001ISD Foundation annual report. We have great partners in Tyler ISD and our surrounding communities that support the educational mission of our school system of successful school outcomes. and the foundation is here to provide their annual report that shows all the great things that they're doing in support of our teachers and our students. Miss Far, thank you. This is perfect. All right. So, we'll get into it. So, the mission of the Tyler ISD Foundation, um, we are the philanthropic partner of Tyler, providing resources that inspire learning, enrich teaching, and enhance opportunities for our students through exemplary programs. Simply put, we seek funds throughout our community and we grant those funds in impactful ways. Some of those ways that we grant out those funds um are through district events and programs, scholarship night, night of shining stars,
002professional development grants, emergency grants, and what most of you guys are probably familiar with is grants for great ideas during grant patrol. This year to date, which is up until June 1st, our fiscal year will end August 31st, we have raised a total revenue of $449,689. So very excited about that. That's one of our um highest grossing years at this point to date. We have um increased our corporate sponsor giving by 25.8%. that is now our largest pool um which was a goal of our board and myself. We've also increased our individual donor giving by 114.39% which was also a huge goal. And so as you kind of look here at this slice of pie, you'll notice that um the other parts while they contribute largely to what we are able to do, um we've
003always wanted to make sure that one, we were not dependent or relying on our employee giving campaign nor our endowment funds to kind of feed the um activities that we do each year. And then we just manage scholarships um and those investments and then grant writing that I do. So um so far so good gifts to Tyler ISD this past school year. Um we have gifted um a little over $211,000 which is a 30.26% increase in support over last year. Um, so far this is tracking to be our largest year of giving um to the district. And those funds break down as such shown here. $7,000 in professional development and emergency grants. Um, district programs and events, $17,841. Scholarships, we awarded $64,500 this year. Um, teacher appreciation and support. Um, so far that's $6,665. that
004will round out to be a little closer to $20,000. Um, grants for great ideas, a little more than $115,000 has went out this year. Any questions on any of those? Good deal. And what that kind of breaks down to a little bit more, um, that grants for great ideas was 35 grants across 16 campuses plus the transportation department. Um and we actually gave out $100,000. Um that additional 15,000 plus came in as we reached out to community partners to help um fund finish funding grants and so writing grants or partnering with a campus to get the remaining funds for um their campus beyond what we funded through grants for good ideas. So that's what you see there. um special grants, an emergency grant at BIR, a special campus grant at um Hubard as well. Um
005welcomed more than 150 newly hired teachers to our um during our annual new teach and that will come up in July. Um as I said, the 29 student scholarships makes up that $64,000. The $500 was a separate scholarship that came in from an outside partner that's not established as a scholarship. Um, but they are a partner of ours. So, we're able to take that in and grant it back out to the student and families. Celebrated 42 graduating seniors and 35 distinguished educators through Night of Shining Stars. And this year um through a collaborative partnership with the district health services um as well as our counseling and guiding program we were able to establish the Tyler ICD Foundation care closets across six campuses. We'll be including a seventh campus uh at Early College this year. Thus
006far just during April 1st to May 23rd, we provided 278 weekend meal kits and assisted 124 student with clothing and hygiene products through that initiative. Are there any questions on any of that? Great. This is our um financial look over the past five years that we have had here. Um as you can see, we continue to have an increase um throughout the years from this actually is a official snapshot of the time from when I started um on the foundation board or on the foundation as the executive director to now. And so we've continued to see um an increase continue to go up from the beginning to now we've had a 30.26% increase in our assets um and growth. So very proud of that. And so far our overall impact, we've officially passed that threshold
007as I told you guys last time I was here that I was hoping we would do. Since our creation in 1990, so super excited. This year we'll be celebrating 35 years um of supporting and partnering with Tyler ISD. We have now gifted over $4 million to Tyler ISD. So, thank you so much. Thank you. Any comments or questions? I'll make a couple quick comments. Um, first appreciate all the work that you guys do. Susette, and if you want to quickly recognize the guys that are here. Yes, we have our board president, um, Courtney Berles, our VP of programs, Shannon Franen, and our VP of development, Chris Hazelip. And I see Alva back there, too. Oh, um, oh, and sorry, and our VP of marketing events, Elva Estrada. Yeah, thanks for coming, guys. Um the other
008thing I wanted to do just quickly is um I wanted to inform my colleagues that um the foundation board receives reporting on a lot of giving and a couple of those groups that um the reports are show is the foundation board giving um administration's giving and this board's giving to the foundation and usually we are outpaced by the other two groups. So I want to encourage my colleagues to um check out the foundation and you do what you can if you can. Thank you Erin. Anybody else? Uh I Susette I just you do you have done such a great job with this the foundation and everything you do and all the activities and you've increased it so much. I love it. I remember Junior League of Tyler I guess when I was president we started
009Care Closet. Yes. And we were in one school. Yeah. and we had one little closet and um that's grown so much and so it's it's awesome and I love what what you guys are doing with that to help. So just uh keep up the good work. Just awesome job. Thank you. Yes, we appreciate everything that you do and I know the teachers love it. I was when I taught I was recipient of the foundation grant and so it's an awesome asset to your classroom and we will try to give more won't we to help with this situation. Um, and so we're just putting it out there in the public so you guys will know that we appreciate all that you do for Tyler ASD. Thank you. Thank you. It's my annual statement of I remember
