001To the flag of the United States of America and to the stand, we come to you and give thanks for all that you've done for us and for this nation. We ask that you be with each and every one of us as we make decisions that are going to benefit. We ask that you give travel and grace to everybody that's here. Help them get home safer. Ask in Jesus name. Amen. >> Dr. Chris. >> Good evening. All right, I just want to start. Um, it looks like I have two of mine here, but this month we did, um, we had our cooperation character trait awards presented to our students. And, um, I have here with us Juliana Neville and Ellie True. We got about 15 of them, but these are only for my staff members.
002the month come up. Right. So they do um our with our art classes and music class um basically run our specialist classes. Um anytime some you know someone is out or you know we have to combine their classes. They before we can even get to them to say hey we need to do this. They're always on top of it and taking care of it. Um so we just want to say we appreciate all that y'all do for our kids. Thank you guys. before today I I will start with this is our campus teacher of the year um before the voting happened. So, it just just ended up um working out, but we did want to um recognize her for what she does. When we had a um kindergarten teaching spot, you know, we had a
003teacher spot that was open and we needed to put someone in the classroom. And you know, in my position, sometimes I have to I have to make those hard decisions and may have to volunte, you know, do what's best for kids. But before, you know, we got to that point, this kind of was was started with asking our prek teachers if anybody um wanted to do it. And you know, she made that part easy. I didn't have to bother telling anybody. She was just like, "You know what? I'll try it." So, I I'll go and do it. So, she's been over there and she's been um rocking it. She's actually going to stay there. She So, um just we want to thank you for everything that you do, important to our kids. We have some
004um amazing students to recog from the elementary tonight. So, I'm gonna start with uh Luke Bander. So, Luke's teacher said, so Luke's teacher said, Luke always enters the classroom with a smile and hello. He is ready to work and very prepared for class. He's respectful to his peers and his teachers and is always willing to help. He's a very hard He is very hardworking. If he struggles with the concept, he is sure to ask for help. His willingness to work hard shines daily in our classroom and it's been such a joy to have him in our class. Congratulations. Uh Texas. So Texas's teacher says Texas has a servant heart. She comes in ready to tackle the day, but is very aware that her classmates might need. She is offered to sit by others in order
005to help them stay focused and help explain the work we are doing. She wants success for herself as well as her classmates. She works hard and even though sometimes she's shy, she is sure to speak up when she's struggling with a concept and needs more support for herself. It has been a great privilege watching her learn and grow this year. We're so lucky to have her in her class. Congratulations. Isaac's teacher said, "Isaaca has truly been a joy to have in class this year. He's always respectful to his peers and teachers and consistently demonstrates a positive attitude. He can always be counted on to contribute in a thoughtful and responsible way to class discussion. Isaac's willingness to support others makes him a great role model in our classroom and I've enjoyed having this. Congratulations. Hernanda's
006been a fantastic artist. She consistently puts great effort into her work and she's always ready to help whenever she can. She shows kindness to her classmates. I've truly enjoyed having Fernanda in my class this year and look forward to seeing all she continues to accomplish. says, "Kyl has a smile on her face and is one of the most respectful students I've ever had. She never complains about her schoolwork and puts in 110% effort to improve her math skills. She's an absolute joy to have in my classroom. Okay. And our teacher of the month this month is Miss Guestber. Miss Gber is our music teacher on our campus and so she truly exemplifies what it means to be a team player. She's always flexible, consistently willing to step up and eager to help whenever she's needed.
