Regular AHISD School Board Meeting April 16, 2025

001Heat. Heat. I don't know what I'm having to sign for tonight. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. When I grow up, Hi, how are you? How are you doing? All right. Heat. Heat. Keep moving. We're live. Live mic. Live mic. That's yours. You guys are going. Yeah. One person signed up first. So you want everybody on Wednesday, April 16th, 2025 regular meeting of the Alpha Heights Board of Trustees. Thanks everybody for being here. I know we got a lot of folks uh for some great recognition. So glad everybody's here. Like to welcome anybody listening to our live streaming broadcast. If anybody wants a recording of the meeting, we'll post a link on the website 24 hours after the end of this one. In addition, we'll post all the materials as

002well. Everything's found under the schoolboard icon on our website. If anybody in the audience would like to be heard by the board tonight, we welcome your input during our citizens to be heard item on the agenda. There's a form by the door. Please fill it out and hand it over to one of our administrators. And now I'm going to go to section two delegations recognitions. Dr. Franko, you're up. Thank you, Mr. Hornberger. Where is Miss Petition? Take lots of pictures. Got to make sure I know where you are. Well, welcome everyone. We're excited about our recognitions this evening. I do want to ask everyone that um everyone who's here to be honored, please stay during the entire portion of the recognitions. As soon as it's done, we go to business. You're welcome to leave. I'll

003let you know when that is. You're also welcome to stay. Got a lot of great things to listen to. Um but I'll let you know. So, thank you very much. Let's begin our recognitions with the Alamo Heights High School boys basketball team state finalist. Come on down. as remind everybody that uh they were u uh UIL state semifinalist the 18th straight season that mules appeared in the postseason of play. They finished second place in district before an impressive run that saw victories against Leander, John J, Corus Christy Ray, and Liberty Hill. Let's meet Oh, I'm going to go here. Sorry, wrong side. Let's meet. Tell us your first name and last name, what grade you're in, then pass the mic, and we'll end with the coaches. I'm Bennett Johnson and I'm a senior. I'm Ethan

004Shaw. I'm a freshman. I'm Alex Elliot. I'm a junior. I'm Jack Brewer. I'm a sophomore. I'm Gunny Jones. I'm a senior. I'm Harrison Taylor. I'm a sophomore. I'm William Stall. I'm a junior. I'm Joseph Gotishek. I'm a junior. I'm Bo Taylor. I'm a senior. I'm Gavin Peterson and I'm a junior. I'm Charlie Mitchell. I'm a freshman. I'm Luke Chancellor and I'm a freshman. I'm D Garz. I'm a junior. I'm Taylor Sles. I'm a sophomore. I'm Matthew Mia. I'm a senior. I'm Hudson Taylor and I'm a senior. I'm Alie Edar, the senior. Ben Ross, assistant basketball. Bruce McC, the assistant basketball. I'm Andrew Brewer, head boys basketball coach. Tell us about this team, coach. We have Thank you very much. You got to have great players first and foremost. Uh but even if you have great

005players, you're not guaranteed success unless you have great assistant coaches. Uh and maybe maybe most importantly, fantastic group of of parents that were very, very, very supportive throughout. And that's one of the things, one of the main points I wanted to make at our banquet a couple of weeks ago was that um everybody was pulling the rope in the same direction. And if you have that from top to bottom, from coaches, managers to parents, uh, then you have a chance to be successful. And that's why we were this year. Well, congratulations. We're super proud of you. Round of applause for this team. So, we're going from these uh tall older folks to some a little uh less tall, younger folks. I would like to recognize Odyssey of the Mind State Qualifiers. Come on down. Now,

006uh, this spring we had 11 teams representing us at the state odyssey of Mind Competition. They're from Cambridge, Woodbridge, and the Junior School. Now, for those you did not know, it's a program that encourages students to use their creativity to solve unique problems. These uh students were supported by various teachers, which you'll meet here in a moment. And the teams had very interesting names. I think maybe they'll share. You think they can share it? Uh such as Flight, Piporn, Popcorn, etc. Well, here. What I'd like to do is this student, this is good practice for you. Okay? Okay, I'll give you the mic and you're going to say your first name, your last name, what grade you're in, and are you guys grouped by team right now? Yes. Okay. So, how about the first person

007tell me your team name. So, when we get to the next team, you tell us that team name. Okay. Can you guys do that? Instant challenge. What do you call it? All right. Ready? All right. I'm uh Max from the Cooking Dragons. uh in in third grade uh from Cambridge Elementary. Great. Walk us. I'm Charlie Walker from Cambridge Elementary and I'm in fourth grade and I'm from the St. Um I'm Alex Porter from Cambridge Elementary and I'm in fourth grade. I'm Braden Draper from Cambridge Elementary and I'm in fourth grade. I'm Phoenix Jackson from Cambridge Elementary and I'm in fourth grade. I'm Amy Pipel from Cambridge Elementary on the team Alpha Nuggets from fourth in fourth grade. My name is Dina Stazo in fourth grade Cambridge Elementary. My name is Kelly Grow. I'm in fourth

008grade in Cambridge and our name is the fire burning turtles. I'm Julia Grow. I'm in fifth grade and I go to Cambridge Elementary. I'm Pat I'm Patrick Campbell and I go to fifth grade in Cambridge Elementary. I'm Gibson Semon and I'm in fifth grade and I'm on the astronom. I'm Jim Kingman. I'm in fifth grade. I go to Woodidge. I'm Cameron Campbell. I'm in fifth grade. I'm Crow. I'm in fifth grade and I go to Woodidge. I'm Nathaniel B and I go to sixth grade. My students score my team name Odyssey. Try to not approve them. Uh, I'm in sixth grade at Yahigh Junior School. I'm Robert Barno. I met sixth grade at the Alma High Junior School. I'm Anna Vernon. I'm in fourth grade and I get a jelly mar. But she was on

009the junior school team. An only girl with a bunch of boys. I'm Babela and uh I'm in sixth grade and I go to um that junior school. I'm Noah Edwards. I'm in sixth grade. I go to junior school and yeah, I'm Pal and I go to the Alma High Junior School and I'm in sixth grade. My name is My name is Miel Casey and I'm in seventh grade. I'm in Illuminati High School 42 and I go to the school whatever you just said. I'm Charlotte Per. I go to the junior school and I'm in seventh grade. I'm Haley Dhy and I go to junior school and I'm in seventh grade. I'm Catherine L and I go to the junior school and also in seventh grade. I'm Mia Luna. I go to the junior school and

010I'm a part of the Wait. Hi. Hi. I'm Ethan Davula and I go to the junior school and I'm the sixth grade. I'm Scarlet Isaac. I'm in sixth grade. I go to the junior school. Last but not least, I'm Zoe Moore and I go to the Alamo Heights Junior School and I'm in sixth grade. Now, who do I pass it to? Uh, right behind you. Tell us the teachers and I have one more thing before I have you talk. I am Miss Millie. I am uh one of the science teachers at the junior school and I sponsored all three junior school teams. The teachers. Okay. So, we passed right over and you saw the uh there I was going to say the taller ones, but that's not universally true. Our teacher sponsors are Carol Walters,

011uh, Selene Borderline, Carol Hernandez, uh, Danny Flowey, Cheryl Dutters, Julie Draper, and, uh, Dad Miller Milliger, and all the wonderful parents who are also coaches of these, there's too many to name. I do want to point out before we hear a little bit more about these competition, this group, that the Astrammobiles, so the Astra Astrome, Astramles, Astrome way back, uh actually advanced to world finals and they received the prestigious Renatra Fusa Creativity Award. Please tell us a little bit more about this cross. Okay. Well, all these teams are being recognized because they placed first or second at the region or third at the regional competition and advanced to a state competition that was held in Houston a few weeks ago. But honesty of mind is really more than just a competition. It's an experience that

012empowers students to think critically and creatively to solve complex problems as part of a team. OM has two parts. There's a long-term problem and a spontaneous problem. In the long-term problem, students are presented with open-ended problems that combine engineering and the arts and writing and performance. Teams brainstorm, design, build, and rehearse, all guided by a parent volunteer who serves as the team coach. Everything the team presents is entirely their own work. Teams began working in October and spent many months dedicating hours after school and on the weekends preparing solutions to their problems. Teams also met once a week before school to work on the uh spontaneous problem or the spontaneous portion. Um on the day of the competition, the teams entered a room and they were presented with a problem they had never seen before

013and they had like seven minutes to present their solution to that problem. So that was the second part of OS. These spontaneous problems could have been verbal or hands-on problems. So they had to practice lots of different things on those mornings before school. In addition to creative thinking, OM teaches our students collaboration and communication. They have to listen to one another's ideas, resolve differences, and support each other under pressure. Skills that um extend far beyond the competition setting and into their academic and personal lives. Oscia of the mind truly aligns with our profile of learner celebrating um because students are exhibiting curiosity and innovation celebrating diverse talents and preparing students to be thoughtful creative leaders. Thank you for supporting Odyssey of the Mind which help our students grow in such meaningful ways. Thank you to

014the many parents who serve as coaches once again and then congratulations to these Odyssey of the Mind teams for your hard work this year. yourself. You have one more challenge and that's to go up into those stands and cheer on the last couple of recognitions we have. Can you guys do that? We're almost done. Come take a picture. Let's go sit and clap and cheer for our next recognition. The Spurs for state and national competition recognition from LA High School. Nice. Nice. Now um uh this team uh at the state competition received numerous awards including sweep stakes, judges award for officers of team awards for best in category, best-in-class outstanding showmanship and choreography for their performances. At national they got first place national champs in officer novelty, second place national runnerups in team lyrical and

015second place national runnerups in team pong. Is that right? Pong. All right. Like tell us your first name, last name, what range you're in. Pass the mic down and we'll end with your coach. I'm a freshman. I'm Andrew Perez and I'm a freshman. I'm Kylie Atinson and I'm a freshman. I'm Juliet Drake and I'm a sophomore. I'm Jessica Tovar and I'm a sophomore. I'm Cha Martinez and I'm a sophomore. I'm Caroline Drake and I'm a sophomore. I'm Isabella Sanchez and I'm a sophomore. I'm Jameson Cummings and I'm a sophomore. I'm Maddie McDonald and I'm a junior. I'm Janna Garcia and I'm a junior. I'm Madison Richie and I'm a junior. I'm Mariah Garner and I'm a junior. I'm Sadine Sanchez and I'm a junior. I'm Danielle Sodto and I'm a senior. I'm Alex Kendrick and

