the things that are are highlighted there on uh for your preview on your on your slides there. Kev K, right? Our elementary music classes have been busy this fall. Campuses put on programs for Hispanic Heritage Month, Veterans Day, and celebrating the winter holidays. Once again, the seven secondary choirs join forces to put on a Christmas choir concert. This event is a great opportunity for the middle school students to get a taste of choir at the next
078level. Across the district, 33 students earned chairs in their respective Texas Music Educators Associ all region auditions. These students competed against 19 other districts and private schools to gain these spots. Thousands were entertained by high energy that the bands brought to Friday Night Lights. That's what Dr. Crawford was talking about a little bit earlier, not only providing great halftime shows, but also keeping the crowd engaged uh with stand tunes. Uh this year saw both high school programs earned ones the superior ratings at the region UIL marching contest and advanced to area. This is the only this is only the second time since co that both schools have advanced. We're proud to have almost 90 middle school and high school students representing the district by earning places in the TMEA all region bands. All right. Both
079drill teams participated in the Texas Dance Educators Association's field assessment. Uh this is a contest that TDA plans to present to the state UIL board to become a sanctioned UIL event. And they started that here in in Tyler uh for this region. uh for last year I believe uh much like the marching band UIO contest this year's event was hosted by Tyler then both squads walked away with perfect scores almost 50 orchestra students scored high enough to win a spot in the TM TMEA all region orchestra editions and if you've not uh been to Friday Night Lights and I know all you guys have uh uh both of our uh dance drill team programs do outstanding jobs with those young ladies that are out there uh on that field and so do our band directors
080and you know my wife loves to come to the games and one of her favorite things to do is to hear the big blue band play because they play from first quarter through fourth quarter and that's what you want uh to to see there. So uh they do outstanding work uh in that arena. All right. Most secondary campuses and a few uh elementary programs put on theatrical produ productions in the fall. Some were typical plays, some were musicals, all were entertaining. Theater continues to grow and thrive across the districts. Legacy's musical Hades Town opens next Thursday, January 29th. You don't want to miss it. If you haven't been by there to see that set, then you need to make sure that you do so because it is phenomenal. They have put in some work and
081so I know that production is going to be simply uh outstanding. So, get your tickets or get your reservations and make sure you you tune in to that. It starts on the 29th. Uh the spring is even busier uh than the fall. I encourage you to reach out to particular campuses or the VPA office if you want to attend specific events so we know you're coming. Uh mark your calendars for our annual VPA Arts Fest. It's the last Saturday in April. That's April 25th. Uh featuring concerts, showcases, art displays, marker spaces, and more. This event features something for everyone. I am I will entertain questions and I will get you some answers. >> Any questions or comments? >> Just just a comment and and kind of a question too. Uh somehow I've been missing all
082the theater things and my wife and I have been part of the Tala Civic Theater for over 25 years. We're not going now, but uh we were and so I've been missing out on some of these and I'd love to see some of that. So, yes, I will try to make that January 29th. >> Yes, sir. >> At Legacy. Uh, and somehow just I know we have a lot of talent. I love those one act type plays and and things like that. So, yeah, if we could definitely get >> we need >> an alert and I probably just me overlooking it most likely. But, uh, yeah, I'd like to attend some of those. Yeah, for sure. We'll see what what we can do to get a calendar to you guys. Uh relative to that, we
083need we need a calendar of all of the events. I know we we've discussed that. We need to make that happen. >> Okay. Anyone else? Mr. Laya. >> Thank you, Madam President. Um just a quick questions on the performing the visual and performing arts. I didn't see anything about the mariachi class. I don't believe it's a program out at Caldwell if if I understand it correctly. Um they have regular I don't want to call it band but you know instrument classes over there but one class in particular is mariachi class and they have a mariachi group and I saw it I believe at Douglas they came over from Cwell went to Douglas maybe it may have been about 20 kids at the most they even had a couple of young ladies. Have you guys looked
084at all around the state to see some of those programs? I think they have a good one in Irving and definitely in the valley they have quite a few the mariachi program. I know it's different than the class cuz these kiddos, some of them may take woodwin instruments, some of them may take trumpet classes or whatever it is, but then they have a class that is just specific to mariachi music and then they'll go perform throughout the district. It's really pretty cool. They went and did Hispanic Heritage Month over at Douglas, but it's not a full-on mariachi program like they have in some of these others. Do you think there's a way for us to look at that throughout the state to say, "Hey, you guys have demographics that may lead us to believe you've
085got enough kids to start slowly fleshing out a full-fledged mariachi program as opposed to it just being a class and whatever is associated with it." >> Yes. And so, Dr. Markle's not in here, but get word to him to Yes. Start that stuff. I've been saying it. Get it done. I've got somebody from the das that's gonna support that. Get it done. >> Yeah, we can. Yeah, we can most certainly do that. We had some robust. >> Sometimes when I say things I it takes three times for me to say it, but Yes, sir. We've had that conversation and it needs to happen. I just thought it's really neat. I I know my first goaround in this I actually got to go to a TASBY conference where one of the breakout sessions was on how
086do you build a mariachi program and it starts off very organic kind of like it is at Cwell but then there has to be some structure set in place so that it can kind of build on its own so that that I I I appreciate your support on that soup. I hope we'll go >> I'll throw this on at you too. Ballet for chlorico that needs to start evolving as well. Exactly. Exactly. >> That's cool stuff and it's coming. It's got UIL implications in it as well. So, yes, we need to do it. Get it done. Looking at y'all that are here tonight. >> Thank you. >> Casey, find the funding. [laughter] >> Okay. Anybody else? Thank you so very much. >> Hey, before we close on that, just one want to say one last
087thing about the Big Blue Band, Legacies Band 2, marching band from Raiderland. Another year of sweep stakes division one rating. Y'all forget sometimes up here at the das or we got new board members or we got people in the audience that hadn't worked in title this long. We used to get threes at marching contest from the John Tyler band. Guys, you got to try to get a three. Like that's that's how bad that you could be. So guy named Stuart Bird called me who was a judge at that time b you know rest in peace. He was an an interim deputy superintendent for us and really got us going on the right track about 10 years ago to start getting those sweep stakes ratings at Tyler High School. So kudos to Mr. Wade, his staff,
088and most importantly the kids that put in the time and effort to get that sweep stakes rating um so that we, you know, the largest school system in East Texas, both of its bands are division one rated bands, marching contest. So, um, I wanted to emphasize that because people forget that we used to get threes, not twos. >> That's all me right there. >> Three. Nobody gets a three. >> And that was embarrassing. So, it's great for our uh it's it's a prideful thing for us uh for those those kiddos to do that. So, thank you. >> Thank you very much. I think we're finished. >> Thank you. Okay. Texas performance reporting system and resultsdriven accountability for 2024 and 2025 >> per your board monitoring calendar. Dr. Gropel, deputy superintendent of administration and executive director
089of data analytics assessment uh whatever his title is this year. Uh Dr. James Kuritan, Jamie Kuritan. Um they're going to present to y'all this uh cumulative aggregate outcomes of other things that we've presented on uh throughout the year. Um this is the actual performance reporting requirement from the state of Texas per statute. Dr. Gropel, Dr. Kurton. >> Uh thank you, President Atkins, board of trustees, and Dr. Crawford. Dr. Crawford teed that intro up pretty well. Uh this is a state required uh uh review of our performance uh not only on star but all the things that go into the gumbo that make our uh overall district rating. Um all of this data you have seen in the past but this is the formal presentation of of of that data. So I'm going to to turn