007Her dedication for our students is evident in everything she does. In addition to her daily efforts in the classroom, Miss Gastard has gone above and beyond by organizing an elementary choir program that engages more than 50 students each Monday afternoon. Her commitment and passion have created a meaningful opportunity for our students to grow and shine. Thank you, Miss Ger, for all you do. So, Rose teaches our computer classes and tech classes and business. And um I'm not going to try to talk about what she's doing with these kids because I want to do it justice. So if you're in tech club, would you come up please? There's about 20. A lot of them are in other things too. Show it away. So we have car, we have action. and we have practicing. >> Yeah. So,
008um last year I started the tech club and these guys right here, eighth graders like Miss Ros again this year and I was like oh I'm so busy but I said we can start after UIL. Um and one thing that led to me because I have a passion in STEM and with STEM um do many things. It can be anywhere from fundamental engineering concepts to coding to robotics. Um right now I'm working on trying to write a grant to get some robotics uh started in our group, but I have a online virtual simulation that I got this weekend from this guy that sent it to me so they can start learning more about it. We've been working in a program called Imagine that I got for free for about four months. And so they've been
009working on uh learning how to code using Python. Um and the cool thing about it, it works strongly close well works closely with algebra discipline because they're learning about matrix. And so with the matrices, they have to learn how to read by rows and then they've been learning about RGB colors and everything else. So pick that can probably help y'all out. I'm telling you. Um, but other than that, I have a passion for this and I'm I'm truly enjoying them. They're excited. I'm excited and I don't mind spending my money on them after school either. Um, so I just want to thank some senior since she came to class and she was like, "Oh, because it has um we have a lot of sixth graders right now and some of them couldn't make it due
010to track and other things that they participate in like baseball and softball. Um, but thank you, Miss Steven, for recognizing us. They work so hard and they're thrilled to come in every Wednesday and Thursday >> and they spend their time. They It's voluntary. They just come. I mean, and there a lot of them are working on stuff outside of school. So, they're able to do something they have an interest in and uh extend what they can't really do in class because they're not to that level. These guys are taking it further and it's something they enjoy. So, thank you. Thank you guys very much. I'm going to find the top is Miss Marilyn is our cafeteria manager and very campus is an amazing AMS cafe manager. She is always so willing to help out and
011accommodate us to ensure each child gets fed and stuffed. uh whether it be field trips, band trips, ISS, during testing schedules or lunch detention, she never fails us. Even at times when we give her very short notice of a schedule train, she always gets things done for us with a smile. She is so sweet in the lunch line and always greets the students with a positive attitude. She works well with her team and surely shines as a leader that treasures her team. She takes care of the staff, especially the office staff. We are truly blessed to have her on our campus and we would be very hungry without her. A lot of kids are supposed to bring their badges. You know, if they don't, she knows the number back in the day when you knew
012people know her number. >> And Miss Bennett uh rotenberry. Nobody knows the rotenberry. She got married also selected by her peers. Our teacher at the moment is truly a dedicated educator who goes above and beyond for our campus and the community. Her involvement is felt in so many ways. Her commitment in the classroom and her leadership in coordinating UIL debate and many other things. She inspires students to challenge them challenge themselves and excel. her passion for education and willingness to invest her time and energy. Thank goodness she has a lot of energy uh into student success making a lasting impact on our school. We're fortunate to have such a motivated and educator as part of our team. Thank you very much. Kylie is one of our students that will be recognizing you are recognized by
013Miss Ryan Martinez. Here's what she said about I would like to nominate Kylie Kelly for recognition due to her outstanding character, work ethic, and positive impact on our classrooms. Kylie Kelly consistently demonstrates responsibility, respect, and a strong commitment to learning. She comes to class prepared to participate thoughtfully in discussions and always puts forth her best effort. Kylie is a bright light that she shares with everyone she speaks to. Our student admired by those students, even students she doesn't get to work with on a daily basis. She has stepped into many roles without hesitation. Even from the busy home life, she makes it all happen. I agree with all those things. She is also one of the professionals inclusive inclusion that I other teachers and other pair professionals go watch because she just it's fluid for
014her knows what >> our teacher of the month is Miss Alicia Ferguson. >> First of all, Miss Ferguson would be This is what Ferguson is a thoughtful teacher on our department. She advocates for all students and supports every English. She takes the extra step to help students who are struggling by providing meaningful strategies and equipping them with new tools for success. Miss Ferguson is always encouraging and inspiring. She truly takes care of our team, whether through her support, thoughtful gestures, or even the food she and goodie bag she generously provides. Her dedication, leadership, and heart for both teams and colleagues makes her incredibly deserving of this nomination. Anytime you walk into the room, you feel love and you feel you know they're learning. You know they're learning because they have a safe environment to do
015so. Thank you. Stacy. Yes. All right, we will move on down to public comments. And it appears that we have two Austin. Mr. Hod, the rules of public comment, you're allowed three minutes to speak. We don't get to have a dialogue back and forth, but you have your entire three minutes to speak. I'll set my timer. Uh when you start talking, I'll start it and it's set for three minutes. My name is Austin. I'm an only member of this community and a graduate of an high school, but I'm also one of the host families here in when it comes to foreign exchange students. I also serve as the exchange coordinator working with districts across roughly a number area. So I'm not speaking from this on the outside. I directly work with the program itself. I'm
016here to speak against the proposal to reduce the number of foreign exchange students allowed at our district. So to start with the facts in Texas public schools are funded based on daily average attendance. This means each student in a seat generates funding for the district on an average of at least $6,000 per student in base funding and closer to 13 to 15 grand per student when you look at total funding across the board. So with five exchange students, this district brings in somewhere between 30 and 75 grand a year. Setting that number at five does not save money. It removes potential funding. Now the classroom impact at Anok High School. The studenttoteer ratio is around 14 to1 students. Teachers do not receive do not receive an additional stipen pay unless class sizes exceed 30 students.