016I'm a senior. I'm Nyla Floyd and I'm a senior. I'm Scarlet and I'm a senior. I'm glad I'm the coach. Well, we just want to um thank the school board for this recognition. We want to thank all parents that are here. We want to thank any staff, members, any teachers that supported us throughout this whole year. Um, it was a very successful one for sure. I'm very proud of this ladies right here. Seniors, we're going to miss you so, so much and we're so excited about your future. You're going to do amazing things. Thank you all so much. Always awesome. Next, come on down. We've got students from Alamo Heights Junior School and High School who are state qualifiers in the Latin in Latin. Just just clap. I'll say more later. And let's clap for

017them. These students competed in the Texas State Junior Class League state Latin competition in April. They brought home numerous top 10 individual awards. And we'll meet your teacher there at the end. Let's see who's here. Tell us your first name, last name, what grade you're in, pass the mic, and we'll end with your teacher. I'm Felix Alvarez and I'm in seventh grade. I'm Jessica Wilson and I'm a sophomore. I'm Josh Platz and I'm a senior. I'm Leslie Miranda and I'm a junior. I'm Lauren Kramer and I'm a sophomore. Hello, I'm Alexander Ger, the live teacher and I'd like to say thank you all for having us over and recognizing our effort. Cool. Yeah. Now, uh there are several others that were not able to make it tonight. So, it's a lot of Latin folks uh

018learning. Tell us the kinds of what are the kinds of things that they have to know in order to excel in this competition. Oh. Uh, we competed in such um categories such as reading Latin based on pronunciation, comprehension, culture, grammar, um, derivatives, Latin in everyday life and among other things as well. Great. Uh, do I refer to you as a round of applause, please? mission for the evening. Everybody sit tight. Come on up. I'd like to introduce uh from student council, Daniel Corso. Tell us what high school student council has been up to. Thank you. Even though it's close to the end of the year, we still got a lot of stuff going on. Um, first of all, um, the next month we have a great breakfast for our teachers for teacher appreciation week in

019May. And then also we have another blood drive coming up since the first one was such a success. But this time we're working with the Texas Blood and Tissue and they're bringing a whole bus down. It's a donation center, mobile donation center, which is pretty awesome. Bringing like a blood draw mass, which is very cool. And then we also have our class officer elections coming on May 8th where we do our 10th through 12th officer elections and we have our freshman officer elections next year. And then also we are working with our adviserss and Miss Smith to select our incoming president and vice president for next year which is really exciting. So thank you. Hey thank you all for being here. This is now we transition from recognition to business portion of the evening. So

020if you like now is a great time for you guys outside. Do we have any sisters be heard? Heat. Heat. [Music] I'm going to ask you [Music] Okay, we're going to move on to section number three. our agenda citizens to be heard. We've received one request to be heard tonight for an item not on the agenda. Um so Miss Fox, why don't you come on down while I read the the fine print real quick. So you'll have three minutes to speak. Uh Christina here on my right hold a card when there's 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 personel by name or position, especially in the public setting and especially be careful with comments about specific people.

021In addition, mindful of due process and legal obligations, the board will not respond to your comments tonight, but we welcome and appreciate your input as an important member of our community and we will follow up with you separately as necessary. Okay. So, uh, Christina will start when you're ready. Does is the mic working? Are you good? Hello. Okay. Okay. Good afternoon. Good evening. I'm unprepared. Um, there's a lot going on in my life, but I find it important to be here. Um, so give me a minute. Um, last month they were going through the February survey and I saw some of your reactions when the percentage of students knowing how to report bullying was high and my thought process was being ignorant to the fact that yes, everyone knows how to report bullying, but do

022they know how to correctly report bullying? which is if you do your homework and you ask those questions, which I've had asked for those questions before. If you look at the numbers, it says we have no problem in our Heights. And anybody that's an administrator at any of our campuses that says we do not have a bullying problem is a dishonor to students here previously that have committed suicide due to bullying at this school district. I know of three of them. So, I ask since we do have new members on this board and you're just getting to know me, I ask one of you guys to take on this this task of trying to target bullying as trying we're not trying to zero it out. We're just trying to help students learn how to report

023bullying correctly and get the help that they need. Because so many students say that they don't ask for help because they feel like nobody cares. And that's not okay for so many students to go feeling like they don't not care. And this has been going on for decades. I went to this school, my mom went to the school. I could bring in so many people at the age of 70 saying that they deal with bullying at this school district and it's been a problem and I just really want to get this targeted and my boss always tells me to come with a problem is to come with a solution. And today I saw something really good. A program Odyssey that involves both elementary schools. For so many years I've said that's the problem. That's the

024main problem is we have elementary schools divided into two Cambridge and Woodidge. We create a community for Woodbridge and we've created community for Cambridge and then we bring those little children. and I have developed relationships for 5 years with children and we put them into a junior school and that creates chaos sometimes. So I say maybe we can start by integrating Cambridge and Woodidge instead of making it a Cambridge festival in the spring and Woodidge does their fall festival and it's a split community. we bring them together and have these kids involved building relationships with Woodidge and Cambridge students and not keep them separate and just throw them into junior school when their hormones are just pumped up and they have their little clicks and their own little things going on. Maybe that's a start

025from there. Thank you guys. Thank you, Miss Fox. So, we'll move on to section four items for presentation or possible action. Um, a pillar one, student learning and progress. So, we're going to have a consideration of approval of a senior gift from the class of 2025. Um, and so I think Addy Roberts and Josie Page are the presenters, but I recognize there's a group. So, if you all want to introduce yourselves to that'd be great. Yes. So, um, I am Addison Roberts. I go by Addie. I'm the senior class president. Um, I'm Josie Paige. I go by Josie. And I'm the senior class vice president. Um, I'm Julia Bell and I'm secretary. I'm Caroline Archer and I'm student engagement officer. I'm Spencer Decker and I'm treasurer. My name is Kayen Ross and I go by

026Ross and I am the historian of our copy. So I did just pass around a little hard copy of the proposal. Um and it's up on the screen for those who are looking at it. Um I did not have enough printer paper at home. So it's one for every two people. We we have it too. So Okay, great. Amazing. Um, so our proposal for our class gift is a watercolor painting of the old building. Um, and I have a little to say on that. It is part of the the proposal. Many past students, community members, and faculty often came to visit the halls they w they walked once before during reunions or just to visit. The painting will not only be a reminder of what once was, but it reminds them that even though there

027are new walls, the memories they have once lived are still there. The painting can be a reminder of how far we've come in and an ode to the future ahead. Um, the paintings can be painted by a former student, Nathaniel Garza. And for now, we're wanting the painting to be hung in either the art building, yield, or auditorium. But like when the school is built, we would love for it to be in the front hallway of the new school for when you first walk in. Do y'all have any questions? I love the idea. You already have it like lined up, teed up, paid for, all that's covered. I should be dropping off the canvas this week. Should be getting started pretty soon. Cool. Trustees, questions, guys, comments even. Who's going to deal with this? All

028ours. All of ours. Effort. Team effort. Yes. Well, I mean, look, as an alum, I think this is awesome. My high school, I had to be up here when we knocked it down. and it's like it's the right thing for the kids, but I love that you guys are pulling this back in so that everybody can still experience the old stuff. So, I think it's wonderful. Um, any other cons? Good idea to make it a picture. Ours was on the wall, just a mural. It's no longer there. It's creative. Okay. Well, do I have a motion to accept or to approve this senior gift as presented from the class of 2025? Thank you, Carrie. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Ty. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thanks

029y'all. That's great work. Thank you so much for your time. Okay. Um, we'll move on to item 4 A2. So, we're going to have the presentation of campus community-based accountability systems. So, we're going to have the principles come down. Um, and just I think what we'll do since we're going to have several presentations, uh, trustes are on the table. Maybe let's hold our questions to the end and then we'll hit them with the questions because we got quite a few to go through. So, our continuing effort to put our sebass into more kind of granular granular parts of our district. So, thank you all for doing this and we're looking forward to hearing. All right. Good evening. You teed that up really well. office is and we're talking about uh moving community based accountability to

030the campus level and we're thrilled tonight to hear from our elementary level. So I'll do just a brief reminder of what is community- based accountability. Then I'll turn it over to Mrs. Munos and then we'll hear from Mrs. Hawkins and finally Mr. Reno will be our closer at the end. So community based accountability is our response to state accountability and it differs from state accountability in two key ways. One is scope, the other is frequency. With scope, it measures much more. State accountability is primarily based on one test, one day. Our community- based accountability is based on so much more about our district than a single test. In addition, it also measures things that matter to our community. the number of students in AP programs, the number of students in fine arts. And then in

031terms of frequency, state accountability is only once a year at the end of the year when it's too late to take action. Our community- based accountability, we're looking at data which m much much more frequently, which enables us to be more nimble in making changes that benefit our students. So with that, we've asked our principles tonight to talk to about their community-based accountability through the lens of our wildly important goals, promoting academic growth, which is in pillar one, and protecting our culture, which is in pillar three, specifically with staff satisfaction. So we'll start with just a common data set and then we'll talk about the actions that have been taken to address some of the findings here. So on this chart to explain it to you the left hand side is approaches level which is

032kind of a low pass on standardized test and then the right hand side is masters which is a high pass. You can see the top section is reading then it goes math then it goes science. So I'm going to highlight one thing on here. This is looking at a cohort view. So look at math halfway down as fourth graders. You'll remember that's one of the grade levels that was a focus this year. In the spring when they took math, 83% of students were on track to be at approaches or higher. When they took STAR, we were at 75%. Which was why this was an area of focus. Follow the white. Now let's follow that group of kids as they're fifth graders. Now that same group of students in the fall were at 91% at approaches

033or higher and in the winter likewise 91%. If we follow those fourth graders at M's level on star they were at 23% of students at M's level in this latest uh math testing were at 31% of students at M's level. So nice improvement looking at early education. So this is K through 2 grade. This is math I mean not math, excuse me, M class. So it's a different screener. Red is well below, yellow is below. Green is at benchmark and blue is above. You can take a look and see that the number of students at well below is beginning to shrink. The number of students at well above is growing. That's the trend we like to see. But we're not done yet because we still have 20% of students who are below expectation. That does

