Regular AHISD School Board Meeting February 18, 2026

001Heat. Heat. Cheers. Heat. Heat. You're going to be How are you? Good. Where are you? Good. Boys from 809. I know. I've never tightened this. Which mic should I use? I'm sorry. I should have been happy. It's too much last minute. Heat. Heat. I shouldn't do any I don't know. He's right here. >> No, he's doing other important work. >> Yeah. All right, you can get us started. Good evening. Can I please have everyone's attention? It is 7 at 6 PM on Wednesday, February 18th, 2026. And this is a duly filed and posted regular meeting of the Alma Heights Board of Trustees. Thank you all for coming. I'd like to welcome anyone listening to our live streaming broadcast. If anyone would like a recording of this meeting, we will post a link on the district

002website within 24 hours after the end of this meeting. In addition, we also post the materials being presented within 24 hours, so you can review a copy of those as well. The recordings are under the schoolboard icon at the ahisd.net website. If anyone in the audience would like to address the board tonight, we welcome your input during our citizens to be heard item on the agenda. Please fill out the yellow form by the door, read the instructions, and indicate the agenda item, if there is one, so we can introduce you at the appropriate time. So, I'm going to at this time turn it over to Dr. Crane Alfaro for delegations and recognitions. Thank you, Miss Hillbr. So, we are excited to see so many people here for the board meeting. You might be here for

003recognitions, perhaps. I guess if you're here just for recognitions and not for the whole meeting, we do ask that you all stay to the very end. I'll let you know when we're done with our recognitions. That way everybody can enjoy uh your uh your applause and celebrations of them. I do want to give a shout out to some people here on business like us. Troop 809, wave at us if you're from Troop 809. Thank you for being here badge. Uh witnessing civics in action. So for our first recognition, I like that the spotlight on excellence. I want to hand it over to our superintendent, Dr. Dana Basher. >> So I think we have pulled off a surprise. A surprise to someone who doesn't love to be surprised. Surprise to someone who is very hard to

004surprise. But we are um going to honor the February spotlight on excellence on Dr. Jenny Walker. I don't usually get the honor of doing the recognitions, but I claim this lady like I don't claim anyone else. Um, sweet Jenny Walker. Um, I was able to hire 21 years ago when I was principal at Cambridge. She was a teacher in Venezuela at the time and I hired her to come and be a third grade teacher for me at Cambridge Elementary and I've never let her out of my sight. This lady is an incredible um talent for this district. She has um given her heart and her um skills and her talent to making incredible things happen over the years that she served here. And so I know you've got some surpris I love surprising her, right?

005I love that. Um and so it just my my heart is big for this lady and the work that she does. And so sweet Yadita gave me some notes that I can read because what we're recognizing her for, you know, is is kind of legacy work. It's leadership legacy work. Jimmy has um worked for the last 5 years to ensure that our teachers were going to be compensated through the um teacher incentive aotment in a very meaningful way. if she did this work. No other um you know district across the state of Texas, a small percentage of districts offered this opportunity to every single teacher, fine arts teachers, um coaches, uh art teachers, core content teachers, and and um that's just that talks very highly about the the culture um that Judy wants to support

006and and her incredible leadership. And so we're so grateful for that. Uh we have 141 teachers, y'all, who are going to see um compensation that totals 1.4 million this year because of the work that Jimmy has done. Best about Jimmy's work is that she does it in a collaborative way. um she has worked since 2021 to assemble teachers um in in teams to give her input about this. We walked through it in a way that is unlike most districts are walking through this and so I am so incredibly proud of you and I'm so grateful for your work and your leadership in this district. Um the work you do changes lives and I'm very proud of you. OH, here with me tonight. Say a few words. >> I'll pass on a few words, but I

007will say my husband is here and my dad is here and I hate totally surprising. You'll love it. >> I love her husband and I love her father as well. have a box here of love notes for you. >> These are love notes from from staff members all across the district who appreciate the work that you did for No, I'm not kidding. I I knew that that would make you happy. Love you. Thank you. >> Congratulations, Jimmy. Sure. >> Well, uh, our next recognition actually Dr. Brcara mentioned how special our teachers are and so this is an opportunity for us to recognize our campus teachers of the year. Now, I want to let everybody know that, uh, we, you know, we've got great staff members in Elmo Heights. And so, one of the things that

008makes being a campus teacher of the year so special is that you are selected by your peers. So these are stellar teachers selecting a stellar teacher to rec represent their campus which I think makes it all the more special. So what I'm going to do is recognize each campus teacher of the year. I'll say some nice things with writing applause and then we'll uh recognize the district teacher of the year after all five have come up. So our 2026 Heights teachers of the year begins with the high school. Please come up. Emily right now. Take pictures. >> We're going to take Yeah. Take some pictures and I'm going to say nice things. So Em has actually done a ton of things at the high school. She's a student council, leadership teacher. She's teaches professional communication.

009and my favorite a culinary arts which means she cooks and you get to sample her products right now. Uh Emily tells us that cooking is naturally communal. And I use that to foster trust, communication, and mutual respect. When students feel seen, valued, and connected, they're more willing to participate, take risks, and fully engage in the learning process. I strive to create a safe space for students to feel comfortable expressing their ideas, asking questions, and being creative. Let's give her a round of applause. Next from the junior school, Brandon pictures. Brandon is the mule time media teacher at Heights Junior School. He joined the district in 2024 in his classroom. has is now a fully functioning newsroom led by seventh and eighth graders who cover timely newsworthy topics around their campus and the district. Brandon tells

010us that at the end of the day, the classroom community is not really about the teacher. Certainly, I set the standard yet it is the students who build the home. As I see it, it's my job to facilitate the learning rather than conveying. My job is to handle the students or tend the students the paint rather than painting the path for them. Let's congratulate Brandon B. Next from Woods Elementary, Erica I mean yeah sorry Erica Kash. Erica is a student support team teacher at Woodwards Elementary School. She joined the district in 2023 and has been teaching in a variety of special education roles. She tells us that every success and challenge deepens my understanding of teaching and reinforces my belief that all students can achieve their potential when they feel safe to take risks, make

011mistakes, and know we are there to support them every step of the way. This ongoing journey inspires me to continue learning, reflecting, and striving for excellence, not just in academics, but in cultivating resilience, independence, and confidence in the students I am so fortunate to serve. Congratulations. Give a round of applause. >> Next from Cambridge Elementary School, DEBBIE MINES. COME ON DOWN. Nice flowers. Take a picture. Now, Debbiey's a third grade teacher in Cambridge and she joined the district in 2010. Debbie tells us that planning for students for student learning begins with relationships and intentional care for the whole child. At the start of each school year, I slow down, make it a priority to truly know my students, not just academically, but personally. This approach allows me to plan with purpose, flexibility, and compassion, ensuring

012every student feels supported, challenged, and capable of success. Let's give her a round of applause. Now from Howard Early Childhood Center, LIBY now Libbyy's a kindergarten including teacher at Howard Early Childhood Center. She joined the district in Howard in 2012. Libby tells us that I often reflect on the kind of teachers I would want for my own children and I strive to be that teacher in my classroom, holding high expectations while nurturing growth and confidence. I recognize that each kindergartener enters my classroom in a different place and I create individualized plans that help them reach their potential. I feel honored to be part of each child's journey, supporting their growth academically, socially, and emotionally, and helping them to develop a lifelong love of learning. Let's go for a round of applause. >> Oh, wow. I

013forgot to mention that this is live. >> All right. Can they click likes as they're watching it? 25. >> I'm sure the 25 people. All right. So, we're streaming this live as I go to the next thing, which is we're so proud of each of you all. I mean you are stellar. Uh your principal should be proud of you and we're proud of them for picking you for selecting you to us at some point. Now what we have is that we have a selection committee of Alamo Heights teachers and staff that goes through each of these fives. They have a big application. We really study them look at a profile of learner to get a sense of uh who represents our district as the district teacher of the year. Now, I'd like to ask last

014year's district teacher of the year from the high school, Brady Payne, to come up and help me present the trophy. All right, we're live streaming that this year's Alma Heights ISD 2026 teacher of the year is from the junior school. lights. >> Yes, lights. You want to >> We have in the bag. We also would like to recognize the district dog of the year, Buzz. Buzz has a war to social bag. Buzz with a Alamo Heights color shoe toy, a bow tie to go to all the different things. Now, Brandon will be representing the district as the Trinity Prize for Excellence in Teaching in the Region 20 Teacher of the Year competitions. Brandon, uh, would you like to say a few words? Um, so I I uh I wrote some notes because um if any

015of you know and some of my students here know I'm kind of long-winded. Um, so I want to start by thanking a few people who got me here. Uh, first of all, I want to thank the most important people uh in all of this, which is our students that I get the privilege to work with daily. Their hard work and dedication to running our newsroom is something truly special. Without them, none of this is possible. But more importantly, without them, none of this matters. So, if you are my student or you took my class, raise your hand or stand up for me real quick so everybody can give you a round of applause. I also want to thank my family who's here tonight. They are my foundation and my rock in everything that I do

016and I could not do this without them. I especially want to thank my sister and best friend Casey Boy who teaches at Howard and who encouraged me to get a job at Heights. Oh, I'm trying not to cry here. Um, I especially want to thank her for saving my life when I was in my dark times. Without her commitment to seeing me become the best version of myself, I wouldn't be here today. >> I of course want to thank Dr. Guthrie, Dr. Bashar, and the board for creating an environment where teachers can actually do the most important job in the world. Uh, the fact that I get to show up every day and actually do what's best for kids first and foremost is something that is rare and special, and I hope I never get

017used to that, and I hope that's something I never take for granted. Um, above all else, I want to thank two people who aren't here today because their time with us on Earth was too short. First, I want to thank my fifth grade teacher, Miss Vincent. When I was in fifth grade, I was in a bad spot. Uh, life was was was hard and I was a real fulcrum point in my life. And Miss Vincent invested in me in a way that no one ever could and no one ever had. When I started teaching, I committed to trying to impact one student the way that she impacted me, even if I never knew who that student was. Thankfully, I've been able to pay it forward many times over, and that's the true reward in all

018of this. And I want to thank my dad, who never gave who never gave up on me. He wasn't a teacher, but he was the one who taught me how to run a classroom and inspire my students by the way that he raised me. My main goal in life is pass on his legacy that he started by raising me and my siblings the way that he did. It's taken many forms, but the greatest one is through what I'm able to do in the classroom. Without his leadership, his love, and his legacy, I wouldn't be the man, the teacher, the son, the friend that I am today. And because I'm me, I'm going to leave you guys with this quote from my favorite Star Wars character, Soka. She once said, "In my life, when you find

019people who need your help, you help them no matter what." I encourage all of you to find a way to help someone who needs you, not for the awards, but for the rewards. That's what this life is all about. Thank you. And go nullles and MEALS UP. ALL RIGHT, take some more patience there. Don't work with kids or dogs. >> Okay. All the teachers ALL RIGHT. ALL THE TEACHERS. >> YEAH. There you go. >> I got to move up. It's >> okay. Yay. Okay, keep smiling. Keep it smiling. >> Thank you. >> You got it. I'm sure you got it. >> All right. Well, to our audience out there in Streaml, I know you guys set a record for likes tonight. If you didn't go back and watch it again, I don't know how it

