001Yes. stability 11. No, I love I love [Applause] it. It's not terrible. This is bad. I thought you'd be a great Our [Music] freshman Sean is running too [Music] much. You are on a nice side. How are you tomorrow? He was like, "So just like in that class. Yeah. realiz. [Music] Yeah. Where's Clyde? [Music] Yeah, he's got one minute. If not, okay, here. I'm ready. Give me the verbage. Is he here? I mean, not. Thanks. You're welcome. Yeah. Good evening. Good evening. It's 6:00. I don't have my glasses. Well, here you need this thing. It's six. Let's go. No, I don't. I don't. Oh, here. You need these sunglasses. I have my sunglasses. Clay, look. Put these on. No, it's fine. Good evening. Could I please have everyone's attention? Um, it is 6:00 p.m. on
002Tuesday, June 17th, and this is a duly filed and posted regular meeting of the Alma Heights Board of Trustees. Thank you all for coming. I would like to welcome anyone listening to our live streaming broadcast and anyone who would like a recording of this meeting. We will post a link on the website within 24 hours after the meeting. In addition, we will also post the materials being presented within 24 hours, so you can review a copy of those as well. The recordings are under the school board icon at our almaindependent.net website. If anyone in the audience would like to address the board tonight, we welcome your input during our citizens to be heard items on the agenda. Please fill out the yellow form by the door. Read the instructions and indicate the agenda item if
003there is one so we can introduce you at the appropriate time. Um, section two, delegations and recognitions. At this time, I would like to turn it over to our absolute stud, Frank Alfara. Thank you, Mr. President Paige. Uh, great. We've got two recognitions tonight. It's a small group, but I want to remind everybody we stay to the end of the recognition and then that's when we start the business part of the meeting, which you're welcome to stay at, but you don't have to if you're here just for recognitions. The first recognition goes to one of our substitute teachers. I'll explain why we're recognizing him, but I want him to stand up and you all clap for Robert Delgado. Now, Robert is being recognized as a member of the Century Club. Now, is that like 100
004years? It's 100 It's 100 days of subbing. Now, so you all know, uh, like looking at the students here, you've got your teachers. They work hard. Sometimes they have to stay home. Sometimes they have, uh, doctor's appointments. Sometimes they have, uh, their own families have to stay and take care of. And so, we really need substitutes. Now, there's in in the business, there's not a ton of subs in the whole city. So, we are fortunate to have some of the best substitute teachers in our area. Now, that goes without saying. However, for someone to uh substitute for over a 100 days in a given school year, we've only got like 174 days of school is a miraculous feat. And so, that's why we recognize you, not just for being here today for doing such a
005good job. So, Robert, would you like to add anything to that? Oh, I just want to thank you for having me here. It's been a blessing to work in Elmo Heights and I've worked in other districts but I found that like the next home and I didn't think it was going to turn out this way but the students, the faculty, the administration, everything has just been spectacular. Well, speaking of spectacular, do you have anybody here to supporting you? Yes, I have my wife who is my big support system. Speaking of spectacular. Yeah. Well, congratulations. We appreciate you and hope you can sign in next year too, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. He's a special ed sub. Our next recognition tonight is an athletic recognition, the final one of this school year, and that's honoring our state,
006our final state qualifiers of the year, tennis players who qualified for the UIL state tennis tournament. Come on and stand up. for Julian told you stand and let's clap for that. Now tell us uh you guys are teams, right? And so tell us your first name, your last name, what grade you're in, and then um how you did this year. Likewise with you, and then let's start this way so we can end with your coach to tell us. So we'll start over here with the Melty. All right. I'm Brandon Treer. Um, and I'm going to be a senior this year. Okay, great. I'm Santiago Castellaso. I'm a freshman. Oh, sophomore. You're going to be a You're going to be a sophomore. I'm going to be a sophomore. You're going to be a sophomore. Wow. And
007so you all were state semi- finalists. Wow. Congratulations. And how about our pair here? Um, I'm Ellie Rose. I'm going to be a senior. Um, I'm Amy S and I just graduated. Oh, wow. And so you all were state quarterfinalists. Wow. And coach, tell us who you are and tell us a little about both of these teams. So, Coach David Daniel, uh, and this was my first year in Elmo Heights, and kind of echo, uh, we had there, it's been a great home. Uh, we were really just talking about this a little bit ago, Naomi and Brandon and two other players, uh, seniors met, uh, for the first time last June. Uh, accepted the job and we had a little pow-wow down in order. and uh I realized very quickly have some special kids. Um
008and it's been a a really wonderful year. Um Brandon and Santi uh you know, we kind of held them all for a little bit and then I I I really kind of sense all along I was going to be putting them together, but we kind of moved them around different partners or little signals and then it was time we put them together and they took off. Uh won the first tournament they played in. Uh and then um they won district uh and then the the regional match uh you know made it all the way through to the final lost a very tough match against a very good team from Mission Chairland that also made the state semi-finals. Uh but the the match of the year was their first round at state. Uh played a team
009from LA Cooper. Uh we were down uh gosh what was it 63 uh5? Yeah. 63 won five or they won lost first set 63 down five came back and won that set. Uh got down the tie and then came won the tie break I think 1311. Uh truly an amazing match. Uh so much fun to have actually been a part of. It was mentally exhausting for me. Uh but and then they beat a regional winner uh the next round for Man Consolidated and then came up against uh the team that won the 5A state title and probably would have also won the 6A state title. Uh so a little tough draw there, but they absolutely phenomenal. Uh these two ladies, Ellie and and Naomi had anchored our doubles all year long. Uh they were our
010number one doubles team in the fall. Um played every tough team that uh every other team had to offer. uh and they were stalwarts throughout. Uh really felt like we had a good thing going and we just stayed with that and uh you know they they I put them in some tough tournaments. They battled some tough tough teams but by the time it caps time for district uh they rolled through that competition uh played a great regional and won the region four title. Uh and unfortunately in the quarters we just ended up against a tough team from Frisco Centennial who uh probably the second or third best team at the state tournament and uh you know it it was tough match but I'm so proud of how easily ladies and gentlemen have done uh obviously