034include students served through special education, dyslexia, emergent bilingual, but that's the number we want to continue to see to shrink. So to talk about how we've made that progress, the principles are going to pull the curtains back and tell you some of the actions that have taken place on their campus. Thank you. Oh, I forgot this part. Sorry. This is the protector culture and this is February feedback when we talked about teachers. How satisfied are you? And we're looking at 85% uh quite or extremely satisfied. Another 12 satisfied. And then proud to say I work at Alamo Heights. Look how high that is. The vast majority of our teachers almost all strongly agree um that they are proud to work in our schools. And now the principles will pull back the curtains and tell you

035why their teachers are proud to be on their campus. Thank you. So when we're looking at academic growth at Howard, we're not necessarily looking at numbers or percentages. We're really looking at um our actions being rooted on the belief that reading should be fostered by play-based learning, right? And uh good systematic instruction. And so that is why we continue to champion the science of teaching reading which is that professional development that our teachers um underwent a couple years back. And so that is making sure that our students are provided with explicit systematic instruction and fundamental awareness and in phonics um through decodable text and then of course into level readers depending on where they're where they're performing. But we can't forget to do that by balancing that uh love and joy for learning in the

036area and fostering really a love for reading by making sure that our students still have those play-based joyful experiences such as a race to read model or that camp read a lot um that we love to do at Howard. When looking at our data, we also recognized a need for us to implement additional curricula um such as amplifying our dual language classrooms. the science of teaching reading was not quite everything our students were needing, which that systematic explicit instruction, yes, they needed it, but they also needed support and language development as well as comprehension skills. And so, Amplify this new curriculum is really providing our teachers with that resource to make sure that our emergent bilingual students are uh making that growth and progress. Another big lift for us is implementing um the RTI model

037or structure on our campus. And so RTI stands for response to intervention. And we all know that our students make academic progress and growth um at different speeds. And so it's really identifying where our students are at in making sure that we're providing either intervention or acceleration just depending on student needs. We're proud to report that even in preK we have an RTI model. We called it walk to learn. We started again in um the spring, not in the fall. Again, it's that balancing act between play-based joyful opportunities, but still that systematic instruction and so it implicates more of exposure to the science of teaching reading, but it's definitely something that we're providing our students and we're uh making sure that we're intervening as they need those intentional Wednesday PLC meetings that all of us

038are doing. PLC's are professional learning communities and it's really the sacred time where teachers come together. They meet with their team. They talk about what their data looks like and they develop a plan for how they're going to make sure their students are making progress. We align all of that practice to our literacy and our mathematics framework and uh we share strategies. We uh make sure that we're sharing instructional resources. We've even come to the point to where we've developed assessments so that we can continue to follow up with how our students are performing in uh kindergarten. All of these uh strategies and there's a few others are um ultimately to make sure that all students, not just some, but all students are are making one year's worth of academic growth. Um and how are

039enjoying their time there? So, when we're moving on to protecting our culture, I think we could all agree that um a positive school culture doesn't happen by accident. It's something that we have to continue to nurture and um teachers want to feel like they're seen, they're supported and so the ways um these are some of the ways that we've done that or some of the actions that we've taken with TIA teacher teacher incentive aotment being something that is very important to making sure that our teachers possibly can be um compensated for a job well done. We've provided our teachers with targeted coaching. We have made ourselves available. When I talk about Lee, our instructional coach has been instrumental in making sure that teachers feel like they have some an expert that they can go to

040to talk to about lesson planning. She's taken many teachers through um supporting them taking a lesson, which is those hard to teach, hard to learn concepts through the blueprint um so that they know what exactly we're looking for during a test observation. um administration has worked with teachers during pre-conferencing to make sure that they really understand the rubric and see what they're what they're really um being evaluated on. Some of the other things that we do to protect our culture, making sure our teachers feel supported and needed or see is um our PTO continues to be an integral part of our campus. Their fundraising really helps support uh by bringing some of these monies, but really they're resources, math manipulatives, those playbased transformation um materials that our classrooms need so that they can transform their

041classrooms and provide experiences. And so these monies are going right back into our classrooms. And another is uh we call them their principal readalouds, but it's really neat coming into a classroom. I think teachers just want to see that you're there working alongside them. It's a simple read aloud, but teachers um and students love to just see that um everybody's here and present and there for them. Other ways that uh we protect our culture is by making sure that we continue to thrive on the fact that we are the happiest place on earth. And so the only way we can do that is by fostering this positive school culture. And so we do this in in ways that seem so simple like having a hospitality committee, making sure that we're recognizing our teachers and our

042pair of professionals, making sure that there's new teacher and employee support. Uh we have campus pots, we do big team building activities, and those are just, you know, a few artifacts of some of some of the things that we do. But if you see that survey result at the beginning of the year, uh teachers are saying that the climate at Howard is welcoming. 96% of our teachers believe that it's a happy school. And I think it's because teachers feel seen. they feel empowered uh to come to work every day and to do their very best work for our kids questions. All right, I'm going to give you a chance to talk about Cambridge and our academic growth. Um the first piece that wanted to share is just the opportunity we've given the teachers on increasing

043their clarity of the curriculum because the more that they know um the more they can support the kiddos. And so each nine weeks um we have an opportunity the teachers use that time to do PLC work where they have those conversations um using the standards with crosscurricular documents and that top piece it's very tiny print but it is um a document that we use that has every uh core subject and then we just it's the align those of like how can you teach if you're teaching science how do you um use that concept with how could you tie it into math as well. just another opportunity for it to sink in a little deeper with the kiddos. Um, another thing that we have done is February professional development um gave us the chance to have

044vertical conversations between the grade levels. So the second document that you see up there is a document that was used in that setting where we had kinder first and second grade teachers in other grade levels as well. Um, but they had a chance to talk together to say, "Hey, this is a TE that you guys cover." I had a first grade teacher who literally was like, "What? Y'all teach that in kindergarten? I've been spending all this time with this." So, it gives them a real opportunity to really look at that and have good vertical conversation so that they can um know particularly like what strand to teach with the TES. Um and then we also have a program and um Howard she just mentioned it as well but supporting our language teachers and that is

045the implementation of Amplify. It's been a fantastic program and just supporting our teachers with that. Um not just saying hey here's here's a new um curriculum that we're using and we've even um had an opportunity to do some learning walks with that. Um then supporting the teachers in their understanding of that new science adoption office that I have up there. um had some opportunities for them to do professional development and so um through that one of the things I just I want you to see is that like we've given the teachers a lot of opportunity to work together as well as work with outside people um consultants especially with the amplify on how do we go deeper um with this curriculum so that they um can have a better understanding of it and do a

046great job with the teaching of the content. The next one is um still about academic growth, but we were really looking specifically at how do we increase those conversations around instructional strategies. And really what I want to bring home in this one is it's not just those conversations teacher to teacher. It's also conversations with students to student, student toteer, and student to families. Um, one is the uh you see the goal setting up there and all of our grade levels are doing some type of goal setting and sharing that. And so the benefit to that piece is we do want our kiddos to have one years of one year of growth. However, um even if they're just making growth, we like that. We want to see that. We want them to feel good about it.

047And so, um, the teachers in the spring have the students do a student-led parent conference and they use their goal setting sheets to focus on that. Um, another thing that we really do focus on when we're doing the nine weeks um, dedicated time to look at the numbers is that we are looking at the numbers, but we also know that those numbers are tied to a student. It's tied to a particular child. And so we're looking at that that piece to say what do we need to do in order to help that student and to look deeper into that. Um the last thing on this is um one of the things that we just did is the vertical peer learning box and you can see that the slide the piece there in the blue and

048so it was a fun thing that we did. It was the first time that we did that about a month ago and uh Jenny Aderal our instructional coach divided up the grade levels and so the teachers took during their planning time would go to another teacher's class another grade level and look for these great instructional strategies and allowed them to see great teaching but also it also gave them a good understanding of oh wow they are covering this and they're possibly even covering it in a different Okay. All right. The next one is about protecting our culture. Um, I could talk for a really long time about this one because this is all about the fun. Um, but it also was about our teachers having that opportunity to have a sense of belonging. Um, they're

049at Cambridge. They're with the whole staff. We're a big school. Um, big as far as the lay of the land, right? And so you may be a first grade teacher, but I also want them to know other staff members. And so there these are just some of the fun things that we've done in order to um have the teachers feel supported, know one one another, and also to feel like a family. Um the picture there was the looks it's a potluck lunch, and it was one of the first times that we've done that in a long time. Um and so we decided at Thanksgiving, let's just do a typical potluck lunch like you have on a Sunday at church, right? And um it was one of the funnest things that we had we did that

050year. And everybody we sat in the cafeteria and it just gave them opportunity to get to know other people that on their grade level. And when you begin to do that, that is that sense that you have of a family of like if there's things going on, um you know what's going on with those people that are going through the good times or even the sad times in their [Music] life. The other piece that I have here on protecting our culture is supporting our staff. And um we do that in a lot of different ways. And so those are some of the bullet points that I have here. I'm going to highlight um a couple of them and talk specifically about them. One is the biscuits and behavior and that is an idea that came

051from Heather Smith, our sister principal, where she meets first of all the best part of that is the biscuit. It is um the dessert that she brings in and so I really like that. Um but she brings that in then as a as a grade level they meet as during lunch and then she has the dessert for them. talk about, they just collaborate on ideas and things that they could do to support each other regarding particular behaviors that a a teacher may be seeing. And so it allows not only Heather is not the one that's only giving those ideas, they're getting it from their peers. Um the other thing is that um supportive administration, that is a a quote and something that came from our um feedback February. And so that is definitely the goal

052that we have. We want our teachers to feel that support and to be able to feel heard um and to know that uh you know doing this job that they do. We know that it's hard but we want them to feel supported throughout that time. Now we are on the bridge. When you go third you're going to hear some themes that repeat themselves and I think that's a celebration obviously and how aligned the campuses are. So you're going to see the same support that we provided here from the adoption of our amplified curriculum for our first through third language program teachers and our first through fifth science teachers with the new adoption and the new teach. I want to focus a little bit on the crosscurricular documents which was the same theme when we look

053at this when we open each nine weeks our teachers have the opportunity to lay across all content areas the teaks that are going to be covered in that 9week period and it allows them when we look at our star data it there's been an emphasis to ensure that we are implementing our math strategies into other subject areas using writing techniques and and input writing into science science into writing so that obviously Some of these strategy we're using are based on the data and and that we are consistent in being able to see which specific teaches are being covered in this nineweek period so they can be planned for here on our campus. We are a professional learning community. We are a PLC and the vertical alignment is a component here that we we heard early