020works. You can like us again in after we're done. So, we're going to sign off on the live stream. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you everybody. We're still we're still doing recognitions. So, we're going to stay here. Just wave goodbye to the live stream. Bye. >> Wa! Look at all this bling over here. I wonder where our next recognition is. We'd like to welcome the Alamo Heights High School Cheers Squad. Come on down. Still light up. We'll talk more about you. >> I think you guys know the drill. We're going to line up as far as we need to. So, it's a single pile. I will uh pass the mic down and you'll tell us uh your first name, your last name, and what grade you're in. and then we'll end uh

021with some uh information about your team from your awesome coach. Now, up here we have the squads um that went well, first of all, I want to point out uh our two squad won state third place at the UIL state championships. They went to nationals. Our JB squad placed first for the fourth consecutive year. That like that threw me off. There's a lot of numbers up there. Congratulations. Let's cheer for THE varsity win sixth place in the super large varsity game day division. Let's uh get to know who's up here. >> Um I'm Urban and I'm a junior. >> I'm Debbie Love and I'm a junior. I'm Shelton Johnson and I'm a junior. >> I'm Harper Runell and I'm a junior. I'm Katie Conger and I'm a junior. >> I'm Ruby Carter and I'm a

022junior. I'm Macy Gully and I'm a junior. >> I'm Clara Sharp and I'm a senior. >> I'm Annie Eden and I'm a senior. >> I'm Anna White and I'm a senior. >> I'm Kayen Hatter and I'm a senior. >> I'm Annie Albert and I'm a sophomore. >> I'm Joy Gwen and I'm a sophomore. I'm Maline Garcia and I'm a sophomore. >> I'm Hardy Hills and I'm a senior. I'm Lydia Hatter and I'm a sophomore. I'm Carolina Stevens and I'm a senior. >> I'm Mary Roster and I'm a senior. >> I'm Rachel Olsson. I'm a senior. >> I'm Kate Broadick and I'm a senior. >> I'm Nene Sugay and I'm a senior. >> I'm Hannibal Girtz and I'm a freshman. >> I'm Emily Jones and I'm a freshman. >> I'm Ava Turka and I'm a freshman.

023>> I'm Bristol Hawk and I'm a sophomore. >> I'm Ella Franklin and I'm a sophomore. I'm Avery Sultan and I'm a sophomore. I'm Isabelle Murphy and I'm a freshman. >> I'm Caroline Embry and I'm a junior. I'm Gretchen Burch and I'm a junior. I'm Lily Margaret Gani and I'm a junior. I'm Paisley Dusk and I'm a junior. I'm Whitney Lab and I'm a junior. I'm Abby Allison and I'm a junior. I'm Emma Montes and I'm a junior. I'm Liz Conger and I'm a freshman. >> I'm Georgia Rangel and I'm a freshman. I'm Ella Lin and I'm a sophomore. >> Hi, I'm Suki and I'm a sophomore. >> I'm Sarah Bravo and I'm a freshman. >> I'm Ella Archon and I'm a freshman. >> I'm Maddie Conger and I'm a freshman. >> I'm Molly B and

024I'm a freshman. >> I'm Blair Turner and I'm a freshman. I'm Caroline Warak and I'm a freshman. I'm happy and I'm a freshman. >> I'm Blake Bond and I'm a freshman. >> I'm Foley Ke and I'm a freshman. I'm Bliss Bner and I'm a freshman. I'm Lola Ward and I'm a freshman. And I'm Coach Ford. I have 57 amazing cheerleaders this year and I couldn't be more grateful to be in the position I am in. We had a very successful start to our season starting in November at regionals. We competed in Houston and in San Antonio and all of our teams were very successful there. And then we went to state in January and competed against all 5A D2 schools, which was a little over 74 teams in the state and we got third. Um,

025and then we just got back from nationals and our JV team is fourtime national champions. And varsity game day competes in the toughest division at nationals and they got six out of around 80 plus teams. It was a very successful year. We couldn't have done it without our amazing seniors. We have 16 amazing seniors we are sad to lose, but we are so excited for them and I love you all so much. So, thank you for everything you've done for US THIS YEAR. ALL RIGHT, we're not done yet, folks. If you I'm going to switch up a paper because I think our student co folks are right here and I'm just going to turn it around. So, everybody stay where they are. Our f our last recognition and delegation is to hear from our Alamo

026Heights High School student council. Tell us who you are. Tell us what's up. >> Hi, I'm Ver Patel and I'm the student council president. >> Hi, I'm Lindsay Lamb. I'm the student council vice president. And what we have coming up is on March 31st, we have our annual blood drive. It's going to be in our courtyard. So tell all of your uh children and if you know anyone to sign up. It's in their email and it really helps out anyone who needs the blood. So yeah. And we also have our um our talent show coming up on April 19th. It's going to be mules. Talent is out of this world theme, meaning that it's going to be space themed, outer space. So, it's going to be really dark, really vibrant, really nice. If you can

027show up or if you can tune in or live, definitely do that. >> Okay. And to recap some things we've done the past couple weeks, I think like two weeks ago, we did the Daddy Dog dance, which was a huge success. All of our student council officers and our actual student council like um executive board had booths and we gave out little treats and that was a huge success and we had so much fun. And additionally in March, we're going to have our first Friday where we're going to be testing out our cotton candy machine and selling that. So, we're super excited for that. And yeah, that's March 6th and we're super excited. >> Thank you all for being there. You do such a good job and thank everyone for being here who's here for

028all of our recognitions. That's the end of this portion. We're going to do the business, which you're welcome to stay for, but if you need to get out, this is a good time to do it. Thank you so much for being here. >> Thank you. Congrats, girl. Congrats, girl. Heat. Heat. Yeah. Heat. Very sweet. I love it. Loved it. I know. Great to meet you. Yes. >> Okay. For those of you that are still here with us, we welcome you again. It is now time to move on to our citizens to be heard section on the agenda. We have received eight requests to speak and it's mostly on item to the item. >> So when your name is called you will join us at the table speak. Each person will have three minutes to speak

029and Christina will hold up a card with this where there is one minute left and another card when the time is up. In making your presentation, we ask that you do not refer to individual students or personnel by name or position. Especially in this public setting, it is best to be careful with comments about specific people. In addition, mindful of due process and legal obligations, the board will not respond to your comments tonight. However, we welcome and appreciate your input as an important member of our community and will follow up with you separately as necessary. For everyone else listening, please note that if a member of the community speaking tonight raises any concerns or questions, we will have a member of our staff contact them directly to follow up. We will begin with um pardon

030me, but it's Dan Synindall. Did I say that right? >> Come join us. Yes. >> Thank you. Is this the right spot right here? >> Yes, it is. I'm sorry about that. >> I'm learning my job. This is a first time on the job tonight. So, >> okay. We got a couple of first. >> Okay. So, this is Christina. So, when your time is up, when you have time left, she'll hold up a card and um then tell you that the time is up. >> Okay. Great. >> Thanks and welcome. Thank you for being here tonight. >> So, good evening. My name is Dan Stendall. I am a parent to a current Wimbridge student and a future Howard student. It's privileged to address you this evening. Thank you for the opportunity. I am here to

031uh to humbly ask the board to vote to reject Senate Bill 11 relating to a period of prayer and reading the Bible of other religious texts in public schools. I believe that it is a solution to a problem that does not really exist. And one reason I believe this when reading the text uh section G of of that bill reminds the reader that even if you don't approve this, you can still pray in reading school. So we can still do it. So why do we need to meet about it? I would argue. But I do believe that it it still presents some serious uh problems on several levels. And one is an issue of opportunity cost of our time. When do these gatherings happen? If it's before school, will then will will staff need to

032come early as well to supervise? Will they be paid? Will they volunteer? Or if it's during the regular school hours, will we be sacrificing classroom time or valuable social skill development time? However many minutes in the day or however many hours in the year, it's not nothing. It's not zero. It's not insignificant. That's one. Secondly, I believe Senate 11 is an implementation nightmare when it come voting. Yes, we create a culture of consents, acknowledgements, waiverss, statements to chase and police and those who have signed it going to congregate over here, but then we can't cross-contaminate or visit with others who haven't signed a consent to infringe upon their first amendment rights. So, that's a major uh implementation challenge. And I think most telling, the the state of Texas effectively indemnifies a school district uh in

033case of legal issues, but only if we rely on the attorney general for that defense. So if we go elsewhere, then the attorney general on our own. So that tells me the specificity of that language, the author expects legal problems under if we implement this. Best to avoid it. Uh and then finally, uh faith tradition, I believe, is a parental responsibility. And I say this uh as a member of a of a of a church here locally, and I don't mean to speak on behalf of anyone else of their faith experience or speak on behalf of organized religion. That's not my intent at all. But I would say we love our church community. It's a great place. And there's so much opportunity for prayer. We can barely keep up. We've got vacation bible school. We've

034got Sunday school. We've got youth group. We've got we can't do it all. Uh, and I would argue that theology, liturgy, and spirituality are opportunities for parents to actively connect with our kids. And this is not something to be outsourced to educators who already have a hands full. So, in conclusion, I would humbly suggest don't take debate. Don't invite a media circus. Don't further burden our educators. Let's do keep it simple. Let's do keep it constitutional. Vote no. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Okay, next up is Bianca Saria >> Sakara >> Sakira. Sorry. >> Thank you. No problem. >> Hello everyone. My name is Bianca Sakara. I'm a parent of a third grader and fifth grader at Cambridge. As we know, SB12 was recently passed and includes language prohibiting quote develop making or

035implementing policies, procedures, trainings, activities, or programs that reference race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation. From emails from the district to our uninvited visiting author, our district has interpreted this law as meaning that visiting authors must commit to three things. Quote, one, refrain from any mention of race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Two, if a student brings up one of those terms, you would use a response like that would be something that you need to discuss with your parents." And three, do not mention any books of yours that recognize the existence of race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation. I think our district's interpretation of SB12 is overly restrictive and unreasonable. If that same logic was applied to this year's Texas Blue Bonnet books or the TEA required reading list, many

036of these books authors would also be excluded. My daughter's favorite blue bonnet award book this year is The Girl Who Figured It Out by Linda Dunler. This book is an autobiography about the inspiring true story of a wheelchair athlete becoming an iron man world champion. She talks about being born in Mumbai, India, suffering from polio and losing fraction of her legs, being adopted and moving to the United States, and learning to overcome her challenges to ultimately become an Iron Man champion. From the book, she says, quote, "Being different was hard. There were kids who didn't want to be my friend because my skin is dark brown or because my crutches and legs, braces scared them, the tin man, they called me. But I didn't let those people stop me. I wanted to show everyone what

037I could do." End quote. Another example from the blue bonneted award list is the Newberry Honor book Magnolia Unfolds It All by Chanel Miller. This story is about a 10-year-old sock detective who is bent on returning all of the lonely only socks left behind in her parents laundroat. The girl's parents are immigrants from China. In the story, there's an incident where someone sprays paints go home on her friend's mother's business. from the book. Quote, "In the silence, they shared the unspoken understanding that the underlying message was, go back to where you come from. Magnolia had felt that same message in various forms over the years, although those words had never been subject to her directly." She felt it when the boss woman spoke to her mom, accusing her of not having English. She felt it

038when a customer had referred to being que bubbles as being whatever, which made Belle question why her parents hadn't chosen a more neutral name like the soap center. She felt it when she read a negative online review that said the scent of the incense was strange and headacheinducing. It was humiliating. The way people made them feel they were not worthy of being understood, too odd to be respected, or too unfamiliar to belong. These are just a few examples from these books of many. If our district's interpretation of SB12 would leave authors of the TEA required reading list and the Texas food monitor award book ineligible to visit our district, then surely we must reconsider our current policy. Thank you for the time. >> Thank you very much. Next up is Alison Hardy. >> Hi everybody.