011we're going to greatly miss Naomi. She's got a lot of spit and fire uh lead to the team uh but a lot of hope and promise for the years to come. So thank you very much. Yeah. We appreciate you all and of course all the parents who are driving them all over the place today and practice and that kind of thing. Appreciate you, coach. Well, that's our last recognition for the evening. So, if that's what you're here for, this is a good time to leave. We're going to start the business, but you're welcome to start from the business portion as well. Thank you, Robert. Have a good Brian. All right. The uh next item on our agenda is section three, citizens to be heard. We have received one request to speak on the agenda. Um
012when your name is called, please join the table. I think we have Jeremy Dela. I don't want to Delus. Dela what? Who's Dela? Who's Okay. Well, thank you for coming. Each person will have three minutes to speak and Christina will hold up a card when there is one minute left and another card when 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 a public meeting. It is best to be careful when comments about specific people. In addition, mindful of the due process of legal obligations. The board will not respond to your comments tonight. However, we welcome and appreciate your input and it is important member of our community and we will follow up with you separately as necessary. For
013everyone else listening, please know that if a member of the community speaking tonight raises any concerns or questions, we will have a member of the staff connect contact them directly for followup. Right. Uh Jeremy, your time is now. All right. Well, thank you everybody. Appreciate you giving us the opportunity. And just as an introduction, my name is Jeremy Delus and my wife Kathleen. She uh she grew up in Alamo Heights. Um and we actually now have four children. We moved back to San Antonio about 6 years ago. Um four children aging ranging in age from 11 down to three and a half or four. And so a big draw to come back to Elmo Heights was you know the experience she had growing up and the school district uh you know the school district and
014she went from Howard all the way through high school and and that was a big draw of us coming back to San Antonio from Houston. Um and when we came back it was our intention to send all of our kids to Alamo Heights right out of the right out of the get-go. However, when we first came back, we started to learn about uh technology and how the district used technology and the 1:1 iPad ratio. Um, and that started to concern us. And this was back in 2019 pre-COVID. So, our kids were younger. Uh, and that started to concern us a little bit. We started digging in. We met with different members of the administration. We met with a former technology director he had uh at the time. Um, but ultimately the amount of technology being
015used at the younger ages specifically is what really concerned us. And so we ended up starting our kids out in private school. And so my oldest who just finished fourth grade, we always had the intention of moving back into Alamo Heights, but like I said, the early the use of technology at the early ages is what it concerned us. So we moved him back this last year in fourth grade and it's been fantastic. Um, the school we love, like I said, we love Alamo Heights. my wife grew up here. That's a big draw of why we came back and it's been a fantastic experience and and my daughters now, one going into third and one going into first, we're moving back into the district as well. Uh however, that being said, the use of technology
016was as concerning as as we imagined. Um and that's really what I'm here to do is start a conversation about, you know, what the proper use of technology is at these younger ages. There's been a lot of research done that, you know, a lot of device time increases social anxiety. It it really um inhibits a child's ability to uh develop interpersonal relationships. And so we believe that Alamo Heights has the opportunity to be a leader in this area. I know it's a big issue. Other school districts around the state and the country are dealing with the same thing. We think Almo Heights has an opportunity to be a to be a leader and reverse the overuse of screens for the next generation. Uh it's not a problem that's unique to our school or our community,
017but we want to help the conversation to get started on how to address it. And anecdotally, there's a lot of parents who feel similarly. Um a lot of parents in the community who maybe don't come to board meetings or maybe don't, you know, do things just for, you know, what whatever reason. People are busy, you know, they don't want to, you know, create drama. But there there is a lot of parents who feel the same way. So thank you guys and thank you. Look forward to connecting them all. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Now we need to move to section four items for presentation and possible action. Our next agenda item is section 4. And right now we have under a 2025 2026 target area overview and the man again. Yes sir. Thank you uh
018Mr. President. Uh to those of you who are listening out there, I know there's lots of people hanging on our every word. Uh we are uh what I want to do is frame for everyone listening uh what we call target areas uh in our district. Uh for several years now in our work with the trustees we have collaboratively as a district uh administrative staff and uh trustees identified specific things that we focus on in a given year. Lots of stuff to work on. Obviously, lots of work goes on, but some items will take more work in considered uh resources, time, and energy. And so, those are the things we try to to identify. We call those target areas. It's not the only thing we're doing, but it is something that will take up a significant
019portion of our time. So, to catch everybody up, our process really begins to identify the next year's target areas. We begin working from uh April to May uh both internally and externally with the trustees to develop ideas that we have, get your ideas and get your feedback to make sure we're not missing anything. And in our final meeting in May, we concluded that and so you all stamped uh what our work is going forward. Uh and likewise, we closed the door on the work that we finished for this school year. And so today is a target area progress monitoring check-in and I believe each individual person who's been kind of taken the lead role in a particular target area is going to present. So can I hand it over to the first one? I think
020it's Jimmy. Dr. Jimmy Walker and you got that to simplify this um for this evening. You are going to just talk about 2526 moving forward. There's lots of we've had lots of discussion about looking back and all of our data points. That's all been in your board book and so kind of focus on looking ahead. Gotcha. Less is more. I All right. So, I'm going to be talking about the first two target areas that both have to do with academics. The first one is academic rigor and this includes student achievement and student growth. Our goal outcomes remain the same. 90% of students being at approaches or higher or meeting expectations on STAR and MAP decreasing the achievement gap from 2021 to half what it was in 2021. And then this third one I think is