054in the school year that our teachers were asking for and it's providing time for our teachers to be able to meet vertically here in content areas because obviously when you when you are looking at a master schedule for an elementary school the by grade level we're going to be on islands. So providing this opportunity so that they can see and share trends patterns based on data with the teacher that of the grade level before for the teacher afterwards and they can share strategies and and make adoptions. I'll tell you one one thing we had is our math teachers have adopted strip diagrams and other consistent problem solving model that they're seeing now from grade level to grade level just to provide consistency here for our students. and it opens up real conversation for our teachers

055here when they're using the same strategies that they can share what's been successful and share those strategies amongst themselves. Um, these conversations can also lead to specific content areas that or specific skill that can drive a PLC cycle within a team for a for a period of time. Our instructional actions, one I want to highlight here is the same one. These are some pictures up there of some of our student goal setting. And our student goal setting is really neat to see. These are second grade inclass opportunities here. And and our it's neat to see your students take ownership, set goals. I've seen them collaborate with each other on what's an appropriate goal, the celebrations that take place in the classroom. And the ownership really does drive a little bit of a competitive component to

056this. And and and and the students get to celebrate that. And it is neat seeing them do that here in the classes and it and it's consistent again from grade level to grade level and we can do that specifically in some areas and focus on the areas where we know the data shows that we are you know with the writing with our math scores and and that leads here again into our um CBA data dig is is the upper right picture up there is our teachers have an opportunity here to look question by question here as a team and see what's successful ful in their class or what's an area of need if that was consistent so they can plan a spiral review or appropriately plan that we're not missing or creating gaps from classroom

057to classroom or in subject areas here. Again, those have also been pieces of our vertical conversations. We created a teacher check-in document that uh it allowed for one of our grade levels here to look specifically at each student, what tier that they were in, and be able to target if there were areas of concern from classroom to classroom, visit on instructional strategies to really move the needle in areas such as our second grade math. We had a vertical writing PD. Um, Elizabeth Martin has been somebody who's come in and that's when we look here at to address our extended constructive response from our STAR data. This training provides a vertical approach second through fifth grade. So, there's consistent strategies and and and targeted areas that that students are able to obviously experience second, third, and

058fourth grade. It's something that is really moving the needle here in an area of need here for us and it's something that our teachers value a lot. Those, you know, we're going to go back here. We'll see, you know, the work that our PTO does to make things like this possible in some of the next slides. Our vertical learning walks is something that also took place on our campus when when we provide opportunities for our teachers to not only move past the conversation but to then get into the classroom and see what's being taught and how things are being taught. It's opening up our classrooms to obvious deeper levels of conversation when they get a chance to see each other. Right. So, that's something the feedback there is the middle um it's it's the middle

059picture from our last learning walk. And this is something that we're going to schedule here early in September, several times moving in the year. And then you eventually get to a culture where we can just walk into classrooms and see things that are going on. And that's something that's important to us, protecting our culture, the belonging. We want this to be a fun place to go to school. We want our adults to enjoy coming here and working. We want our students to run into the school building. And I'll tell you that with an area that I want to first off start with is our morning meeting. That the character work that takes place on our campus is real. I want to make sure that I'm recognizing our teachers and our counselors for all the work

060that they do to implement that. Our sparks are real. It is something that drives everything that we do. And we open every morning in the same manner with a morning meeting early in the year. if if you don't have students that are assigned to you that you may not see morning meeting you may be working and so what we have is we have students go out and personally invite people to come to their morning meeting so I was invited to a lot we had everybody from our police officer coming in our SRO to nurse I mean if you didn't have students you came in and saw so that we had consistency in the understanding of not only the how important it is to run this with fidelity so that we're having we're protecting the culture

061of what we expect from our students from a character standpoint as well. Just some of the consistent pieces there, our sunshine committee, our staff lunchons, the staff recognitions, all the things that we do here to make this a great place. But our our I believe our teachers really do enjoy spending time together. I want to snack pack for kids. Our teachers have gone out outside of the school day, volunteered to serve our community in this manner as well. And if you have not been to a Friday morning dance party here at Woodridge, I personally invite you to come in. It's a great way to start your day. One of the pictures up there our students really enjoyed is is getting duct taped to an exterior wall right there for you. It's it it seemed to

062get our students excited. We're going to find ways to to continue to provide them opportunities to set academic goals for themselves. Have some fun things like that happen going into next year. For support for our teachers, we supporting the teachers that are new to is an important piece for us. Not only are they assigned mentors, but they meet with our instructional coach and administrators once a month. During these meetings, we also bring in veteran teachers to help talk through everything that's Woodridge, so they understand what's coming up from an academic standpoint, from maybe an event that they haven't seen before, so there's a comfort level there. We also have biscuits and behavior to specifically talk through individual disciplinary situations. Maybe they're sitting in a classroom or at a grade level. And then this ties into

063our behavior committee. We have a committee that gets together and talks through maybe some campus specific areas of need so that we are strategically planning our character education and it's not just a curriculum that rolls out by time but it's also meaningful for our students. I believe our counselors do a great job of supporting um in our parent meetings and our interventionists with TIA have done a great job of supporting our teachers as well in testing. This is a very important thing to them not only for student growth but for the TIA component and we want to make sure that our teachers feel supported in this way. Our CE grants I can speak for you know I can speak for a long time on the support that our PTO gives us. I I am just

064extremely grateful for the support of this community for the PTO for our volunteers for all that they do in this time to help keep protecting our culture in this challenging time that we see in public education. Um, we have administrator presence in our grade level meetings to make sure that we're present and and they understand they have an open door to us. And when they have an open door to us, we want to make sure that we are creating this culture where we can move past like the learning blocks being scheduled pieces even though we may be able to serve as reminders, but that they can come into us. We can go into there and our teachers can comfortably go classroom to classroom and really see the academic work that's taking place on our campus

065real quick. So, I just want to say we looked at the beginning at numbers. Getting a group of students from 75% meeting expectations to 91 doesn't just happen. Having 98% of your staff say they are satisfied with their job here at Alma Heights doesn't just happen. It is because of all of the deliberate purposeful actions that these leaders have taken at an individual level, at a department level, and at a campus level that make that reality happen. So job well done all of you. I totally agree and I'll turn it over. Well, thank you. I'm going to point out too that obviously it starts at the top and when we showed our concerns with those mass scores that's several years ago whenever it was. It's like you already had a plan before you even came

066to us to show us what happened. Excuse me. And clearly the plan worked well. So thank you Jimmy for doing that. Trustees questions for the team. I have a question but you're going to have to go way back to a slide. Do you remember which campus? No it wasn't in campus. It was the data slides the data. Um but yes Dave I agree. I think in our board thing um we were talking about uh you know how do we retain you know teachers blah blah blah and I'm like good people want to work for good people. I mean it's you know simple. So thank y'all for that. Now on go back to the next one. Next one. All right. So, right here my question is is okay. So, I I saw the 29 191 11

067and 14 and I'm like the slide kind of just went through and I'm like what is what does that mean? But now I see it says masters. Okay. The state average for that I think is ranges between like seven and 19% of students. I I do have a put or you did. Well, yeah. I I like I said I I saw I I was looking at the left chart and I saw 8075 and then to me it was like mentally like the next year we went 11 and 14 and I go uh no thanks for the clarifying. Lauren, go ahead. I'm just curious um kind of the the difference between map and star like is it basically over the same material or is it it's similar. It is similar. It is not a onetoone correspondence

068but general areas are the same. I think that's the best answer I can give you. But it's the same grade level content but they're the way that the questions are set up is different. They're two different assessments but over a general body of of knowledge. And we're doing MAP more frequently. Correct. Obviously, so twice a year. Three. Three. Okay, that's right. Would you say STAR's longer? I would definitely say STAR is a longer test. That's the piece of it. Yeah. Yeah. Map can be done at about 45 minutes and students have four hours for STAR. Yes. I've heard from my own students yesterday and today. I bet you Well, great job. It's Yeah, that gives you achievement and growth measures. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, other questions. I just have one. Um, I love the um getting

069to the open door like let's just encourage like the dropins until all of a sudden it's just natural and you don't have to put on the calendar anymore. But more with Howard with vertically coordinating with the elementarymentaries, do you really only get that in February or do you get that more often than that? I think we we do a good job at always touching base and making sure that what what's happening in the elementary was really important for us to make sure that it was happening at how you're driving towards so like map is something that we implemented having um followed their lead uh it wasn't something that was in place before but I can't help but bring up the fact that we've eliminated learning days because of budget and I think it's important that

070you all have that on your radar um that was where those vertical alignment pieces took case and so we're being creative to try to ensure that there is some connection and and thoughtfulness around vertical alignment but it's not like I used to be able to do well agreed and and that this is my last question but like how do y'all find time to collaborate the three of y'all do y'all is it intentional on the calendar or is it like Thursday afternoon and I'm calling question so do you have a minute but also like yeah I feel like we talk all the time and it's not just on the phone it's like today we had a meeting A lot of times after that meeting we'll be like hey can we have a minute of a question

071about this they do have elementary admin meeting which just them together so they can go through what's the difference between a fall map and a winter map it's the time of year that it's taken just once the beginning of year middle of year you're testing the same things just taking at different times okay so fall winter's like December fall September January winter we have incredible instructional coaches who help things align as well and make sure we recognize them. And that's what I was going to add on to is that like you were saying is it only in February that you guys get together with Howard? Um it is not but our instructional coaches they're together like every weekly and then like they'll come back and share with us too and so and then they are

072with the teachers during that field as well. That's great to hear. Cool. Any other questions? Can we turn this? Thank you all very much. Have a great time. Um, I'm gonna take a little bit of liberty and go out of order unless there's an objection. I'd like to take uh the construction team next because I know we have a lot of guests that probably have other things to do. Um, so Mike, why don't you come on down? We're going to move to item 4B D. Um, and yeah, all you folks can come on down. That's that's great. And we're going to discuss the consideration of approval of the Cambridge Woods Elementary GMP. That's going to be a hard act to follow. So hopefully we'll have the enthusiasm. We know we're getting with we like each

073other. We go to lunch, but I don't think we've ever danced on Friday. [Music] Project control. Ed Mullins, Brad Frost, and and Matt Johnson is the team. So, just a quick update on where we are construction wise. So, at the high school, are you doing a bond update agenda item or the GMP? Are you doing the bond? Let's just let's just do the GMP right now. You want to do the GMP first? We can come back to the bond. Okay. But thank you. Yeah. All right. Um what's the first one they have? You have the first one in your packet for Cambridge. Yes. Okay. All right. Cambridge. Uh this is actually the second uh amendment for Cambridge. This is amendment number three. It's for 30,241,625. Where is this in that board? Your board. Oh, okay.