039Last month I gave you each a draft policy that allows the district to empower teachers to teach while still complying with SB12. This month I'd like to demonstrate exactly how the draft policy would work to prevent absurd results. You just heard a couple of examples of books that would be excluded if the district applies the same standards to other books that the district has applied to Chris Barton. And I want to give you two more and they're both from the TEA recommended list for third grade which is the grade that my daughter is in. If the late Kenneth Graham's book uh if he visited, he would not be able to read from his book, The Wind in the Willows, which is on the approved list, because a male identifying toad dresses up as a female

040servant and loves it. Quote, he was soon agreedly surprised to find how easy everything was made for him, and a little humbled at the thought that his popularity and the sex that seemed to inspire it were really anothers. Similarly, Donald Saral would be barred from mentioning Encyclopedia Brown's bodyguard and enforcer Sally Kimell, who punched a bully when he told her to wear more makeup. So, if the TEA wanted to mention, excuse me, if the TEA wanted to forbid any mention of race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation, it never would have placed these books on the required reading list. So, we know that the Texas Education Code does not do that and it doesn't require that result. Instead, the education code gives you a lot of off-ramps. Teachers and visitors are allowed to address

041all the topics in classroom instruction that is consistent with the board of education tiS. Teachers and visitors are allowed to address all these topics as part of an activity that is intended to enhance academic achievement. And only lessons that directly revolve around sexual orientation and gender expression are actually barred. It would have been incredibly easy to allow Chris Barton to visit the schools and mention glitter everywhere because author visits are clearly intended to enhance academic achievement. But the district didn't do that and it's continuing to insist that it did the right thing by barring him from campus. So next year when a visiting author has a picture book showing folks with white skin or describes a family with a mom and a dad, you're going to be right back here. And every time a teacher

042assigns a book that mentions white people or heterosexual people, you're going to have to apply the exact same parameters the district gave Chris Baron. And if the district doesn't apply the same standards to every book, whether the topic is acknowledging the existence of gay people or the existence of straight people, well, that's viewpoint discrimination, and you won't be sitting here listening to parents. You're going to be defending the district in court. If the board of trustees does not implement and enforce a policy that makes sense and supports educators, this issue is not going away. Please don't ignore this. Your teachers and your kids are watching. Okay, next up is Carly Freriedman. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you. I also have uh comments about SB12. Um, my concerns with the elementary school cancelling

043Chris Barton's author's visit due to a misguided concern with SB12. We've had a couple speakers already who have provided terrific examples of books um and uh how the policy can needs to be applied fairly um and general problems with the policy. I want to speak from a slightly different perspective of um how this policy can impact our children. So the cancellation was disappointing for my family not just because of the general issue of limiting our children's access to quality literature and what would undoubtedly been a fun and enriching experience. The fact that this was due to a book that mentions sexual orientation is especially concerning for me. Uh I have been involved in education, advocacy, and mental health support for the LGBTQIA plus community for two decades. I have seen firsthand how feeling invisible and

044unwelcome uh can impact our youth. Um, sexual minority youth are especially impacted by social environments that they perceive as unwelcoming because many do not feel safe or supported in their families. So for many sexual minority youth, school is the an important resource for feeling safe, for feeling welcome. So um now I ask you to put yourselves in the shoes of a youth who identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual or questioning and you are aware of a policy that says that you are not worthy of being visible in your books in the community. Um, research has shown over and over for decades that children and adolescence who do not feel accepted at school have higher rates of suicide, self harm, depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. I'm happy to share any of these resources with you at any

045point. Um, my children who are in fourth and nth grade have always felt welcome and like they belong in this school and I want the same for every child. um it has important direct and mental um and social health outcomes. Please do not uh allow further decisions to be uh guided by misplaced concerns about this policy. Instead, consider what is best for all of the students in our community, especially the most marginalized and at risk. Thank you again. >> Thank you. Next up is Alicia Fog. Thank you all so much. Uh my name is Alicia Fog. I am a professional retired professional engineer, project manager, and people manager. Um I've been working corporate environments for the last 20 years. And so once the issue with Chris Barton was raised, I took the time uh that

046the school district offered to talk to your employees about their perspective. And I do appreciate that time and the information that was provided. The thing that struck me as part of that conversation was that the overall approach of the school district is to limit or reduce the number of policies and procedures that they have in place because quote unquote they don't have calculate. And to me that was a red flag because that means that we don't have policies and procedures that empower our teachers. And that was for me something from a cultural standpoint and employee standpoint is very important. um we can't overcome funding issues, we can't overcome salary issues compared to other districts. So really where I see Dr. shower working is to really work on the culture that is here and that's where

047I'm asking you as the board to be the eyes and the ears of the community to really work at are we intentionally making choices that empower our employees are we giving them the tools the policies the procedures such that not every issue has to be raised to Dr. or any other of the administrative ones. How are we holding our teachers backs um in the decisions that they make on a daily basis? Um so I guess the example that I have for that is I've worked across the country, the world, all the way from the Arctic Circle to New Zealand. And the place that I always enjoyed working the most was Tassels. And the reason for that is that they have excellent rules and regulations. It's not that it's free of rules and regulations. It's rather

048that it is well defined and it empowers me as a consultant um is working with big companies to really provide the services that are consistent across all industry um that I work in. Um, and so that's really what I'm saying for you as the board is are we working with intent because intent doesn't cost anything. It's are we thinking through that process and are we really empowering our employees because ultimately this is a business um and are we really doing that to the best of our ability. So that's what I have to say. >> Thank you. And next up is Julianne Reed. Hello. Good evening. My name is Julianne Reeves and I'm a parent of two boys at Woodbridgeidge. Texas Senate Bill 11 signed into law June of 2025 requires every school district to vote

049by March 1st, 2026 on whether to adopt a policy creating a dedicated prayer period during a school day. I'm asking the board to vote no. Let me share some facts. Texas students already have the right to pray. They can pray silently. They can organize student led religious groups. They can participate in fellowship of Christian athletes. See you at the poll, which that one takes me back, and other faith activities before and after school. That right has never been taken away. SB11 does not protect a right that is under threat. It creates a new government organized religious structure in our schools where one did not exist before. As the ACLU of Texas has stated plainly, SB11 is a solution to a prayer rights problem that doesn't actually exist. As school districts across the state are recognizing

050that San Antonio ISD, St. Angelo ISD, New Bron Falls ISD, Northeast ISD, which voted 7 to zero, have all rejected this policy. They looked at this bill and said, "We already have what we already have is working. Don't fix what isn't broken." More than 160 faith leaders across Texas have urged the school board to vote no. In fact, one of the most conservative places in Texas where I grew up, Midland, has urged the school board to vote no. There is a practical concern this way. Implementing SB11 would require our schools to track consent waiverss, separate students, monitor classrooms, schedule prayer periods, and resolve religious disputes. This is an administrative burden that puts resources away from what our teachers and staff are here to do. educate children. A child's faith is deeply a personal thing. It

051belongs to families. It belongs to congregations. It does not belong to the government and it does not belong to school organization period during the day. Putting the schools in charge of religious time does not strengthen faith. It politicizes it pressures children and divides our community. The US Constitution is clear. It is individuals, not the government, who have the authority to decide when and how and whether to pray. Before I close, I'd like to briefly address a separate but equally important matter. With the Texas primary election upon us, I want to take a moment to remind this board that I'm sorry of an important legal boundary. Under Texas electioneering laws, school district officials cannot use their official position or dis school district resources to engage in political activity. This includes endorsing candidates while serving in an

052official capacity during schoolboard meetings or events. This Texas Attorney General's office provides clear guidance that using one's official authority or school district functions for political purposes is prohibited. I appreciate this board's attention to these important legal boundaries and I trust that Almo Heights ISD will continue to model the integrity our community expects. Thank you. >> Okay, next up is Ann David. Good evening everyone. I'm here to talk about teachers. Um, and I didn't plan it. Uh, I'd forgotten today was going to be the teacher of the year. Um, it was really wonderful to share those stories. And some of the information I'm going to share is was gathered from the Charlesbot Foundation's survey of teachers and retention that they did about a year ago. They'll probably be red uh releasing their next one soon. And

053the numbers are a little scary and you may be familiar with them, but I think it's important to repeat them as well. 72% of teachers with 6 to 10 years of experience have considered leaving in the last year. And 70% of those with 11 to 20 years of experience have considered leaving. And that is teachers in Texas. And it's pretty equal across uh areas of the state. There's not a statistical difference. So that includes teachers here. And if you think about it, those are your instructional leaders. Those are probably some of the teachers who were standing here being honored because they've they've learned their craft. They've refined it. And those are the ones more thinking about leaving than the younger teachers. And when I think about when when they asked why it was high levels

054of work rellated stress and we know teaching is a stressful role, poor pay and benefits which others have said is the legislature is at fault for that. They underfund schools and have done so for the better part of 20 years. It is their fault. Um but tied with poor paying benefits is feeling undervalued and the district does so much to value its teachers. We saw that tonight. I see it every time. Um, good job on the surprise for Jimmy because she well deserves it. All of her work is really about creating a culture that values teachers. What happens though is when you have an event like cancelling Chris Barton, that is one of those moments where all of the good work is called into question because the lack of clarity not only in the moment

055but the downstream effects. There are issues there around trust and am I trusted in my classroom to be a professional because that's what teachers want. When asked about why they stay or what will help them to stay, it's when they are seen as instructional leaders and decision makers, when they're given autonomy in the classroom. 65% of teachers say that that helps them to stay. and when administrators advocate for teachers in interactions with parents in the community and are the policies the board is supporting doing that work and right now I think that's a question the conversations I've been a part of the teachers have shared with me make me wonder are do they feel that do they feel like they are protected do they feel like they are valued and safe here and unfortunately the

056answer is not as much as we would hope and we need them because they want our students to reach the full potential. They did choose this place on purpose and we want to keep them. So I would invite the board to cons continue to consider how we are doing that in a very challenging time and yet there are choices we can continue to make to ensure we do both hire and then retain the best teachers in Texas. Thank you so much for your time. >> And last up is Becky Deoset. Hello. Uh, my name is Becky DeFacet and I have two boys here at Woodridge. Um, a little bit about my background. Um, I went to 12 years of Catholic school and ran to get my children in public school as soon as we could.