010when uh nearly a dozen years ago now that it was going to be my recommendation to this board to dissolve the foundation because it was circling the drain and it took uh some former board members. Some of y'all were may have been around the board, maybe not yet. Um that that rallied and did some of the administrative task on their own. Uh Debbie Matuchi, Tab Bell, some of those folks that really did do more than they should have done as a governing board. That never happens up here, but it it they had to do it there to salvage the great thing that the doctor uh this room the guy that this room is named after started on behalf of Tyler ISD, Dr. Jack Davidson. So, um congratulations to where y'all are now. Continue to make
011those improvements and and uh and provide what's best for our kids. But thank y'all for what you do and and the it's been a it's been a journey and y'all are in such good shape right now. Uh so congratulations on that. Continue the the great work. Thank you DMC. Thank you. Thank you. Budget proposal for 202526 school year already. Already well here we are just a day fresh of it actually becoming state law. And um we have with us today our CFO Casey Russell. It's good to have Miss Russell back. She will provide some commentary as needed. I I'll roll through this uh actually if that's okay, Casey, since you're just like only back on the job for like two days or something like that. We also have in the back of the room quietly
012our comproller who has been serving as interim business manager in the development of our budget uh as as we're going here. So, we're going to go ahead and get into that. We'll go with slide one. Uh property values, we always provide you an update on that. There's been a 10.3% increase initially and then by the time the final values get played out, you're going to look at a one or two point 2% decrease on final value values after they go back in and tweak some of the things um including some of the appeals of those valuations. I don't know about y'all, but my property value went up this time and that is part of the the Quit shaking your head, Dr. Ward. um that is part of the game uh that we call school finance
013and y'all are about to head off to some board training or or have some opportunity at board training. If y'all want to have deep dives into that, please find us find a uh a training to to attend so that you can become more familiar with the school finance dance that we are going through right now. There is a proposal to increase homestead exemption from 100k to $140,000. Uh that means the the first $140,000 on your on your uh uh property actually gets exempt from tax taxation. There's a whole big game of that as well. Go next slide. our projected increases. Again, this all comes from the Texas Association of School Business Officials, and we'll continue to work with them throughout the um next couple of months in trying to firm up some of our uh
014information and data so that we can get an accurate uh reflection of what House Bill 2 actually means for us. That was just signed into law. with the projected increase of 7.7 million combined uh for property taxes and state funding to Tyler ISD. The increase includes, and we'll talk a little bit more about this in our legislative update, 2500 uh dollars for teachers with from three to four years experience and for those with five or more years experience, $5,000 increase. increase also includes the new um aotment for basic costs, the ABC, which is uh the basic allotment to fund raises for other staff and for for uh for for basic fixed costs such as utilities, transportation, insurance. We'll talk about the negotiations that resulted in that here in a minute. Increase in school safety aotment
015of about $635,000 to Tyler ISD. That's an incredible increase there. Now, who's here today for safety and security? Are they even in in the building or in the room? Yeah, Mills, this doesn't mean you get 635 million or excuse me, thousand added to your budget, sir. Uh so, make sure that you talk to Chief Wsworth about that as well. We have been all in in Tyler ISD for since 2019 and we have done a lot on our uh um on our M side to fund that. Right. comproller and and so that 635 is just going to help us maybe carve out some some uh some room inside of what we're already spending, but also keep up to date on some compensation increases. Uh if you think about the 40 or so individuals that we have
016in our safety and security and toler police department, guess what also pays for them to maybe cover games and cover and and and cover events and to make sure that we have our safety and security uh not just during our school day but after school hours. Well, that's 6:35. So, it's not like we're going to go out and buy a bunch of widgets and gadgets to for safety and security on this. So I want to be very clear about that with with mills in the room. Next slide. Here's our cost for teacher raises under proposed expenditures. That 7.7 is going to go about 5 a.5 million of it's going to go to mandated teacher raises. Okay. Um the allotment from the states 4.5 million. It includes an increase in the base salary and a raise
017for teachers with one to two years. We already talked about that. That are not state funded. So, some of the the rules and interpretations of of law are going to actually yes, you're going to have to dig into some of your your uh your other uh revenue streams for for raises as well. Other employees were the proposed expenditure is going to be a 5% raise of mid of midpoint for clerical and the manual trades. That'll cost us about a million dollars and a 3% raise of midpoint for professionals about threequarters of a million. Uh total cost for raises in Tyler ISD is going to be about 7.25 million which consumes pretty much all of the increase. Here's some other factors. High water mark of enrollment. I know there's been a lot of rhetoric around we're
018losing enrollment, but we're not. Um we actually had the high water mark of enrollment for the first time ever in in the history of Tyler. We had 18,750 students. Uh, pretty incredible. And that was a surprise to us. We didn't really anticipate that. We don't really have any way of knowing that that's happening. We're not a fast growth district. Um, but we we uh 80% of that enrollment growth actually came from public school systems in Texas located outside of Smith County. So, we we did get some private school kids back. We got some charter school kids back, maybe a homeschool kid or two. But this indicates that people are moving to Smith County and to Tyler and that they chose uh public education as their uh as their vehicle and Tyler ISD was the lucky
019one this year. So I don't know if it's going to work the same way this coming year before we can start calling it a trend. We probably need about five years of that 750 kid growth that we saw last year before we start saying that we can really count on that as a budgetary as a revenue in my opinion. Um, another factor, this is going to go down. Our SHARS program were getting out of charge because of the uh, for one, the feds uh, came back and I don't want to call it sued the state, but they wrote this the state a bill about chars and and MAC. This is when you provide health care services to to uh, severe and profound students. So, if you've got a kid maybe with a a catheter in,