090it over to Dr. Kton uh to go through it. >> Okay. Well, good evening board. Dr. Crawford. uh we'll we'll jump right into taper or TPRS um as it's called now. Essentially, it just pulls together a variety of information. A lot of it's already attributed to accountability ratings. So, we've seen a lot of this information, but we want to pull out and point at some of the the um things that we were potentially uh paying particular attention to. Uh just want to start out with our star data and kind of look remind you of how we performed last year. So, we had a good year overall. We outperformed the prior year. Um you can just see in all the green areas, those are areas where our performance was slightly higher. Um we only had a
091couple areas where we were down a little bit. Um US history in particular comes to mind because we were splitting hairs there in terms of of being down just a tab. But um overall we had a great year in terms of STAR and EOCC performance and looking to continue that this year. For us that did translate to an improved rating over 2024. So, we did have an official rating of an 81 last year, um, which was the highest in the last three years. That's of the three years that we transitioned to a new accountability system. Um, you can see last year was the best year we had. We did come in with a 72.3% um, economically disadvantaged number, uh, which was higher in the state. So, again, I think it points to we're doing a
092lot of good things and moving in the in the right direction there. I'll just put some attendance and graduation rates up here. Um, I'm not going to go through all of them. The big one that we want to point out is that in terms of attendance, we're hanging right there with the state despite, um, having a population that is larger in terms of being economically disadvantaged. Um, and then additionally, uh, you can see our our various grad rates where we're outpacing the state across the board there. And just a reminder when we talk attendance, when we talk grad rates, dropout rates, CCMR, all of that's lag data. So this is going to be for the class of 24 as opposed to 25. So start date was 25. This will be class of 24. Here's our
093college career military ready data. We had a good year in 24 with our CCMR. We outpace the state. Again, um I did want to point out the only college ready number. I I know we're below the state average right now, but I wanted to point out that we had a humongous jump from um about 22% to almost 35% in one year. So, I think we're seeing some big gains there, moving in the right direction. Hopefully going to catch up and pass the state in that area pretty quickly. IBC's is another one we talk about a lot with Dr. Walls. You can see there we're we're keeping ahead of the state pretty a pretty healthy margin. >> [snorts] >> Okay, I'm going to shift gears slightly from TPRS to RDA. So the RDA is our results
094driven accountability. It takes a lot of the same metrics from STAR and EOCC across those three program areas. So bilingual, sped, um, and our other special POPs and essentially assigns ratings to different indicators or different performance levels to different indicators. Um, it's kind of counterintuitive, but we want to have a a level zero for every indicator. A four is high. We're trying to avoid fours if we can. Um, to kind of come back to where we where we're aiming for with regards to results driven accountability. So, I'm just going to provide you a summary, not go through every indicator. Um, here are the three program areas. So, you'll see a table just shows the number of indicators that we were rated at that performance level. when you average them, we we the score came down,
095which is an improvement. Remember, we want to be at zeros. So, we actually improved in terms of RDA in all three areas um for 2025. So, when we were assigned uh um levels, we were assigned determination level two for all three program areas. So, we'll continue tracking along there and and making sure we're monitoring and trying to get better where we can. and we can answer any questions y'all have about either one of those reports. >> Any questions, >> Madam President? >> Yes, sir. >> Uh Dr. Kuran, talk to me about the uh IBC's approved. We're at 50% or just not shy 50% on that. >> Yes, sir. So, those are that's just our A throughF approved uh IBC's. So, um we've been trending up with that. We kind of track a few different measures,
096but but it's one we've outpaced the state. I'd have to check and see. It's been I don't know that I don't know that the state has been ahead of us in that game. We've kind of outpaced them for quite a while. >> Okay. Would you consider that a lowhanging fruit as far as uh >> um I mean low hanging fruit in the terms of trying to make sure every student that can can get a certification, right? That we offer enough opportunities to do that. I would say it's it's an area to continue to improve. I don't know if there's anywhere that's with what the state has made an adjustment to. It's just an easy kind of area to grab but it's one we would I would say we would keep focusing on along with the
097college readiness. >> Uh do we still offer IB anywhere >> for which one? >> AP IB inter international baloria. >> Uh we do still offer AP. Yes sir. IB. I don't think we do. >> It's been a decade. >> Well that's saw it in the >> the line. That's just that's the way it's reported by the state. >> It's either AP or IB. >> Yeah. >> Gotcha. Correct. >> Yes sir. Back to your question about industry based certifications. Uh let's all remember whenever they started come out with these after House Bill five maybe. >> Yeah. When it started kind of trending that way, there was a lot of those industry based certifications you talking about lowhanging fruit that were really easy to grab. >> Um so some of these certifications like I guess floral arrangements
098and things like that used to be in there till the commissioner till Mr. Jones's boy got a hold of it and floral floral design or whatever is no longer a state approved. It's it's the governor got involved in it to lack of a diet tribe about the history of this. The governor really wants any industrybased certification. His goal is to eventually have anything that's uh portable across state lines. So if a Texas kid goes to work in Louisiana, that industrybased certification is going to work. We had a lot of Texas specific certifications at when we first started this. I think y'all probably remember our goals when Gary Brown used to get up there and report and how we' set our goals and we were like surpassing them by upwards of 30 points or or 60
099points. We just kept knocking out the point part. Well, that was because some of those were easy to attain and um but things like OSHA certification, I think those things still exist. >> That's not the most >> handling probably. Yeah, some of that there there are some cosmetology uh certifications, but I guess they think it's rigorous enough because of the chemicals that are involved, etc. >> Uh we thought that those might be in jeopardy. And then here we are with that huge lab up the hill. >> Uh same thing with our culinary arts lab, but right now some of those things have survived from my understanding. I mean, pretty pretty novice understanding from without Dr. Walls being here. >> Yeah. And I think too it's Dr. made a good point to just kind of remember
100that, you know, it was three or four years ago students could just go take the certification test and get a certification like they could check the box and now that's not the case. They've got to go through and be the completer. They've got to pass so many courses or complete courses in the pathway and then in addition to that pass the the test. So you could in theory have students go through complete the coursework, not pass the test and not get that certification. So um >> they can pass the course. >> They could pass the course. Yeah. >> Yeah. And so as it relates to because this is the time of year and we start putting the schedules together, choice sheets and everything like that's going out. So you start thinking about those taking those
101coherent sequence of courses and a parent like Miss Harrison may say poor my kids. How dare you keep parental empowerment, right? Uh how dare you keep them in something they don't want to do anymore. I'm facing that in my own house right now. And yet I understand now she's going to score for us on CCMR in other ways. But here I've got a kid that doesn't want to do what she chose to do way back in eighth grade >> because we're we're trying to peg kids to have these career choices as early as sixth grade uh with uh things that we're doing at the middle school. So that's a difficult balance. When y'all hear things from the from the community, either from parents or grandparents or guardians about my kid wants to change their pathway,
102there are implications at this dis for those types of things because we may not be able to score. And if we let let that be a widespread thing, then you may see your CCMR tank and that's a big part of it. >> Do they still offer the the general study? I know this has been about five or six years. Did they they have the general studies thing they used to that? >> Go ahead. >> That's that's Sorry, that's just a little bit different part of Dr. Crawford's talking about the the Cte pathways. You're talking more about the graduation endorsements that that kids work through. So, two different two different systems within the same system. >> Gotcha. >> But yes, we still offer the general studies endorsement as a part. >> You know, Mr. Lay and