057And um that brings me to my topic today. I um would like to talk to you about prayer in school. Thank you for your time and for your commitment to serving our students and our families. I want to speak about the proposal to include prayer time during the school day in our publicly funded schools. I say this with deep respect for faith and for the many families in our district who value prayer. Religious freedom is a core American principle and it matters to many of us. It's um not lost on me that today is Ash Wednesday and also the start of Ramadan. Even if participation in school day prayer is voluntary. Um I'm sorry. Precisely because religious freedom is so important. I believe our public schools should remain neutral spaces. As a former elementary school

058teacher myself, um I can only imagine the I don't know what would happen if I had to not have a neutral space as a teacher in a public school when it came to religion. Our schools bring together students from Christian families, Jewish families, Muslim families, and families of many other faiths, as well as families who do not participate in religion. They do not practice religion. One of the strengths of public education is that every child walks through the same doors and belongs equally. Even if the participation in school day prayer is voluntary, children are highly influenced and some students may feel pressured to participate. The protections of the first amendment to the United States Constitution already safeguard a student's right to pray individually or gather voluntarily with other students. Those freedoms do not require the

059school itself to set aside structured time for prayer during the school day. I believe faith is strongest when it is chosen freely, not when it is associated with a public institution. By keeping the school day focused on academics and maintaining neutrality, we protect the religious religious liberty of every family, including those who believe different from the majority. My hope is that we can continue building schools where every child feels safe, included, and fully accepted. Thank you. Thank you. And that will conclude our citizens to be heard. We'll move on to items for presentation or possible action. The first presentation of design for Alahai Junior School and District Community Center and presenter is Mike Her. >> Good evening here and he's the lead architect for these projects and I'll let Eric go ahead and shave. >>

060It's an exciting night. We get to launch the design of the community center and the launch of the junior hall, right? >> Yeah, we're very excited for this. So, >> your mic's not on. >> That was it. >> No, that's not >> How about now? >> Yeah. >> There we go. >> Yeah. >> Uh thank you board for having me. Uh yes, agree is very exciting to share um some design update for the district community center um as well as the improvements at uh the junior school as well. We're going to start today with the district community center. Um here's an overall site plan uh along Broadway, the high school there to the bottom of the image. So, you can see that the improvements we're looking to do um are on the east west side

061of Broadway there, which include uh the new district community center with parking associated with it, as well as a new student parking lot in Mules Plaza in between Tuxedo and Castano on the west side of Broadway. along with these projects. We'll delve deeper into the district community center here in just a moment, but also want to sort of highlight the improvements along the sort of high school corridor for the district um along Broadway. So, we're looking to increase safety as well as aesthetics along there by setting the sidewalks back off of the curb, burying the overhead utility lines, improving uh traffic signals as well as crosswalk connections for the this entire area along Broadway to make this student parking lot here, student and public circulation around uh the high school area, not only reflective of

062the district's identity and bringing that branding through there, but also increasing ing safety um through those areas with that investment. So, here is a uh we're going to go through a few renderings of the district community center. This is located on Broadway between um Tuxedo and Fair Oaks. So, here is a um a rendering from the Tuxedo side looking to the north. It is a twostory building around 20,000 square ft which will host the um administrative offices on the upper level, technology department and educational foundation offices on the lower level as well as uh the new boardroom. So hopefully in you know uh about 18 months this meeting will be happening uh in this building as we go through here. So taking a closer look, parking will be um in the rear of the building

063and as well as the main entry. So we can look here. We're utilizing many of the same materials we are at the high school. Taking that campus brick really as well as the um aluminum metal panel on the upper levels to really bring in the the same materiality and um bring that cohesive identity to the entire Broadway corridor um for the Alamo Height School District. Look through there. This is a rendering standing sort of on the corner of uh Tuxedo and Broadway looking at this lower val volume which is the boardroom um for the uh for the boardroom which will have as as well as the boardroom will have threshold development space. You can see higher up uh we have the offices rising behind them up there on the second floor. We're going to jump

064into the interior a little bit. And with that, we really want to bring three sort of aspects that really shine through for the district. That is, you know, that pride through the generations. A sense of the history, community, and service, you know, over 100 years of the district here. Really want to have that reflected in the new offices, both boardroom as well as the district office. that humility and wisdom as well as the warmth and belonging of of all of those who are are part of the school district. So looking at uh sort of collection of some of the materials uh we tend to be using really bringing that warmth and the humility in through here while also bringing in some of the branding um to really show the history and culture here of Alamo

065Heights. So this is an interior rendering of just inside the front door with the reception desks. Um boardroom would be behind us. The corridor there that we see um over to the left leads down towards the um educational foundation offices as well as the technology offices for the district. Behind us would be the boardroom and upstairs would be the primary administrative offices. sort of just a few steps behind that. Um bringing into this lobby space a few opportunities for really bringing in that um branding pride for the district not only through some graphics but also through some history and timeline bringing permanent temporary and and part um temporal exhibits here within the um within the entire building. Additionally, here within the boardroom, um we are planning a boardroom with an outer partition down the middle

066to provide uh flexible space and flexible use for the district. Not only will this host these meetings that happen uh once and twice a month as as we look through there, but also professional development space to um foster that growth and development within across the district going through there as well. But as you can see here, this is with that optical partition open sitting for 135 along with the board table um there and taking a lot of those elements of your current boardroom uh where places to display student art and bring in that school pride in there as well. Going upstairs to the administrative offices, we um have the floor plan lays out into different pods um and office suites to service the different departments of administrative offices as well as some um communal spaces.

067One of those communal spaces here being the kitchen. The second of which is directly outside um the kitchen which would be a communal space and circulation. We see um on the far end uh those two sconces entrances to the business office as well as the curriculum um and EDC offices um left and right and then um some spaces for collaboration and conference room spaces here within the main area um there as well. Additionally, we like to look at u the junior school. at the junior school. Um we are >> about midway through um design. Uh we've submitted design development documents through there um and are continuing to work through that design with hopefully starting construction of not only the district office but also uh a portion of the junior school as early as this summer.

068Um working through there. So at the junior school, we've broken it here into sort of two halves of campus. We're first going to look at the west side of campus, which is the majority of the new work um that we are proposing. It includes uh primarily a a gym and sixth grade building located uh adjacent to the existing STEM and fine arts building on the on the same. You can see here the main uh site plan impact is bringing on a full track and field uh with four track lanes and a uh football soccer field oriented north south rather than uh east west on campus which allows us to do a few things. First off, on the um west side of the football field to realign the overall drop off area, providing additional queuing space

069and pickup area for parents while also pushing that vehicular parking outside the sort of secure perimeter of day-to-day life. um within the campus now the east side of the track and field uh with basketball courts, lawns that now can serve as the primary PE space and u recess space during the school day. So students are no longer crossing across the traffic lane out to the track uh field area as they currently are. We we've squeezed in uh some tennis courts there on the west side, giving them even better access to what they currently have to community as well as serving here uh the junior school um at that location as well. Jumping into the spec to the athletics and sixth grade building, uh we've separated out really by floors and utilizing the footprint of the

070existing gymnasiums or the proposed gymnasiums, locker rooms, weight room, and multi-purpose room on the ground level to then stack the sixth grade academic core on top. This is allowing us to build one building instead of the initially uh thought of two buildings um for that helping manage some of those costs as well as giving really great proximity for both athletics and sixth grade to the rest of campus minimizing those walk times between um between classes as students go to the cafeteria, library, uh STEM, fine arts going through there. This is a image uh looking at the front of the building. This will be the main entry for drop off. Uh you can see our dropoff canvas there on the left side left hand side of the image. Students can then either enter through the between

071the two gymnasiums into the STEM courtyard as they go all the way through or down along the between the track and this building um entering more towards the main building and central sort of heart of campus through there. This will also be the public the main public entry for um any of your competitions within the um gymnasium as well. Here standing on uh the artificial turf field. Um you see the track lanes there and then the um gym and sixth grade building in front of us. So you can now see the windows up there on the second floor. Those are into the sixth grade classrooms. And below there we have uh windows into the multi-purpose room and enlarged uh weight room to serve the um junior school population. Here rotating sort of further around the

072building looking at the south elevation. Uh we start to see on the right hand side of the building the entry um that we'll get a better look at here in just a moment. Um but this area here will be an uh artificial turf surface. Directly behind us are some basketball courts and this will serve as the primary, you know, gathering area. Really a new spine and heart of campus. You can see the walkway we're standing on leads up to the past the main building, past the fine arts building all the way to the STEM. So really connecting everywhere from the from the auditorium on the south end to the stem on the north end through this really great heart of campus directly to the off the right of this image is where the uh a

073great grove of existing oak trees are that we're looking to preserve and and work through there. Here's a view stepping just outside of the um main building. We're looking to inst reestablish the fully um covered walkways that will connect the remaining buildings on campus that are not currently there. So any students coming from STEM to the main building will not have to go outside into an uncovered area. This also has a great view here of the of the corner um that shows that stair access up to the second sixth grade level up on the second floor as well as lower uh entrance into the gymnasium and multi-purpose area. We're going to jump onto the inside as well, but similarly to the district community center, we also have a concept here. One of the great things

074about uh the junior school overall is sort of the interwoven connectivity. all of your students are going through, they're coming from Cambridge, they're coming from Woodridge and and all coming together here again at uh junior school. So really bringing all of those items as well as those, you know, tenants of um the um district into a concept here. So with that, we've developed a lot of those same interwoven um materials, bringing a lot of those warm colors, those blues to show that school spirit as well as some of that texture coming through that we see. So here's a rendering of uh one of the two competition gymnasiums. There will be two and they'll be nearly identical as we look through their north and south gym. Um so bringing in similar floor there'll be two crosscourt

075um for practice and PE as well as one main competition court and seating in each gymnasium for around 250 to 300 um individuals. As we go upstairs um this will be the main corridor for the sixth grade um classrooms. So you can see the entries to the classroom there on the left hand side and then lockers and um communal spaces for uh collaborative work um here in the corridors. You can see down there where the ceiling changes. Uh we have a classroom that'll be a small breakout room for individualized instruction and working through there. Here's a another sort of um image of those collaborative spaces bringing those uh localized individual work and collaborative group room spaces for um each of the each of the students here at sixth grade. of course uh we'll have uh

076classrooms um and so here's uh a rendering here of what those classrooms G 800 square feet really meeting the standard and raising the standard of what your existing sixth grade classrooms are um to where we are um here this more or less um sums up what we're doing for the new work on campus. Additionally, on the east side of campus, we are doing renovations and a small addition to the cafeteria um primarily at the main building. So, we'll be adding seating capacity here on the um on the north end of the cafeteria, approximately 2,000 square ft um addition that will require the modification of some of our drop off loops. Currently off of the new brothel side there are two drop off loops which uh lead to some traffic congestion and a little bit of

077confusion um for pickup and drop off over there. So the reconfigured loop will be a single slightly longer loop um coming off um New Bronals allowing for more clear and and easy circulation there as well as increased capacity um within the cafeteria. We're looking to do renovations as well throughout the main uh academic building, reconfiguring classrooms to right sizing them. A lot of the um there's a large variation between the size of the classrooms um throughout the main building. Some are converted science labs. Some are smaller rooms that have been adapted into corridors or into classrooms, excuse me. So, we're looking to adapt rightsize other classrooms to be uh a more even um regular and consistent um classroom size as well as using that opportunity to carve out collaborative spaces within that um area and

078really raise the standard of the junior existing junior school to many of the other campus renovations that we've seen uh previously. So, as you can tell, that will include refresh to all of the um existing classrooms um within uh the main two corridors. Additionally, we'll be doing renovations to the existing auditorium uh resolving some of the addition additional ACU the existing acoustical issues um as well as bringing the building up to ADA uh requirements through there. As you can tell, we're raising up the acoustics um on the wall that currently fall off um whenever they're touched. And at 2 feet off the ground, they get touched quite a bit as we go through there. Looking to maintain the existing chairs and the overall capacity of the auditorium as we go um and look through that.