021key to all of them. And that is now that we are measuring student growth in all courses, all grade levels that 85% of students will make a year's worth of growth in whatever assessment, whether it's band, art, music, but that all of our students will be making progress in all of their coursework. Some of our key areas are looking at refining our communication around achievement through the both the district and campus and department community based accountability. Continuing our assessments in TIA. Uh we've written vertical frameworks in literacy and in math. Continuing to reinforce those and train new staff so that we can support vertical alignment since most of our kids are with us from first grade to 12th. and then supporting professional learning communities. Even though our schedules are going to be different for next
022year, when we look at data, y'all, we are right in the middle of data rolling in. As a matter of fact, today emails went out to all parents about star scores coming in. So, I don't have a great snapshot to give you as aggregate information. That'll be coming in a couple weeks. But when we look at where we ended the year in math, our median score in math was at the 71st national percentile rank. In reading, it was 69th and in science it was 84th. Uh, and well, I think I just mentioned those areas of focus for next year. The last one I want to draw attention to is just our admin calibration walks, which are something new we're doing next year. So, we'll walk with our elementary admin team into classrooms so that we're
023all giving feedback on use of technology in the classrooms, vertical framework, instructional materials that we're giving feedback to our teachers in a consistent way. Pillar two is similar to uh pillar one, which is achievement, but this focuses on college, career, and military readiness. We have 13 years to get our kids ready so when they leave our campuses they're ready for whatever the future holds for them. And so this is there is a TEA metric about CCMR college career military readiness. And our goal is to get to 90% are CCMR ready and that we'll build out our uh industrybased certifications for our college career and technology programs and build out our pathway for dual credit so students graduate with 60 college hours and an associates degree. Uh to do that we'll support all of our teachers
024who are new to AP programs and dual credit. We are in the process of hiring a new college counselor to support families and staff. Um providing additional prep opportunities for SAT, ACT, and PSAT. And um expanding our college bridge course for our seniors who aren't CCMR. Yes. So that when they do enter college, they're not having to take 0300 developmental courses, but can go straight into credit bearing courses. So that concludes pillar one and pillar two. And I'm now turning it. So that two, pillar six. And this is Yeah, pillar three. Uh, we skipped. We're jumping around. I They may be out of order. Clay, I know. Target area three, but it falls. Sorry. Typo. Okay. So, taking a look and following the format, you can see our goal outcomes there listed under the first
025paragraph or section. And um you know, we're striving to keep our turnover rate below state average. And in fact, we want it to be below 10%, which is an industry standard. Also, the way that we monitor our staff satisfaction for recruitment and retention is through surveys. and we're really looking to make sure that we're getting a high percentage of positive responses and that that continues to trend upward. That that's our affirmation that we're doing the right things coming into the next year. Our areas of focus uh along with Jimmy's team who has created the TIA and done a lot of fantastic work. Now we're going to go into the validation phase which means we're pulling data out of tests, you know, about the summitives and observations. we need to make sure that's valid so that
026teachers are paid correctly if they do earn that designation. So that's going to be a real priority for us. Um also there are certain things that we can do in u a time where we don't have a lot of money but we can still work to retain staff. You know one of those things that you all approved was next level. Uh it was relatively a small investment for a large return in employee commitment and satisfaction. We're looking at a couple of other things we may be bringing over towards you, but we really want to try to gain leverage on those lowcost or no cost things that help us keep our employees. That is my presentation. Do you all have any questions? Great job. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? Next, we have technology. Everybody's favorite.
027uh here to present the technology guidelines uh for next year. Our strategy work for next year. Our goal will be to get 90% of our uh students, staffs, and parents to strongly agree that the use of technology in the classroom is appropriate. We took a a bit of a dip this year on it. Dropped from I think it was 80% down to 73%, but uh we're going to be on on track next year to get that to 90%. Uh along with that, we're shooting for 90% of our learning walks by administration uh that teachers have demonstrated be proficient or distinguished integration in in in the uh in the classroom. Uh in order to do that, I've broken these into really just kind of five different areas. we're going to publish, promote, and put into practice
028our um instructional expectations framework as well as our um uh technology handbook. So, we've we've gone over that a little bit with the board. Uh but we're really looking at um kicking off next year uh with our teachers, administrators to make sure that they have a strong understanding of what those expectations are and what uh meaningful tech integration looks like in the classroom. Uh along with that, we're going always going to support purposeful integration. Uh, you know, we're making sure that our instructional practices uh promote balanced screen time in the classroom. Uh we're in the process right now of revisiting those screen time expectations to align more with uh district values. Uh we'll have more about that, I believe, in the August um GMP meeting. um partner with teachers to make sure that they're highlighting
029um meaningful and instructionally um relevant technology use in the classroom. Uh and make sure that tech's not um dominating within within the classroom. Um we'll continue to advance digital literacy and readiness. Uh we've been charged with uh launching a district-wide keyboarding plan based on student needs. So there'll be some work around that next year as well as continuing our efforts around AI and education, digital citizenship, those types of topics. Um we'll also be strengthening family engagement. We're looking uh already at um a consistent district communication tool. So those different channels that are coming at us um capitalizing on something that will bring that all into to to one one umbrella for for families. Um make sure that teachers are sharing digital work. I think a lot of the uh feedback that we get from parents