074Does everyone have it? Let me give you a minute or is always a little slow. So, continue on. Yes, sir. Okay. The um duration for the work at Cambridge is approximately 22 months. Um and if you go to the exhibit A, it's basically just the uh divisions of specifications and a list of the drawings. And then when you go to exhibit B, this is where we list the owner contingency, the cement risk contingency, our unit price allowances, um, and then some graphic allowances, steel allowances, and roughly these are not roughly, but they are $1,822,000 for all the contingencies and allowances. Uh the scope of work covers the demolition of the existing chiller and boiler system and its enclosure, a new chiller and boiler system and a new plant building. The work also covers extensive uh

075renovation of the cafeteria, the kitchen, the serving line including expansion of the cafeteria footprint. Um interior renovations including finishes, mill work, ceilings and lighting throughout. um also includes some electrical upgrades and gas service to the campus. Should be noted that uh the campus you know the um the campus will remain open during the time of this [Music] work. And then if you go to tab u e that just lists all of our unit prices. Any questions on amendment three for Cambridge? I think it's important to share for anyone who's listening, we've discussed this at detail in length with y'all in building committee and so this is not the first time this is being presented. So thanks for walking us through again. All right, the next amendment is amendment four. Uh it's for 13,814,474 and it's

076from the Woodridge Elementary School. Uh the duration is approximately 16 months. Uh again, exhibit A is the divisions of specifications along with all the uh drawings that are in the GMP. Exhibit B uh lists the owner contingency, the CM contingency, our unit prices, and uh the emergency response radio system allowance. Total here is $840,000. Exhibit C talks about the scope of work. Uh it includes extensive renovation of the fifth grade classroom wing including expansion of that uh wing's footprint. Uh interior renovations including finishes, mill work, ceilings and lighting throughout uh and uh temporary u portables classrooms required for this work. And again this campus will remain operational during construction. And then again, exhibit E just lists all of the unit prices. [Music] Any questions about exhibit four? [Music] These are the exact same as we

077reviewed in building committee the last time. Yes, nothing. I'm looking for this stuff. I can't find it either. Yeah. I mean, you've seen we we've seen it, but it's just not Yeah. [Music] got. So I guess okay. Any questions guys for Ed, Mike, or the team? So there were a ton of questions submitted to get us to this point. I feel like it was nice to get to a presentation where we're out of questions. Is there anything that you need to add to this? Appreciate you walking us through. No, I think u I think the critical thing is to approve it. Uh I think uh LPA is ready with the uh notice to proceed. Yes. Which will go out tomorrow if if approved tonight and so they can hit the ground running. We got tight

078schedules so critical that they get going as smoothly. Do we have permits on both? Uh no we don't have permits uh for Kimridge and Woodbridge at this point. Uh but they are on their way. We did receive comments back. Um and LPA is responding to those comments. So at what point in the schedule does not having a permit affect the end date? The very beginning. I mean if they can't get started, it's going to push. Well, I know. But what is the very beginning? Well, let me ask a framing question like on on the just on the permits on the questions because in my mind, we're not really pushing the limits on either campus. Um, so specifically what do they relate to? Is there anything controversial that you know the governing authority we're just going

079to have to work with for a while or is it should be just fine? I would imagine the Elma Heights one is for Cambridge is not going to be. So here on the on the amendment it says um that it's 22 months 658 days uh or May 21st based on an NTP on April 16th. So um we're good there. on May. No, today's the 16th. Uh, and the permit date by May 26th. So, so that's the that's my that was my question. So, what day are we, you know, May 26? May 26. So, it's the same for both. All right. So, can you just keep us in the loop if we go past that date? Answer your question, David. Comments are regular comments that Yeah. Nothing out of the ordinary. Yeah. We're not building something

08012 stories tall or looming over the sidewalks or anything like that. So the ability to gain a partial permit on this scope or is that I mean we do have somewhat of a partial permit. We do have the permit to get the portables on which at Cambridge includes a little bit of a make ready for the larger project but there at this time there doesn't appear to be a need to push for a partial permit. As I said, the comments that they're asking, questions they're asking are normal usually out of the ordinary. We don't anticipate it being six more weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Cambridge is is Lety, right? Yeah. Yes. And then Woodridge is San Antonio. Yes. Cool. Other questions, you guys? Okay, thank you'all for the work on this. We're going to need a motion

081uh to approve the GMP for the project number two, Cambridge and Woodridge as presented. So move. Thank you, Ty. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Brian. All in favor, please say I. I opposed. Motion carries. Thank you all very much. Thank you for being here. I note that we've got a representative from King Kong in the back. I'm sorry we haven't introduced, so I don't know your name. Rick, recognize you. Rick, thank you for being here. We appreciate the partnership. excited to be moving. Okay, so Jim Mike. Yeah, let's do bond update while you're here and then we'll bring Jimmy back up in a second. Okay, y'all are good. Thanks. Keep Mikey. We'll give a quick update of where we are. Christina, can you poke the big just drive around? [Music] My husband

082said that looking by the cafeteria to Broadway, he said it's super impressive. Mom, I need to go back there. Yeah. So, uh, at the high school, still structure on the main wing that probably should be complete by the end of next week. Uh, the third floor and second floor have been poured on the north wing and part of the Awing. Uh MEP is working on the first floor. The duck uh work is hanging and conduit for electrical is is has been hung. They're framing the classrooms in the north wing. Uh the boiler room work is still going on. Uh the east side uh of the stadium, the north uh foundation was poured last week. Uh and block work on the walls uh have started this week. Uh so they've got about two sides maybe three

083sides of that building up. Uh the south uh foundation of the stadium is being poured uh tonight or early this morning tomorrow morning. Uh and then peers will start where the stands go uh next week. And work in the auditorium is still scheduled for summertime. Uh and this is uh the summary from uh project control which I believe y'all get uh at each port maybe did on that. Sorry, we want to went to the end. No, no, go ahead and go back. Sorry. Um just you know I know our our schedule looks good but the the budget draw is slower which I mean in some ways is good but to be 50% 6% through the days of work and only 24% through the budget. Is there any has anyone raised any concern about that? No.

084Okay. Uh the draw schedule I've got, they've actually not quite meeting that draw schedule overall. So, so if you haven't been out to uh Robins, uh there's a lot of dirt pushed up. They started April the 1st. Uh all the trees have been cleared off and they're doing a lot of uh grading uh and getting it ready uh for the field field work to get started. Uh at Cambridge they'll approve the GMP. Uh they're trying to look for a power shutdown of the campus. They were hoping to do it this week, but it'll probably be later on. They need they want to do some metering of some of the panels within the building. Uh and we're working on just the logistics of how we're going to store put the uh conx boxes and lay down.

085Uh and we're still working with food service for spring meals at at the campus at Woodridge. Again, the GMP was approved tonight. Uh the uh portables will be an AP pack sort of like the high school. So, it'll be four rooms on one side, four rooms on the other with a hallway in between. Uh, wings three and four, auditorium, cafeteria will be done this summer. Uh, wings one and two in the main hallway. Uh, and admin offices will be done the following summer. And then the fifth grade wing, that work starts uh at the end of the first semester of this next next year. [Music] And here again, here's a here's a report of the uh project. Then at Howard, uh we had our first design meeting with the Howard group on the 27th. Last

086week they did a tour of the uh zoo school and then they had some virtual tours set up early childhood. Uh we did receive bids seven uh general contractors for project three. Uh we hope to have that for the May board meeting and then construction was started spring of 26. Can you back up one please? So on Cambridge we spent 1.7 million. What what is that for? Most of it's architectural fees. Wow. [Music] Okay. And so far we haven't spent any time on project three of the baseball. Uh again, it's bleachers for the covered and new restrooms. Uh we did send out an RFP. We had about pre-bid this week. There was about five or six contractors there and we opened them. uh receive bids next Wednesday on that project. I think that is it.

087Any questions? So that's a CSP bid. That's a CSP bid. What's the difference? That's your kind of risk doesn't like you like to do CSP bids. Okay. Other questions for Mike on the update, guys? bleach uh visitor bleachers for fall sports will just so I have that answer when people ask me what's the visitors will they're they're planning to have it yeah we're right now we're planning to have it for the first game maybe frequently asked question we'll still have home I will qualify it don't go you know when I answer that I do say we might have to reschedule some of the scrimmage games Yeah, but the first season game we will be in the I mean we could put the visitors in on the home side the other side of the stadium. Didn't

088we do that three years ago? No. I thought like we do it but we do it for the freshman and JV games. We don't open up that side and so we've done it for some of the other sporting events this year. I think we'll be all right. We'll be fine. Cool. Other questions for Mike? Okay, Mr. Hager, you're excused. Dr. Walker, we swing on back up here. We need to do the uh gifting and talented program review item 4 A3. Hey, I appreciate the breather. Thanks. We just wanted to keep you here longer. All right. That's okay. All right. So, uh tonight we're talking about There we go. The annual program review for our gifted and talented program and services. This is required annually as a compliance part but as always we alohify things and

089go a little above what's actually expected through compliance. So there is a new state plan for gifted and talented. It doesn't differ much from the previous uh edition, but just a note that the previous edition and this one does move kind of the theory behind gifted and talented from being a program to being services and from a recommendation to a referral. So all of the data that was gathered through the GT program review was included in your board book. We did look at it last week. So tonight I'm just going to highlight six takeaways from that and then talk about the vision for going forward and some of the key actions we're going to take because of this some of the data we came up we looked at this year. One being just revisiting that

090in 2022 we did make some pretty substantial changes to um the criteria for services being that we limited the standard era of measurement and also puts more restrictions around outside testing because of those changes it did bring down our overall enrollment but currently Elmo heights 19% of our total enrollment does qualify for GT services that compares to 8.2 2 statewide average and funding in the state is capped at 5%. Parent feedback on gifted and talented programs overall was pretty positive, but in the open-ended comments, we continue to hear parents saying that when we stack classes in the secondary, there's always a need and a concern about are we losing some of the rigor when those courses are stacked. In addition, when we look at the percentage of our teachers who are GT certified, it is