079So, ran through that all very quickly, but um that is uh our design update for today. >> Well, it looks amazing. Does anybody have any questions? My only question, I know y'all are the experts, but uh just noise with the gym and then the classrooms right above. I assume all that sound improved and there won't be >> noise concerns. >> Yeah, we do have an acitician on board uh that is running analysis for us where those are fully separated. We'll have not only a a full 8 inch CMU wall, but also additional wall to have to resolve those acoustical issues. But yes, it's something we're very very conscious of there. >> I asked that too, Lauren. >> Yeah, about the same thing. And maybe ask about the lockers. >> Oh, yes. I noticed that there

080were lockers in our pictures. I don't know, are we doing lockers? >> Yes. It's been noted that at the sixth grade level um the desire to have lockers there and give that chance as students are are coming up into the junior school to work uh and have that sort of singular place. So, we are including them in the new building at primarily because those are for the sixth grade classrooms. Great. within the renovations in the existing building, we are going to be reducing the locker count um that are utilized by seventh and eighth grade because the capa current capacity for those is very underutilized. So, we're taking that opportunity to take some of them out which will open up some corridor space for uh additional collaboration areas. >> Okay, that's that's great. Anybody else? >>

081I was just going to note the connection from the sixth grade building to the track. It it looks pretty open. Have you all considered doing some kind of border just like for there's a track meet going on or something? You could easily walk right onto the track. >> I don't know if you Yeah, right there. >> Yeah, we recently just we were just discussing this earlier this week regarding uh having some partial separation. One of the great parts of this is opening that connection. So, you know, 90% of the time when there's not a track meet there, it becomes this very open area. Um, and the track creates sort of a virtual separator, but you do have that access through there. We also have some fire lane items we're working through, but we are discussing

082potential separation through there. In regards to competitions there, um, all of the seating for fans and visitors is fully separate from the track and sort of outside that portion of this secure perimeter on the west side. Um, which will allow them to look uh, not into the sun during competitions, which I think will be well liked at this campus. Yeah, David, >> I got a few. Um, well, first of all, the uh the green grass at central office on there was very optimistic. I appreciate that. U what the junior school, what's the delta in parking spots? >> We are uh currently in the final rendition. We are currently adding a um varied a little bit. I think right now we're at plus 20 um from the overall parking count from initial even with the addition

083of the cafeteria back the west side of campus. >> Um and this might be a Dr. Guthrie question, but with the gyms is the idea to have the large, you know, like all campus events or whatever when he talks to all the kids in the gyms or still in the auditorium. >> I I still like the auditorium and you saw the rendering how beautiful that's going to be. >> I think it just has a better acoustics. >> Um, can I talk really quick about the lockers? That was a question earlier this week. >> That's good. We felt like again the sixth grade kids use them a lot more than the rest of our students, but if there was ever a need for us to have a locker, if there was some type of change in

084policy where cell phones had to be locked away for some reason or something like that, retrofitting lockers into a building just will never look right. And this is the opportunity to do it one time and make it look good to start with. >> Thanks. >> And a couple other just just quick questions. Chance is a lot. Um, and again, I think this is for Dr. Guthrie, but on the auditorium, we have two murals on either side. I think those are memorials. >> Yes, they are. Um, and I have talked with uh the families about that. Okay. So, we have a plan to photograph those mules. >> Okay. >> Remove the plaque. Yeah. Put them in a nice >> memorial for that family. They've already reached out to us and we have a plan for that.

085>> Okay. That's great. Um, and then are there are lots of trees in your design there. Are those currently in the in the budget numbers or no? Yes, all those trees are currently in the budget numbers. Yeah, we're looking to preserve as many of the great oaks and other trees on >> just talking more on the farther west side. >> However, everywhere >> we are looking uh we are going to unfortunately lose just with the development here some uh of the existing trees on site and we are looking and the city of San Antonio which the junior school is in requires us to offset those along with the addition of new parking or shading requirements that go through those. So many code requirement and error in the current budget. Yes. >> All right. And then

086will you just go up to this is my last question like the picture you had of the west side of campus just this overall schematic like from the overhead. >> Okay. Yeah. This is perfect. Okay. So I'm thinking as a parent um and accessing the auditorium for special events. So I guess we would all just like the east side I guess would park the same way and then we could come up that big sidewalk that's there on the south end. >> Correct. And then on the west side, would you have entrances? I know it says fire access, but would you have like walkways or entrances on on the south end of the track and also on the north end of the track that people can march through? >> Yeah, that's exactly right. There's a that's

087just below the track there's uh six foot of sort of light gray that goes through. That'll be a sidewalk that'll able to open a gate and have access to the auditorium along the south side. >> As long as you're thinking auditorium access >> or or coming from the north adjacent to the gym there as That's all I got. Y thanks. >> That's great. >> Two, um, you mentioned acoustics. Just vibrations would be the second thing. Just making sure y'all are looking at with weight room and >> basketball courts. The vibrations are considered as well. I assume you're acitician can do that as well, but just making sure. Um, and then second, with regard to trees, if we have dollars in the budget, I would suggest we upsize those from day one. And it's really cheap

088dollars to get 8 inch, 10 in, 12 inch mature trees. It's it's they're a lot more, but in incremental dollars, they go a long way. And getting a 3-in tree to grow is going to take a decade. And getting those large trees from day one, I think, would go a long way. So, if we have the dollars, I would suggest that's one. >> You're in charge of those dollars, Mr. >> I know. I know. I know. I'm usually the one harping the other way, so I am just reminding you. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> that's great. And I'm not ignoring you in the audience, but we're not allowed to ask we're not allowed to receive questions from the audience at this point, but feel free to reach out. We're happy to answer any reach out to

089>> Sorry. Okay. So, any other questions? No. It's great. It's amazing. It's going to be so beautiful and I cannot wait. I'm kind of sad since I was a student here at this junior school to be getting rid of some of these tile walls and whatnot, but I know it's gonna be beautiful. >> It's worth it. >> Thank you so much. And it is Yes, very worth it and exciting for our kids. Um, okay. So, next up is a presentation of campus community based accountability. It's going to be Dr. Guthrie and Mrs. Corey Smith. Go right to the next. >> The next one. >> Is it the clicker? >> Oh, I have it. >> Here we go. All right. Uh, good evening everyone. Do you want me to use the mic? >> You know, I

090mean, can y'all hear her in the audience or would you rather her use the mic? Maybe. So, I think so. Probably. So, >> no problem. >> All right. >> Just because you're facing us, I feel like it projects our way. >> Thank you for having me. Um so we are going to I am going to share with you our um seabass updates in connection with our wildly important goals and those wildly important goals center around sebass pillars one two and three. Um so I'm going to talk to you a little bit about the key questions uh from the pillar some of the data that we are tracking and then the actions that we are taking and our current status of where we are. So starting with pillar number one which is student learning and progress.

091The key question is to what to what degree do all Alma Heights high school learners demonstrate academic growth, achievement and outcomes. And so you've seen this data before. Um this is just some of our most recent STAR data, but we use a lot of different metrics uh to stay focused and aligned including MAP growth, PLC documentation, common formative assessments. We're in the midst of Testing right now. Um and then of course our end of course exams at the end of the year. So this helps us to spot trends and adjust instruction as needed uh particularly through the work that our teachers do in their professional learning communities. So some of the adjustments that we've made this year with PLC's and the reduction in conference periods from 2 to 1 on our campus. Um our teachers

092are still meeting in PLC's weekly. Um but we've we're grounding them in just one question. Um so they are focusing on one of the four PLC questions and they are using that to drive their instruction, share best practices and then make decisions on teaching strategies that will help increase student achievement through those. And then another area is professional learning. Um, we have a test corner in our campus newsletter that goes out every Friday that provides valuable resources and strategies for teachers to um, demonstrate growth in their test observations. Um, and it's really just highlighting best practices in the classroom and uh, teachers that have really honed into that have seen growth in their uh, test observations. So um we also have had just most recently in our professional development day on Monday the highest number

093of high school teachers facilitating a session for the entire district and then we returned to campus and they uh loved those sessions and wanted to sign up for them at the campus. So we offered them again at the campus level. So we're really proud of of that and our teachers really taking that instructional leadership forward and sharing their expertise with colleagues. And then um our advanced placement courses, as you all know, we did move to uh a policy where all students that are enrolled in advanced placement courses must sit for the AP exam. Um we did have uh we do have fee reductions to support students so that it's not a barrier for families. Um and so that has actually been implemented a full year. We're in second year of that and our data is

094still trending upwards. And so that is another highlight to um pillar one and ensuring academic growth for all students. So as we look at progress monitoring and establishing a cadence of analyzing data, as I mentioned, our teacher PLC's do meet weekly. Our student intervention team also meets weekly. Oh, what happened? >> You broke it. >> I did it. There it goes. Um we also offer uh we also have a campus leadership team that meets bi-weekly. We used to meet weekly there, but with the um reduction in our conference period, we now went went to every other week and that's working really well for us. We um monitor our 09 tutoring attendance uh to look at the impact that that's having on students and then you using map data for instruction as well. Um then on

095the right hand side is just all of the data that we gathered to support pillar one from EOCC, Telus, our failure and attendance reports, PLC documentation. Um we ask our teachers to share that with us as uh administrators and campus leaders so that we can provide feedback to them as well. Um so pillar two is focused on student student readiness and the key question is to what degree are Alamo Heights high school learners academically ready for their next stage of learning. So specifically this is mostly around CCMR right and so we use multiple readiness indicators to monitor their post-secary progress and performance trends. We use um assessment results, assessment data and we also have a CCMR tracker and that's what's pictured here that helps us to track the um CCMR indicators, students meeting those indicators

096and monitoring the progress of that. So, some of the actions that we are continuing to take and even making refinements to uh with regards to CCMR, our counselors have developed and are using a structured tracking system to monitor all of the different ways that students can meet CCMR, which are through SAT, ACT, the TSI exam, advanced placement, PSAT data, and any other indicators. Um there we also have uh dual credit enrollment being tracked and college bridge progress. This year we are offering something new. Since we did institute an SAT school day a couple years ago for all of our juniors, we are now offering 3 weeks prior to that an SAT boot camp school during the school day which will help with prep. And that's being offered on March 25th which is an early release

097day. Um, and that information is being sent to families of juniors as well since they're the ones that will be taking the SAT school day. Um, we are we also require that any student who wants an off period um in their senior year must have already met college and career readiness. So, that has been an incentive for students to to check that box as well. And then um some of the CCMR supports that we have in place. We have a new college counselor. He's fabulous. Uh Gerald Padilla. We had our largest college fair yet this year. And we've had the highest number of uh participating schools coming out and doing visits this year for us as for our students as well, which has been a blessing. And so we're really excited about that. In addition,

098our early college high school um partnership with St. Phillips and not just for ECS students but for any students that are taking dual credit classes on our campus. Um we offer supports there as well. Um Miss Linda Fair, she hosts Tiger Talks and Mule Moments. So kids can come in during lunch and get extra support and help. And then we are getting ready to welcome our largest cohort yet of early college high school students. Um we have 105 uh who have applied for next year, so class of 2030. So we're excited about that as well. And then in terms of progress monitoring, we are also um at the adjustments being made uh status and our uh CCMR tracker is being used to monitor that daily. College bridge monitoring. So teachers that are uh facilitating that

099program with students are monitoring their progress daily. We do uh monthly check-ins with our dual credit teachers. We have an early college high school monitoring and support system as I mentioned. And then again that attendance and failure report is also being monitored there. And then on the right hand side is all of the data that we are using to collect and monitor um progress in pillar 2. And then lastly we have pillar three which is tied to also our third wildly important goal around student and staff well-being and safety. But the key question here is to what degree are Elen Heights High School learners developing a healthy sense of social emotional wellness and security. And so when we think about the data that we use for that, we use climate surveys, character framework data, statewide