017We are nowhere near that threshold at this time. Adding a small number of exchange units across multiple grade levels does not overload a classroom and it does not create additional financial strain from four teacher side. So again this is not a class size or funding issue. Now to bring up something important. Winnie ISD which is a comparable district size and structure to Anowak does not currently have a cap on their number of exchange students they accept each year. They are not limiting opportunities they are allowing it. So we have to ask ourselves why would we move in the opposite direction and remain open to more because what we are talking about is losing is not just numbers it is opportunities. Exchange students bring global perspective into a small community that otherwise may not have access
018to it. They expose our students to different cultures, languages and viewpoints that may never that our students here may never experience otherwise. That current that kind of exposure builds understanding. It builds awareness and it rep it prepares our students here for for the real world. And I want to be clear about the quality of students that we bring in as host families. These students are required to maintain their grades. They come with academic recommendations from their teachers in their home countries. Most of them are B+ students or higher. They are motivated, respectful, and here to succeed. As someone who works directly with these students and placements across multiple districts, I can tell you this is consistent. because they're good kids. In many cases, they contribute positively to the classroom environment and even raise the level
019of academic engagement. So, when we look at this proposal, we need to be honest about what it does. It does not fix a funding issue. It does not fix classroom issues. It what it does is limits opportunity. Thank you. >> Thank you, sir. Hello everyone. >> I need to tell you the rules. >> My name is David. I'm also with I'm echo off what Austin says. I'm the regional coordinator for EF. It's called education first. And that's a big meaning for us because we bring over foreign exchange students to educate educate first. And by bringing these exchange students over here, not only are we educating them with our culture, but we're also introducing these other cultures to our local students. We've had numerous times where uh the students here will travel during the summer and
020go visit their friends over there in their culture and get to experience that. If we limit that by getting a waiver from TVA, which we don't want to do that, that that's going to limit, you know, the amount of students and the amount of education we can actually further our students here in um if if it's a resource problem, reach out to me. I'm the regional coordinator. I can get resources, counselors or or whatever. There's many resources that we have that are there for you and doesn't cost the school or anything that can help out if if need be. if we have the resource, we can help you out. Uh, nobody's reached out or or tapped into that, but it is here. It is available. I hate to see the school lose funding by doing
021away with students. It's guaranteed money for the school and for the district. Uh, you got to look at, you know, what's what's best for I know y'all do it all the time. What's best for the student? How can we educate them? How can we further their education? I think by bringing exchange students here that education and it doesn't cost the school any money actually they make money off >> you just and The the fun part of our meeting is over with now. If if y'all would like to exit stage right, we totally understand. >> Stage left. >> Have a good night. Have a good night. We had another one. Oh, she did just have a baby, didn't she? >> They are good kids. All of them are good. >> Yes. Yeah. Good family. Jerry's back
022there too. >> I lost you. I was like a second ago. >> You are you are the report. Yes, ma'am. >> But but you you were behind Mr. Hodson. couldn't see. I was like, "Okay, the thing's going down, but I don't know where we are. The gym floor in this building is an and they are planning ongoing gener generator issues may be aware that we're getting closer. Contable. But right now the um the panel there is malfunctioning. They have the new one installed. Keep her honest. Kenny, would you listen carefully to keep this woman honest? Keep going. Holly, they'reating work to take care of the issue with the fumes from the buses being pulled into the building from the outside unit. So, that is in the works. expected to have that fixed as soon as
023possible. There's also an ongoing ondemand water heater issue. Um, and so they're either going to replace the unit or change the we'll get whatever. We want to do whatever is best for um the next one is the building lobby for the building when I was here before mid October. Um, Durk had estimated that the work would be about $89,000. That was just a rough estimate and didn't access control figure to get find out if y'all were interested in proceeding. Um, so they did bid to get bids and the final bid number came in in February of 122,889. So quite a bit higher than the original estimate. And if you'll see below that, I explained why the increases. Um, we expanded the scope when um, we were out there. We realized that we were we're putting
