001This meeting of the Tyler ISD board of trustees was previously previously 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 minor required. We do have some business coming out of executive session. Oh, give them a few minutes. You weren't in there. Madam President, I move that the board propose the termination of the employment contract of Patricia Thomas for abandonment of her contract and failure to perform her job duties and that the board president and administration be authorized to send the required notices of action. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I I. >> Any opposing? The motion carries. Okay, let's do prayer. As always, we all start with
002a prayer and pledge. Mr. Martinez, is your honor. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you this evening with grateful hearts as another school year begins. We thank you for the students who fill our classrooms with energy and hope, for the teachers and staff who dedicate themselves to guiding and nurturing young minds, and for the families who entrust us with their children's education. We ask for your blessing on our board and leadership team tonight. Grant us the wisdom to make decisions that honor every student and strengthen our schools. Remind us remind us to listen with patience, to speak with kindness, and to lead with integrity. Lord, we also lift up the safety, health, and well-being of all in our school community. May this year be one of growth, learning, and joy for each child. Be
003present in this meeting and in all that we do. In your name, amen. >> Amen. Amen. >> Amen. >> 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 pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. >> Thank you, Mr. Martinez. We appreciate that. Now, we'll go to special recognition. Special part of our board meetings that we thoroughly enjoy. [Music] Good evening board members and Dr. Crawford. We want to begin our special recognition part of the evening by congratulating the following employees on their achievements. First, we would like to welcome David Howard from Tyler Legacy High School. Y'all are probably going to need to come to the
004front first. Sorry, I just realized y'all were there. Next month, we'll get back to the same. >> Yes. And as y'all are coming to the front, we would like to welcome David Howard from Tyler Legacy High School to come to the front to receive his certificate for being selected as one of only six Texas finalists for the 2025 Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics, Science, and Teaching. Congratulations. [Applause] Now, we would like to recognize Rachel Fox, director of health services, for receiving the 2025 5 WT Doc Ballard Award for Excellence in Public Health by the Northeast Texas Public Health District. Come on forward, Mrs. Fox. Congratulations. [Applause] And wrapping up our recognitions for this evening. Up next, we would like to invite Abby Domin and DJ Warren with the Department of Student Support to the
005front to accept a certificate recognizing Tyler ISD's Project Search program for being awarded the 100% employment outcome award from Project Search. The program, now in its 10th year, serves students with disabilities who are in the final stages of transitioning from school to the workforce. [Applause] And that concludes our recognitions for this evening. Thank you for being awesome people. Now, at this time, we are now at the scheduled time in our agenda for public comment. The board wishes to hear your thoughts and concerns. As per board policy, all speakers must have submitted their name and as before, we cannot make any kind of response. We have Scotty Wallace. >> Good evening. I got the five minutes to put on my clock here. Good evening for those that didn't hear me to Dr. Crawford, President Atkins, Vice
006President Harris, and all provide presiding board members. My name is Scotty Wallace, and I'm a certified chaplain with the National School Chaplain Association for the East Texas area here. I'm here to share with you on behalf of the National School Chaplain Association, our holistic care program for all PK through 12th grade schools here in the state of Texas. The Texas Chaplency Act, Senate Bill 763, was signed into law on June 18th, 2023, allowing school districts to hire or allow volunteer school chaplain on all PK through 12 school campuses they so desire. Texas was the first state to authorize chaplain in their public schools. Since then, 20 other states have now followed suit and enacted this legislation. If you have not already done so, I hope you will take a look and investigate and even vet