100uh or stakeholder feedback, and then we use that to monitor our safety, belonging, and relationships across the campus. And so we use that to make adjustments. Um here's a snapshot of a one-pager from the fall feedback that we collected from our um students and from staff. And so there's some some highlights there and some themes that appeared throughout that. We also then will close the loop not just with teachers but with students as well and go back and say we heard you. This is as a result of what you've shared with us. We're implementing this. And so that really uh provides some ownership of the students in making some real change that will benefit them and makes makes the culture a better place for them as well. Um so some of the actions that we've

101put into place this year uh regarding safety and systems, there is a new uh student safety committee uh that that is meeting to review the campus practices and keep our systems running smoothly and strong. Character.org network data and fall and spring feedback from students, parents, and staff um is really also guiding our improvements. Um regarding connection and belonging, our student and staff feedback in the fall and spring measures that um and the overall climate. I also want to speak to our high school ambassadors. Our high school ambassadors have done a great job in even with speaking to middle school students and helping them navigate the transition to from middle school to high school and how to adjust to time management, course load management, stress, peer pressure, all of those things. So, uh, want to give

102a shout out to our school ambassadors. They've been wonderful um in working with our middle school students and and our new students to the high school. And on the right you'll see um the at the top the graphic is the three promising practices that we were awarded this year by character uh.org and we are also applying for three new ones this year and those are for our student ambassadors our09 tutoring academy and our running with ricketetts and crew. So if you've never been out to a running with ricketett session, we invite you to join us on early on a Friday morning in the fall. Yes, it's a lot of fun. All right. And so in terms of monitoring progress and where we are here are the both the data on the right hand side that

103we are using to track and and collect for pillar 3 and then the cadence with which we're doing that on the left. So fall and spring review of surve survey data also as you know February feedback is happening now. So our our staff is um providing data, our parents are providing data and then students will have an opportunity toward closer to the end of the year to provide individual data to every teacher. And so that is um also being collected and will be reviewed by teachers uh as they receive that data as well. And so I will end before I hand it over to my younger brother here. Um I will end with the overall vision at Alma Heights High School which is to provide an unparalleled high school experience. And that leaves our students

104with a lifelong love of learning a deep sense of belonging, unwavering pursuit of excellence, and the confidence to go out and positively impact the world when they leave us. So I'm going to hand it over to Dr. Guthrie to talk about the junior school. And here's the clicker and then we'll take questions at the end. >> Thank you, Cy. Um, I do appreciate you uh calling us the junior school. I also appreciate Mr. Hornberger and a lot of you that take advantage of that. I will be addressing Mr. Bongard of LPA. Make sure the next time that we sit down for the bond. Uh, as the proud principal of the junior school, it is not difficult to get me to talk about the wonderful things that we are doing. Uh, the trick is getting me

105to shut up. So, I will keep it as brief and pointed as possible, but I will say that that's going to be a tough act to follow. And if we could do this next year where we go first and her follow, I appreciate that because that was very well done. And obviously, you're doing such great things over at the the high school. So, this year for our theme, we chose rooted for good. There's a couple of reasons that we chose that, but primarily for the word rooted. Uh we want to emphasize that we have gathered a staff um going back four years when I started here uh that has really dug in and doing the work necessary to uh to reach our goals as lofty as they may be from time to time being the

106best school in Texas all these things that we say but uh four years ago we replaced 27 teachers and out of a staff of 74 at the time that is a tremendous amount the next year we replaced 18 then 11 then six this past year and I think retaining great teachers Um, and that's one of the the district goals is to hire and retain the best teachers is how we stay rooted in strong instruction and consistent systems and plus we like the mule with the roots coming down as a as a logo there. Uh, and this work aligns directly to the district wigs like I mentioned of how are you taining the best and Mr. Boland tonight I think is certainly one of those teachers that we can point to as being one of the

107teachers that helps us be rooted for good. So when we developed our wigs this year, this is the process that we followed. I'm not going to read the whole the whole slide up there, but I want you to read left to right because we always start with the district goals first and we follow the lead from the district. Uh and also we work work well together here with the high school and the junior high. Uh but we build by starting with our district priorities. We gathered input from multiple groups on campus, our leadership team, our department chairs. Uh and this started back in May of last year. We had retreats both on campus and off campus. Uh and ultimately we went through our teachers at the beginning of the year to uh fine-tune our goals

108as well as develop the metrics that we'll talk about a little bit tonight. Then lastly, it goes to our sitebased decision-making committee to uh to present and all transparency what our goals are. And the reason I'm showing you this, the reason that we do this is we believe that builds a relational commitment with our goals and our staff. Um we do not ever want our teachers to feel like well we do that because they said we do that. We want these goals to be uh to be rooted and to be organic in nature um from all of our stakeholders at the junior school. So these are the five wigs that we uh developed. Um obviously this is not in great depth and we'll go into depth on three of these uh but we wanted to

109make sure that all of them were measurable. They were time bound and they were aligned with the district seas pillars. And as we go through, I'm going to emphasize three uh numbers one, two, and five tonight. Uh knowing that three and four are woven in to the other three as we talk about them. Our first goal, like it is with the district, is to increase student academic growth. And our challenge is to increase uh excuse me, increase student learning by strengthening our PLC systems. So teams use data consistently to improve instruction, respond to student needs and accelerate growth even in a time of reduction. Uh and you can see the images there. Uh we really believe that the junior school obviously we want to have a very rigorous school to prepare our students for high

110school and college and career afterwards, but we also want to enjoy the time that our students are with us. Our weekly PLC's is something that we take a lot of pride in. The last four years, our department chairs have really grown as leaders and taking those professional learning communities seriously and getting our teachers in front of each other. And it's much more than just collaborating. It's looking at data, looking at what our students do, uh what we do in response when they're successful, what do we do when they're not successful. Um addition, uh like I mentioned previously, our wig number four was our tailored professional development. uh and Christy Christopher, our instructional coach, and Kim Alexander, our instructional, I'm sorry, our academic dean, are really instrumental this year in listening to what our teachers are

111asking for and then producing professional development that's responsive to those requests. Another way to get our teachers to be at the top of their game in their classroom. Uh and mentioning data, we really focused u when we had our work time with our department chairs to dig into our data. Again, it's one thing to know what your numbers tell you, but it's a whole different matter to know who those students are. And that's something that we really pride ourselves on. Do we know the names of our students who are struggling uh or or uh succeeding because be becoming a a mastery level student is also very important with us. Uh we've done a lot of work with um the instructional coaches at the high school with vertical alignment. they've come down and we've made sure

112that our social studies teachers, for example, are aligned with what the students will be doing in the high school. And then last year, something we're going to continue this year is our seven Saturdays to success. Not sure if it'll be seven, it could be eight. Doesn't sound as good without the alliteration, but that's something that we're going to work on uh so that those students that we feel like need the additional help uh when it comes to star testing time uh can come in. We've also reemphasized our student organization. uh we feel like an organized student is a successful student. So to measure this um we do a couple of different things. One is uh we know that the star test is just a one-time measure and while we're proud that we were an a

113campus with a a 90 overall score, we know that that really is just a one-time look at the our students. Uh we measure our students on the the math and measure academic progress test at both or three times rather the beginning of the year, middle of the year and end of the year. And this year we've seen incredible growth. There's two measures that really come out of that. Uh one is growth which is the time between beginning of year to middle of year. But then there's also the achievement. Where are your students at currently? Uh our reading scores have shown a lot of growth. Our science is really the big win right now. They've shown an amazing uh growth. They're at the 66th percentile of growth. Obviously the 100 percentile 50 being half of it's

114a nationwide norm test. So it's against students all across the nation. and then their achievement is really high. Uh math still is one of our areas that we work on. Uh I know that Corey and I, Miss Smith and I have talked about um our students that go from 8th grade math to algebra at high school. That is a struggle for us and it's a it's a good struggle uh because we have a lot of students that want to be in advanced classes and we have a lot of students that take algebra as the eighth grade uh student and that does uh create a group of students that is is not in that group. And so that's something that we're going to continue to focus on much like we did last year with the seven

115Saturdays of success. Quick number two is protect our culture. We have so many things that we do traditionwise in Alamo Heights. We're very um keen, I should say, to continue those at the junior school, but also to create new uh memories and new traditions. Um our challenge is to reinforce our systems to ensure safety for our students and that comes in a lot of different ways. Um it's not just the safety of the perimeter of the fencing and those kind of things, but the safety for our middle school students or junior school students to feed themselves, to dress up on dress up days and just to have fun at the junior school, which we think is a priority of ours. Uh but the consistency of the day um and the student belonging and of course

116our need to improve staff um retention. Uh the graph up there at the top is one that I'm very proud of. I show it all the time and uh it's part of the uh f excuse me fall feedback that we asked our students to report back. And I can say if you can see the bottom there as 2021 all the way up to this most current year. And the two bars on the right and the green talk about if a student feels connected, how much do you belong, how much you feel like you belong in your school. And I always show this and I ask people, think back about when you were 11, 12, and 13. Just how much did you really think people knew who you were or that you had something positive that

117you could uh share with other students? And when you look at that data in the last 5 years, um the students that have reported either belonging quite a bit or completely belong completely belong to their junior school has gone up 14 percentage uh points. So that's 70 students report that. Uh so every 10 students you pass in the hallways at the junior school, seven of them are reporting that they are belong quite a bit or completely belong. That makes me very proud as a principal. And some of the things that we do uh to make sure that happens in addition to um the traditions, the homecoming where yes, I've kissed a mule three times now, mulch mania, spring fest, all those fun things. But we also uh like I said, we have uh routines, expectations.

118We address mistreatment. Um, our staff recognition traditions. We have ways that we have our teachers recognize each other in faculty meeting. We start every faculty meeting with family business where we talk about things that as a family we can support each other. We have an entourage award. Uh, we bequeath the cape which is something from the district this year about finding the heroes in the classroom. So, we do those things for our staff to have fun but also to recognize what their peers are doing. Um, okay. And then the last wig that we're going to talk about tonight is one that uh we did not have last year, but it came straight out of our feedback from our community about purposely using technology and balancing an engagement uh between our teachers and screen time. Uh

119we also understand that this is an important aspect for not just our community but for our teachers. Um we also understand that it's our responsibility frankly uh to teach responsible use of technology because it will be a part of their life and work in their future. However, we do not believe the way to do that is to park them in front of screens all day long. So, we have had intentional conversations um with our staff and some of the things that we have done specifically to address this is we require our teachers to communicate with their students uh and their parents three times um twice in the fall semester, once in the spring, so that our parents know not only how technology is being used, but also how to ask questions and get in touch

120with the teacher if something were to come back and have questions. Uh we had a tech night for our student I'm sorry for our parents. They came in and we had some of our department chairs talk about how technology is used and how they can track and monitor assignments and some other things. Um in terms of teacherf facing uh tech use we have a a section of our faculty meeting called bet you didn't know and we have our teachers that have found interesting AI uses or different ways to use technology. And the reason we do that is we understand that AI and computers in general can really build capacity with our teachers by freeing them up u by using those tools that cut down some of the uh other work that they have to do.