024in new doors down low that are windstorm rated, but the windows that are above it, we weren't originally going to replace, but they're all broken. So, we thought while we're doing this, we need to put in window unit, make that whole thing um frames look brand new. The frames will be staying the same, but the um reach would be And as we wind or impact resistance um we didn't original estimate have the final hardware schedule or a price from the access control. So that was in this and we also didn't have the soft cost which is the architectural and engineering fees that um for for us. So that's why the to price went up and so you guys. I know y'all aren't on an action item tonight. >> Thank you. >> Um, Durk thinks it'll
025take about eight weeks to procure all the materials and then they'll jump in and then it be about four weeks to conclude it. thinking that this summer would have and currently um there's $242,000 left in operations budget that we haven't covered. And then lastly, we may this is the last but the next thing we may finally closing out the project and um at the next board meeting on April 21st, we should have the final change orders um completed that would um close those out. And so for the primary school, the construction contract will be reduced by um $200,9228. So that money that you will not have to pay for that was originally budgeted for um the primary schooling for the summer project school and high school about $173,900 the construction contract not have to spend
026that money either. Any questions about that? Lastly, save the day. This is the important thing for summer. He can't do his so much going on with everybody and their families during that time. So, I think some guys maybe going to That's just a thing. We'll figure that out. >> Thanks for being >> Thank you. >> We will have our reason. Wait a minute now. Wait a minute. >> Yep. We can move on down to the presentation of district tax collection reports. >> Thank you for your time. I'm Otilia Gonzalez. I'm an attorney with Purdue Brandon Fielder Collins and not we collected property tax. Thank you Dr. Abshire and trustees um Miss Pman for having me. Um I believe you have a copy of the report in your packet. So this is an update on the
027things we've been working on to collect your delinquent taxes since my last report. I'll start real fast by mentioning Mike Darlow, our senior partner, usually comes with me. He had a conflict. Sends his regards. Um uh but uh certainly says to say hello. Um for the public, we have a tax sale coming up in June, June 2nd. So that notice will go out in the paper in May for anyone who's interested. Um we continue to have tax dockets. You know, there are two district courts that cover Chambers County. So they each have their own tax dockets. So we're keeping up and taking uh cases to judgement in those courts. So let's jump right into page one. um at the top of the page, 1.182 million. That's your overall outstanding taxes for all years. That's the
028base amount for all years. So, these next couple of slides are going to look at that 1.1 million in different ways. This first chart looks at the um type of accounts, the status actually where they are. We see the majority are in actually the uncollectible and then the next largest litigation. Now that uncollectible um I mentioned this last year, it's a it's a big project for us. We're working slowly, carefully, thoughtfully. We're trying to assist the appraisal district. There are a number of accounts in the area that have um incomplete legal descriptions. Sometimes they have the code CNL on them, which means cannot locate. There are some mapping issues, some title issues. So, um, we're we're assisting the appraisal district as we can, trying to research records, find things, and notify people if changes are
029going to be made, but in the meantime, there's sort of that big category that we can't identify who to sue, right? Um, or get a proper legal description. And so we've got to get that cleaned up before we can uh file a suit or um contact those people to pay the ne and and we have had some success. I will say over the past year we've had a couple of corrections come through that have taken off some big dollars um and put them in different categories. Um, I will also mention that um the deferral category, 5% of your overall role, um, a deferral is a specific exemption that's put on by the appraisal district. It's for individuals who are 65 years or older or disabled. And it doesn't stop taxes from acrewing, right? No one's
030tax exempt unless you're government a government entity. Um but it does stop the um interest well the interest rate is frozen at 5%. And there's no penalty. Uh so the traditional penalty and interest growth doesn't happen as quickly on those accounts. It also stops us from filing a suit on those accounts or from selling the property. Um but we do talk with individuals who are eligible for that um and have them go to the appraisal district, talk to them. They're very nice people um and get the information that they need. Okay, the next page, excuse me. The next page is looking at that same 1.1 million by dollar range. And this is really for our benefit. This is to make sure we're working the tree all the way down um even to the lowest dollar