091very robust in elementary. It is 100% with our heights teachers and our teachers of GT sections, but it's a little more uneven in core areas beyond GT sections. And I'll talk about that later. As a reminder, because of budget constraints, we cut our heights staffing, those are GT teachers at the elementary level last year by 25%. And this year with budget cuts, we are no longer doing Kogat in Iowa for um criteria for selection for the need for services and I'll talk through what that'll look like next year. All right. So overall when you look at our program data look our GT program is quite strong but is there an urgency to do more? I think everyone here knows that I worked before coming to Almo Heights I spent six years at an embassy school

092in Venezuela but you may not know that when I did my doctorate at Johns Hopkins I studied specialized schools in India. So that is one of the schools. It was called Intellletts and it is a specialized school for students of gifted and talented in India. And in China 25 million students attend specializedmies and they have to have a cognitive score of 130 or higher to qualify for those schools. Singapore, South Korea, they have a million students who are in specialized STEMmies. And when you look at international data either through PISA or the TIMS study, you see that the US is being outperformed especially in science and math by some of these countries. So what can we learn from their program model that helped might help us strengthen ours? So in Texas, there's really four primary

093service models that serve students and gifted and talented. One is differentiation in the classroom. This is the most prevalent across Texas. This is just kids in a classroom and expecting the teacher to differentiate. The second most common is intervention. This is an example of this is our heights program. Students are pulled out of their general classroom into another classroom for a specific time and duration for specialized curriculum. The cohort model takes students gifted and talented, places them together, and the last is specialized school. And you can see how that goes up in intensity. Any of those models can be effective. Any of those models can be ineffective. When we look at what's working in other countries and what the research says, it says there's really five key factors that tell whether a GT program is

094effective or not. One is time. The more time you spend engaging in gifted education, the more robust the outcomes. The more time you spend working on your golf swing, the better golf swing you have. The more time you spend on critical problem solving, critical thinking, the stronger you are with that. That makes sense. The second is intensity. This isn't just giving students and gifted and talented programs more work, but ensuring that academic growth, it requires higher levels of cognitive demand. It's just more challenging work. Not more, just different personalized services as well. Just like not all students served through special education are the same and have the same needs, students served through GT don't all have the same needs. The fourth is domain specific approach. Expertise develops along the domains. So math expertise, writing expertise,

095science expertise, therefore instruction needs to likewise be domain specific. And final is just characteristics of our teachers who are working with our students in GT programs. It's not only professional experience, understanding that asynchronous development, a very young, immature student who is working at an academic level two or three years beyond their age. And also deep content knowledge. You have a third grader who's capable of sixth grade math work. That teacher needs to be confident and comfortable with more advanced math at the grade level that they're teaching. So, we can't take something uh switching. Oh, Ron Ridman's been my friend for 30 years. And when Ron's talking about planning his season, he starts with how do we win a state championship? How do we become the best athletic program in Texas? So when I take that

096and think about GT programs, how do you make our GT program here in Alamo Heights one of the best programs in the state where people choose to move into Alamo Heights because the services were able to provide in that state plan. It says GT students should demonstrate remarkable levels of performance and it's taking a pause on that. What does remarkable levels of performance mean in kindergarten math or sixth grade English? And the action is high talent, high dose talent development that really challenge students. So here's some concrete things. Some are for next year, some are going to take a year of planning, but they all focus around increasing time and increasing intensity in our GT programs. The first one deals with time. Right now at Cambridge, 86% of our teachers are GT certified. At Woodridge,

09791%. So by uh we want to get to 100% of our teachers and core academics are GT certified so that students aren't with a GTR teacher just the one day they're in heights but they're with a GT teacher every day that they're in school. The second is addressing some of those concerns we've heard from parents about stacking classes. A few years ago we endeavored on a project to write out GT modifications within our yeartolance document. Those need a refresh. A refresh to ensuring that we're actually doing the GT modifications and ensuring that those GT modifications are effective. That work will begin this summer. The next is a spend a year looking at the feasibility. Acceleration is one of the strongest ways to improve outcomes for students. We have a very effective acceleration program at our

098junior school. In three years, students cover four years of content. Is there a way we could create an accelerated pathway for math and for reading at our elementary level? That's something we can take and look at studying for next year. And then with our heights units, making sure that the units that they're doing in heights, if it is something that could be picked up and put into a general ed classroom, we need to up the rigor. And that work will continue this summer. And finally is just increasing the intensity by ensuring that we measure and report the academic growth of GT students to parents. And I mean doing this through more frequent progress reports of GT and also parent conferences with heights teachers and the parents and the families that they serve. I also want

099to look at the feasibility of doing the PSAT 8 which is aligned with the PSAT PSAT for national merit at 8th grade. This is a really We got rid of Duke talent search. Remember that? That went away over COVID. Look, I say co. Look what happens. Um, there we go. And we're back. And this also does a really nice, it called AP potential is part of the report to parents. So, it shows based on scores in eighth grade which AP courses might that student have the potential to be successful in. And I think that might be a really nice way to recruit in more students through our AP programs who maybe didn't think that they would be successful in one class or the other. So I'll talk just for a moment about what will uh

100changes to identification look like for next year as we move away from Kogat and Iowa and move towards um universal screeners. This is just a bell curve of exceptional learners. We've looked at this before, but GT education really sits at two standard deviations above the mean. And when we look at special education, that in general is two two or more standard deviations below the mean. So next year for K to 5, there's three domains. Domain one will remain academic achievement and reading and math. So, we'll use our universal screeners in K to 2 grade. For reading, it's MC class. For grades 3 to 5 for reading, it's math. And then it's math for grades K all the way through fifth grade, keeping that national percentile at the 98th percentile, which is what it is. Now,

101one of the benefits of this is students take this test three times a year. So instead of just having one at bat, if you will, one tech qualifying opportunity, students will have three. Domain two is critical thinking and reasoning skills. Our PTO's have purchased paper and pencil non-verbal test which is in between the universal screeners and inmat students will need to meet criteria on two. So it could be math and reading, math and non-verbal. They'll need two qualifying scores there. The third domain is academic potential and performance. This is a parent survey, a teacher survey, and grades. And students will need one of those three to qualify for GT services. And again, it could be that they get a reading score in the fall and a math score in winter, and that would be a

102qualifying uh score for this for the child. In secondary, we're going to follow what we've always done for fifth grade is at the end of fifth grade, we review scores and p place students into courses for the following year. So, at the end of sixth grade, 7th grade, we'll look at all of the universal scores for the year because we are not going to have students making schedule changes three times a year because of qualifying scores. In addition, we will also accept PSAT, SAT, ACT, TSIA at two standard deviations above the mean as qualifying scores in secondary. [Music] One change I just want to revisit that we made last year was just strategic use of our existing staff where we do have staff from Cambridge going over to Woodridge when it's the year or the

103grade level where Woodridge has the most number of students. That helps us keep class sizes low and it also helps create opportunities for enrichment for students who are not in our Heights program. So if you look up there you can see on Monday Cambridge teacher one in the morning she saw first grade students there were only three in the beginning year that qualified and then in the afternoon she did enrichment with first grade students who had not qualified for heights. So all of the red on the schedule you see that's where they were student seeing students outside of heights. Last year our heights teachers saw 81 first grade students in enrichment who had not qualified for heights. 10% of those students went on to qualify for heights that year. So, it's been a really successful

104model and one that will expand next year. And that is the end of the GT program review. Okay, guys. Questions? Trustees? I I had a couple. Go ahead. So, few slides back you said we had to up the rig rigor if we did X, Y, or Z. I don't recall what you said, but then we would up the rigger. Uh I think you're talking about Yeah, that right here. So, we currently have heights units that are done at each grade level, unique units, and just making sure that even if we keep the same like it was uh cardboard carnival going on right now. It's one of units making sure that we keep the unit but the math and the science and the reading that are done within that unit that we make sure that it's

105at least one grade level if not two grade levels above the group of children that are doing that unit. Okay. So what does upping the rigor mean? Is that is that what you mean? Yeah, that is what Okay. Sorry. All right. Then the other question was you said that we take SAT, PSAT, ACT. I said we will next year in secondary. Right. Right. So do do we kind of communicate what what does that score need to look like or do we say you know because a lot of don't we have to pay for a student has to pay for all of those except what PSAT do a school day SAT but students do not have to pay for. Okay. So we do one. Yeah. Um but not ACT. Right. Right. So, um I guess my

106only question is is like, all right, if you get a 1,400, you know, you're do we have that range? I mean, how do they know? I can't tell you what it is off the top of my head, but there's plenty of documentation to find out what that is. Yeah. Yeah. I was just curious. No, it's a good question. We have only because when these kids take these tests, they're already, you know, juniors typically, some sophomores, you know. So, if I'm a freshman, are you saying I got to take the SAT and get a whatever to to to be in GT? No, I'm saying that's supplemental. We're still doing universal screeners three times a week. We always have done. We're just adding this on top as an option. Gotcha. So, it's a both and play. Speaking

107of the POCT though, I am curious. So, remind me because that is offered during the school day too, correct? Starting freshman year. And do we as parents pay for that or does the school? So historically, uh, we have paid for 11th graders to take it. Going forward next year, that was one of the budget cuts. I think it's $16, I think. And so we'll have be asking parents to pay for the PSAT, but we'll continue to provide the school day SAT. Um my one other question is just so trying to increase the percentage of our student or teachers who are GT certified. What goes into that certification? That's a great question. So I feel awkward talking into the mic but just for uh it's 30 hours and those are PD hours not college hours. So,

108it's 30 hours of foundational training that you only have to do once, and it's very scripted of what those 30 hours it must entails. And then after you've done that, there's a six-hour annual update that has to be done every year going forward. Other questions? A couple that really geared towards the Kogat Iowa. Just making sure and I guess start with just I think what I interpreted and I apologize for being slowed but you're to normalize for the fact that we used to use KOAD and Iowa you're using the two standard deviations from the mean and then assigning that to map scores to so that we're kind of controlling based on the standard deviation. Beautifully said exactly right. Um the second thing related to that are and this is If this is too broad, I

109apologize and you can ask furthering questions, but our ISD is a high percentage of gifted and talented relative to other ISDs and all ISDs are different. So I don't I don't want to say that's good, bad, or otherwise. But are our standards is that two standard deviations is that a normal approach across is there is there a standard for how students especially at the younger years uh obtain GT credential? Yeah, there is not a statewide standard and there's not everyone gets to set it themselves. Mhm. Um, this is what ours has been for a while and it it seems to work well keeping it that high rather than beginning to bring it down. So, there is a safety net kind of embedded as we walk through a and it's always been there. You know, it's