121It gives them more valuable time with their students in a onetoone basis. Uh tomorrow we'll be doing a campus learning walk. I hope some of you all can join us and we will be doing a tech walk through using um Eduporia is what we use to evaluate our teachers and we developed this year an edgeoria form just for the tech usage so that when we go in the classroom as administrators um we don't necessarily build long-term uh data points out of this but what it does is it presents us with an opportunity to have conversations with teachers about tech geese technology is all over the map and how it looks is always different in the classroom. So, it doesn't always present that one good thread of data, but it does present opportunities to have those

122conversations. Um, and from our fall uh feedback with our student, 83% of our students reported that technology helps them learn and that's up 10% in just three years. Um, while we don't want to just say, well, kids want to be on computers, uh, we do trust that their opinion matters when we do listen to our students. And lastly, why do we capitalize the before the chamber school? It's a good question and I don't get asked that a lot. So, I just kind of made this up because I want to talk about why we do this. I do this personally because I do feel like the junior school is a special place. Uh I think it matters to our kids and our community and I want our students to think of the junior school as a

123destination. Um obviously we get uh coined with things like mules in the middle. I'm not going to make any judgments about that because we know we're also preparing students that have come from wonderful elementary schools. They're going to a great high school. But we want the middle school to be a special time for those students. But we also use it as a daily reminder is accountability check. I believe if you're going to capitalize the and make us stand out, then you better live up to it in everything that we do. And the last thing I'll leave you with is language shapes thinking and thinking shapes behavior. So, I 100% believe that we are the junior school and I hope to live up to those expectations. All right. You have questions for us. >> I've got

124one. David, >> can you go for the junior school? Can you go to that slide on sense of belonging? >> Um, let's see. >> Yeah, right there. >> I'm sorry. >> So, those are all February feedback results, right? >> Yes, sir. >> 2023, 2024, 2025 upward trend. >> I'm sorry. Fall feedback. Yes. >> Yeah. Um, I'm just kind of wondering what happened around 2022 to make that trend so pronounced. >> Yeah, that's a great question, Mr. Arber. >> Glad we hired you then. Good job. >> I appreciate that. >> I just wanted to point that out. I mean, >> I was trying to point that out, but I'm glad you did it for me. >> Way out loud. Thank you. I appreciate that. >> Yep. >> I said it pointed out. That's the one question

125I got. Thank you. >> That's great. Anybody else? >> I real quick. Um you mentioned it and I might have missed it on the PLC's with the change in schedule. How is that going? >> So it it's still they are still meeting. Uh the one lunch does help because they have a longer time during lunch. So they can sometimes do working lunches together. They don't have common conference periods. Um but we also prioritize any of our early release days to give them that opportunity to meet in their PLC's. Those are strictly dedicated to PLC time as well. So They they found they find pockets of time. Moving from having a a a different version of a template that we used that was a little bit more involved to where they can just focus on one

126PLC question at a time now really gives them the ability to leverage their time most effectively and they can they can get a PLC meeting done in 25 to 30 minutes. Um, I have one other question and this is maybe for our spotlight on ex excellence recipient and I've always assumed the map I pay a lot of attention to the map results and I've always assume like I've never really thought about it the population of schools that participate in MAP is how we judge the 50% 100% right so it's we have to look at whoever select what schools have selected into MAP the MAP program is Right. >> It's 14 million students. >> Bingo. You got it. Thank you. I need you to have the answer. I was hitting you cold and I need you

127to have the answer. Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> Yes. >> I have one. So, I am so impressed with the the Saturday and the map. I mean, I think that the numbers have shown how successful that is. So, tell me, I mean, you all target particular students who need help. And is it just math? Is that right? >> No, it's not. Uh we have uh every single one of our departments has been asked to come up with some type of um and I don't even want to call it remedial because that's not fair because we have a lot of students that also sign up for these classes who are what we would say are our future masters or the ones that need to stay as a master and when it comes to star testing.

128I'm using that just as our example but um we try to make it across the board. We do a lot of groups. We split them into different uh classrooms. Um, of course we provide snacks, which is a great time to then switch them up between teachers. Uh, and our teachers plan ahead of time so that if they have a certain uh strength, they'll just teach that, you know, several times for different students. Uh, and some of them, obviously, we do target those that are struggling in certain ways academically. But there also a lot of kids that um do really well. They just want to become a little better at the uh their their content. >> Yeah, that's great. And Corey, I know I mean y'all do such a great job at the high school targeting

129kids that that need extra help or I mean I think trying to I don't know if Saturdays would work at the high school, but replicating, you know, something like that. I just um you know it's great to >> we h we have done that in the past and we're talking about how to best prepare our students whether we do our super Saturday prep or we do some uh after school tutoring. It's um trying to find what works best for our students and their busy schedules. But thank you. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you all very much. Is anybody else? >> Good. Thank you'all. Appreciate it. >> Okay. Next up, we have a presentation of technology long range plan with Brian. >> Do I need this? >> I don't. Uh, you probably do because we're recording.

130Yeah. I love being able to follow Stewa just uh with his Is this on? >> He turned it on. >> I pulled the batteries down. >> Uh I love following that up because you what you see is really the result of a lot of the front end work we've we've done this year. Um I think and I'm even more happy that I don't have to follow Jimmy because it's always a nightmare to follow Jimmy. And Brian, I will just remind you, Carrie reminded me the board has all already seen your presentation as far as um the slides and so you could go quickly for this. Yeah. Thank you. >> Do you hear what I'm saying? >> So, uh like I mentioned, uh we frontloaded a lot of stuff this year. Everything from our springtime guidelines

131to our instructional um technology matrix that uh Stu alluded to um that they're using for walkthroughs in their in their uh classrooms this year. Uh we did do some calibrated walkthroughs with all of our campus administrators back in October. Uh and it's good to see that uh that's now being put in place actually in the classrooms or as as the administration is doing their uh administrative walkthroughs. Uh just touching base on a few things, our light speeded systems. Again, this is really a suite of four different products we have in the district this year. Uh this has been uh one of my favorite things that we've brought on this year. So we brought our filter on early as well as uh Lightseed Classroom which is the um teacher facing piece uh where they manage Chromebooks

132in their classroom. Uh Lightseed Digital Insider is one of our newer ones that we brought on but this is given us the ability to uh um gather some metrics on how uh apps are being used throughout the district. So this is an example of um just a screenshot from it where um this was three month looking at three months of data from grades 6 through 12. What's nice on this is we see you see a lot of Google up there. We're a Google district. Our LMS is Google classroom. So that's expected. uh more importantly the products that we are allocating funds towards uh for example or our PTOs are allocating funds for us uh formative uh those are some of the top apps being used in the district so it's good to get feedback that

133what we're spending money on we're we're actually using um skip past that light speed classroom I mentioned a bit again this was from a week's worth of data Uh and we can see this is really 6 through 12 teachers. Uh in you know a 5day period of time we had 109 teachers using it on 113 different devices. So it's widespread. Teachers are finding that useful in their classroom. And then finally light speeded alerts which is our newest um piece that we've uh brought on from from Lighteed is giving us insight into um student safety. So, what they're doing on their devices, types of sites they're visiting, and we get notified on um on things that rise up to that need to be a priority for us. Uh couple other uh items just to bring you

134up to speed on. Parent Square. This will be our communication solution for the 2627 school year. This is u directly the result of feedback we've gotten from families about we need to streamline our communication. They're just having too many channels coming at them. Uh we have it set up. We're going to do a soft launch this spring after spring break at Howard and the junior school. So we'll be communicating stuff out to families at um at those two campuses um to get them more information. We'll start sending things like Monday mail out through that uh later this spring. Uh Skyward, Matt and I are going to go get matching tattoos once we get with all of this. >> Big big lift. Um we are what I like to say is phase two really phase one

135this past fall and this is both the student side and the um and the uh business side. Uh our phase one throughout the fall was spent just a lot a lot of consulting meetings with with Skyward on how we do business in the district, what's working for us in Eastchool, how can we, you know, build Skyward to to work best for us. Uh we're now in a uh what I like to call a phase two which is really uh a lot of training is starting to kick off uh uh communicating with different uh players on that um and really kind of just getting the data from one system to another. So we're doing a lot of data quality in there as well. Uh there'll be a slight change to registration this year. We're going to

136open it up in early July. It's always been open in July. Um, but we're going to have to shut it down earlier than earlier towards the end of this year because we got to get the data into the e school and then bring it over. Does that make sense? And then phase three is really implementation and ongoing training. So we have I mean between the two student and business sites, I think we have 90 uh different training days already scheduled. most of them are are are online and that stretches from next week till you know the end of next school year. Anyhow, uh we've begun uh looking at keyboarding in our in our classrooms. We had a great um discussion at our tech community meeting the other day just kind of getting some feedback from

137teachers on ideas of how we can get this fit in. Uh so we gathered some feedback uh from them on that. just starting to look towards um possible solutions for for for what that will look like. And just as a bonus, um we'll have a Chromebook refresh coming this year. Just kind of keeping our our our fleet up to date. We're seeing a more damaged than than typical uh now that we don't no longer have that bring your own devices in classroom. So, you just have more kids on Chromebooks. You know, you can expect more damages uh from that. Um, we're always working through our, you know, different bond projects, classroom cl uh, campus and classroom renovations. Uh, we'll have a Wi-Fi update this summer as long as as well as a, uh, server refresh.

138So, I'll have a couple things coming to you all in an upcoming board meeting around that. And that is the technology update. >> That's great. Thank you very much. Any questions? >> Just a quick one for later. John, you don't have to explain it now, but just because at at my company, like we moved all of our server stuff like offsite now. It's like it's in the cloud, we're releasing it, we're not maintaining our own stuff anymore. Uh, so just later, I'm curious like pros and cons or even the cost differential to doing a server refresh or having a service. >> Okay. >> Anyone else? >> Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. >> Okay. Next up, we will bring Jimmy Walker. um the consideration of TE's verification for instructional materials adoption. >> I'm

139going to be so succinct I'm not even going to sit down. >> All right. So I am talking about I was about to say surprise >> just saying >> instructional materials. Uh so I am going to briefly talk about instructional material a lotment funding the approval process supplemental materials our new K through2 uh math adoption and then for your consideration tonight is a TEA required form which lists all of our approved or adopted resources. It is the same as this current year with the exception of the new math adoption. So just big picture uh we approval of all instructional materials was under TEA it has shifted to all be under state board of ed. The ripple effect is we now have fewer instructional materials to choose from at a local level. Our funding before uh

140COVID was about a million dollars every two years. That has shrunk to be about $830,000 every two years. And the cost of instructional materials has increased. I looked this up. Last time we adopted math materials, it was $42 per student for an 8year adoption. Current market price is $50 to $75 per student per year. Now, and uh math instructional materials is the only change to that teach verification compared to this current year. So we do u have adopted resources for all of our teachers but there are occasions that teachers need to use something outside of that adoption. We have some processes in place that have served us well. first being our instructional matrix. And then our language arts departments both at junior school and high school have novel rationale forms for any uh core literature

141that students will be reading that gives us a synopsis, a rationale for why they're using it and also highlights any area of sensitivity within that novel. And then Ben Keenan and John Shepard at junior school and high school worked together to come up with the templates so that teachers could notify families in advance of when they'll be reading these books. For instance, the things they carried, amazing piece of literature, but it is sensitive around um war and takes place in Vietnam. If you have a military connected family and someone who's going off in deployment, it's a great piece of literature. It may not be great for that child at this moment. So, math adoption, we are moving to a consistent, cohesive adoption from kindergarten all the way through algebra 2. It is blue bonnet instructional