031accounts, particularly those that are less than 500, less than 700. We like to make some extra phone calls, send some letters, send some emails, and try to encourage people to pay without having to file a suit against them because that might double the amount that they owe. The next page looks at your overall delinquent base by tax year and we see the last two years are a combined 32%. Um, and then we go into the earlier years. Now, the oldest category is from 2017 and prior, and those really go back to 2004. There's a couple of one-off accounts before that. We're working with the tax office on trying to clean those up. But the code does allow um us to help the tax office and cleaning those up as well. Okay. The next page, we're
032going to look through not all the years we've been collecting your taxes. We just go back a couple of them so you can see our progression. I started with the 2019 year. Now, briefly, your tax bills go out in October. They're due upon receipt. If they're not paid by February 1 of the next year, penalty and interest start to acrue at a rate specifically under the tax code. It's not negotiable. And uh your county tax assessor collector, Mrs. Lorie Payton, works very hard. She and her staff um work hard to collect as much as they can. And then whatever is remaining delinquent July 1 gets turned over to us. So for the 2019 year, there was 37,916 dollars that was still delinquent one year later, July 1 of 2020. And you can see over the
033years how much we've collected going into a partial year six, we've collected 87.52% or 269,484. So, I'll let you look at the next couple of charts at your leisure, but you can see our progress from year to year. And if you would please turn to the very last page, which is the most recent year, that's 2024. So, on July 1 of 2025, we were assigned $437,49. And these numbers are through the end of January. I did just get the February report from the tax office just last week, so it was too late to update this report that had been submitted. But I can tell you off of that um 210,237. We've collected an additional 10,000. So that numbers up to 220,47 which is right at 50.31% of what's been assigned to us. and we'll get
034another update um at the end of well going into April probably in about midappril. Um I was trying to look at the percent that was turned over right most taxing entities want to know are more people paying or less people paying. It's relatively consistent. This past year only 4.3% of your tax dollars were still delinquent in July and were turned over to us. and the prior year it was 3.79. So the vast majority of your taxpayers pay their taxes. Um it's just that last bit that we working with um encouraging them to make get into a payment arrangement or do what they need to to take care of their tax business. And I'd like to remind you all our services are for tax collection are at no cost to the district. So, they're um added
035on in a collection penalty once the taxes get turned over to us. Do you all have any questions about our work? >> Okay. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for your business. We appreciate the opportunity to work for the district and please let me know if we can do anything better for you. I did hear the previous presenter's comment. I go to Tazby in San Antonio every year. So, if anyone is going, please let me know. I'll be there. I'd be happy to catch up and and meet or something. Thank y'all. Okay. Have a nice evening. >> Thank you. Bye. >> Bye. >> Thank you. did a network uh audit that we talked about a little bit before, but this is actually a report that'll go over what we have been able
036to implement, things that we've like partially implemented and things that uh we we still need to do to get up to kind of like a a standard um that they've kind of set. They're not requirements, but a lot of them are gonna really help with cyber security and and that type of thing. So, this is Jerry Wilson from Region Five. I'm gonna let him introduce himself and I'm going to run his slideshow. So, I'll be back at >> U. Jerry Wilson. I'm the network manager at Region 5. Um we're uh we do a lot of services for school districts. Uh one among them is uh cyber security services doing uh assessments like this one. Um, so, uh, back in October, we came and we did a cyber security assessment. Uh, and I'll kind of go
037into what all we took a look at. Um, but, uh, and what all that means, uh, and what it means to, uh, your district. Go ahead. And Okay. So, uh, right now I'm looking at the cyber security posture measuring uh, all your recent progress against uh, foundational security standards. Good news is this. uh since October which is that's a pretty short amount of time uh the district IT team has made lots of progress on uh these cyber security uh recommendations and done a lot to help secure the endpoints which endpoints are the devices you use you know laptops um desktops whatever and uh the network parameter um they had a lot of things going for them already but they made a lot of other progress so um like I say bottom online. Uh things have
038been vastly improved, but there's still a lot of potential uh for uh vulnerability and a lot of things that can be improved that are a little bit more difficult than what they've done. Mostly what they've done is kind of like the technical um configuration aspect of things that that this team can do. Um the rest of it is more uh going to be widespread throughout the district. includes things like staff training uh policy about how you're going to handle data and information and things like that. Um so yeah like it says next steps uh kind of goes from deploying software and configuration to you know uh structure procedures and like the human firewalls uh so to speak uh that's everybody who uses the system being aware of security on the next one. Okay. So what