007this very incred this incredible program. I will leave with you in just a few minutes here my ISD packet that we give to the the superintendent and the school board president which will provide detailed information on all aspects of this program. That being said, here are just a few of the min benefits of a school chaplain that can bring to your campuses. Number one, emotional and mental health support. Chaplain provide a safe, confidential space for students and staff to discuss challenges they may be facing. While not a substitute for professional counseling, chaplain will often serve as the first line of support, helping identify needs early and connecting individuals to appropriate resources. Number two, we bring character and we value education. A chaplain can reinforce positive values such as kindness, empathy, respect, and integrity. All crucial
008for shaping responsible, compassionate citizens. School chaplain often contribute to character education programs and we lead initiatives that promote ethical behavior and service. Third critical I'm sorry crisis care and pastorial presence in times of loss, trauma or difficulty. We will be there with comfort and stability. Our training equips us to walk with people through grief, conflict, uncertainty, and in a deeply human and compassionate way. Fourthly, community building. Chaplain often help foster a more inclusive and caring school culture. Through our presence at events, football games, basketball games, in the classroom, around the campus, we become trusted figures who will unify and strengthen the school's community. And fifthly, the support for your staffs. The well-being of our educators and staff is critical to the success of our students. Chaplain provide an often overlooked level of support for teachers
009and school personnel as they navigate the challenges of their role. Also want to make this important point. A chaplain's work is not about pro promoting a particular religion. We don't proitize but we off but we do offer spiritual and emotional care to people of all faiths and culture. The school chaplain approach is rooted in three things. Respect, listening, and service. I believe that investing in a school chaplain is an investment in the overall health, morale, and growth of our schools. It is a step towards building a more compassionate and resilient community, one where every person feels seen, heard, and valued. I've learned over my 25 year career of serving as a public school teacher and coach that being present and offering just simple kindness can make all the difference. In closing, Dr. Crawford, President Atkins,
010Vice President Harris, and all board members, I'll leave you with this. ISD information packet for your review and consideration. I thank you for consideration for considering this vital addition to your campuses. I would be happy to discuss this further andor assist in exploring what a chapency program could look like for your schools and your campuses. Thanks again for allowing me to share this program with you and your board. Thank you. >> Thank you as well. I would like to can I leave this with Okay. Thank you. >> for all the board members that I spoke on and this is for Dr. Crawford and the president. >> Thank you. Okay. Now we'll have approval of the minutes. >> I move we approve the minutes from July 21st and August 7th. >> Second. >> All in favor?
011>> I. >> Anybody opposed? Motion has been carried. Now we'll have the superintendent staff report for the first week of school. Yay. >> Yay. Hey, we got the first what? Eight days out of the way, right? >> Yeah. >> So, we're excited about that. Started off with uh the first week. Um again, a resounding success, I think, with parents and staff on the midweek start and the first week being three days. Um, we always when we we design the school calendar, we always begin with the end in mind. There's a little bit of a leader in me with for you right there, Stephen Cubby. >> That's because most of our teachers and I think our parents think nothing great happens instructionally after Memorial Day. Um, so we always start with Memorial Day. That is something
012that our teachers and our parents would we they want to be out of school by Memorial Day. Um, they like to protect the the the Christmas breaks as many we can possibly get. Dr. Gropel, how many days do we typically take at Christmas? >> Uh 16 to 17 >> sometimes 17. Incredible profession that we work in that we get that for our kids and our staff and our faculty u to be able to enjoy that. Uh Thanksgiving, it used to be only a couple of days. Remember that you go to school for two days and you take the back half of the week off and then attendance was so poor they said, "Well, we better just go ahead and take the whole week off." So that How many days is that? >> Nine days. Incredible.