110an appeals process as we walk through a year where we're launching kind of a new system of qualification that will still be in in effect. And so if a teacher, you know, or a parent feels like that to, you know, the the deviation there is not appropriately identifying the right kids, then there's a there's a safety net for us to have a committee meeting to kind of delve a little bit deeper into it. So I anticipate this next year is going to be, you know, could be a little bit of a learning year for us. So we see how this all shakes out with that. then we might have to come back to you all and say we're changing that, you know, based on any of the concerns that arise. So, I feel like this

111is a great plan. You've had a lot of experts give you recommendations for where we should start and that's kind of where we are. We also have a couple we have other testing tools that are that we can use for students who do present unique needs like an emergent bilingual student, a student who might be twice exceptional that we have other tests that we can use if math is not appropriate or something else not appropriate. Sure. Click. So I I guess you know help me out in understanding. So, I get GT in in elementary school more or less puts you in heights, so to speak, you know, and then in in middle school, you get to take classes that perhaps, you know, nonGT kids take. But in high school, I I don't understand what the

112significance is of being a GT student since we have open enrollment. and and I'm not that that's why I'm asking like if I'm a GT student, you know, that means I can I can do whatever a non you what's the difference? Yeah, great question, Clay. I think that goes back to what I was saying about those GT modifications because we do stack classes. There are classes that are GT advanced or GT sections of human geo where the students in there should qualify for GT. But making sure that we have it articulated within this class that is the same for advanced and GT. What are the specific modifications that are being made to provide additional cognitive rigor for students identified with GT? Maybe advanced are using uh or GT students are using primary sources, advanced students

113are using secondary sources or there's some other projects or readings that are expected of GT students and the others. But all of that needs to be articulated out by unit, by course so that parents know what's the difference. Students know what's the difference and teachers are planning. Yeah. So it's more of a it's more of a you can take this class but you might not want to. Is that is that what I'm hearing? Well, are you talking about specific students within a correct am so there's companion documents as far as the teacher and and planning for what it looks like for a nonGT student and what the expectations are for a GT student. They're different and that's communicated to parents but that doesn't restrict the student from taking the class is my that's my question.

114What it does do is require services for the student that qualifies as a GT student. Ah, you see what I'm saying? Like the teacher is required to provide services to that student different than a student in the same classroom. Correct. Okay. Why? Same thing with a special education student. You know, in a in a regular classroom, the teacher is required to provide different services than other students. Okay. Go ahead. Um, so but then that does not impact grades in terms of like multiplier and all of that. No, it's all the same multiplier. And that's what's different, Lauren, like it's that shift in thinking of GT as services, not as a program or a track. Yeah, that's going to be reallyive. I I asked the question because when I was in high school, I you couldn't

115take, you know, GT calculus unless you're a GT kid, you know, and I think our school is not doing that. I'm not saying, you know, we're the only ones. I'm just saying somehow it seems like that's changed. And so there are two codes to a course. So, a student can't code into the GT code in the same course, you know, it's still the similar. You still you still have to qualify for GT services. The only time you're you're going to be in a different class, you're going to be in the same class with somebody who's an advanced or however else they're stacked. But on like a transcript it will say GT human go right for one and it could for another the same exact class say and tell me if I'm wrong um you know

116human you know AP human geo so it'll either say AP human geo GT or and it's just the same exact class or just stacked. No I I I get what you're saying. All I'm trying to say is that in elementary school if you're in heights you're in heights you get to go. If you're not you don't get to go. And that's same in high school. No, it's not. Yeah. If you if you want to take AP calculus, you get to take AP calculus. Oh, we're talking about GT. There's not a GT calculus. I know. Well, there isn't for calculus, but there are for other classes where it is a GT section of it and you have to be a GT student. Yes. Right. We try to keep Now, this is where we try to keep

117classes where GT students are there. But if there happened to be 10 kids that could take English one GT, well, we can't have a class of just 10. So then there are other students in the class who may be taking English one advanced that's stacked with English one GT. Right. Right. Right. And I'm saying we need to work on our curriculum so that it's articulated out. What will those curriculum differences be to provide the services for the students who are GTM? The the whole reason I'm asking the question is because of the mental health for me of a child in high school that isn't GT and and and you know in my opinion it's not the end of the world. You can still take absolutely the same classes. Yeah, that's a good point. Where whereas

118years ago that wasn't the case and you know and that's that was kind of where I was going. Yeah. No, it's a good point. Open enrollment serves us well. for any student who's willing to do the work, they can absolutely sign up for those courses. Yeah. Other questions? Well, I just have one comment affirmation and I know, you know, budgeting is difficult and we're already asking our teachers to, you know, be doing more next year, but I I do love the idea of that sort of accelerated track for elementary school versus just the hype pull out. I mean, I remember, you know, when we were in school, we would for math, you'd switch rooms and, you know, there this room would be more accelerated. So anyways, I just I think that would be great if

119we could complete that report. Sorry, just to stay on budget for a second just because it's I think something we have to I love that we have 19% of our kids in GT, I think that's great. But if we're only getting funded 5% by the state, if we're changing our standards for getting if there's not a universal standard for obtaining GT and we can and our ISD set that should we make it more rigid in the future, not tonight, but is it something that we should consider where we are tightening how many people actually get into our GT program? We did. Did you look at the 2022 change? Yeah, when you look at our because we did have almost 22% but even before that we were at 17% and state average is eight and is

12011. So I mean like it's still high. Um and I think that did a a lot of great things. I mean, I've witnessed that, but it just I think it's what I would share is that prior to limiting, you know, students access to services that I I feel like we we've hit this sweet spot in identifying the right kids that need the services. So, that's one idea that we could consider. I think prior to that, and this was on the budget considerations was a reconsideration of the model through which we provide services. And so we don't have to provide heights pull out services. Those are you know six FTEEs that we don't have to you know provide services that way. So to me there's a intermediary step before we would limit students who I feel

121like you know qualify for services. We we also limited outside testing right or actually and I think that does I I don't want to explore that. I don't think any of us do, but I think it's we're only getting 5% reimbursement. I had as part of this program review, I did meet with a group of parents because I met with our staff and then I met with parents and one of the questions I got from the parent focus group on this GT program review was wanting to know out of that 19% especially in secondary what courses were students qualifying for. So when we break down that 19, the ability to say x% of elementary, but in English it's x% or y% that that might just add some color to that and I think that might

122be helpful. So for example, a high school kid with GT I'm making this up GT English but no other GT anything counts in that 19% as a as a full number. Correct. And which is kind of misleading because it's only an eighth of the day. Mhm. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Any other questions for Dr. Walker? Okay. Thank you for this review. It was great. Very detailed. We appreciate it. Excited to see what's next. We're going to move on to Matt Sher. Come on now for presentation of tax rate and budget update. Don't smile. Which Matt, will you indulge me for one second? Yes. Dr. Aaro, is there any update on the legislative session and what's going on on the floor? Did they get anything off the floor yet? Uh the I came in here when

123the referendum got defated. So it got defeated about Oh, the mentioned the vote for statewide meeting started before the actual vote on the bill, right? But the big kind of hub was about the u the proposal to do to require a referendum and that got defeated. Taking it to a statewide vote of the citizens got because they know they would lose, right? Okay. And so, but when I came in, they hadn't voted. Still don't have a vote on the bill itself, but I haven't checked yet. Okay. Thank you for the update. I haven't paid attention to the meeting, right? No, that's what I interpreted as you saying. Okay. Uh Mr. Sugar, let's go. Greetings everybody. Uh so I'm going to go through these first slides pretty quickly because uh it has some legislative information, but

124as you all know, it's been changing by the minute. Uh earlier today, House Bill Two passed uh and it passed overwhelmingly uh by a significant vote. So uh while that's encouraging, uh House Bill 2 has a lot of different uh different aspects and it touches on a lot of different uh not going to go through all those. Uh there's been from what I understand an additional eight amendments to House Bill 2 uh after today. So uh that's going to take some time to to digest. Uh from what I saw the numbers uh individual numbers are going to change, but the overall outlook I think for us uh Brown Heights ISD still remains the same and that about maybe $2 million improvement that House Bill Two became law. However, uh the next stage is going to

125be the uh the critical one and that is uh House meeting with the Senate on especially on the legislation of House Bill 2. The Senate does not have a companion uh bill similar to House Bill 2. Uh they have pieces of it scattered across different bills. So, um how they come together with that is going to be uh it's going to be a bit of a challenge to watch. Uh and hopefully hopefully it's good news, but uh we're a long way from the finish line in terms of uh in terms of the work here. So um moving on to uh tax rate uh and just to kind of recap our our tax rate that there's and most of y'all know there's two two buckets to the tax rate. The maintenance operations side, the interest and

126seeking fund tax rate, maintenance on operations uh is composed of three different elements. the maximum compressed tax rate that's set by law. Uh since 2019, the state has uh has set that uh started out at a dollar uh per $100 valuation. In 2019, it's been steadily going down uh through compression uh to adjust for uh the rising property values across the state. Then there's the eight golden piggies uh and they give you the maximum yield uh in the funding formula. Uh the numbers are there just for reference. Um, and uh, we already have all eight of those golden pennies. Then there's nine copper pennies that a school district can access. Uh, and there's a partial yield there and that and those copper pennies are subject to recaptured. This this graph uh shows our maintenance operation

127uh tax rate since uh 2019 well 2018 and going uh going forward. And you can see a downward trend and that represents the downward trend from the state uh compressing the tax rate uh especially after uh 2023 uh when they when there was significant property tax reduction. Um and so that's driving property taxes the tax rate down uh to adjust for that uh property tax reduction. Also adjusting for rising property taxes too as well. Interest and syncing fund uh rate. Uh so the use of interest and syncing fund dollars uh can only be used to pay debt obligations and that's all it can be used for. Um uh there is a cap on that INS rate of 50 cents. uh we are not near that cap, but uh some of our area school districts are

128and they're up against that 50 50 cents uh per $100 valuation. Um of note, House Bill 2 uh unless um I didn't see it changes today, but I haven't got to study the whole thing yet. Uh proposed a penalty uh for collecting INS taxes uh above the debt payment obligations in a in a year. And so the state provides some INS assistance and so they would reduce that dollar by dollar uh dollar for dollar. If you raise more in taxes then you have debt obligations. There's our historical look at uh the INS tax rate for Alamo Heights ISD. It's trending up and as we as was originally projected with the 2023 bond uh through the end of the decade, we would expect to see that rate uh continue to increase. Um, of note is that

129when there's a tax reduction at the state, uh, especially by increasing the homestead exemption, that sometimes drives a higher increase than what was projected on these on bonds on previously issued bonds. And so we already had that in 2023 and that is proposed again on the Senate side this year is to increase the homestead exemption. uh when you when you do that you'll property values uh and so you're able you're not collecting as much as maybe you originally forecasted when you back at during the planning stage on that bond which was probably back in you know 21 22 that kind of so uh looking at uh you know some of the projections that we've run so far for a voter approval tax ratification election this which would give us access to those nine copper pennies.