020you actually go and do that. your staff goes in and change changes that catheter and um we're actually reimbursed from the feds in the state. Well, they've changed a lot of the rule making on that and have actually going to cut back a lot of the funding that that we used to be eligible for and um we're still going to have to do that just because we're not we're going to opt out of it. But the time and effort that it takes for our campuses and our staff to do this is along with the decrease in the funding and how and what they're going to fund us to doing uh is is going to be a wash for us as far as participation goes. This last bullet we've been very proud of. I had a
021pretty ambitious goal at the start of this. I think upwards of the sky is falling55 to$10 million of trying to lean up around our school district and we still got some places we can lean up on but our efficiencies resulting upwards of $2 million as well. Um this is going to leave room for us to absorb some basic cross increases and prepare for for next year's budget because this bienium every time the legislature meets and and and every time we do a budget it's not just for this coming year. We also have to prepare for what happens the following year along with the following five years and the following decade because some of the the law actually has some of the uh I think this aotment for basic cost expiring after uh the second year
022of the bienium. In other words, this is not a thing that's going to be built into baked into law every time. They're going to have to discuss this again in the 90th legislature. And we just wrapped this one up. I can't wait. So, there's that. Next, there's your budget presentation. Any comments or questions? So, just one. So, on since we're flat next year, that that's going to be pretty tough for us to get phrases two years in a row, I would I would assume. Or or would What does that look like? And what what do we typically do? Are we typically doing raises every other year? I've been here two years and I can't even remember if we did raises last year, but I know we did my first year, but every year. And they
023and they come in and they come in different shapes and sizes. Um, obviously it could be through the a conservative approach of a stipen which you're not married to every year or actually something that's actually baked in. And so we have been consistent over the last I think believe I believe this will be the 13th year uh consecutive that we have provided some type of compensation boost to the most most classification of employees. I think 13 years ago you didn't do anything on the administrative end but I do believe this 12th budget that I will be responsible for all will receive some type of boost for next year or for the year after. Um, that's why we're kind of going through some of this efficiency uh project that we're going through so that we can
024carve out some money so that we can still be competitive in some way, shape, or form. Okay. Thank you. Uh, Dr. Harford, I want to say that I I know leaning up our district is not an easy thing to do, and I know that um we've talked about this for a while, not knowing what the legislature was going to do. So, I just appreciate the time and effort y'all took to really do that and to think about our teachers who we didn't know what we were how we were going to give them a raise, but we know we wanted to. So, uh thank y'all for everybody that was a part of that to um make that 2 million, you know, happen for them. Thank you. Um you know, we've got approximately, let's just a nice
025round number, 1,250 teachers. So, if you're going to give all of them, y'all are smart. If you're going to give all of them a $1,000 raise, we're going to deal with whole numbers here. It cost the district $1.25 million to be able to do so. So, we we were going to be able to do that and we were always going to start out with our classroom teachers and thankfully the state did the right thing and came through and try to make up for some lost time. So, this cushion was there just in case. But just so that the public knows and that y'all know what that usually costs for us about just 1 12250 times a,000 is about 1.25 million. And and so just think when you think of those numbers about what it's going
026to take to do things down the road. Um you know right sizing our school system is is important. And we've done a lot of that without duress and with some duress over the last dozen years or so. Remember, we used to have a six middle school feeder pattern and we're down to a four plus. I call the plus being Birdwool and Caldwell, but we're down to four. And a lot of those things have been done for academic reasons, which we'll get into that in the in the summer about some of the success we have, especially at Moore, which absorbed 90% of the Dogen feeder pattern, which had been had a chronic low performance over 30 years, 40 years. Uh we're going to be a B over there again. So, it can be done. Academic success
027can be done. At the same time, you're trying to write right rightsize your school system. So, I appreciate you recognizing that. We'll continue to try to do that as well over the next couple of years. I I'd like to ditto that. I think that we made some difficult changes. I don't know if everybody agree with all the changes, but I think it's going to be very effective. I think that we put some people in places that will be very beneficial for the district. Uh I think we have some good things coming forth going forth. Uh I it's always difficult when when you have to make those decisions in downsizing or re rearranging. Uh I think the board has been pretty pleased with the direction that we're going in regards to what we want to accomplish
028with the district. So I I compliment you on that. I know it's a difficult task, but I think it it was a job well done. Thank you. um as we embark on Lonear governance uh this coming Monday and Tuesday. Congratulations y'all. Um you know it is about outcomes and that's you're going to hear that drilled into you over and over and over. Some of us have been through this before, right Gina? Uh Rojo, Mr. Martinez, Mr. Bergfeld. Um and that is the priority and taking care of teachers was the priority in this project. Um, but this board of managers, the governance team has so much more to deal with in regard to the management of this school district that while our outcomes are a priority, y'all got to take care of the taxpayers dollars and
029their facilities. And y'all are doing a good job at that, too. So, back at at y'all for saying the good things administratively and about our about our staff, including our teachers. U, but back at this board for being courageous enough to do the right thing whenever it needs to be done. All right, we thank you for those wonderful comments and I know the teachers appreciate it as well as everyone else. Next to continuous improvement student outcomes gifted and talented update. Speaking of uh Raina Patton and Dr. Cassandra Chapa are going to come up here and provide a as part of your board monitoring calendar a presentation is it's also state law as well. So, it's not only that we we care enough about it to to do this appropriately and to have a presentation here.