013And then we also have spring break. That used to be uh just a half of a week. Um but then we also went full how many days? >> Nine there. So we always protect those things. And then the thing we've been added on here lately is is that we wanted to have a midweek start uh to get our our legs back underneath us a little bit and for teachers to that have taken that those two two and a half months off sometimes two months off in the summer. It's hard to come back and and and get after it as as as hard as we get after it. So that was a resounding success. I think parents thought that their kids responded to getting back into the groove of those three days than a weekend and
014then last week the full five days and sure enough here we are dealing with COVID again. But since Miss Fox has left the room, we don't have to um give her PTSD and all the things that she had to go go through during the COVID time. But we do have a little bit of that floating around. The good news is our enrollment is healthy and we actually have a slide to put up there. Hey, actually, you can kind of see it. Um, the public can just a couple of highlights here and then y'all can cherrypick what you want out of this to discuss and then I'm done talking about the first weeks of school. Other than staffing, I might have a a little bit of commentary about vacancies. But Birdwell Duel, um, their middle school
015years are finally to are finally growing. um we were struggling to the point to where we've talked about this um you know could we continue to have this grades six seven eight at Birdwell but it is starting to grow. In fact Caldwell Arts Academy when they first started their middle school program that's what it looked like when we grew to a K when we went K8 there. Um then Caldwell is finally matching their enrollments in each grade level in their middle school programming there as well. both of them healthy sized campuses over 600 students. Um, one thing we can celebrate um at early college high school and A-rated campus uh the top rated high school according to US News and World Report in East Texas um is that look at those in those those enrollments
016by grade there. We we've challenged Miss Hortman to to ballpark at about 120 per grade level if not a few more and we have we are finally accomplishing that. We were starting to hit our stride before CO I believe Mr. Jones and then CO kind of put us back and we've kind of grown out of that now. We're back onto that clip of having 120 kiddos per grade level. We really would like to have 150 per grade level um at early college high school, but it is a choice campus and kids sometimes choose to still go to the comprehensive campus as opposed to going to a very specific campus even though it's a great campus there. Um as you can see our middle school enrollments are healthy. Um uh 900 upwards to a thousand kids.
017So the variance there is not very different between Hubard Moore, Three Lakes and Bolter as well. So uh a lot can be attributed to that. Student life can be one but but thank you community for the last 20 years. I won't go over every year 2004 2000 um uh oh help me Tim 1322 and 17. What what did we pass between 2004 and 13? >> Technology. Well, yeah. I know. I'm talking about the years. >> Seven. I always leave seven out. There you go. So, seven. We We wouldn't have a lot of this enrollment in my opinion and the return to our schools if we if we didn't have the facilities that we have. We do have to perform. We have to run good, safe schools for our kids. But thanks to our community, our
018taxpayers for making sure that these buildings are are adequate. We've got really good headroom. Guys, we don't have a portable in the district. Do y'all Sometimes you got to go over the history uh and look and remind people of portable city, not just up and down Broadway at Hog. How many How many portables are over there, Mr. Loper? >> At Hog. >> Yeah. How many were there? >> Uh classrooms. There were 18, I believe. Some of those were double double. >> Yeah, I know. Boy, they were just beautiful right there on Broadway. Um Tyler Legacy 17 >> portable city. >> We had 203 portables in the building. >> Isn't that crazy? And so here we are in 2025 with a pretty healthy enrollment um board. That's that 18 875 is a high water mark in
019Tyler ISD. U and we have not hit um September 26 yet with last last year. I think that was the date that we hit our highest high water mark. Labor Day is not finished yet. So, some folks are still stuck on the old agrarian calendar that we don't start school after Labor Day. So, um there's your enrollment update there. Then y'all can get to your questions or commentary. Miss Taylor, we we talked today on one hand, classroom vacancies across the district in non-specialized classrooms five. Okay. So, that's a 99 rate. I don't know what it is, but it um again, it's it's pretty good shape. I'll make this commentary again, and I and it's a chance for me to do that. I don't get to talk during public comment, but I do get to talk
020here. The DOI stuff is uncomfortable. We don't like it, but it's better than having 125 to to 200 vacancies at this point. So, we do have degreed professionals in every one of our classrooms. 99 or 90% of them working towards the certification. Uh the state has said that that needs to go away by when, Mr. Jones, >> it's 2030, but it's seeming like they are taking a year off. Uh, so at least 29. >> Yeah, 2029 is we've got a kind of got of a cliff that we're that we're coming that we're hurdling towards and so we've got to get some folks certified um that are still wanting to be uh teaching here. And um anyways, that's all I have for the first of school. Miss Atkins, >> any comments, questions? >> Moving right along.