030is they just aren't aware of what necessarily is going on in the classroom. So, we're going to really strive to share what's going on with with technology uh with families as well as curate some resources for them uh so that they have a better understanding of what what their children are using. Uh and then of course we'll always uh continue to evaluate and improve our practices. Uh continue with the technology uh committee work uh this year. We'll again regularly review those different programs and and apps that we have to make sure they're instructionally sound and effective and ensure that any device transition that we may make um are student centered and feedback informed. And that is the shortest technology update. I think you're done. You've done a great job. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So, I
031thought this would be the hottest. Um, so I have a budget and bond and uh I think uh we added budget this year, right? So, we added budget. So, I was excited. I'll start chopping and you have the stage. So, biggest part uh probably is to understand what the legislature just did. Uh and we've been uh going through a lot of discernment. I expect that to continue all with the aim of maximizing resources for our students and our families and our community. So um along with that uh engaging and I'm going go on to the next one here engaging uh with our uh instructional staff who are who give their time as uh coaches and sponsors of different activities. uh there's a lot of procurement that those staff do and uh and so as much
032as we can do training with them and to help them understand the procurement process um then they can maximize their resources and uh in the various clubs and sports that they that they lead. Uh we started that this past year but uh we want to expand upon that. though in in the coming year. Looking forward to that as well. In the bond area, um that's always about you know designing the best uh uh construction and projects that we that we can. And for this next year, we have some major highlights coming up in terms of uh completion of the high school, the visitor side of the stadium, uh and also Robins. Um and then also preparing uh designs for Howard central office and the junior school uh to bring to the school board. Uh, also
033I should say along with that that in the in the procurement area is uh we're going to be doing over a million dollars worth of uh procurement for furniture and instructional um uh infrastructure inside the new high school uh in this upcoming year. So uh to prepare for its opening as well. All right. I think that's pretty much it. I thought I was on the bond. I loved how you just took that on. Wonderful job. You bet. Outstanding. Any questions convers are we to 4B? We are. All right. Student safety and well-being. Frank stand. You want to sit down for this one? The tank. So, board members, you you know that safety uh rules and procedures involve confidentiality. So typically any type of discussion about uh school safety is done in executive session. In this
034instance, I am required to make a public report during an open board meeting. So I prepared a written statement to uh present to you. Dr. Basher, Mr. Paige and 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. Trianally, we conduct a comprehensive safety audit which we completed in February. We periodically train students and staff conduct in let me make a correction February of 2024. We periodically train students and staff conducting monthly safety drills. We have weekly perimeter security checks, not to mention all the infrastructure put into place as layers of security
035like security fencing, single points of access, door locking mechanisms, buzzin systems, systems with secure vestibule, security surveillance, video, and our school resource officers just to name a few. Starting in fall 2023, schools are required to undergo intruder detection audits conducted by auditors from the Texas Education Administration. These individuals are trained by the Texas School Safety Center to assess a campus's intruder detection processes during one unannounced site visit. When a visit finds no issues, the superintendent receives a report saying no findings. When a visit finds any issues, the superintendent receives a report with the findings. This school year, Elmo Heights has had five different intruder detection efforts. Four were completed with no findings. At the visit to Howard Early Childhood Center in May, the inspector noted that the exterior door sweep log had not been annotated
036in about 3 weeks. This is a log where we document that all of the exterior doors are checked for operation weekly. Of course, we periodically train our students and staff on all campuses about the importance of not opening external doors to anyone, not propping open doors, etc. And we check the operability of exterior doors each week. The Howard administrators have a corrective plan for the following finding. The door exterior door sweep log hadn't been annotated in about 3 weeks. This was due to one person being away and the other person not being given the responsibility to take the log. I want to emphasize though the doors weren't conducted. The inspections were conducted as required. It was a documentation issue. The Howard administrators have corrected plan which includes providing access to the exterior door suite blog
037to our Howard school resource officer so the checks can be documented by a second person in the assistant principal's absence. I will submit to TEA the details of our code production plan. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Frank. All right, moving on. Next agenda item on our agenda is the consent agenda. These items are that the board considers routinely or have been previously reviewed and discussed in prior meetings and that we therefore enact in one motion. Is there anything on the consent agenda that any board member would like to remove or consider as an item on the regular agenda? Nothing. Okay. Um, before we do this, I'd like to mention that we got $1.845 million in donations. It's awesome. Um, obviously uh I think a,000 of it was from uh one gentleman and uh 32,000
038was from the mule team. Thank you. But the big donation was 1.811 811 million from the Alma Heights School Foundation. And as you know, we all as we can donate to the school foundation and I can assure you they are making a difference in this school district. Um so, uh do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as prepared? So, do I have a second? Second. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor, please say I. I. I. All oppose, please say nay. Great. The motion carries. All right. Moving on. Section six, board members committee report, which should be in consent. The other ones are. So, Frank Stanage, um, could you do the safety committee? Uh, Clay was not able to be there. Yes. Yes. And you just give a quick update on I