030So, we're going to let them give you your annual gifted and talented update. Hello, President Atkins, Dr. Crawford, board of trustees. I'm fortunate enough to have an opportunity to be able to start my journey as I support gifted and talented. But I'm going to hand it over to Miss Raina Patton who uh looks over our gifted and talented and has been working tirelessly this year uh to make some improvements. So, I'm excited for her to get to share that with y'all. Good morning, board. Dr. Crawford, this presentation will serve as your annual update as required by the state plan for gifted and talented. The state defines a gifted and talented student as a child or youth who performs at or shows a potential for performing at a remarkably high level of accom accomplishment when compared
031to others of the same age group, experience or environment and who exhibits high performance capability in an intellectual, creative, artistic. possesses an unusual capacity for leadership or excels in a specific academic field. This state definition of gifted is the center around all the work that we do for the gifted learner throughout the respected domains. Here are the six domains that we continuously evaluate throughout the year. The state plan is formatted to accomplish standards for accountability while recognizing exemplary actions. We've defined success by meeting accountability and/or exemplary standards defined by the state plan. As I go through each domain, I'll highlight our strengths and the areas of focus. The first domain update is fidelity of services. We define fidelity as the intent by which our GT program is implemented as intended. Our develop our department consistently
032meets to collaborate and assess the effectiveness of the needs of students and campuses for GT services with feedback from campus staff and families. We've continued focus on equitable instructional delivery, differentiation for student growth and success, student engagement, as well as artifacts of learning and student products exhibited during GT awareness week and the endofear expo showcase. Our GT teachers are assigned to multiple campuses across the district, ensuring equitable instruction for both high and low need campuses. The state plan states exemplary standards are recognized in student identification by providing assessment opportunities that are made available at least once a year at the elementary level. I truly believe this is one of our great strengths with our program. As we previously had a short um referral window that was offered in the fall, testing occurred once a year
033in either January or February and then students then had to wait the following year to receive any services. This has since changed. We now have a referral window that begins September 1st, ends March 31st, and we have um at least four not only assessment dates but also placement. So our students are able to be placed immediately into services and do not have to wait till the following year to promote equity identification efforts expanded this year. In addition to staff and parent referrals in first kindergarten 1, third through fifth, all second grade students were given the opportunity to complete the KOAP pre-screener followed by full testing for potential GT candidates. This approach provides the district with encampus norming data aligned to the state's gifted definition. We also I presented last year about a pilot program um
034kindergarten planned learning experiences. This now finished its second year focused on early identification at under identified and high need campuses. The program expanded from six to eight campuses. We also extended this to um provide first grade planned learning experiences at three sites this year. We saw notable growth and GT identification at Bell, Clarkson, and ORE. Following the success, plan learning experiences will now be implemented at all campuses with 5% or below GT identification, aiming to create equitable learning experience and readiness for GT screening. Some campuses still show lower representation. We're collaborating with principles to implement planned learning experiences, provide staff development on identification. Personalized training will be offered to help increase purposeful referrals that align to each campus's needs. This is a representation of elementary GT population by We're excited to share that our identification
035of African-American students in the gifted and talented program has increased by nearly 2% compared to last year. An encouraging shift after several years of stagnation. This progress means more African-American students are now receiving the GT services they deserve. While the increase is modest, it represents an important step forward in our efforts towards greater equity through the implementation of campus level planned learning experiences, targeted professional development for staff on GT identification and in-class observations by GT teachers. We um are actively creating pathways to ensure all students have access to opportunities that reflect their potential. We're optimistic about continuing this momentum and moving closer to a truly representative GT population across the district. Tyler SD meets exemplary standards in regard to service design. Services for gifted and talented students are comprehensive, structured, sequenced, and appropriately challenging, including
036options in four foundational curricular areas, as well as arts, leadership, creativity, and career and technology career uh education. We will continue to serve students that may only be identified as gifted in one area. and our new core plus service model, something that was not previously um implemented until last year. These students who would have not been previously identified can now receive GT services that continue to meet their academic needs, providing weekly GT services in a shorter service time with an increase in our emergent bilingual and dual language learners. Two years ago, we were able to hire our first bilingual GT teacher. She delivers content in both English and Spanish, and students are able to respond and create in their primary language. We are working on recruitment to provide exceptional bilingual and language support to all
037of our emergent bilingual and support students with their academic language in English. We currently provide professional learning for GT teachers in ESL and language acquisition. GT teachers engage in regularly scheduled PLC's to collaborate, monitor, and adjust curriculum and rigor based on student needs. Each classroom across the district has access to and provided with the same activities and TE-based content. Our staff conducts continuous progress monitoring and meets on each student at least twice a year to determine at the appropriate services placement and supports. In addition to weekly GT class components of brain building, critical thinking, and STEM opportunities, students complete a major project from the Texas Performance Standards Project. These projects are better known as TPSPs and are available K through 12 and comprise of a set of performance standards, curricula, and assessments for differentiation instruction
038to deepen academic learning. TPSP is now recognized as the primary tool for assessing effectiveness of gifted and talented as of September 24. And it is also the first in the nation to have we are the first in the nation to have this type of assessment tool to guide GT services. We will continue to monitor and adjust grade level teaks aligned with exemplar artifacts of learning as students engage in research projects design and represent and presentations culminating in a campus showcase. We'll also continue GT staff collaboration to ensure consistent and equitable project lessons and curriculum are provided in a rigorous manner. Domain domain of professional development. Tyler ISD teachers who provide instruction and services that are a part of the district's defined GT services receive a minimum of six hours of annual professional learning. These teachers