021Let's do continuous improvements student outcomes. We are ready for visual and performing arts updates. >> As part of the board monitoring calendar, you have Luke Dean, our director of visual and performing arts to provide an update for y'all. I think this is Mr. Dean. Is this your first one? >> First evening. Okay. What workshop? Okay. So, here we are with an evening presentation. He won't read every bullet off to you and three to five slides. There you go. Okay. But I I do need to make sure I can read though. All right. Good evening, Dr. Crawford, President Atkins. Uh I I see you and I appreciate your words at convocation. Thank you. Uh members of the school board, I'm pleased to be here before you today and to brag on a great school year and
022a great group of teachers that I get to support and um lead in a very um behind thescenes type of way. So, um tonight I'm just going to highlight the the campuses, but I also wanted to highlight uh these two awards here. We've they've been mentioned uh before in previous board meetings. The one to on the right here, this is the best communities for music education award by the NAM Foundation, the National Association of Music Merchants. This is awarded nationally to a little over 900 school or school districts in Texas. It was awarded to about 104 schools and only uh Nacadocious was the only other East Texas school district that was given this award. Everybody else was metroplex uh metropolitan area. And then this one right closest to me is the Texas Art Educators Association
023District of Distinction. This is our seventh consecutive year to win this. This is actually last year's award. We'll receive be receiving this one for this previous year in November, but it gives you an they all look the same. So, um but out of the,200 districts in Texas, every district is eligible to receive this award. Uh we are one of only about 109 met the standards for this award and only 16 districts across the state have won seven consecutive years. So proud to be a part of a district that um supports the arts in this fashion. So on to the slides. First slide is mainly dealing with elementary campuses. You can see all of the events. Um, you know, there's there's not enough slides. You you would not want me to put all of the numerous
024events and performances that elementary campuses did. I encourage you to um pick a couple of campuses throughout the year and and see what they have going on. Um, big art day events, MLK events, Black History Month, Cinco de Mayo. Uh, in February, we had the linkup event with the East Texas Symphony Orchestra where every fourth and fifth grade student in the district had an opportunity to be up close and personal with a professional orchestra and uh, experience that type of music program. Um, we also had our district arts fest day for the community. Thanks to Legacy for hosting that. It was the last weekend last Saturday in April and it will also be the last Saturday in April in 2026. Over 25 groups from elementary to secondary performed and all six uh visual and performing
025arts disciplines performed in some fashion or were on display. Next, moving on to middle school, mostly dealing with the spring. Uh we stayed busy as we go into contest season. District, we host a district middle school oneact play. Uh this year, Three Lakes Middle Schools, A Wrinkle in Time took first place. We also uh had UIL concert and site reading. Three ensembles received a sweep stakes rating, which is means they received a one, which is the highest you can receive from the three judges. on stage and a one insight reading. This is up from last year where only one group made a sweep stakes. So pleased with the progress that we're seeing there. Uh we had more middle school hosted the junior vase which is an art contest uh that that we see also at
026the high school level. Speaking of high school, we had lots of successes there. Um, Vera Bant, who was recognized earlier, um, made it through three rounds, advanced through three rounds of auditions to earn a spot in the TMEA, the Texas Music Educators Association's Allstate Mixed Choir. So, it's been since 2017 that we've had a choir student make it into an all-state choir. And it's been since 2000 that we've had one make it into this mixed choir, which is the highest, most challenging choir um to get into. So, very, very proud of her accomplishments. She's a she was a junior. She's a senior this year. So, we're looking for a a back-to-back event, but we'll see what happens. Um, Katie Anderson for her art piece. You can see that that's the that's the slide. That's the
027art piece that's up there. That was her exemplary medal winning um vase art. And the vase event, not not only do they have to be great artist or does it reflect their art, but they also have to be interviewed. They get interviewed by the judges and so they have to be able to, you know, be well spoken, present themselves and the art teachers do a great job of coaching and and getting these students ready for that. For our high school ensembles, we had seven that earned sweep stakes. Last year we or 23 24 we only had five. So pleased again with that progress. You see state solo and ensemble for those uh those were recognized at the I believe the June board meeting theater Tyler High one act play advanced and I was talking with
028the theater director and she said that nobody can remember the last time that the one act play at Tyler High or John Tyler advanced. It may have happened but it's those records uh somebody's going to have to dig deep into their memory banks. Um so we're very pleased with that that program is growing and have lots of potential lots of great students there. Um legacy theater students Jabbrron Karsten and Fabiola Fabiola Carabelloo were um honored at Broadway Dallas and if you and Jabbrron was the outstanding music director. Fabiola, outstanding lead performer, which uh she has won, I believe, a couple of you know, three, I think this is her third year to win it. And this was she advanced to New York and competed and she was the outstanding basically the outstanding national performer. Uh
029she won the Jimmy awards for outstanding actress and that was at a ceremony that was hosted by Josh Groin. So be very interested to see how what her career does after you know as a graduate. Um so those are just you know highlights from this past year. We do have some numbers of participation. Obviously at the elementary every elementary student has an opportunity uh is part of a music class and an art class. And then at the at the middle school and high schools, of course, they they have to elect to be in those. Um I will say, you know, looking at these numbers, Bolter across the board just took a hit um because they had to last that year they were double blocking some core classes to try to make up grounds for testing.