039mean really agenda. No, but they should. Yes. The district safety committee convened on June 3rd and uh the cherry was there representing the board along with our school administrators and community members and also law enforcement. These meetings are done three times a year. Once in the fall, once in the spring, and then there's a summertime meeting. Um, and the purpose of the committee is to provide recommendations for our emergency operations plan. We went over our intruder detection audit, which we are required to do in that venue, the one that I just described to you earlier. Um, we also went over behavioral threat assessments, which was a great learning piece for all the people involved to understand how it is that we're able to find a student who's going through crisis, maybe presenting a potential threat,
040being able to evaluate and assess that threat and make the appropriate decision on supports. That was the meat of our meeting. Any questions? No. Okay. Awesome. All right. 6B, building committee report. That is me. Okay. So, we met in u gosh two weeks ago, last week. Uh and we learned that the uh framing for section A of the high school is complete. Um and that we're receiving the steel in B1 and B2. Uh my notes say next week, but actually I've already seen the steel erected. Um, we were going to get a roofing for the uh field houses, visitor stands. Uh, that's ongoing. Actually, if you look outside, you can see a lot of the insulation. Um, we also uh concluded that we're going to hire RC Road uh to do the um that feels
041like a long time. Baseball. I know. That's why I'm saying baseball. Baseball. I mean, I'm like giving a report. I'm like, they're almost done. But RC Road is uh we signed their contract uh they're going to they're going to be done in the third week of November uh to uh redo the baseball stadium um and put new bleachers in uh restrooms and all these things were not a part of our original bond program. But we felt the need after some voices, you know, that we really needed to do that. So, we did um and uh also we uh we already we already completed uh four courts at the uh uh Robins campus to be resurfaced tennis. Yeah, for tennis. And uh we have eight more to do. Great report. All right. So, okay. Budget. I'll
042just say we're going to cover this in business recommendations, so we don't necessarily need a budget, but um policy. Karen. Yeah. Policy. We met um June 11th. Dr. Alfaro walked us through the new requirement coming down on prohibition prohibition of personal devices on campus. And there will be a committee form to discuss that new policy and we'll come back to us for approval. Okay. Any questions? Outstanding. All right. Section seven, business recommendations. On the next item, we are going to ask the stud accountant of Alamo Heights, Mr. Matt Streeter. Well, greetings. Uh, let you play. I don't know what to play with. So um there's two items under under business recommendations. One is acceptance of the efficiency audit and then the other one is to uh talk about the budget and and all the things
043underneath that. So I'm going to start off with the efficiency audit. Uh kind of keep it short. I think y'all will have a copy of that. Um as as you know as y'all know probably uh but for anybody listening uh the efficiency audit is needed prior to a uh voter approved tax ratification election. And so, uh, earlier in the legislative session, that was a a topic and even considered by the budget advisory committee last fall as something to discuss. And so, it seemed prudent uh to go ahead and proceed with the audit uh so that the district would be positioned to uh move forward with that uh vote with that Vader uh voter approved tax notification election if needed. Um, and so that that's been done and uh and the auditor uh Armstrong Bond has
044uh has supplied us with the audit report uh for the board of trustees to consider uh for approval uh and acceptance. Uh I'm going to touch on just a couple few items from that report. I'm not going to cover everything in there. Um but the report uh kind of coalesed around the examin comparing Elmo Heights ISD to um six other school districts uh kind of a peer group for us and the the school districts are noted there on that slide uh Carol ISD ISD great vine Collieville Park Leaport and Travis. So uh that's the comparison when you go through through the report and seeing how how how that information uh compares to Almo Heights. The most of the information in the report also is from the 232 24 uh school year. So it is uh
045a little bit more dated but that's the most recent information that was available uh from TTA at the time that this report was uh put together. Uh of note uh on the next slide on this next slide is uh a comparison of our district to the peer group and then also the state average over to the right and up and kind of interesting is that our bilingual ESL education numbers are higher than our peer group uh less than the state and then our gifted and talented numbers are much higher percentage than the peer group and a lot higher than the state average. Uh so uh that kind of was uh kind of some unique uh uniqueness in in that u in that table. Um moving on to uh uh teacher turnover rates. Um we are
046less than the peer group and then we are also less than the state average in teacher turnover. So again that's coming from you know 23 24 uh and uh from TA sources as well. So, that's a quick review of the U efficiency audit. Um, and any questions? How long does it say valid for? For a year. So, for this school year, if we don't do anything with the tax rate in November for election, then we would have to go through another one. Okay. So, yeah. So, it's only good for this cycle. Thanks. And we have uh I think till November to approve a vapor till August. In August we have August. Yeah. It's like 45 days. Which I don't know when we like bring that up. It would have to be decided or voted on
047at the August at an August board meeting. Um, so it will be part of the budget committee meeting in August long, you know, at our GMP meeting. Um, where we'll have time to decide whether or not we want to move forward with that and then it would be actionable. Okay. In the August regular meeting. All right. Uh, any questions more? All right. Do I have a motion to approve the 2025 efficiency audit as presented? So move. Do I have a second? Second. All right. All in favor, please say I. I. Uh, all oppose, please say nay. The motion carries. Thank you. All right. Section 7B, 2025 2026, budget adoption, Mr. Street. So, um, our budget adoption goes through a process, an extensive process. Uh this is uh one of the I wouldn't say final steps
048but towards towards the latter half. Um as we are understanding and still digesting and discerning information from the Texas legislature, we are expecting amendments uh to bring forward uh in the coming coming board meetings uh regarding the budget for this next year. Uh there's some guidance from TEA that uh that they're going to be putting out. They've already put out some uh we expect a lot more on some f some of the finer point points and that may impact our budget and so um um when I bring that up later at future board meetings just um that's part of that process this year. Uh we did go through a pretty extensive process of uh engaging departments and campuses of uh you know collecting their wants and needs and desires in terms of the available funds.