039is this? Um so the uh methodology so the framework that we used and there's lots of this in in IT in general in IT business throughout the world. Um we use one that's developed by the center for internet security. Um they have a set of uh what they call security controls. And controls are just actions, configurations, practices, things that you can do to make things more secure. these controls get really specific down to, oh, you're going to have passwords that are at least this long or um you got to make sure that your firewall blocks these these these and that thing, you know, things like that that are very specific. The one we chose and the reason we chose it is it's very manageable. Um it aligns with uh NIST, I don't know if you
040know what that is. if you do, it's the national it's uh uh standards uh for uh security and then the Texas cyber security framework which itself is based off of NISK. Um that's something that the Department of Information Resources of Texas puts out there and recommends that everybody follows. They actually require some state agencies to follow them depending on what their uh purpose is. um uh VPS for one would be one where you'd want a lot of absolute security. Um for schools it's recommended it's not legally required. Um so the target um the target we picked they have an implementation group. It's a set of 56 safeguards that is kind of this deemed as essential cyber hygiene that comes actually out of uh Senate Bill 2610. um that doesn't make it legally required, but it
041does say this is what you need to as schools target for your cyber security. Um it's it it is the state's way of saying this is what you need to do. Um so everything we looked at uh we came here and we took a look at everything. So there's all the network infrastructure that's the stuff in the closets and on the ceiling and you don't ever deal with it but it makes everything else work. uh enterprise assets uh servers uh the staff student devices IoT is internet of things that's where you have cameras and uh uh vape detectors and things like that uh software cloud environments um Google workspace skyward which is a student information system it's got a lot of really important data in it uh all the Windows environment um logging on all
042the apps you use and then the last part is the organizational policies and documentation that's typically really hard to do we go into that a little bit and we'll see how that's uh kind of affecting our position. Okay. So, the current posture. So, um this is with the 56 controls. Uh we have uh 16 controls that are completely implemented. Everything you could possibly do has been done. So, uh that's really good. Partially implemented. There's eight controls not yet implemented. There's 25 controls. Uh and that doesn't mean that it hasn't been started. It just means that there's not the piece of action taken that makes it in progress. And we'll talk about what those things are in a minute. Uh because I know that looks like a big pie chunk. Uh and then unknown unverified. That's
043some of the ones where we still have a couple of questions we need to answer about them. Um but uh the takeaway is uh almost a third of the foundational fences are completely operational. By the way, we also focused on the controls and the uh things that we could do that were going to remove the most obvious vulnerabilities. Basically, make you uh much more difficult target. Um we didn't worry about the controls that were nice to have but not the ones that get exploited. So nearly half are still not yet implemented. Um so you've got a somewhat elevated risk profile. Um, mostly it revolves around uh if something did happen, how do you respond? Okay, so like I said, it was a massive technical leap. Um, y'all went from zero fully implemented. Doesn't mean they
044weren't there. It just means they were partially implemented like 90 95%. Got over that hump, got to 16 fully implemented controls. Uh, what is that like six months? Uh, pretty short time. Um so the things that are key on that automated patching making sure things are up to date and patched that's a guaranteed way to make not yourself not vulnerable. Um software visibility making sure uh uh that they had complete visibility of all the software that's being used. They had visibility of all the hardware and everything like that and knew about operating systems but there's some other details. Uh hardened endpoints. Um this is uh having uh what's known as endpoint detection response. This is what you typically would think of as antivirus software. It's a little bit more complicated than that. Now, uh, one
045of the big things about that is um Texas Tea and the legislature put money out for um the K12 cyber security initiative. You guys took advantage of it. You took advantage of that money uh to buy EDR software. Y'all don't pay a dime for it and it helps protect all everybody's devices. Uh, huge win right there. uh tighter control uh tighter uh access to uh your cloud environment um multifactors required for uh Google workspace so that's email and docs and uh whatever else you have tied into it uh along with uh skyward uh which is the student information system so your your places where you have the most uh amount of sensitive information are very protected go ahead and the next all right so the remaining risk I I picked a couple of them that