030So every extracurricular I think had saw lower numbers and uh but you know still Bolter you know the middle school varsity band got sweep stakes so there's quality going on there. Um more you see the number for their theater that is not a during the day class they meet after school and we're hoping to build the numbers up to where uh Mr. Allard doesn't have an option but to put it into the regular schedule. The numbers just aren't there right now. And then for high school, you can see the numbers here. I will I will say on band for Tyler Legacy, that number is not 302. I was looking back through it. Um the orchestra in PES is labeled band orchestra. So some of those orchestra students got counted twice. So ban for legacy last
031year was around 250 240. Okay. So it's not that uh that disparity is not uh what you're seeing there between Tyler High and Legacy. But you see the numbers. Um I believe every every group showed growth from last year and I haven't seen numbers from this year yet. I'll get those rosters soon. But the the few programs that I have seen uh we're seeing about a 10% in some cases and every program seems to be healthy. We'll soon see um football, you know, games start happening. So, we're going to see band, cheerleaders, color guard, uh drill team out in front of the public. >> Any comments? >> That's all I have for you. >> Questions, comments? Okay. Thank you. >> Pretty good, Mr. Dean. Thank you. >> Okay. Approval of district improvement plan, captain's improvement
032plans, and planning process. >> Board, you had this uh emailed to you and we used to print those suckers, every one of them off and kill a lot of trees. We have those digitally sent to y'all. If you have any questions about that, um myself or one of the school improvement officers, uh school supervisors, whatever we're calling them this year, um along with Mr. Jones or Dr. Gropel would be appropriate for those questions as well. You do have inside of there for the district improvement plan. And then each campus has actual targets uh for performance built inside of those, baked inside of those um all the way up to 2030. Um, so I don't think approving those right now would be out of the ordinary. We can always go back and tweak those numbers. In
033fact, I plan to do that, do some work with y'all on trying to reset some of our goals um because y'all just went through Lonear Governance again this summer. So, um, we do need these plans uh considered and possibly approved because we have started school and these campuses have done a lot of work. The district's a lot of work in putting these plans together. >> Okay. Any questions or comments? Okay, we have a public hearing on the 2526 budget. Do we have any >> Oh, we need a >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> We need a motion on that. >> Motion on the B. Consider approval of district improvement plan, campus improvement plans, and planning process. >> Madame President, I move we approve them. >> A second. >> I second that motion. >> All in favor?