049uh although as you all understand it never seems like there's enough funding sometimes but uh but we go through a process of getting those uh of those u uh items that are that are most desired into the budget. Uh so the presentation I have here is uh to kind of recap a little bit on the legislative part uh talk about the tax rate. We're not touching the tax rate tonight. Uh that'll be done in August, but we do have to estimate the tax rate in order to put the budget together. also to touch on compensation and benefits and then also the uh 25 26 budget categories to kind of sum those up a little bit. So um moving forward the um one of the things that we did in going back to March is that
050we looked at what the legislation was proposed at that time and coming out of the house um there was a significant uh legislation there that could have impacted funding. uh not everything coming out of the house survived. And so this uh uh table here is a comparison as to what we were looking at in uh March as a March board meeting and then what actually happened uh for Alamo Heights uh coming from that pro that legislative process. Uh and you can see that we you know just kind of sum it up. We kind of actualized 53.9% of the of the funding uh that was um identified back in back in March. Um and the process going through that was the House, you know, passing passing their bill HB2 uh and then that getting reconciled with
051the Senate and the Senate had vastly different um priorities and and and and pieces in that. Some of it did survive. The biggest piece is probably the sped funding at least for this coming year. Uh and uh and then some other parts too did survive. The school safety a lotment actually came in a little higher uh slightly higher. It's I would say that the school safety log is still not sufficient to cover all the cost in mandated cost in that area but um but we did get some additional amount. So the amount that's coming on uh from from this that 975,000 uh that does help Almo Heights ISD cover inflation. It's not like mandated news new spending under this amount. And so that that does assist us with the with the budget. So just to
052clarify though, you know, we had modeled out what we needed for the next year's budget as far as providing compensation, getting out of deficit, and maintaining the cost of inflation. And that's 20% of what we had anticipated that we needed. So that 53% is generous. The most uh the thing we needed most was an increase in the basic adjustment inflation. And Dana has mentioned a number of times, we were looking for like $1,300 increase and stuff. uh we got a $55 increase. Um and even that $55 is really kind of just trading things because it's pulling money from a different calculation in the uh in the funding formula. So um the other tricky part of this special ed funding is not till the second year of the bianium too. Like it's going to be tricky
053for us. It will. Yes. So that's another complication of this. When you see these dollars that he's putting together, it's not necessarily Yeah. And the and these dollars here are just uh just relative to uh you know the 25 to 26 26 27 uh it's um you know all this kind of fades. So so it's like you get a bump and then and then you're kind of on your own. Um of of just note that basic aotment we you know house did have some increase there of 500,000 and that went to zero in essence. Now, we did get new items and so these new items uh were very beneficial uh in in some regards. The biggest uh and most newsworthy point is the teacher retention a lotment uh and that plays into compensation which we're
054going to talk about in just a minute. Uh and significant comp compensation increase for uh for teachers as defined by the legislature. uh how they define teachers today. Uh some additional money there was there for early lit literacy intervention uh support staff um the um staff with it that weren't covered under the teacher retention a lotment and then also the allotment for basic cost as well which is some of our fixed cost in in that area. The issue here though, and you see that column that I have it labeled their mandates, is that that part there is um you know it came with strings attached. It's like okay, the legislature is giving us the money and then they're telling us how to spend it. It's not really available to affect like our prior deficit or
055inflation that we've incurred since 2019. Uh so it's in a way it's kind of a pass through uh you know in terms of like okay they're giving us money they're giving all districts money and then they're saying okay you need to spend it in this way and you can't you know use it towards any other uh costs that may have been uh been incurred assistance with inflation. There was a part there under the aotment for basic costs that is a public that is available and u after we back out the mandates uh you know we can count probably count on about 300,000 coming from this pool of money uh to assist with inflationary parts. So if you consider that 300,000 then plus on the previous slide you know that puts us over a million in
056terms of uh assistance for 2526 from the legislature. Um, just to kind of bring to bring that kind of recap a little bit and you know what we saw from this past year, we we had a $1.6 million deficit. Uh, and then with inflation and stuff, you could expect that if there had been, you know, no no adjustments, you could expect that deficit to even increase. And so the uh work of our budget advisory committee and and the school board and uh and uh you know working on cost cutting measures and stuff from the district has has borne fruit. Uh and you'll see in a minute that we have uh uh revenues over expenses in our proposed budget and the only way we got there was because of the work of the school district. And
057yes, the legislature did help but it would it would have fallen short of its own from a legislative standpoint. So here's our timeline. Uh and uh you can see that we're at you know we're at June 17th and uh we're looking for budget adoption and an efficiency audit report was delivered. Um coming up in late July uh is going to be the uh uh getting the certified property values uh and then also uh getting uh the stamp from TEA regarding the maximum compressed tax rate on the maintenance operations side. And then from that um if we are looking at a uh fader then on August 13th we the the uh school board would need to approve that. Um the reason that's August 13th and not at the regular board meeting on August 20th is because
058there's an election deadline that you have to call for the election um so many days prior to um to the uniform election date on November 4th and August 20th is too late. So if there if we if we were to proceed with a veer there'll be some actions on August 13th. If not then uh we could adopt the tax rate on August 20th. Uh so there's that flexibility there in in August in terms of uh you know and and this is where I was saying that you know we in order to put the budget together we do have to estimate the tax rate. Uh this is what we're using as our estimate. Uh we did get confirmation from TEA that this is also their estimate that they're using statewide. So the M rate is what
059TA is projected for. Yes. Yes. Just to clarify that's the maximum compress the maximum compressor. And we just received that last week. We did. Yeah. Okay. And so then the projected INS Yeah. does increase but the overall decreases. The combined rate does decrease. Yes. So maximum there by state law u prior to well and separate apart from the proposed increase in exemptions for homesteads uh that's going to be coming with the election in November u there is a mechanism in state law that as property values continue to rise rates will go down that was passed back in 2019 and so that mechanism is at work that's why you see that rate on the m side uh decreasing continuously and project and So that's that's not just property values and animal heights. They look at statewide
060when they do that calculation as to what the values are happening statewide and then they put a uniform maximum pressure in. So that's what we used. Uh we will definitely update that uh when we get to August uh and get get the get the uh information specific information out on the heights um regarding the tax rate uh in terms of compensation. So, circling back to what we were talking about just a while ago where um House Bill 2 and and and you know coming in with from the legislature uh that what was passed is that teachers with five or more years of experience get will get an $8,000 increase and then teachers with three to four years will get a $4,000 increase. And so we see uh revenues going up in that regard. I'll show