103I, this is totally different topic on here. Mr. Lay and I have been having a conversation here about the last two months about attendance and uh it's interesting if you if you're an old school guy like Mr. Jones is 95 was the threshold and you could not get an exemplary rating of your school district or your campus if you did not have 95%. But because of the again culture pop culture kind of and the way society has turned they have not emphasized the attendance rates just like they have been and so when you look at a someone if you're a veteran administrator that's that 95 was always the number now it's 93%. is is not the goal, but I'm just saying we're we're actually surpassing the state on our attendance rate. So, um I don't
104know if it'll hold like that, but at the same time, that's that's a different in in in change of accountability because they 95 was a big deal. You had to come to school. That was the first thing that got you through the door in your rating. >> Y I have a question >> in regards to the out outperformed area page two. I think two or three. Anyway, uh, anytime there's a color change, you can always bet you that I'm going to ask the question about it. So, the question is, why is there why was there a drop in English one, two, and history within those areas? Do you have any idea of why? >> I'll answer history. >> Okay. >> History was already very high, outperforming the state. We do a really good job of
105that. And that dip was real thin. Correct. >> No, he said that. Yeah. So there's not much not much upward trajectory to go in regard to that. So it's kind of a plateau that you get in there on data. >> Mr. Jones, you might want to put the microphone in front of you as well to chime in on English one and English two since you [laughter] supervise high schools, but we'll let Dr. Kurton also provide his purview and Dr. Gropel. You may not have to add anything, Mr. Jones, uh from from his curriculum side of things. >> Um you know, when you look at at Dr. Crawford hit the nail on the head when you talk about US history. I believe we went from a 97 to a 96 in performance in US history. So
106I that's a little bit misleading when you talk about uh English one and English 2. And I'll let Mr. Jones chime in a little bit. You've got some changes in the way some of those assessments are graded. Um TEA has gone to an AI scoring of the students writing sample which uh has we've seen a pretty significant uh change in that. He submitted uh uh how many did we submit last year for rescore? >> Last year was close to >> I think we James said he we we submitted 200 to be rescored. Uh and 40% of those that were rescored their score went up. Um so it I think that's a big contributing factor uh in that part. Uh we we did see some pretty good results out of our uh December uh EOC uh
107in both English one and English two uh to to capture some of those kids that may may not have been successful last April. But I would say one of the biggest things in English one and English two was the change in grading and this was the first year for that. But Mr. Jones may want to add something. >> No, I don't have a whole lot more uh to add to that, but you're absolutely uh correct that the uh the AI grading would play a part in that. we can come up with a whole bunch of uh excuses of why the numbers are what they are. Our work is to to figuring out how to combat that and to put in the work and that's what we are focusing on and that's everything from making uh
108better hires uh to teach English one and English two and keeping those individuals uh aboard. Um so those are the type efforts that we have put the emphasis on uh and making sure that the uh quality of the instruction is what it needs to be on a daily basis there and we're looking uh to to get better results uh this this spring for sure uh in English one and uh in English 2. So that's where the efforts are and have had conversations with u uh the high school principles regarding that. uh they've instituted different programs on the campuses to make sure that the emphasis is there and providing uh young people with uh opportunities to write more across uh disciplines and those type things. So we we should see better results this spring um as
109a result of those efforts. And and I'll add to what Mr. Jones said. Um we have employed some uh AI grading on our side of things that we give on some of our local assessments to better gauge where our students are performing in relation to um how they would how they'll be judged uh when they when we submit our start or EOCC results uh in the spring that we we're assessing utilizing similar metrics that the that the TEA is utilizing. >> So So the matrix is grading it now. Remember how it used to be graded? People off of Craigslist. >> Okay. So it's it's going to be more rigorous when a computer program gets a hold a hold of it that can make decisions at milliseconds, you know, terabytes and all those kind of things
110that it's pretty it's it's I think it's going to make our our society a little bit better uh in regards to that that that content that curriculum that we're being assessed upon. It's not just a Tyler thing. It's a statewide thing that they're having issues with on the grading and and that's okay. Let's get better like Mr. Jones said. Yeah, I appreciate the answer. Thank you very much. >> Okay. Anybody else comment? Mr. Lia. >> Thank you, Madam President. Um, to piggyback on that, that we had some conversations offline about the regrading of a good amount of those tests. There's a cost associated with that, right? When we go from the AI model scoring them to 200 individuals now scoring them. What's the cost associated with that? So the the the way it works now
111is we have to submit $50 for every student we we send in for rescore. We don't pay for the students that end up getting a score change. >> Okay? >> So if we submit 200, we're looking at about $10,000. Um and then if we get, you know, half of those resubmitted, then you just cut the number in half essentially. >> So it doesn't matter whether it changes it up or down. We don't pay unless it's >> they won't they won't take it down. Okay? >> So they will only revise it up. So, we can only win in that scenario. >> Correct. Yes, sir. >> Okay. Is there a cap on how many you can have regraded? >> Whatever your budget allows is really the key there. I think Dallas I don't remember how many Dallas
112submitted, but it was pretty significant in terms of I mean, I know they're bigger, but it was a large number >> and and we don't submit every one of them because I think that our our local folks are able to go back and gauge how close these are or even maybe the student. >> Correct. We >> at the student level, >> we reach out to the RLA department. We reach out to the campuses. We know the deadlines [clears throat] and so we ask them, hey, any kid that's especially on the line of passing and not passing for our high schools, we want them review them and get multiple eyes on them to see if they have a chance to be, you know, regraded and with a chance to improve. >> Obviously, it's in in our
113mind that this impacts our overall A through F rating or whatever. So, that plays into the component how many can we have regraded if we can only improve because that that's just a factor. Just one more question on the um sixth slide. I think it is the areas where we are either outperforming or underperforming the state. There's one area that jumps out at me. We're three times what the state is doing. So the state on associates degrees, they're at 3.1 and we're at 8.5. So that that's the biggest one. And I think all of the other ones, this is the biggest one where we're basically at three times what the state is doing. How much of that do you attribute to early college high school? >> I'll answer. Um, it is significant, but I will
114also say this. Before Early College High School really got rolling to where we're pumping out what's approximately 100 graduates a year with an associates degree and their high school diploma, there has been a shift. There's been a shift in my house. There's been a shift in a lot of people's houses about the affordability of college and the the portability of a dual credit college hour into a state school in Texas versus an advanced placement uh or an IB, which is what we used to do, which uh really is for things like your uh your I can't remember what the cool colleges they've got at UT that only accept the API plan. >> Mcomes. Yeah, the Mcome School of Business and there's plan B or something like I don't know what it is. I can't remember
115what it's called. Plan A, what it's just shifted and a lot of it. Uh there's no doubt that early college high school should be championed as a large part of that because there if you're getting a hundred scores out of that when we may not have had that. That's that's impactful for us. But you're also looking at your AP courses at at our high schools. Um and again, here we are. Why are we the same at one high school versus the other? the numbers are starting to that they're not dwindling to an alarming rate, but you don't have as many kids taking AP courses because you now have this great partnership with Tyler Junior College to get those dual credit hours that are going to be able to if they're not at early college high