034>> I. Any opp anyone oppo opposing? Did you say so? >> The motion has carried. >> Uh >> I just said abstain. >> Abstain. >> Okay. >> I haven't had a chance to go through a lot of it. >> Okay. >> Motion still carries. >> Yeah. >> Public hearing on the 2526 budget. Do we have anybody? >> Anybody up there? >> Anybody gonna speak on the budget? Brady. [Laughter] >> Okay. >> Can I do all the action items together? >> Um actually do them separate if you don't mind. >> Let's consider adoption of the 2526 budgets. Any comments or >> Hello, Mr. Russell. >> Hi. Uh what you're seeing is what we've talked about the last couple meetings. It's just in a different format. Uh so on page 20, you'll see the expenditures in the
035general fund by function. So that's how it has to be adopted. Uh on page 21 and 22 you'll see the food service and debt service uh budgets and that is what we're adopting. The main the the key points is it's a balanced budget. Revenues equal expenditures. Uh we are giving raises to employees and our tax rate is going down six and a half cents. So >> discussion, comments, >> I move that we um adopt the 2526 budgets. >> Second. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposition? The motion carries. >> Let's talk about the tax rate 2526. Page 23 of your packet has the actual numbers on there for the tax rate. The proposed tax rate for the public notice was 0.8450. That was 65 cents on the M and 0950 on your debt service
036side of things. >> Okay. Any discussion? >> When's the last time it was that low >> ever? 1880. I don't know. I mean, the a lot of the compression has happened. If you need some commentary on that, uh, it is a very low rate. Uh, it's probably been since the the middle part of the last century that it's that was that low. I haven't looked at that. It's it's it's crazy how compressed it is now compared to what we used to have to live with when the $150 was the max. Then some of y'all were on the board when that was was was uh allowable. And uh appreciate a lot of the work that's been done with the legislature. I've got some commentary maybe down down the agenda for some of the stuff that's going
037on right now, but uh the tax rate certainly is compressed, but appraisals and values are certainly another story and uh we schools because of that are uh because we've been restricted are on a pretty fixed income now. um you know if if your if your values go up 10% people are not happy about that but we can only access two and a half% of that increase and so um it's pretty fixed little bit little little bit of growth built in and then of course the raises were great uh a lot of folks are looking at articles out of the Houston Chronicle that talked about um Tyler ISD if I can cover this on what we're talking out. Yeah, it was really more appropriate for a but um the increased funding there uh and what TylerD
038received per student in increased funding upwards of 590 bucks per kid, something like that. It equates wind up being up to almost nearly $10 million. But let's remember that 95 to 98% of that was uh constrained by legislation. So, you're seeing a lot of folks that are adopting uh deficit budgets. Tyler ISD is not one of those. Is that correct, Miss Russell? >> Correct. >> Thank you. Uh we saw some data today that said upwards of how >> everyone that was in the TASO webinar that I was in, 59% of those districts are adopting a deficit budget. >> Well, there's a sample statistically speaking that's pretty significant. Um we're not. So, in saying that, we're able to still perform what we need to. We're going to be able to get our bills paid for when
039an air conditioner breaks down. We need to put gas in our buses. Need to buy a new bus. Uh need to re-roof uh some roofs here in in nine months. Um we're able to to survive. A lot of great work's been doing done there. Even though the tax rates been compressed, the values are staying healthy enough for us to be able to to survive. So, there's some tax rate information for you. Would love to go lower. Love to propose something for y'all to go lower, but we're pretty fixed on what we can and cannot do. >> Yeah. >> The districts that um you guys looked at or were in the conference with you, what were their troubles that they had to run deficit budgets? Was it >> it was just a survey response to start
040the webinar and every everyone responded if you're adopting a surplus balance or deficit and 59% of the people adopted a deficit. >> So no detail on it just we're running a deficit budget. >> Mhm. >> Anecdotally speaking I think some districts got put in a jam during CO and they over they had a lot of position creep. I don't know if it's position creep actually it was position title wave. uh and and they did not reduce their staff back down to normal levels. Their enrollments are also declining um some of these school schools. So um you could probably do some different variations in different places uh haven't done the work on right sizing their district at times when they needed to do that which y'all done um for the last 20 plus years uh through