039include gen ed core subject area teachers, sped and master teachers. We continue to increase training compliance rates by providing multiple formats of professional learning opportunities to satisfied state required training. Overall, GT required training has seen a significant compliance rate improvement over the past two years. In May of 2023, we had a compliance rate of 43%. Last year, I was able to inform you we had an increase to a 70% compliance rate. And as of the end of May, we had a 79% compliance rate. District compliance for teachers obtaining their annual six-hour update on and or 30-hour foundations training is monitored by campus principles as well as myself. Our department also provides resources for administrators and counselors to receive their training as well as um as required by the state of Texas. Our intent is to
040increase compliance for all teachers in need of 30-hour foundations. We have focused this goal by contracting with region 10 to provide both in-person and asynchronous training. Community and family involvement. GT teachers continue to work with campus administration to showcase student products during campus events for family and community engagement. This includes academic and cultural events at the campus level. This also can count towards title one events. In the spring during the GT awareness week, GT students highlighted various GT activities conducted at the campus level and GT expose were held the first week of May and highlighted student Texas performance standard projects or otherwise known as TPSPs. This year, we began a quarterly district-wide family newsletter to connect GT families with classroom learning as well as GT resources. On September 16th, we will host a district-wide information
041event at the CTC to assist parents in the referral screening process. As well as April 7th, we will hold a district GT family night focused on literacy and STEM. Some program highlights do need to make a correction. um the 30% of kindergarten students who participated in and were referred for testing qualified for GT services. This was a meaningful collaboration between GT teachers and classroom teachers where PLE's were conducted. Universal screening occurred throughout the district for all second grade, providing valuable information for teachers and families. We enhanced instructional quality and academic rigor across the district by restructuring teacher assignments to provide targeted support to both high need and low campuses. We strengthened family and community partnerships by providing increased communication and resources. And this is uh some of our smiley faces from our GT Expo. They
042love to, you know, they've worked really hard and they're very proud of the projects that they have created. And here highlights a few of the expose that were conducted. This concludes the annual update and board presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. Any comments, questions? Well, I'm I'm very pleased to see the number of African-Americans increase by 2%. Uh I I I still think that well I know it should be better and I'm hoping that maybe somehow we they're in the crack somewhere. We're not finding them. But I really appreciate the effort that you've done to improve that amount. Uh I think that sometime our kids uh don't perform at the level we expect them to or they're capable of doing simply because they haven't been encouraged. So I I think
043the gifted and talent testing helps in that aspect to identify some of those kids that that don't have that encouragement from from home unfortunately. But I do appreciate the effort that you've done in in increasing the number that's going into the programs. Thank you. and we'll continue to work hard to identify our students. Real quick, board, we've come a long way from the old Gary model, which was cool. Uh but but um remember how we used to send kids to Gary for half a day. Yeah. Yeah. And then the kids that stayed on the comprehensive campus reviewed the stuff from the four previous days of instruction. I don't think there was a lot of equity in that either just to stop what we were doing on on comprehensive campuses just so the kids could go
044to Gary and we didn't want them to miss out. So, we're more um agile doing this at the campus level and um there's a lot of great things prek through 12 that are occurring because our community has backed us on some of these facility initiatives. If you think about early college, you think about the career tech center, um and then all the great things in the design of our high schools to be able to serve GT kids. Just think about we didn't have early college and we didn't have the modern facilities at Legacy and Tyler High to be able to provide uh cool experiences for GT kids. So by the time they got through with the Gary experience, what were we really doing at the absolutely nothing absolutely nothing? It felt like so in saying
045that uh we've come a long way and certainly appreciate the backing of this board and Ra you've done a great job. You're very passionate and meticulous about this. We appreciate that, Miss Pat. All right. My child was a Gary. Um Tennessee. So, it's a cool program. So, they like writing on the bus. They Yes. So, thank you so much for your presentation. We appreciate it. Okay. Next, we have CLI, MClass, and I ready. You ready? Yes. So, we get to just roll on into this uh next part. And I'm really excited about what we're going to look at today um as we present to you our endofear diagnostic data. So we're going to start off with CLI and I know it wasn't too long ago that Miss Dykeman was up here uh sharing that uh
046middle of year uh but now we're we're back at it and we're ready to talk about how our prek and Head Start students uh did. Again, for those watching um and those that are unfamiliar, this is administered three times uh a year to our prek and head start students. At the beginning of year, we may have some individuals that were three um who are ending the year at four and it assesses a variety of skills uh including reading and math and social and emotional measures. This is measured one-on-one with the teacher with some elements being via a computer screen or an iPad tablet in which a teacher is showing them some pictures and then also some subjective rubric uh that is filled out by the teacher. So here we will see the end ofear results
047from beginning to end of year of students who were performing at benchmark. So the reading components include rapid letter naming, rapid vocabulary, funological awareness and early writing and then we have a math component and the social emotional component. So as we can see we see some great gains. Uh these are very comparable to what we might see in the past. One thing I do want to note about this uh slide that I I think is very relevant is the particular cohort that we started with is one of the lowest cohorts we have seen in the past four years. So when we see a difference of maybe 16%. This is not necessarily incremental growth. Uh th this is a developmental growth. And so seeing 60% in early writing is quite a success for some of these