116school, let's say they're at Legacy or Tyler High, their next step may be to go to UT Tyler, which will take those courses, or maybe to finish out their associates at TJC like my kiddos did. Uh that's that's that's imperative and important on this as well. So, I think it's it's a two-pronged attack on here. Yes, there's a bulk of it at early college high school, but we've also got a substantial amount of dual credit hours that are coming out of both of our comprehensive high schools. So, you look at u you know, from your sophomore year on able to take dual credit dual credit hours at our comprehensives, that adds to the number as well. So, good question and we need to celebrate that. There's no doubt. >> Thank you. >> Okay, now is
117the time for public? Anybody from the public want to talk about this? Board of people, you already had a chance. Anybody in the audience? Thank you very much. We appreciate you. >> And now we will go into executive session. We will be back. [sighs] >> Call to order. The presence of a quorum has been established. The meeting has been duly called and the notice of the meeting has been posted in a time and manner required. We don't have any action coming out of the executive session. So now we'll have our special recognitions. >> Prayer. I'm sorry. We got to pray. >> Please join me in prayer if you would like. Dear heavenly father, we ask you to please look over us and guide us in our decisions here today. We ask you to bless every
118single one of these individuals that come from seven different areas to bring them together to a consensus to do your work, to do the community's work. We ask this in your name. We ask you to bless the hands that prepared our lovely meal and to bless everybody here throughout these uh weather that is incremental in our area. but we ask you to keep us all safe. We ask this in your name. Amen. >> Amen. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Honor the Texas flag. I aliance to thee. One state under God, one and indivisible. >> Now we are ready. >> We have prayed and we're ready for it.
119>> Good evening board members and Dr. Crawford. We would like to begin the special recognition portion of our meeting by announcing our January district students of the month. The elementary student of the month is Jashla Humber, a fifth grade student at Bell Elementary. And our secondary student of the month is Caroline Hullman, a senior at Tyler Legacy High School. At this time, please join us in watching a brief video about these two outstanding students. [clears throat] The heart of our hometown beats strong in [music] Tyler ISD, where students are reaching goals, breaking barriers, and shaping the future. Their journeys [music] may look different, but together they are showing us that next is now. Let's celebrate their achievements as we [music] continue leading the way in Texas education. [music] As we move into a new calendar
120year, we also move on to our elementary student of the month for January. I'm just HR and I'm the district elementary student of the month. >> Jayla is a shining example of leadership and character. She has diligently worked to strengthen her academics, consistently meeting and often exceeding her goals. Her behavior and maturity make her a trusted role model and classroom leader. >> My teachers are helping me get better and better at what I do in class. That's why I like coming to school, especially to see Miss Urett, Miss Johnson, and Miss Oiero. >> Best fifth grade teachers ever. >> Mhm. >> Uh-huh. >> As class secretary and dojo monitor in her fifth grade class, Jayla serves with integrity and responsibility. Beyond the classroom, she is active in Bella Girls and serves on Officer Turner's flag
121team where they raise and lower the flags [music] every morning and afternoon. Her courage and quick thinking during a recent emergency helped ensure a classmate who was experiencing trouble breathing received [music] immediate medical attention. >> This kid in my class, he had accidentally got knocked down cuz he was playing soccer and then he couldn't breathe. So my teacher put him on her back and I ran and I opened up every door. I was helping her and then we got we got him to the nurse's off office safe. I would say she's a relationship kid. Once you build a relationship with Joayla, she treats you like family and she really helps our classroom feel like a family. >> Now, let's turn our spotlight to our district secondary student of the month. >> My name is Caroline
122Hullman and I am the Tyler ISD secondary student of the month. Caroline is an accomplished student with a 3.92 GPA, recognition as an AP scholar with distinction, and membership in the National Honors Society. [music] She consistently rises to academic challenges. >> Legacy has so many options. There really is something for everyone, including like all the clubs. Like I'm in Zanta Club, Eco Club, like I'm in a ton. And it's just fun to know that even when the school day is done, like you have something outside of that where you still get to see your friends and interact and even with like sports and theater, like there truly is something for everyone. And I think that Legacy does a really good job like supporting all the different avenues and like giving people like a substantial chance
123to like make a mark and do stuff with that. [music] Beyond the classroom, Caroline is a stage director in the theater program, participates in HOSA competitions and balances her studies with a part-time job. Aspiring to pursue a career in medicine, she is a driven, well-rounded student who uplifts those around her. >> She's just really multi-talented. She's great at everything she does and and so she's a great math student, but she's also a great biology student and a great English student. And she has a love for art. and I know she's like so impactful in the theater program and just to see her be successful in everything she does is really neat and it's just a joy to get to interact with her and have her in my class. >> Let's honor these remarkable students as
124we celebrate the outstanding achievements happening across our district. Their success stories remind us of the strength, dedication, and spirit that define Tyler ISD. This recognition is proudly brought to you by Christa's Trinity Mother Francis Health System, partners in supporting the bright future of our students and community. And at this time, we would like to invite the board to come forward so that we can recognize these amazing students. Okay, Shayla, it's time for you to come on down. [applause] Congratulations. Awesome. Thank you. And let's give her another round of applause. [applause] And she is ready for the cold weather. Look at those cute boots. And now it's time to welcome Caroline to the front to receive the secondary student of the month award. Congratulations. [applause] Congratulations, Caroline. [applause] Also, tonight we are very proud to recognize
125the heroic efforts of one of our Three Lakes Middle School students. Eighth grader Darren Woreram observed a fellow student in distress in the cafeteria and was able to successfully perform the Heimlick maneuver on the student and then was able to alert administrators nearby. Darren, come on down. Thank you for your efforts. Go back. Go back. Go back. They They need the photo, too. All right. [applause] Thank you, Darren. Now, we're going to congratulate two of our cross country athletes for their recent performances at the state cross country meet. First, we have Amy Vasquez from Tyler High School. Amy earned first team all district honors and was the district championship with a time of 18 minutes 46 seconds. She was also named first team all region and received honorable mention all-state recognition after placing 17th out
126of 149 runners at the state meet with a time of 1842. Amy, come on down. That is impressive. >> Congratulations. And for those in the audience, this is her cross country coach. Congratulations, Amy. [applause] We also have Madri East from Tyler Legacy High School. Madrieie was named first team all district and finished as the district runner up with a time of 1836. She earned all region team honors and placed 72nd out of 151 runners at the state meet with a finishing time of 19 minutes 8 seconds. Come on down, Madie. Congratulations, Madie. [applause] It's now time to recognize our district teachers of the month. Our elementary district teacher of the month is Katrina Washington from Bell Elementary School. And here are a few comments from her principal. Mrs. Washington is an invaluable leader and mentor
127at our school. She has excelled in her roles as a lighthouse team member, leadership action team chair, Bella Girl sponsor, and as a lighthouse team leader, she played a key role in organizing their annual canned food drive. Through her leadership and encouragement, nearly 900 pounds of food was collected to support our community. As a Bella Girl sponsor, Mrs. Washington is consistently present, supportive, and encouraging, helping guide and inspire the students during their monthly meetings. She is highly professional, always greets others with a smile, and is willing to take on any challenge. When a need or a problem arises, she is eager to brainstorm solutions and to support her colleagues. Mrs. Washington is an essential part of Bell and plays a vital role in fostering a positive school culture. Let's bring on down Mrs. Washington. Congratulations.