130Uh previous uh numbers were suggesting that the net increase to Alamo Heights ISD would be 2.2 million in revenue and that would be an increase of uh $662 uh on the average residents of Alamo Heights ISD uh for that. Now these numbers were run uh based upon 2024 numbers. Uh so as soon as we get uh legislative uh information uh you know from this session we will update those numbers and uh I'm very very interested to see that. Uh on this slide the legislative resolution there is highlighted because we are underlined because we really need that. We're also waiting on preliminary values this month. Uh they should be coming as soon as next week. And then also the certified values in July are crucial to to that calculation as well. And finally, this is just

131an outline of the date, key dates u in terms of considering a tax ratification election. Some preliminary work uh between now and the 1 of August. When you get to August 5th, that's uh when we find out the maximum compressed rate uh approved for Alamo Heights ISD by TA. That's the deadline. We'll probably know a little bit sooner than that on August 5th. Uh then August 13th is the uh kind of the decision date. uh as to whether to move forward with a uh a vader uh a vader election, we have to decide uh then on August 13th. Uh the regular board meeting is August 20th, but that's after the cuto off by law. You have to uh you have to declare for a vader approve of um 78 days prior to the uniform election

132date. And so I think that deadline's like on August 18th or something. So uh that's why we're putting the August 13th. And then of course not November 4th would be the the election day. Any questions related to trustes? Any questions for Mr. Strager? Well, we know this is all going to change, you know, rapidly even tonight while we're speaking. So, thank you for reminding us of what's going on and specifically walking through our tax rate and how it works. Um, okay. Well, we will excuse you, Mr. Shreker. We're going to move on to our consent agenda. So all items on the consent agenda are considered to be retained by the board and will be enacted with one motion with no separate discussion of the items unless board members. So requests um take a look guys.

133I know we went over this in our GMP meeting, but I would like to mention that from the different PTOs on different campuses and the school foundation, um, we received $111,145 in donations and that's pretty awesome. So, we are for that. Any questions on consent, guys? Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Thank you, Lauren. Do I have a second? Second. Thanks, Brian. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? The motion carries. Okay, let's go to item six. We're going to do committee reports, starting with building committee. I know we're all there, but Mr. Hamilton, I believe you're going to give a quick update. Yes. And a little bit of it, or most of it was spoken about this evening. Uh the most recent building committee, we had a representative

134Kin Khan, a different gentleman than he was here tonight, came and just spoke to the progress of package to the dollars spent to date and the dollars to be spent in the future. And a reminder, package two is Cambridge and Woodidge Woodridge, which we've voted on this evening, as well as the Alamo Heights Sports Complex and then the plan services. Uh we also received an update regarding package three which Mr. Hager touched upon this evening that we're continuing to evaluate those bids and seeking clarifications from the biders. Very good. Thank you, sir. DEAC uh Mr. Edwards. Uh yes. Uh Dr. Al Faro pres uh reviewed uh the snacks from for the grades one through eight. The top uh three were cheese cubes, jerky, and fruit cups. And then uh we uh Dr. Walker reviewed the

135um February feedback. If anyone would like to review that, I've got it. It's 50 pages right here. I figured y'all wanted me to go through that page by page. As well as Dr. Walker reviewed with us, um the federal funds funding programs, uh which I think was pretty interesting and probably taught the group quite a bit. And that ends my report. Okay. Thank you, sir. Uh school foundation. Uh, I'll do that when we met today. Um, just quick two quick things. U Lin Ziggler and Valentine did a tremendously great job with Reunited Heights. I recommend everybody goes to that. It's it's just a wonderful event. They've already got a book for next year. So, it's exciting. Um, the real big news, the Hero for Heights monthly giving program has 100 new members, which brings the

136total to 196, and their goal is to have 200 by the end of the year. So, they're really hoping that they can meet that goal. Uh right now the monthly giving program revenues are 25500 a month for a total of 300,000 annually and that's just in recurring giving. Uh they recently the school foundation recently got $100,000 gift where 50,000's going to the teacher fund. 50,000's going to the endowment. Um but this means that the teacher fund is going to raise over a million dollars this year which is double what was raised last year. Um and 450 grand over the anticipated budget. So they are firing in all cylinders. Um I I think I think our community just need a little push and they're responding very well. Um because our folks in Austin are not. So

137end of report business recommendations. Dr. Sher. Yeah. I'm going to give you a little shout out though. David is kind of you know putting himself out there to get into homes to talk about the message. Uh the donation that came yesterday um for the 100,000 was someone who attended the coffee that visited about. And so we got another one on the books I think next week. And so, you know, I appreciate your willingness to be about playing in the bad news with me. Thank you for that. All right. Um, calendar Christina will project for us here. Um, we have an Excel graduation April 24th building committee meeting and again we will post that for anyone that wants to come. Um on May 1st, celebration of excellence is our annual awards event hosted at Paloma Blanca

138um for all of our employees who were brought before the board um for any recognition spotlight on excellence. Um we also recognize our retirees at that celebration. So please put that on your calendar and try to stop by to be with us. Um I have to recognize Brooke and um Richard Peacock. They always host that for us. That's been a tradition and very grateful for that opportunity to celebrate our employees. GMP meeting in May will be May 7th at 11:00. David will attend the the school foundation board meeting on May 14th and then our regular board meeting will be May 14th as well. Any questions about calendar? One quick request is anybody who can attend the Excel graduation, please do. We're going to be actually running very tight from that meeting you just referenced. Okay.

139Uh, so we may need some, you know, pinch hitters or whatever at that deal. So it'd be great if y'all could make it. So I just asked for some department updates here. So we have a slide for various departments for me just to give you some big picture. There's lots taking place in curriculum and instruction. We just hosted our um language uh program lottery. We have 142 um of 278 kinder families who actually applied um to be part of the language program. And so we will have um you know that's a wait list this year but our our team is working really hard to kind of balance those classrooms and get notifications out. Um planning summer work is a big task and so there are nine different writing teams that are um going to be

140focused on multiple areas of of PD this summer and so the team is focused on getting that off the ground. This is testing season, right? Like we started this week with um STAR with end of course exam. Um and I don't want to walk past what a big lift that is for our campus admin team. Um I shared at the foundation today what I'm most proud of is that they cross the tees and dot the eyes and make sure it happens the way that it's supposed to happen and that learning still takes place in classrooms um in an authentic way for students that aren't testing during the days that we walk through the rest of the spring. Um and then just to highlight our unified champion program at both the elementary, middle school, and high

141school is just um growing and we've had some wonderful events this past week. Um one at Woodbridgeidge, we had a unified champion run and then last week we had a um drama production at the high school, the Alice and Wonderland. So that's a celebration. Moving into technology, just some some things that are on the radar here. What I will tell you is that we're coming to you at the long range um meeting in May to kind of give you a specific update about this work, but you've seen the technology expectation matrix. Um I shared that with you that is being rolled out and presented to initial groups. We've got staff and student devices being deployed. Um it's a lot of work for for our tech team in the summer and so they're positioning to get

142ready to do that. The Cambridge and Woodridge classroom renovations require a lot of attention and effort on on the part of our tech team um to both, you know, plan for the transition classrooms um but also to to plan for those renovated classrooms. And then our high school PA system work is underway to um roll that the new system out as well. So there's a lot of technology radar and then human resources. um we have 39 positions that were determined to be um reduced which means that we needed to move that number of professional I mean um employees into other positions. So as of today I actually think this is higher than our early morning meeting. It might be a little higher than 30 but 30 of those positions have been reassigned. Um so the

143remaining nine are secondary teacher positions. you know that there are some kind of unicorn positions that we're going to have to go out and hire, not not necessarily be able to, you know, reassign from within, but um credible work. Frank Stannage, he has um kind of worked a master chess board in making all of these um reassignments come to reality. And I when I talk about this, I can't help but share like you've seen the news, you've seen the districts that are walking through announcements of cuts just now. And I can't imagine the chaos that their district is going to walk through as they work through what that looks like. And um I'll give you all kudos for allowing me the opportunity to visit about this last semester um when it could have felt a

144little premature at the time, but I feel like we're walking through this the right way and taking care of our folks. Uh Frank has really been working to investigate our benefits renewal. And so we're going to come to you um workshop to to make determinations about the premiums for our employees. And then we're celebrating our 2025 job fair. It feels a little strange to say that we're cutting all these positions, reassigning all these positions, but we we're still recruiting, right? But it is for those um unicorn positions. So special education, bilingual teachers, we had great attendance. U David came up and talked to our staff um at the very beginning of the day. And so again, huge kudos to Frank and his team for getting that off the ground. And then obviously just some big

145spring celebrations. Those of you who were able to attend the last um Excel graduation, I don't know how many of you attended the strings festival, but that picture shows 800 strings students who performed, you know, on the court there in the mule dome. Um and end the performance in the traditional Ode to Joy, you know, all playing together. It's a true goosebump moment. So, big celebration there. A fine arts program. Um, we've got the the one Odyssey of the mind team that you you met here tonight that qualified for world um global finals which is exciting. You saw our Spurs team and their national recognition culture night. Um, festival of learning night were both were huge successes at the junior school and I think we have found a new home. People who went just really

146felt like that was a really great venue to host that. And this is the month of the military child. Tomorrow is the official purple up day. So Carrie, you might have to wear that dress again. Um and then just some athletic celebrations. You saw our boys who who um earned their medals at their banquet last week and then our girls just yesterday qualified for state competition once again. So both teams or one uh just the one. They are so good. Very excited. Very good. That's what I have. Okay. Then um absent objection, we're going to roll into executive session. Executive session for Texas Government Code section 551.001. It's 803. Let's take a 5minute break. 808. Let's uh jump back in.