061you that here in just a little bit. Um and uh but expenses are also being met by by that mandate. From our estimate uh and credit to Frank Sandage for for a lot of work hard hard work in this um the uh teachers we've got about 13 in that group uh for with three to four years and then uh five or more years about 292 teachers uh in that group that will give an $8,000. There's a support staff retention aotment funds uh that will be able to fund a 4% increase for auxiliary staff. And so that's that's what we're projecting at this point. There are some funds available for uh below market adjustments and positions and that there's a couple of few positions that we have that were uh that are uh very much below
062the below the market and so we can adjust those as well. All other staff are funded with a 2% uh increase across the board that are left out of that and that includes um the teachers. Yeah. The teachers that are zero to two years of experience uh because they don't they don't get funding or an increase in funding uh from the teacher retention model as has passed. So we need some time to identify specifically who those below market adjustments are for you. But once we have we should have those for you in the August meeting so that you're able to see who gets those specifically. Um so we're communicating that teachers with five or more years is 8,000. Okay. Now my question is is is that 8,000 plus the district's responsibility for payroll taxes workers
063comp. Oh that's part of the unfunded mandate. So we have to pick so well. So my question is is if I'm a teacher listening, am I getting 8,000 or or am I getting 7400 because we have to make up the rest of the money. They're getting 8,000. It's mandated that we that under the law that we have to do an 8,000 increase off of the base salary. Eight straight base salary. And we have to make up we have to make up workers comp you know FICA food suda. So is that in the calculation? No. Yeah there is not but TRS retirement is well not FICO. Yes but what I I just wanted to mention Clay that we don't pay social security taxes. FICO. Yeah but we pay we pay retirement in the TRS. I mean
064we we we have more to pay. The burden on top of the 8,000 is is an unfinished. Yeah, that's my whole question. So that's in the calc in the in one of the previous slides where I showed that okay budget you're adopting out of the new new money that they were that they that they were giving and there was that 300,000 in that one line and there was but the total line was like 498,000. That difference that 198,000 that's to take care of that unfunded mandate, you know. Okay, we got to they're telling us, you know, okay, you got to give this raise and then you got to figure out so they gave us some money out of that new new money to do that. It just doesn't go very far. Uh, you know, towards
065like existing deficits or anything. So, um, so that's how we're that's how we're going to, you know, meet that meet that make ends meet in that in that regard. Good. Thank you. Thank you. on the health benefit side. So, uh we we started with our self-funded uh plan this past year and uh we've uh built up a little fund balance, but it's still still quite low. And so, we want to build that up uh sufficiently to make sure that we can cover claims as they come in. And and as we've seen this past year, the uh claims uh they do fluctuate by months in terms of like what we get build and stuff and comes out of the self-funded plan. So in order to build that up uh we are looking to increase uh by
066uh $51 per person. The employee part of that would be $10. The employer part um you know the district part we're going to absorb 80% of that. That'll be $41 per person uh to try to uh to try to increase that. Now, one area that I look at in stuff in terms of the self-funded plan is being able to project into that second year of the bianium as to where funds we may be able to pull some funds to help with inflationary cost and and maybe some raises in the second year is that we I'm hoping that we can maybe reduce that employer share part just a little bit so that to help help with some of those things. But we do need to and this was on the advice of our auditor that we
067do need to uh increase the uh the fund balance in our in our self-funded plan. And so that that's what's driving I guess this slide here. Who administers that uh signal and it's administered by Yeah, that's what I started. Thanks. So for uh budget adoption um and uh and I think I have this uh get this to you because I know there's a lot of numbers but um the prescribed format uh is this is how the state you know wants us to uh to adopt our budget each year. And when we look at the expenses in the general fund, uh the uh budget has to be adopted uh by fund, general fund and then also by function. And so that's why you see that broken down uh the way it is uh in all in
068all those numbers and stuff especially on the expense side. Uh budget adoption uh is mandated to include not only the general fund but also the food program and also our debt service fund as well. uh debt service fund balances. Uh the food programs, we're going to use a little bit of fund balance out of the food program. We think uh it should be very close to to balancing. Um and the number there revenues over expenses of uh 300,000 plus um is kind of great to see in the general fund. Uh and we're going to need that in the second year. So it's it's it's it's not a not a bad thing at all to be able to show a positive number there. Um I I suspect we're going to have a lot of uh a
069lot of pressures, you know, when we put together the next year's budget, but uh but for right now, uh this budget is uh is on the positive side. And so last few budgets haven't, you know, they haven't been. And so this has been a turnaround for for Alamo Heights. Um there's some mandated costs by uh and that's coming in from various pieces of legislature from the past few sessions where we have to note newspaper costs and also lobbying cost. And uh so that's down there at the very bottom too. And just to note that that's uh that's out there. I should also say that this um uh proposed budget is also on our website and that's a mandated uh that's a that's a requirement as well. And so it's it's noted proposed but um and
070and so we we've updated the website accordingly as well. There's a requirement to show uh expenses uh coming out of the g general fund and debt service. So that you if you're comparing these numbers to the previous slide, it does not include food service. Uh but this is general fund and debt service to show it on a per student basis. And you can see that in both revenues and then also expenditures uh there's a decline in uh in numbers per per student. Um on the expense part, if you notice the recapture line, that's a dramatic um uh decrease. uh under instructional you'll see an increase there in instructional but the instructional is mainly driven by the uh increase in in teacher pay uh that the legislature mandated. So you'll see that so you have as
071you walk through that that the numbers there you'll see some increases and decreases but um some of it's legis legislative dri driven um and um and then also recapture is kind of tax driven too as well. So um but the recapture by the state is that accounting for the homestead mod exemption up increase or is that the tax rate the maximum compressed rate or both? What? Yes. But what we do is percent is that we try our best at this point to uh estimate the amount of tax collections that we're going to get assuming that the homestead passes which we think it you know it definitely will. Uh so, okay. So, you're assuming it will pass in the We we are we are assuming it'll pass. Um now, as we move forward here in just
072a few weeks, uh I heard that by the end of June, we're going to get updates from our from uh Bear County Appraisal District and and they're going to start working with those numbers that show 140,000 exemption, too. And uh and so um when we come back, we'll be refining those numbers uh in in the future months, especially probably at the August meeting and stuff to give you update as to how that's progressing. Here's the expense categories and we can see u you know breaking it down by pay payroll drives drives the bus so to speak and and so uh uh payroll is increasing from last year's budgeted number uh to this year again that's driven by the mandates under uh under the legislature especially in uh classroom uh uh classroom teachers. Uh so that
073you know that almost a $3 million increase there uh in in in the payroll. We've had some inflationary cost in in in the other lines as well. Uh and uh so we are budgeting for increases there. The recapture line as we saw in the other number on a per student basis uh does go down uh significantly uh in terms of what was budgeted this past year, what budgeted this year. Um overall expenses uh decline mainly driven by recapture the decrease of recapture but overall expenses do decline uh though when you take into account expenses prior to recapture uh expenses are increasing again because of the teacher increase in teacher play that that really uh has a big impact but all of these changes here in the comp are reflected in the 26 budget. Yes. Yes.