128[applause] [laughter] Let's give her one more round of applause. >> [applause] >> And for our district teacher of the month for secondary is Dennis Toybear from Tyler Legacy High School. And here are a few comments from his principal. As an AP world history teacher and head cross country coach, Mr. Toybear exemplifies excellence as an educator, mentor, and role model. In the classroom, his passion for history and commitment to student success are evident. Mr. Toybey Bear's students consistently outperform state and global averages on the AP His World History exam, reflecting his engaging instruction and ability to challenge and inspire learners. He is deeply invested in his students growth, helping them to become independent thinkers and college ready individuals. As head cross country coach, Mr. Mr. Toy Bear brings the same dedication and high expectations to his
129athletes. He fosters an environment that emphasizes perseverance, character, and teamwork. Using running as a powerful metaphor for life, what truly sets Mr. Toy Bear apart is his unwavering commitment to T the Tyler Legacy Community. His encouragement, positivity, and genuine care for students make a lasting impact on their campus. Respected by students, parents, and colleagues alike, Mr. Toy Bear embodies what it means to be a legacy teacher and is highly deserving of this recognition. Come on down, Mr. Toy Bear. And congratulations [applause] Let's give him one more round of applause. And that concludes our special recognitions for this evening. It's or was it in? We are now scheduled. We are now at the scheduled time in our agenda for public comment. And we don't have anyone signed up for public comment. So we're going to move
130to the annual audit for 2024 25 fiscal year. [clears throat] Dr. Markle, Mr. Gillespie, can y'all go ahead and usher them out in the hallway so we can get on to business with our annual audit. Thank you. >> All right, here we go. >> Thank you. Can you hear me? >> No. Okay. >> Might need to scoot up a little bit. >> Oh, is this better? Here we go. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Um, my name is Michelle Majeski. I'm a CPA with Patilla Brown and Hill and I'm here to present the results of our audit. Um, so I understand that you have received a copy of the annual comprehensive financial report and so tonight I just wanted to go through the uh several opinion letters that we issued and just touch on some highle
131numbers. Um, so starting with our opinion letter. So, um, with our opinion, we issued a clean opinion or an unmodified opinion in accordance, uh, with generally accepted, uh, accounting standards, meaning that we didn't find anything, um, materially incorrect due to fraud or, um, misstatement, and we didn't find anything that could materially affect your decision- making as users of the financial statements. Also in our opinion l opinion letter sorry we define the scope of our opinion as it relates to various sections of the financial statements and we also reiterate that these are management's financial statements. They take ownership of them and we are engaged to issue an opinion over whether we think that they're uh free of material misstatement. Um, skipping ahead through the report, um, I know one thing that, uh, I'm sure you're interested
132in is general fund and general fund operations for the year. So, you ended with a little over 48 million in unassigned fund balance, uh, which equates to a little over three months worth of operating expenditures. Um, so that unassigned fund balance is available to be spent on any operating expenditures in the future. Skipping ahead a little bit more and just looking at your general fund budget. Looks like you came in under budget across every expenditure function and you even recognized a little bit more state revenue than you had anticipated. So while you had anticipated a loss in general fund, you did end up recognizing about a $3.5 million increase. So as part of our audit process, we do some uh limited testing over internal controls as it relates to various areas of the financial statements.
133And so um further in the acter there's uh our letter um okay our report on internal control over financial reporting. So in this report we would disclose any instances of non-compliance or um any instances of internal control issues that we would have come across as we um go through our testing. and we didn't find any issues. Uh so we typically meet with employees over various uh control areas, various areas over the financial statements and we document walkthroughs. We test uh specific transactions uh detailed transactions and we didn't find anything um to report or anything that would require further disclosure. Um, [sighs and gasps] additionally, because the district spent over a certain threshold of federal uh, grant dollars, they were subject to a single audit or a compliance audit over their major federal grant programs. So,
134we issue an opinion over whether we believe the district materially complied with all the requirements of the U grant programs and we would disclose any instances of um, non-compliance related to the grant program. there were no uh compliance issues that we came across and we um believe that the district materially complied. Uh we tested IDA B so special education program and we didn't find anything. So I just wanted to thank you and thank Casey and Linda uh for all their help and uh all their effort working on this report and on this audit. um have several clients who uh draft their own report and they um prepare their own financials and really I think this is one of the um best professional working relationships that I have with my clients as relates to getting through
135the audit. So I really appreciate all their efforts. >> Well, we appreciate your comments that we didn't find. We didn't find >> you did so good. You did so great. >> So we love those three words. Anybody else have a comment or before we um >> just come in in regards to being a part of that committee, our committee here, I think that our finances have always been done in a very excellent way. You know, we've gotten several great ratings from year to year and we recently went through the transition from Miss B. York to Miss Russell >> and being one to look at details, you know, we made a very smooth transition. hadn't had any problems with the transition at all that I've noticed in regards to finances. So, I think that we are
136very stable and based on what she's just said, she's indicating that we are [clears throat] stable financially and doing a great job. And I think that that just proves that we have an excellent financial department within the district and I I'm very appreciating over there. I [laughter] kind of see the smile over there. Okay. >> Okay. So, could I get a motion to approve this >> annual audit? >> I move that we approve the annual audit. >> I second that motion. >> All All in favor? >> I. >> Anybody opposed? The motion has been passed and carried. Thank you so very much for our awesome report. We appreciate you. >> Okay. The consent agenda. I know we're going to approve the gifts and donations. Anything else? >> Yes, >> Madame President. On the business consent
137agenda, I would like to pull items D and E for discussion. I would also like to pull item G to be tabled. [cough and clears throat] >> Okay. Could I get a motion on AB >> F? >> I move we approve. >> Wait. >> A B and F. >> Wait, Madam Chair, I like I have one question associated with F. So just clarification basically. >> Okay. >> So B and >> I move we approve items A and B. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Anybody opposed? Okay. So we have approved A and B. Let's pull gifts and donations. >> Page 16 of your packet is our annual philanthropic contribution from the Tyler ISTD education foundation. We are certainly appreciative and and blessed that we have the partnerships that we have there. Very
138uh supportive peoples of our school system as it trickles down into our classrooms and our students there. Uh we've got representatives here tonight. Miss Young Bloodood uh was one of them. And I think we're probably going to picture tonight of a big check. So good. You got a good big picture of a big check with the board. Um at the amount of $52,351 for grants for great ideas that were delivered uh this past week. And y'all, thank y'all so much for what you've done. Miss Far, you've done a great job as executive director there without rehashing history. Uh we have had some shaky times uh over a decade ago and uh the board did a great job at that time of of keeping the uh the airplane flying, so to speak, and then you've come
139on board and enhanced it in so many levels. So, uh thank y'all for for this. Uh I take a recommendation for that for you to ask for a recommendation. I can't do that. [laughter] And y'all can vote on this, but we're going to need a big picture, a big check picture with y'all. >> Any comments? >> I I had just a logistic question in regards to the funding. Uh I know recently we received pictures and which they already presented the checks. I'm I'm not one to ever refuse money being as frugal as I am. Uh but I was just logistic wise we're approving it after the fact or before the fact or what are we doing in regards to us approving the funding that they I thought had already given us. >> And is that
140because we have to do that as part of our minutes or what? >> Yeah. Anything above $5,000 you do have to accept it. So this is almost a ratification of the acceptance of that. Um, we've had stock donated here before >> in years past. And if we'd have waited on that or if we did wait on that, I mean, it is a it is a little backwards on this, >> right? >> But it is nothing illegal or nefarious. I'm I'm going to defer to our attorneys over there. [laughter] >> You're 100% right so far. >> Okay. >> And then timing of it with the foundation as far as delivering that to the to our classrooms. It kind of works for them at the [clears throat] the timing of that as well. Um, not to mention
141the fact that sometimes we can do this at a regular board meeting because the state of Texas said we can't meet before the workday is over with anymore. We could also have had we could have done this at a workshop. Okay. >> In previous years. So, >> here we are. >> Okay. >> We'll try to, >> you know, >> did y'all hear the trustee, those of y'all that are responsible for this, [laughter] get it to us before we have the grants for great ideas delivered >> in our office. Thank you. could have, you know, that's >> Yeah, it would be nice, but hey, we're not going to refuse any money at any time. Yeah. >> If it's two or three months later, we'll still approve it. So, >> teachers. >> Yeah. >> Say it again.