142materials. There are several things about it that we really like. Number one is it is systemic, explicit, and sequential. You can see the the structure of the lesson. Imagine the talent that our students will have if every day from kindergarten all the way through algebra 2, they've had five minutes to work on fact fluency. That means when they get to complex two-step questions, they're not going 8 time 7 and having to count it out on their fingers. Problem solving every day, a real focus on concept development. It is a printrich adoption which means every student will have a consumable workbook per module that they write in and a homework book that will go back and forth. In addition, it has some other key things we value. One being our kids who graduate, half of them

143have been with us through kindergarten. We want consistent terminology. So, we're all saying points on a number line, not knots on a rope. So, for every module, there is clear clear terminology with visual representation. There's a family math guide. We have heard repeatedly from families that you get to a point that it can be difficult to help your child prep for a test or complete homework. I wasn't looking at you. >> Third grade was >> and this does for every module. There's written in familyfriendly language a guide for families on how to support their child and for misconceptions. You have a teacher like Sean Simpson who's been teaching fifth grade math for years. He knows where kids are going to struggle. But if we have a new teacher or a new teacher to a grade

144level, this identifies common misconceptions students might bring and the teachers move so so they can be prepared for that. I would not bring anything to you if I had not not done due diligence to ensure this is high quality. We've contacted 15 different school districts who are using this. There is some controversy around Blue Bonnet, but it's all on the language arts reading side. And it's about the inclusion of uh a religious text, not on the math side, and math is the only adoption we're doing. We also took a field trip to Bernie ISD. They've been using these materials for four years to go see them in action. So, final thoughts. Currently, right now, a teacher in Almo Heights for math. Our last adoption was in 2014. Materials are fragmented. No one has a complete

145set anymore. They can feel like a hunter gatherer. I've got to go hunt up some intervention materials, gather some enrichment. We want to shift to something that's more like HelloFresh. High quality materials, everything they need. They just mix it together for their students because we always say we teach students, not programs. Great. >> And that's our adoption. And I think we need to take a vote. Yes, we do. >> So, are there any questions before we do take that vote? >> No. We are so excited about this. Okay. So, all your work. >> Do I have a motion to appro? Oh, I don't have I'm not sure. Do I have a motion to approve the TE's verification for instructional materials adoption? >> I'll second. >> Okay, Hunter. And then second will be Lauren. And any

146further discussion? All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> All oppose, please say nay. >> Okay. Motion carries. >> Thank you. You're truly amazing, Dr. Walker. I'm excited about the workbooks if I do say so myself. Okay, so next we have a presentation of Texas Education Agency intruder detection audit with our new chief Eddie Ray. Thank you for being here. >> Good evening. I've got a prepared statement for you. Dr. Charl members of the board, as you may know, schools in Texas are required to have thorough emergency operations plans and to follow several other requirements to ensure the safety and security of our students annually. We must review and revise our EOPS and submit them to the Texas State Safety Center for approval. Recently completed a stringent district vulnerability assessment with Texas Education Agency.

147We periodically train students and staff to conduct monthly safety drills. We have weekly perimeter security checks, not to mention all the infrastructure we put in place over last two years. Uh layers of security like security fencing, single points of access, door locking mechanisms, buzzing systems with security vestibles, security surveillance video, and our school resource officers just to mention a few. Starting in fall of 2023, schools are also required to undergo intrusion detection audits conducted by auditors from Texas Education Agency. These are individuals trained by the Texas School Safety Center to assess campus intrusion detection process during one unannounced site visit. When a visit finds no issues, superintendent receives a report saying no findings. When a visit finds any issues, the superintendent received a report with findings. Alamo Heights Junior School received their audit on the

1489th of January, 2026. During the audit, the inspector found no findings. Alamo Heights High School received their audit on the 3rd of February, 2026. During the audit, the inspector discovered mechanical deficiencies with our portable doors. Normally these doors would not be an issue due to the port holes being located within a secured area. However, construction had opened up a entry point in the fence line without pre-approval. This security gap exposed the security area as penetrable, thus making each portable door a finding. Since the audit, we've met with the construction team, reiterated our security protocols, and the gap is now sealed. Additionally, our maintenance team is coordinating with the portables contracting company uh to have the door mechanisms fixed or replaced. Company is expected to be on the ground this week to work on the doors

149while under existing warranty. We have completed the corrective action plan and I'm prepared to submit to TDA following this meeting. Uh thank you for your time and I'll stand by for questions in executive session. >> Thank you very much. Are there any questions? >> We don't. That's right. >> That's right. again new to the job and I'm ready. Okay, so now we are uh the next item on our agenda is the consent agenda. These items that the board considered routine or that have been previously reviewed and discussed in prior meetings and that we therefore enact with one motion. Is there anything in the consent agenda that any board members would like to remove to consider as an item on the regular agenda? I will just point out that I feel like we have some audience

150members here who would like to hear um about board action around Senate Bill 11. And so that will take place during the policy um committee meetings report. And so >> okay, I also want to mention that we have received $39,037 in donations from our great community. Um if there are no items to pull out, do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? David. Thank you. A second. >> Second. >> Karen. Thank you. All in favor, please say I. >> I. All oppose, please say nay. >> The motion carries. >> Okay. Section six, board member committee reports. I think Hunter has building committee. Is that right? >> Yeah. And I'll be brief because Eric obviously gave us a a thorough um explanation, but what we've talked about lately at the mo last DCC meeting

151or at the last building committee meeting was the DCC and the junior school. The only thing I'll add to what Eric said is both projects are generally on budget at the these milestones, which is good news. >> Yeah. >> Beyond that, no no further competent report. >> That's great. We don't have questions here either. Okay. All right. Um next up is district advisory council meeting. I think that's Karen. >> Yes. So we met as a committee on February 4th. Uh much of our agenda was actually just presented in this board meeting. So we went over the um website information from Brian along with the instructional material that we just approved uh and the SEBAS. So the uh one piece that we did not discuss tonight but was on DACK was the strategic planning initiative that

152is forthcoming. >> That's great. >> That's it. >> Okay. Great. And then I'm going to take on the policy committee report. Karen and I met with um Dr. Alfaro and Dr. Basher Monday, February 2nd and Wednesday, February 11th. The entire team actually was the 11th if that's right. Um and I want to tell you all um that we spent time reviewing the language in the draft resolution regarding Senate Bill 11. Um we are not going to be allowing additional time for parent in schools. And we also spent time reviewing the updated law purchasing library books and and anticipate approving the books at our March meeting. So that is the update on policy and um Alen Height School Foundation board meeting. David. >> Oh yeah. My gosh, y'all. They're rolling. Um so we had a couple

153meetings, but the most recent one today um so first of all the the teacher fund y'all is 70% increase year-over-year. They're already up to $1.7 million by year end is kind of their estimate right now. Um, and last year was just over a million. So, it's always that plus other gifts plus Greater Heights Night kind of equals, you know, the donations they give us. So, they're way ahead on that. Super excited. Greater Heights Night is getting planning underway. Um, they're starting to do these deals where they go to different cities to host events because they're getting just wonderful feedback on the community that it brings everybody. Um, and then finally, the endowment campaign is about to get underway. I think Carrie, you're the chairperson of that committee. So, thank you for doing that or that

154campaign. Uh they have a wonderful group of folks already signed up to be on the steering committee. Pat Frost, Anne Watson, Kelly Little, Bob Worth, Elizabeth Maro, just great community members ready to help out. I think they're still talking to four other folks. >> Yes. >> Um and they have, you know, the goal is to raise 10 million and I keep telling them, don't you mean at least 10 million? I don't want to set a ceiling on it. Yes. I think you probably think the same way. >> Correct. >> But they're way far ahead in their strategic planning. It is it is it is significantly more directed than it was the last time around and so they're very excited about it and I am too. Um they do have a little bit of a campaign

155budget in there where they can handle all their expenses and their legal counsel and that sort of thing but it's well under 3% of the projected you know hall bringing it in. So everything's like cooking. They're in good shape. >> That's great. I'm personally very excited about this craziness of my life and I am ready to raise the money. So on that note, section seven is business recommendations and I believe at this time there are no business recommendations. So we will move on to section 8 calendar review. >> So just a reminder we have our junior school learning walk tomorrow at 11:30. Um past president's lunchon for the school foundation will take place on next Wednesday, February 25th. And thank you to Lauren for being willing to share some remarks on behalf of the board

156at that lunchon. GMP March is just wonky because of spring break. So, we go right into GMP that very first week on March 4th. We have an Excel graduation scheduled on the 5th. Um, district safety committee for Clay and Carrie, I'm sorry, on March 17th. And then, um, our board meeting on the 18th, as well as school foundation board meeting. Um, on the 19th, we have you all scheduled to come to the boardroom at 11:30 and we'll have lunch for you there, but that's where we'll go through the board. um strategic planning focus group meeting. Any questions about any of that? This will be in your weekly update as well. >> Okay, that's great. And now we will move forward to section 9, the superintendent communication. >> Okay, so Julianne always does a great job

157just highlighting some celebrations for me to talk about. We have two UIL state swim and dive qualifiers. Uh Cameron Peral is qualified in the 100 yard freestyle and the 200yard freestyle. And Henry Tucker um I believe he's a believe is a freshman. He's a sophomore. Okay. So young diver and he's qualified in the one meter diving competition. So excited to send them to state. We also, I mean, celebrated tonight in a big way that our our cheerleaders, our um varsity in sixth place at nationals and all our junior varsity as national champions for the fourth time in a row. So, big celebrations all around. The next slide just highlights um our undertakings this past Monday in professional development. We had um a great keynote um Linson lecture addressed by um Justin, Dr. Justin Richardson who's

158worked with our district before. He gave a really uplifting message about the power of finding your pause, leading from the middle. Um, and the last one was about assembling your team. And so just an uplifting way for us to think about progressing through the spring semester. Um, all of us were together in the junior school auditorium and then we went to breakout sessions. There were 28 sessions. 31 of our staff members stepped up to lead um those sessions which is just a real testament to the teacher leadership um and the culture that promotes that all around us. So great celebration, great sessions um and then campus time at the you know in the afternoon as well. And then finally um bond updates you've heard about just the fantastic design around the district community center as

159well as the junior school. Um, I got to spend time with our girls softball team for their first practice out at the softball field. And, you know, it was a little bit emotional, y'all. Like, it it is an incredible facility uh that honors um the dedication of our female athletes, and it's something that I'm incredibly proud of. Um, our first game will be played out there on March 3rd. So, I'm hoping you all put that on your calendar. Um, it's going to be another great community celebration for that team. Um, and then just you have a picture there of Cambridge. Oh my goodness, y'all. There's a lot going on in Cambridge right now. I don't know what else to say about that, but uh the building three, uh, the second floor, we moved teachers from

160the third floor into the second floor. And so now the third floor is under construction. That central plan is just, you know, from what I'm learning and all of the meetings that I sit in, it's just it's a beast to get that, you know, taken care of that they're they're working on schedule. Um and then again just the high school. I know as you drive, you know, down Broadway and as you see um the progress that's taking place, you like me are incredibly excited about the opening of that building again on schedule and um actually under budget. So that's that's a big celebration. So any questions about bond for me? Okay. Thanks. Okay. And before we move into our next item, if there are no objections, we will take a short fivem minute break before

161entering into executive session as per Texas Government Code section 551. Thank you for all those who have been in this entire time. >> Oh, and we have to sign this resolution. So, yes. >> Thank you. >> And these are clays, so I'll just keep them in this one.