041the facility work. So um a lot of that uh is going on as well. >> Any other comments? I move we adopt the 2526 tax rate. >> Second. All in favor? I. Any opposing? >> The motion carries. >> Now we'll talk about approval for the 2425 final amended budget. >> This item um is actually always at the budget adoption meeting for the for the next fiscal year which begins September 1. So we have wrapped it up. Miss Russell, is there anything you'd like to alert the board on in regards to the final amended budget? Nothing out of the ordinary. We're in a really good spot. Closing 2425. >> Okay. Any comments? >> I move we approve the 2425 final amended budget. >> Second that. >> All in favor? >> Any opposition? The motion carries. Besides
042pulling C for the next section, our gifts and donation. Do you guys want to pull anything else? I have a couple of comments about A and H. I don't want I don't unless y'all want to pull them, I can't tell y'all what what what to do and what not to do, but I've got a couple of commentary before you actually adopt those. >> Okay. On item A, um just wanted to make sure that for those in the public that are watching, this is our annual um approval of the commitment of our of fund balance of the general fund to the maintenance preventive maintenance fund. um 20 year I love talking about the 20-y year uh project that we now it's over 20-y year project we've had of improving our facilities for all of our kiddos
043and our teaching staff and this is one of the ways that we're able to not have to call these pro in these maintenance bonds to where you got to go up on the roofs and redo all the air conditioners and the roofs and the parking lots right here is your preventive maintenance fund that y'all commit annually to uh being able to do things like roofing HVAC work uh ceiling uh of these buildings to to make sure the in the envelope is is nice and tight and waterproofed. Uh we can go down the list of the things that we're able to do with the preventive maintenance fund. Very very creative, innovative strategy y'all embarked upon 1999, >> I believe. So >> yep. Uh then the last one down here uh on H uh approval of the
044final deductive change order to the contract with CDI conra contractors for the Hubard middle school project. That is the final deductive change order. So we did we finish it under budget? >> Technically it's under budget. There we go. I'm not going to tell you it was on time because we've had fun with that sucker over there because the world has changed. So, just wanted to make sure it's a big celebration for y'all to actually say that you finished your last facility. >> Thank you, Madam President. Um, on the uh preventative maintenance fund, it's a million bucks that's being dumped over in there. It It's still a percentage of the tax rate we used to do. Was it three cents or >> three cents? Three cents. Is it still that? >> It's three cents. Yes, sir.
045>> Which equates to more than a little bit more than a million probably. >> Yeah. >> Would we >> per penny? >> When would be the appropriate time to consider upping that three cents back over 20 years ago is not the same amount. With inflation and construction costs basically tripling probably over that time period, when would be the appropriate time to start looking at committing maybe more than >> the 1999 is not the same as a 2025. You are correct, sir. Um, we had a chance with the basic aotment. If they would have done something with the basic aotment this last time, we would have had a chance to do something like this. It's going to get awfully difficult to talk about that unless you start carving more and more and eating and trying to
046find more efficiencies and we are and we did this last year and this year we found some so that we can have some room for some of that. Um when do you start committing more of your fixed income to that? That's a question we'll all have to decide and work on as we go forward because we're pretty fixed. If they would have increased the basic aotment, we could have actually said we could put maybe another penny or two over there, but we were pretty constrained on being able to do anything outside of teacher salaries last time. >> I'm just looking at some of the earlier projects, the 16 elementaryaries that were redone in the ' 04 bond package and even some of the stuff that was done in 2007. those buildings, while they're not old
047and they don't look old, they're they're still in good shape, but some of them are getting 20 years old and they're going to need some care maybe, you know, uh I just want to be forward thinking there if there comes an opportunity, even if it's a half a penny, to start looking at ways to try to get some money put over there. I don't want to run into the same issue we did in ' 04 where we were basically rebuilding the entire district because it'd been neglected for 30 years. Obviously, we have a different board and a different superintendent. I think everybody sitting up here understands the the degree of that, but I' I'd like to start thinking and having those conversations on it. >> Yeah. Question in regards to the money that we get
048annually for this project for this uh amount, the pay prevented maintenance fund. How much are we spending it each year primarily? Is it 80 to 90% of it or is it all of it? We typically as you alluded to they're all coming now because we actually had discussions we try to stagger those funds so we can actually keep doing We monitor each annually each unit and all that. >> How much money do we have annually to go into that particular fund? Do we know? >> We we have about 3 million going uh in 2425. Our fund balance was 11.9 million and we ended the year with 10.9 million. So we are spending more than we are bringing in. But it is important to know what Dr. Crawford is talking about. If we add a penny