142>> It's too surpris. That's one of the reasons they do it, which I That's great. I don't have any problem with that. Just so that I was just trying to make sure that we were within the guidelines of doing it and why we did it. Okay. >> Okay. I move we approve the amazing 52 over $52,000 from the Tyler SD Foundation. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Everybody oppose. Motion carries. Thank you so much for the money. >> Are we taking a picture now? >> Yeah. >> Yes, please. >> Oh, >> I don't ever take this picture. >> Oh, really? >> Nope. be in the background. >> I do. I sit back here smiling usually next to Gina. Very good. Thank you. Okay. Again, thank you. Okay, let's look at D. Did we talk
143about election? Did somebody pull D? Consider action of an order calling general election for school board trustees for single member district 2 and single member district 4. Two four. [snorts] >> Thank you. >> Say something. >> Yeah, I pulled that one. I wanted to discuss it a little bit. >> Thank you, Madam President. You know, the reason I pulled it, I I sent the soup u the request is over the past several elections, uh by several I mean probably the last three um the the [clears throat] defeated incumbent trustees have complained about voter turnout and have complained about the amount of people that actually are involved in the process. And so I think that there's some merit to that. I think that these elections are somewhat small and we have an opportunity to do something
144about it at this point. Uh for three election cycles they complained that there weren't enough voters involved but we didn't do anything. I am asking administration uh and my fellow trustees to explore the uh possibility of expanding our voting days as well as the voting hours. If you will [clears throat] pay attention to the current election that's happening um in the March primaries, they're voting on Saturdays and Sundays. They're also expanding the hours on some days to go from 7 in the morning to 7 in the afternoon. I think by doing this that will be a systemic thing that will allow people more time, more days to go vote. And uh we have a considerably larger amount of voters in the March primaries as we do in the November elections. This is something that the
145county already does. We don't have to reinvent the wheel here. We just have to get them. They run the elections for us. I think if I recall correctly, that's how it works. Both ourselves, the city, and Tyler Junior College will be in the next no uh May election. And so my [clears throat] encouragement on discussing this and on instructing administration would be to explore the possibility of asking the county to do that for us. I know that there will be some discussion about this maybe having some additional cost or maybe some logistical things on whether if they're going to do it for us then the city has to agree to it as does the um junior college because they're not just going to keep the polls opens for one of us. I would expect that
146would confuse a number of people but I wanted to get your guys thoughts on that. I know we've had trustees, former trustees complain about the lack of turnout. Uh whether it's a hundred votes or 700 votes in an election. I think every opportunity we can get voters to actually go turn out and vote is important and that's why I pulled this agenda item and wanted to get your thoughts and recommendations on. Thank you, Madam President. >> Any comments or thoughts? So you're you're so early voting is two weeks. I don't even know. >> Yeah, roughly two weeks. >> Two weeks more >> for the March elections. I'm talking about the May elections for ours. >> Yeah. And so for our election, um is there early voting? >> Early voting is April 20th through April 24th.
147>> And then the election day >> Saturday, April, April 25th and then Monday, April 27th through April 28th. And then the following uh the next Saturday is the actual voting day. >> Say that one more time. I was >> I'm sorry. Uh it early voting begins April 20th. Then there's that week is April 24th. There's a week there. There's a Saturday for early voting. Those hours that's open >> 8 to 5 and 9 to 3. >> Okay. >> And then they come back around. They take Sunday off. They come back around. It's Monday through Tuesday the 26th or 27th and 28th, excuse me, 8 to 5:00 pm. Then they're off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday is election day. 8 to 6. >> So is that right? Six. >> So roughly it's eight days, right? I think
148that we have for the early voting part of it. And then there's like four or five days before the actual election date, right? There's three days before the actual election day. >> Okay. >> They take a Sunday off, one Sunday off >> during that time. >> So we don't have any Sundays or Saturdays on >> Yeah. One Saturday. >> One Saturday >> and then election is on a >> well Saturday. >> I understand that the concern about individuals that work 8 to 5 in particular. I I could see the extending it maybe to give them an opportunity to be there uh you know getting an hour at least in the evenings and increase to allow those individuals that may want to vote early that may not make Saturday and the day of election. I think
149the way to vote is early in case you don't miss the actual voting day, but a lot of people haven't caught on to that concept. But I think the opportunity here for individuals that work 8 to5 is limited. So they only have the Saturday and election day or because and then one of it's 9 to three. That's on the Saturday. >> Yeah. So you know they got that well three days maybe if you want to look at it. >> Yeah. Let me discount the cost thing. The cost are uh is it per voter per po per per excuse me per voter participation for each jurisdiction. That's how you're you're charged. It used to not be that way. >> Gina and I got that changed with Judge Moran. >> Okay. >> We were the largest jurisdiction.