048students. Um again the um what you're seeing here we see rapid vocabulary at plus 6%. Again this is done on a benchmark. So it's not necessarily linear growth but it's whether or not they are hitting uh that benchmark. We have actually set the benchmark higher which we've discussed earlier this school year to really prepare for our kindergarten readiness that aligns with MClass um which is higher than what the CLI normative data might show. These tests are also done in English and Spanish. So it does include our Hispanic students. Here you will see uh the data broken down by the type of programs we offer with tuition, non-tuition and head start. Uh again we see some extreme growth. There may be areas of stagnation but again this is not true growth. Uh so I repeat that
049especially with that rapid vocabulary in um prek tuition. You know that's not saying that students are not growing. What it's saying is that they met benchmark for those appropriate time periods. Uh where we see the social and emotional, this is actually our strongest performance at end of year that we have seen uh in the past four years. Uh typically what we saw last year was a 10% decline um in these rubrics. But here we we are seeing more of a stagnation which is great. Um, also it it's meaning that our teachers are understanding the rubric better on how they can clearly understand students social and emotional development. And then we also see these great increases in early writing which we have not seen in the past. And I want to attribute that to the work
050that um our assessments department and uh Miss Holland and Miss Patton have done to create a stronger early rubric um for our teachers so that it really gives them appropriate benchmarks to be monitoring throughout the year. So when they fill out this rubric at the end of the year, it's a little bit truer to what our students are developing. And then we have um our data by demographic. So, we have our African-American, Hispanic, and white. Again, I do want to put in for the Hispanic students, that does include any that are uh Spanish speaking and possibly non-speaking, but are in one of our programs. Um, and so again, noting some of the wonderful strengths that we see in funological awareness and what we're seeing in rapid letter naming. That too is also by design. We
051were very intentional in embedding our phonics curriculum with our prek and head start classrooms. And I'll attribute that to the work of our reading department. I know we have our coordinator, uh, Miss Gillespie in the back and her team, but they were really working on supporting teachers and making sure we were embedding purposeful time with curriculum that aligns with what they'll see in kindergarten. It was a struggle for our teachers this year to get used to um implementing a rigorous phonics curriculum. So I know that it it took a moment for us to get with that. We also implemented some progress monitoring uh that with more intentionality based off their CLI waves. Again, that level of data reading and data analysis was new for some of our teachers, but I think as we're moving forward,
052we're going to be prepared for year two um and really helping us build that growth. I do before going on to MClass, I do want to come back to this slide again to denote um the strengths of early writing that we're seeing across our program. um the amount of rapid letter meaning and funological awareness considering where we started with this cohort. Um and then I do want to denote like rapid vocabulary with the amount of intentionality that we put on writing and that funological awareness. It is likely that our rapid vocabulary did hit a stagnation. So again, this isn't saying that students aren't growing in rapid vocabulary, but it is a quite difficult test. So students are shown a picture and it could be the vocabulary word that they're looking for is penguin and the
053student says bird and so unfortunately like that's that's a zero. It could also be where they see a purse and someone might say tote. So although it is rigorous vocabulary, they might not be scored for that particular word. So although we we may not be uh excited about all the growth in all the areas, just remember it's nonlinear, it's developmental. And lastly, we had these students if we were lucky for 187 days. So with that benchmark uh being kind of lower than it has been in previous years, this is some really tremendous growth uh for where we're going in the future. And if attendance, we always say attendance is important, but if we're truly going to make some gains before we get them in kindergarten, attendance is is really important moving forward for our families
054to recognize the power that we can bring them with this opportunity. Um, I also know that y'all got some data in a really big Google sheet had a lot of numbers on it and it also had a lot of dashes on it. Um, so I had an opportunity to talk with Mr. Levers yesterday and just clarify that those dashes represent that we had less than five students in that category. So where you might see numbers in one area depending on the program that they participate in, if there were less than five, you might see a dash there. Um so we'll move on to MClass. And MClass is our um language development diagnostic for kindergarten through 2 grade. Similarly, it's done uh one-on-one with the teacher. And really, we're looking for two different things. How are
055students reaching benchmark on their reading skills according to MClass? and then how are students performing in those different reading skills in order for them to be on grade level by third grade. So here we see our cohort growth um for kindergarten first and second from beginning of year to end of year and that these percentages are are really um a great indicator of how well we've been progress monitoring from the beginning of the year data. Our teachers are provided reminders um because we know we get busy, but they are really focused on getting to those students who are well below and below grade level and making sure that they are getting progress monitored about every 10 to 15 days. And so we have seen tremendous improvements with our students who are needed that needing that
056accelerated growth. In this uh slide, you'll see the students who are at or above the benchmark um from beginning of year to end of year by demographic. And again, these these are stellar numbers, very comparable to what we've seen in the past with lots of improvements uh in in our Hispanic and our ecois. Um in our African-American, this is one of our stronger that we see in kindergarten. Uh so this is a a great baseline for them as they move forward. And then lastly, we have um this broken down by skills. Uh where you see some dashes here, the test is not grade appropriate um for kindergarten andor uh students should be passed uh those areas or tested out in those areas in second grade. Um but again, lots of green, lots of exciting things.
057I will say one of the strongest indicators for our kindergarten is the growth that we saw in decoding and word reading um as we get into first grade. And now we're moving into I Ready. So I Ready again diagnostic three times a year. This is done u via the computer. um it's assessed in a group setting um but it also aligns to a personal learning plan for students that they can also be working on throughout the school year. Our teachers also utilize this program for toolkit and supplemental instruction um as it is kind of what we use to project proficiency on STAR. And so here you will see our cohort growth data. So the numbers here represent the percent of students that made at least one full year worth of progress according to the diagnostic.