074Yes. We we we built that in on all the competition. So I know um Dana wanted me to spend about an hour to go through these hills. Look at you funny guy. So I will tell you there are certain board members who love to look at this longitudinally. This is David Hornberger. So this is in there for him. But but I included I included detail sheet so you can see him put it in the update they're there one's revenues and the next pages are expenses and you can do see the comparison from 24 to 25 to 26 uh those are all budget numbers those aren't actual numbers and so so that's that's important but um unless you have a specific question I will that's information that's just information so I will Uh I will basically
075say what I think uh from your presentation from where we were uh 3 months ago, you know, we were at like a $1.5 million deficit and after the legislature did their thing, um basically what I understand is that the teacher compensation went way up, right? The recapture went down and our aotment kind of stayed e, you know, and we cut $4.3 million and so we did an incredible job and cut a lot of money. Uh, however, as painful it as it is, um, we have a $792,000 surplus budget. Okay, so that's a really good thing compared to the last few years. Um, and it was a lot of hard work, a lot of bad decision, not bad decisions, I mean hard decisions, um, to do X, Y, and Z. Um, but I mean, it's, uh,
076you know, I'm happy. I don't know. Uh, I mean, I'm happy just about fiscal responsibility. Yeah, y'all did a heck of a job. I don't know if uh I'm happy about everything we had to do to get there. Um but uh it is what it is. So, um you know, if y'all don't have any questions for Matt, I I'll just reiterate just cuz I know it needs to be said cuz I mean you're reading in the paper KL ISTD is dealing I mean everyone else has been caught unfairly flatfooted. I'm not critiquing the other ISDs because they just got handed a lot from the state that everyone's having to rep, but the foresight on y'all's part I do commend you all for because we could be in a much much this could be a much
077longer meeting today. I think is the short answer. So, none of us wanted to do it, but y'all did a great job of not anticipating exactly what the legislature was going to do, but the magnitude of what the legislature was going to do and for that. Well, thank God we're not like a lot of the other districts with a huge deficit. Yeah. So, I would love a straw poll of how many districts at this meeting tonight are going to say, "Would you like to pass a surplus budget?" And I guarantee you we are the acorn. So, all right. Yeah. Um, do I have a motion to approve the 2025 26 budget as presented? So move. Do we have a second? Second. Second. I'll second. All in favor, please say I. I. Uh, oppose. Nay. Great.
078The motion carries. Get back to your calculator. Find us. So, if we play saying that, I am going to come to you pretty quickly in the fall. No, we No. Yes. There's just some uh you know think big thinking outside the box as far as innovation around enrollment and the way that we can start to think about um capitalizing on um increasing enrollment in the school through some different innovation um areas. So, okay, stay tuned. Yes, stay tuned. Calendar review for that section. Hoping to give you a little bit of a break here. Look at look at July. You've got one date and I just need four of you to show up. Okay, I'm out. So, anybody? Yeah, I'll be here. Okay, here. I'll try. I need four. Okay, that's okay. Don't Let's don't take
079a straw for Okay, we'll fine. Um otherwise, we schedule that. We just will need a quick personnel meeting in July. Um so, on in August, we start all things opening of school. We invite you to enjoy join us on the new employee first day training just to come and be introduced to the group. We district convocation on Thursday which is a little bit out of the routine of how we've done convocation in the past. Typically we do it on that Monday. This year we did it on Tuesday moving it to Thursday. Am I being honest Julian? Was it Tuesday? Okay. Um so that's a great event. Please put that on your calendar. The 1 to 2:30 just a celebration of the start of the school year. Um, the school foundation is hosting a new event,
080the Golden Mules Reunion Brunch at the Oaks, um, Saturday, August 9th. If you're able to be there, we have our GMP committee meeting that will be a robust meeting to finalize and we'll be looking at the tax rate. We'll be talking about later. Um, we'll be having budget updates for you there. So, that's that's an important meeting. The regular board meeting is on the 20th and then uh, school foundation board meeting David will attend on the 20th as well. So, any questions about that? You get a little time off here. Start school the 13th or is it the when is the start of school the 12th? It's on Wednesday. Wednesday. Oh my. Okay. Kids aren't here. So, let's do a quick No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no break. I mean, we've been here
081an hour. Yeah, we don't need a break. No break. We don't need to excuse our Let's go. We're going into executive session. All right. Uh section 9. Thanks. Pursuant to Texas Government Code 551.074