150And if we participated, we got build significantly higher than a troop ISD did. We were carrying the election in a lot of ways in municipal elections. So if the c if the city had got to cancel their election and we still had an election, we had the bulk of that cost, them being the next largest. Um so it's not a cost issue. Um there is a logistical issue as far as this election goes because we do have um partner jurisdictions that have already called their election. >> Yeah, that was that was going to be my question. >> Yeah. Um we also have to request it from the county elections office and I guess they have to agree to it. Gina, is that correct? I will say this one thing about it is it's not just
151us and the city and TJC. Um >> Oh, you got one over there. I didn't know >> it is. Um there is a potential of 14 jurisdictions that we do joint elections with. Um all of counting Bullard and Troop and White House and all of those and some of those have already called their elections. Um, one of the requirements is it has to be in your election order when you call it. So basically at this point for them it would be an administrative error for them on their election orders because we're I mean for May we're almost late to the game to to to look at this and look at trying to change it. >> M. >> So let me Oh. >> So let me ask this. If we've got 14 other entities include and
152and then got TJC and and us and the city to me it's almost impossible to do this. I think what's the way this if I understand the mechanics right is the county says this is what we do. Do all you guys agree to it and that's the way it's always been done. It'd almost be logistically impossible to go to every single one of those entities and say hey we want to expand voting hours. I think that the counties basically stuck this out there say this is the way we've always done it. Uh if I'm reading this correctly, >> well, it is the way we have historically done it. I will say this, um I know we're, you know, sitting here talking about changing it. We are looking at a Senate bill that just passed. Um
153there is a Senate bill that um it's going to close the gap between the end of early voting and the election day. you know, where you vote that Monday and Tuesday and then there's a gap between Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and then you have election day on that Saturday. That gap is going to go away and so they're going to be changing and standardizing a lot of the the hours and things. Now, the Secretary of State's office has to publish a report. There's several committees meeting on how this is actually going to work with all of the systems. And so we're looking at potentially in 27 all of this is going to be standardized. So I know that doesn't change here, but because of where we are in the cycle, um we're they're they're getting
154it's getting ready to be standardized. >> If if other jurisdictions have already called their elections and they'd have to go and change, I do think if you brought up this question and y'all want us to pursue this for future elections, we can. >> Right. We can. Yeah, that would be be my comment >> that I can't do anything about it, right? That this time it doesn't look like unless it'd be a change on that and then >> yeah, >> there might be some convincing here that that has to take place as well. So, I I I appreciate what you'd like to see happen, >> right? Oh, yeah. >> And I think we can pursue that, but I just don't think we can get it done for this >> Oh, this year possible. >> Don't you
155also think Oh, go ahead. >> Sorry. Um, part of it too is remember when there's a primary year, um, you know, a Smith County does not have to conduct our elections, they can say no. Um, now that's not beneficial to any of our voters and they understand that and they don't do that. But there is that option and I know some district some counties have done that. But >> to do what? Move move it to where the primaries are March. No. In order, in other words, they could say, "Hey, you have to conduct your own election this year." >> They wouldn't help. >> But I feel like, and correct me if I'm wrong, Dr. Carver, the past couple of elections, there has been nothing else on the ballot cor >> but us. >> That's correct.
156Last year, >> no one wants to I mean, you're talking about a very small pool of people that you're trying to get to the polls. >> Correct. Well, we we had the last goound we had a pretty robust election in my district. It over overlapped with Shondaanda Marsh district, which was a contested election on the city. If we look forward to the election cycle in May, we're going to have two school board seats open. We're going to have a huge mayoral election with four declared candidates. We're going to have a TJC bond election that's going to be over the whole taxing entity. So, while some of these elections are small and go under the radar, and I I I agree with you, that's not always the case, we're going to have bigger and bigger elections
157hopefully. I'm trying to get a way to include more voters and reduce our cost. You really want to talk about it. If if you want to go that route and say we can't get it done this time, I'm with you. I I don't think I think we're kind of in a short span. Let's talk about moving these things to November. I mean, if if if we want bigger turnouts, less cost, more voter participation, we saw it during COVID when they threw in all the municipal elections into the presidential election. You went from having a race that traditionally has 700 voters to 7,000 voters. So my my my thing is is I want to correct or or us for us to help correct what ha what trustees from this very das have complained about low voter
158turnout. One of the big reasons it's low voter turnout is because we have a very small window of when people can go vote. If I'm working for Tyler ISD and I want to go vote, unless I go do it on my lunch break, I got to ask my supervisor, can I have some time off to go do it? Now, in a big organization, that may not be a big deal, but in a small business, which a lot of people work for small business, you've got to request that day off. And so, these elections, we can do some things on our side to get them bigger if that's really an issue, which I agree. It's up to us. I would I would favor instructing the administration to look at moving uh the dates because the county
159does this. Remember, it's not like they they only do this for primaries and November elections. All we're going to say to them is, "Hey, do do the same thing in in in the May elections." The county's already doing this. And now, obviously, not this election, but maybe the next election cycle. And if y'all want to have a conversation about moving these things in November, I'm all ears. >> Madame President. >> Yes, sir. >> Yeah. I'm not opposed to uh extending the hours or maybe even extending the days. I don't know about uh moving the whole election to November. I don't know how that would affect our usual processes, but if that's what the board wants to do, but yeah, I think it'd be great if uh especially during the weekdays if if the the offices
160were open a little later. Realize we can't do anything now, but uh if we want to talk about doing something later or for the next next cycle, I'm I would be in favor of that. Okay, madam chair just comment just tacking on to that I agree I think that it's impossible for us to do anything this year but I think it's something that we could ask administration to look into the possibility uh and talking with the other entities about extending the hours in particular and then if it's possible adding additional days anytime we have an opportunity to allow the working population to have more [clears throat] opportunities we need to make take advantage of that because I know I was in a position where I couldn't get off work to do it unless I took
161a vacation day. Uh so it is difficult to do >> two Saturdays. >> I know. But hey, what do people do on that Saturday? >> We're not going to but I mean if you're I mean you have >> we agreed to table to table it. Let's move on. >> You have two days. >> I get a motion on that. >> We need to call it call >> and I and I asked the administration look at the possibility of doing it. I'm not saying we have to do it and I know we can't do it this year but next year We'll get more information for y'all to consider throughout the next year. Again, work we have a very good relationship with the county elections office. >> Michelle Al, how do you al >> Alakon uh is
162very creative and very amanable to working with all the jurisdictions um as well. So, thanks Judge Moran for getting a lot of that stuff squared away under a different election regime. Michelle's done a great job. She has >> be we would we would be honored or we'd be happy to go get some more information for y'all to to consider in the future. >> Can I get a motion on D? >> I move we approve D and E. I assume they're together. The questions? >> Yes, sir. I I pulled them both together. >> All right. >> Yeah. >> Second. All in favor? >> I. >> Anybody opposed? >> I'm opposed. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Got that. Okay. Motion still carries. Mhm. >> I did. [laughter] >> Okay. Are we ready? F. We pulled F. >>
163I uh I I don't think we left F off. >> I I did. I I raised that one. Just in relation to the page 19. Let me go to it right quick here. I just have once again a clarification in regards to this and uh let me see 19. Here we go. Uh yeah, the EMA engineering and consulting was uh given 40 485 mil uh,000 for the planning and specification. I'm just wondering how does that fit into the whole picture? We have two entities today. I I see that apparently it's required that we have an external firm to do that and uh it's almost a half a million. So I just had a question in regards to the amount and what it's used for other than the and what the planning and specification requires I