058So we're saying that 66% of students de in kindergarten demonstrated a year's worth of growth in their skills from beginning of year to end of year in reading. Um so these are very um indicative of the work that we're learning about I Ready how to motivate students and even getting up into sixth, seventh and eighth grade. Although we see that stagnation, we also know the increased rigor that students are seeing at that time and we also know that motivation is a struggle for our middle school students. But this is some of our strongest performance in math that we've seen um in the past couple of years. Here we see our growth by demographic. And so this is those that made at least a full year worth of progress um through the program for reading and
059math by demographic. So just like I've said with that kindergarten student, they met their year's progress. It also is not indicating those that were just right there below the mark that I sets for each student and it doesn't designate the number of students um that got two years or more worth of growth uh which is impressive. So we we have a lot of great things happening. One personal celebration I do want to throw out uh for a campus that I supported a lot of is or so um although it may not be shown here on this growth the number of students that we've gone from one uh to two grade levels below into that approaches phase at benchmark although it may not be represented as a year's worth of growth they saw extreme improvement in
060their kinder and second graders of almost a hundred 12 students no longer being in that tier three and into that that green and red. So although not every one of those students is like maybe represented in this percentage, we are definitely moving the bar and making sure that we're ending the year with students who are less behind than when they started the year. In this slide, um it's our comparison data to our state um and comparison districts that also use I Ready. The percentages here could represent depending on the subject level, well this is for reading, but depending on the grade level, um it could range anywhere from a comparison of 9,000 students to almost 80,000 students. So, it's a wide range, but this um demonstrating these percentages of differences with our state and comparison
061districts. We're really hoping it's also going to be indicative of what you see towards the end of the month uh with STAR. So, we um this is very promising for us. Our our campuses ended on a really great note. I will say one thing that we are now better prepared to do is use using this data to start the year off attacking those small groups right away. Um so as we've progressed into progress monitoring throughout the year I think we're now getting to a place where our principles can read this data really design master schedules that we're not waiting six weeks until after school starts after we get that beginning of year data. We're really starting the year running. So, this is uh really promising for us. Hey, wouldn't it be cool if the state
062did a throughear testing model like this? Okay, there you go. I promise that wasn't planned. Um so, uh these are some newer graphs that we haven't shown in the past, but I I think to uh Dr. Crawford's point um if if we were using the data that we've got, what does that look like on our progress measures our measures as we use in our CIPs and the goal line for our district and knowing where we were in 2122 with a completely different STAR test uh where we were in 22 23 really relying on Renaissance and MAP data. um what you see here for our kindergarten students projection, our first grade student projection, and our second grade student projection um is really stellar. We're we're really learning. I I think I explain it to uh my
063family members and and my friends that are not in Tyler, like we don't play school here. Um, we're we're really trying to make sure that our our students are getting the skills that they need to to support our community and and to have opportunities for themselves. And then lastly, just as we did through the reading, we have our math comparison. Like this math has been a difficult part uh for us in the past and we are really uh up in our game. um she may not be in here, but um Michelle Gandandy, our our math coordinator, and her team, they are really working to make sure that our curriculum is set up to where teachers are not getting to choose what they're teaching, but they're meeting the expectation of the skill and they're utilizing tools
064like I Ready in order to support our students. Um, so I know even with our middle schools, it's not exactly where we'd like it to be, but seeing some positive numbers in that seventh grade math, that's that's promising. And even more so, these progress measure charts um are are showing some great trajectory for our kinder and first grade. I think in in second grade, we're seeing where we we need to maybe address some gaps that um they didn't uh get in their kindergarten and first grade experience, but this is a really great starting off place for them as they go into third grade uh to attack that first star. So, um that is my update. Do we have any questions or miss? Yes. So, on sorry on the uh projected scores you had. We don't
065have uh how th those will play out just yet, right? I mean, this is what the program is projecting our passing rate because I know last year we had some issues and maybe it was math. I can't remember um where they came back in and reworked it. So, just kind of curious, do you think this uh these scores are on on on par with how we'll actually excuse me, how our students will actually perform this year? Yes, I would say that these um these are taken from our performance on the um on the diagnostic, but these will be a pretty clear representation of of what we expect. Also note that these are kinder first and second um you know they're looking towards the future. But I would say that what we see in our state
066in comparison is a is going to be a pretty clear picture of of what to expect in the next couple of weeks. Thank you. Disclaimer, we spent a lot of time talking about assessment over the last five months and trying to get House Bill 4 across the line. And I'm not going to be a skeptic or a pessimist about the direction of your questioning, but being able to give you an answer of has I already gotten their stuff fixed to where we can prognosticate better is what you're really asking. Is it worth the money we're spending? Well, worth the money we're spending. We got to have something because it's it's it's it's good to have ongoing three-year assessment to where we know our kids are at. Mhm. So, we are spending money. We're going to
067spend money on whether it be MAP or NW Renaissance or whatever we've been using. Um, but but the product that we use, we want it to be statistically reliable. Uh, and so, Dr. Gropel, you want to chime in on that? Yeah, it would help to turn it on. Or have batteries in it? It says it's on. Working batteries. There it is. There it is. Look at that. Um, yes. In in my conversations uh with with what we've seen in with I Ready, is there uh a data better aligned than what they saw last year specifically in math? We we believe so. Um, as we look at how our students are performing um having our preliminary results back align um with with what we've seen uh throughout the year on on our diagnostic. You know, the
068other component that goes into uh I Ready that that hasn't been talked about is the the personalized learning plans that each kid gets that teachers then have the ability um to to utilize as a supplement in their in their instructional plan um to to coincide with with student performance. But I think to your question, Mr. leverage. Um we feel we feel that what we've seen preliminary data um from from our our our K through eight students on their their performance on STAR much better aligns to what we've seen all year uh on our I Ready diagnostics. So your 38 data that's trickled in is similar to what you're seeing on this. Yes. Very very much so. There you go. I was saying not to to be an endorsement but um Curriculum Associates takes our feedback
069um very much so and I think I bet they do. Yeah. And I I think one thing in working with other competitors I would say is they do take that feedback and they also are interested in being the the best and the most reliable. So I I think what we're seeing this year is uh an enhancement to what we've seen in previous years. Well, there's no uh, you know, assessment's a big game. Um, and there's lots of companies, um, and and they're all buying to be the best and and, you know, just want to make sure we've got the best product. I'm not an I Ready hater or anything, just, you know, but um, just want to make sure that that we're getting good data back so that the teachers can make the best decisions
070and and, you know, yeah, love those supplemental lessons, too, right? You know, none of our students know that if if they just do poorly on the first assessment, they get easy assignments, right? They they haven't figured that out, have they? That's not how it works. Okay. That's not how it works. All right. Thank you. Uh I I'm very pleased to see all the green on this instead of all the red. You know, we've improved significantly on that. Uh but I'm I'm still looking at social emotional, and that's always been an area that we had problems with. Uh and early writing. Could you explain exact kind of what the teachers do in those testing scenarios so I have a better understanding of what they're evaluating for those kids? Yes. So they are provided a list of
071behaviors and it's it's very much uh for the social and emotional it's like a survey. So it is uh consistently sometimes with um never and the rubric doesn't change throughout beginning of year, middle of year, end of year. So it could be the student can follow directions without adult assistance. Well, you know, that could as the year progresses, dynamics change. um you you behaviors sometimes change as students become more comfortable. So that's why our our team is working on a more specific what teacher will see what student will be doing type of of rubric for our teachers so that they can better understand that consistently in September may not be the same as consistently in April. So our team our team is developing that similarly to what we've seen with early writing. Can a student
072write their name with or without assistance? Can a student hold the pencil in their dominant hand with or without assistance? Does a student draw p or attempt to write left to right, right to left, like very very do they scribble? Do they make the the right directions? So, it it's a very generic uh document that teachers are filling out in which our teams are doing their due diligence to really identify the behaviors, walk our teachers through that, more importantly, walk our aids through that as well so that they can also provide clear data for our for our teachers. Is there is there any guidance on just kind of a followup on making sure there's not any one time or one day bias and and that's what the that's what our rubric is trying to develop.