049to go to preventive maintenance, if 95% of the budget is salaries, then that means we're going to have to carve that penny out of our operating costs, which is salaries, which we have done a really good job of cleaning those up. So we would have to get very creative on how to do that. To >> answer your question, we spend >> all and then some more. on preventive maintenance issues. So, we have our scheduled stuff and then we have other stuff that does wind up coming on to us that our normal maintenance budget does take care of. And if we have to take care of something ahead of time, I think I'm saying this right ahead of schedule, then that does back it up down the line, too. So, I mean, it's >> Yeah. >>
050Okay. So, could I get a motion on everything except for C? >> So, moved. Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Any all opposing? Motion carries. Let's discuss gifts and donations. >> Yep. Always fun to talk about this about our philanthropic and benevolent community um that we have here in the Cwell Arts Academy PTA. $5,000 for field trips for the year over there for those arts experiences. We have chief innovation officer, former Cwell principal back there, Dr. Barbrey Markle. He's just clapped his hands for that. I'm glad that they snuck this donation in. Uh, and we're excited about the year ahead for Cowwell Arts Academy. >> Any comments? Motion. >> I move we accept the donation. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Anybody opposed? Motion carries. You want to pull anything from A
051through H? Anybody? Madame President, I move we approve the curriculum instruction and consent agenda. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposition? Motion carries. Discussion of legislative update. >> I don't have much other than they are fasttracking an assessment bill in the Senate and the House uh to get to conference committee pretty quickly. Um, it is concerning for educators. It's it should be concerning for parents uh as in regards to to how quickly this is getting done. Now, I've we've had some commentary and some and some communications with legislators uh Daniel Alders and Brian Hughes, our our two local reps and Senator um really appreciate them answering phone calls and text messages whenever we do have concerns and which is not often. We don't bother them. That's not our style. Um, but
052they were able to convey some thoughts in regards to how East Texas School Systems feel and even Texas School Alliance feels that that this is awfully quick and in a hurry just because we made a campaign promise to say we're going to eliminate the STAR, which we're really not going to eliminate the STAR. There's still going to be a >> cumulative end of assessment cycle test >> with some one in with some interim short cycle testing. We can handle that. We do short cycle interim throughear assessment. Anyways, the concerning thing is how quickly we're risk we're running through that. The feedback we've gotten is they're going to get something adopted that's not going to hit the runway until um a couple of sessions down the line. and that maybe this next session in the 90th
053since they'll have a framework in place if there's some really egregious things that don't look great for public education as far as the accountability system and the assessment as the assessment is related um that they're willing to work with us. They're willing to to listen to us and go through the process. So, uh apparently we're going to launch the plane, launch the rocket and build it while we're in the air. So, not being critical about that. It's just awfully concerning right now that that we're in a hurry to get this done because we said we were going to do it when we had opportunity to do it in the la the last session had a good plan in place but we couldn't agree to it. So that's one thing. The other thing we just want
054them to come home from from the sessions. Let let's let's come home because they're staying in Austin, Texas. Today, House members heard and passed HB17, which requires districts to send a notice via mail to every property owner in the district regarding proposed budgets and tax rates. In addition to the already required postings in publications and the district website, the bill does not provide funding for the cost of the mail, and I think we've already projected ours upwards of 70 to $75,000 in mailing costs annually for that. >> Good. So, they need to come home and and they're overthinking some stuff. I mean, there was already poorly written bills from the last session that we're contending with on a daily basis. I'm not going to talk about the cell phone bill, but we're there and we're
055trying to implement that. But the longer they stay down there, the more the user side of things becomes a little bit more difficult. We are not anti-information to our taxpayers at all. That right there is an example that of why they need to come home. Um, so that's my legislative update and I'm sticking to it and that's all I have to say. Anybody have any comments or questions for me in regard to that? >> Did you say that was a house bill? >> Yes. >> 17, sir. Yep. >> Okay. Future business. will have a board workshop in regular meeting and we're going to go back into executive session, but we won't have any information coming out of [Music]