164guess. >> Where is he? >> Yeah, Mr. Bettingfield, Mr. Loper can answer those questions uh in regard to this specific item. >> Yeah. And I the planning and specification that EMA engineering does in preparation for this particular project or any project. >> Right. So good evening board. Uh Dr. Crawford. So, uh, EMA is an engineering firm here in Tyler, right? We actually contract with them. Uh, they evaluate our schools that we determine are up in the rotation. >> They develop a set of plans, blueprints, specifications. They walk us through the uh procurement process and advertising for bids, receiving those bids. They're actually on the grading committee to evaluate the proposals that we receive. U so uh that dollar value covers all of their labor and uh time to develop our set of plans and specifications
165>> and they do that on each project that we bid or if this just this particular >> it's actually a requirement uh by by law that we have anything over $8,000 is designed by professional engineers. So it's it's a requirement. >> Okay. M >> very similar to when we when we've done bond elections and we have to do all there there's a lot there's a lot of procurement uh I can't remember the statute whenever you do these types of things we don't have the ability to do that either these are very specific engineering requirements to be able to put these specs together correct >> uh no you have to you have to be stamped with the state >> right and you have to follow all the Texas Department of License and regulation laws and um
166not Not only is it an $8,000 threshold for anything mechanical, it's also structural, too. So, if we do any kind of structure and structure could be a canopy and so um it it's it is the state law and we have to we have to do that. We did it for we've done it for every project. Okay. This just happens to be uh just pure mechanical. So, we just needed to hire a mechanical engineer on a building. We'll hire an architect and they'll hire their sub engineers, their subconsultants from mechanical to structural to food service to all of those things. >> Yeah. Okay. And EMA scored this bid or we did. >> We have a committee. So, between myself, uh, Mr. Bettingfield here in EMA uh and Mrs. Sheree Jones, we score the criteria as listed
167in our bid documents. >> Okay. And I [clears throat] might add in that criteria, excuse me, uh the points for the low bid or for the best bid is 50 points. So automatically what we do we take the percentage of how low is the second bidder and that's percentage of the point. So we can fill that out immediately and then of course through all the other um uh >> what were some other what were some other items on your rubric besides price? I mean obviously that >> uh so there warranty and reputation. Okay. Um u a lot of it's uh >> project experience. Yeah, project experience and >> other items related to the RFP process >> and we look heavily at that and we follow up with their references because we ask them in their
168bid documents to list similar like projects and we call them and so um you know unfortunately there's always a loser but um um >> but your low bidder here there was something off with them uh >> obviously Yes, sir. Um, they still do work for us. Um, but let's just say they didn't have some glowing references and um, also one of the main things they had some bid documents that weren't complete >> in that. So, that I mean that actually gives us right just throw the bid out, but we didn't. We chose not to um because they are a good contractor and they work for us and um they also is this is 7.2 million I think was theirs. I don't have my >> Yeah. >> Oh, there it is up there. 7.2 million as
169opposed to the eight no um I don't have my glasses but y'all see it. [laughter] >> It's one of the perks Brady getting old, right? and and so um you know that's that's three schools that's pulling over 50 air conditioners off every school at the same time simultaneously. That's huge crews. That's crane setup. That's a lot of uh logistics on that and some mitigation for any issues that you may have. And so um uh they ne haven't done a project that large before. So, it's kind of scary to us to risk that. >> By the way, you got to get done in two months. >> Yes, sir. >> But if we wanted to see the bid tabs, you can send those to us, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Mhm. >> Actually, one further point
170on that, the the low bidder that was not selected, we actually brought them into the office and we sat down with them across the table and explained to them our process, how we graded them and why we discounted them and they uh left our office in agreement of of why we didn't select them. There's no >> our goal for that next time. >> Yeah. And and we're also cognizant of the pricing on this stuff and y'all having to make recommendations and decisions on this, but at the same time the quality of the work and the the again you talked about the warranty and the and the uh the backing of the work that's done those have to go into consideration. I don't think you can ever governmentally that that just prides itself on always taking
171the low bid. I mean, y'all are doing the right thing by asking questions. >> I think we know what what can happen sometimes on that. And I want to go back to the the project being needing to be done in two months. We will turn the air conditioning off of these facilities >> and strategically have to coordinate and orchestrate all of this placement and energizing it back on to make sure the building envelopes act correct. correct >> to receive students and staff on time as well. So, >> not not to mention one of those campuses has summer school a summer school program. >> Yeah. So, there there's there's the logistical things about doing work during a you know with schools, especially when we have our buildings open all the time. Um that doesn't always mean
172that the lowest bid is always going to be the best bid, but you're I appreciate y'all asking these questions because that's what needs to happen. It's your job. >> Yeah, I I appreciate that. I appreciate the explanation. I guess what caught my attention which I sometime may have overlooked it the professional fee being separated from the total cost and that that I think we should know the professional fee and have an idea how much we're paying you know for professional fee versus the actual project itself. Uh so I appreciate that but that's that's why I asked the question because I had noticed it before. >> Got it. >> We'll continue to do that. >> Yeah. >> Anybody else? Do I get a motion? I move that we approve. >> Second. >> All in favor? Anybody
173opposed? >> Motion carries. We're going to table G and till we get further information and discuss it. >> I'm going to say I'm let there please. Can I get a motion for that? >> I move that we table G >> till when? >> Indefinitely until administration brings it back to us. Are >> you going to second? Second. [laughter] >> Madam President, I don't think you can table a motion just indefinitely. Either table it till after executive session or you can postpone it until the next meeting. And we could keep postponing it, but I don't think you can just legal may chime in on >> Can we get a legal on that? If you can table something indefinitely or does it have to be redone every >> we say Yeah, because this was not put on
174the agenda by a trustee. So if a trustee puts it on, we we can ask that trustee to table it or remove it. But this was put on by admin. So what's the proper way to table this or that? >> We just don't take action. >> I pull it I pull it that we take no action until administration puts it back on. >> Have a motion. >> No. That's why I said I tabled that for y'all. >> Really? >> That's [laughter] what his motion carried away. >> Yeah. My motion is to >> Hey, we'll we'll bring this back to y'all. >> There's no motion >> in the in the near future for further consideration. >> Yeah. All right. >> Now that we've gone to that curriculum instruction consent agenda, consider approval of affiliation agreement with
175the University of Texas Health Center. >> Yes, ma'am. Madam President, this is for prenatal prenatal support and education to pregnant or parenting students. We have those. It's the world we live in and we want to make sure we support them so that they can be good mamas and um and certainly uh finish their high school education so they can get off to a good start as a parent. >> I move we approve item A. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Anybody opposed? >> No. >> Motion carries. We are going to return to executive session with some action coming out of it. >> Board of trustees was previously called to order and the president of a quorum has been established and we do have some an item coming out of executive session. Madame President, I
176move that the board extend the superintendent's contract for an additional year >> to remain a three-year contract from July 2026 through June 2029. Pause. >> Second. >> All [clears throat] in favor? >> I. >> Anybody opposed? >> The motion has carried. >> I move we adjourn. [laughter] >> Second. >> Thanks everybody. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Anybody opposed? Okay, motion carries. Happy. We appreciate you, school board members.