073Okay. Because I could see you teacher has a bad day, kid has a bad day and those those confluences of that man I'm marking that one down. Well, also what time are they what time of I mean what month are they doing this? April. They do it they do it in September and January and in April. Yeah, I'm thinking April they're like we need to go home. It's it's time for school to end your You know what I mean? And and you know I think the other the other piece that we brought up is also um the attendance. Like is this a kid that I've gotten to see every day? Is this a kid that only comes when mom and dad drop them off like or when they're not when they have something to do?
074They've got doctor's appointments so we're going to bring our kid today. you know that those types of things if if they're not there consistently then our and our teachers don't have that direction that we're hoping to provide clarity on we're not really getting the most accurate results. Yeah. I bet with the younger kids I threw this in my calculator. I bet we're getting 18 158 days of opportunity at instruction. That's an 85% attendance rate. And so the younger kids are usually sicker. Their parents are a little bit more attached to Yeah. It's a very subjective um or I would I would say our current approach has been very subjective and we're working to making it more objective without too being too objective because I think man start testing them out of the womb if we
075don't watch out. And so this provides a little bit of I think a little bit of professional discretion to teachers of the younger year kids that are in it for other than standardized testing, you know, I mean, I'm just saying so as long as we can get it professionalized and get it to where it makes sense statistically because there is that qualitative research piece of this. uh not all not all data comes from hard standardized highstakes experiences and so I think if we can figure out a way to make sure it's statistically reliable it's good it's good information for us and and the good information um we we struggle sometimes with some students being able to be in prek head start at what their future home campus would be and how great would it be
076to have a really true picture of a student that I may be inheriting uh new to my campus for my kindergarten teacher to look back and and really trust the data to make some great decisions and make their kindergarten experience better. Anyone else? Okay, thank you so very much. Thank you. Before you move on, hey, Mr. Jones, don't take any more time. give them a snapshot of where we are for high school and throughear assessment in three-year assessment. Threwyear assessment. Okay. So, right now with our CCMR data, is that um specifically what you're asking about? No, I'm talking about TK8 stick their neck on stick their neck out all the time. That's correct. to get reported on up here all the time and we all only time we ever report anything from the high schools
077because they smoke their pipes and they rub on their elbow patches is at the end of the year EOC because of TIA we're being advantageous we're actually giving more people more opportunity at teacher incentive a lotment money that is correct but we also want to improve instruction we also want to improve the learning outcomes for our students so what does that look like as far as throughyear assessment goes We're adding some assessments outside of STAR and EOC. Yes. Uh to take advantage of the opportunity with TIA, we have now added upwards of uh is it 100 more tests that we have um 130 or so tests for at the high school level that will provide those uh teachers opportunities um to to have um to to earn out of that pot of money. but more
078so it gives us an idea of uh student performance in those uh non-start tested arenas moving forward. So basically board you you're going to get some more data that's going to be 912 centric and it's going to be fun from the noise that y'all are going to get about that. Uh because we haven't done that and again we we we needed to figure out a way to make sure that TIA was open for everyone that are not non-startested subjects. So chemistry teacher, right? Would that be a good example? That'd be a great example. Chemistry. We don't we don't do an EOC for chemistry, but we have chemistry. And so, how do we know if kids are learning or not? How are we reporting that? How are we improving instruction and ultimately our outcomes so that
079they're having a better educational experience in Tyler ISD high schools? There's been a little bit of noise about it, but at the same time, I think that they're going to enjoy the opportunity at the teacher incentive aotment funds that'll be available for them. the springtime presents a lot of excitement around that when they look at their compadre getting their check. Yeah. So, it helps out. So, just wanted to give you all a little preview that that is coming to the to the higher the the excuse me, the high school grades as well. They move it to the board. Moving on. The action item we have consider approval of Head Start program information report for the 2425 school year. Any discussion? Motion. Move to accept. Second. All in favor? Any oppose? Has been moved. And so
080we go to the discussion items. We have the committees that we need to have fulfilled. The internal audit committee is Mr. Nuome and Mr. [Music] Martinez. Y'all good with that? Okay. Safety and security is Miss Harrison and Ivonne Atkins. And the Tyler ISD Foundation board is Mr. Lassa. I need to find something for Andy and Congratulations, Mr. Leverage, Mr. Bergfeld. I mean, condol sorry we couldn't find a place for y'all. I can I can There'll be a committee opportunity. Okay. Chairman of the board for the committee. Chairman of the board for the other committee. Mr. Newsome. Okay. You still are. Okay. Mr. Mr. Martinez over here in my ear whispering. I'm not doing it. So, okay, Mr. Newsome. Thank you, Miss Atkins. I appreciate it. Okay. I'll take my check after you twice. Okay. We're
081now going into executive session and we will return if we have any items. we return if we don't have it. Probably won't be very long uh for y'all if if you don't need it. I don't have much and I forgot I didn't have a legislative update today, but I prepared for it. So, I'll just save that for the regular board meeting when we come back here in a couple of weeks. So, probably do it now if you want. No, no, no. We're good. We're good. Okay. Okay.