046are the more um obvious ones or the more um pressing ones I guess. Um there's not really an incident response plan. You'll have some practices in place but not an overall plan. Um so this would be basically a big policy. This involves more than just the IT team as well. And this is what makes it a little bit more difficult because it takes more people involved to figure out what to do. Um, so basically, um, like it says, ad hoc, uh, uncoordinated. They know what to do, but it'd be a lot of back and forth conversations in a time when you would be down. You'd maybe be worried about what data got leaked, if any. Uh, so it's much better to have a plan and just absolutely know what to do. Uh, another one, uh,
047undocumented data recovery. This kind of folds in with that. I'm sure you can see a little bit. Um, you need to make sure that you have uh a tested data recovery process. Um, this is where you kind of go through like a a a dress rehearsal of how is this going to run if we lost data. Um, and making sure that it works 100% not of a situation where you have, hey, do we have backups? Yeah. Okay. Can we restore them? Yeah, I think so. You don't want to say that. You want to know. So um so um that's something I think that needs to get attention next. Um uh another high-risisk lack of security awareness training. Um I think you guys like everybody else in the state do the required training which is not
048a lot. It's like one session a year that as Edihero I just heard somebody say edge your Hero is not bad but it's not you know comprehensive. Um there uh there's a lot of advantage to having this continuing education, this continuing training. Um it's basically to make people aware of social engineering because that's generally what happens and that's what works. Uh when people get access to things, they basically get legitimate access because they folded human, not because they broke something on a computer. Um so another one, lack of centralized audit logging. The IT team has audit logging, but they don't have something where they can quickly go and look and say, "Show me all the failed loginins from every system for the past two days." They couldn't do that in five minutes. It would take
049them a lot longer. But if you're looking at, "Oh my gosh, I think we're being attacked." You kind of want to know really quickly. Centralized logging helps with this. It's just uh setting up a system where you have all these uh systems that you're concerned about um dumping their log files to a centralized place. It analyzes it and uh correlates the dates and uh helps make a clearer picture of what's actually going on in the entire system. So, um like I said, those were kind of prioritized. Um plan for the worst immediate action. Um, this is that uh incident recovery response. Uh, the Texas Department of Information Resources has a a template guide book. It's generalized for everybody in uh the state, every agency, every department. So, I mean, it's pretty widespread. Um, CIS has
050policy templates that are more geared towards education. Um, that might be a little bit better thing. uh DI keep in mind they're serving all state agencies not just education um so that would be a good thing to get those templates and start putting together a plan involved all the district staff that are relevant to this um you're talking about special ed departments campus leaders uh business office things like that um that's why it takes a little bit more effort and time than some of the technical things another two another one is uh educate the workforce and these timelines are just kind of like proposed timelines I know it depends on what you know is going on in your district as to to when you want to do something and what priority you you might set.
051Um so this is where you would take and maybe do a little bit more than just edge a hero. Um there uh are state certified security awareness uh programs out there. They cost money, but here's one of the good things. Uh the K12 cyber security initiative, that's TEA in the legislature that put out money that paid for the EDR. Um they are also going to be funding uh some training as well some software for training that's going to be no cost to you guys. I can't tell you the date exactly when it's going to happen. I can't tell you exactly all the features in it. Um I will say that the product is called Infosex Security IQ if you want to look it up. Um but um it's it's coming soon. Uh and by soon
052I mean start of next school year. Um by then uh it may be sooner. Uh so uh third priority cleanup access and visibility. Um so this come kind of follows along with the previous slide. Uh so one thing uh directory hygiene by looking automated scripts disabled dormant accounts. This is just more of that that kind of folds in with logging. So you can sit there and see all the different aspects of what's going on. Show me all the accounts that have not been logged into for 45 days. Well, instead of having to go to each system, it' be nice to have a centralized log where you could ask these questions. It's just a little bit more automation. It makes things a little bit clearer and quicker. Go ahead to the I think this is the
053final slide. Was that it? Okay. Well, I didn't have a goodbye slide. Sorry. That that's it. Um I know I went through that a little bit quick. I've also given the IT department um uh all the controls with all the findings, all the technical data on it. And so they got a lot more documentation that I didn't want to uh delve into tonight because I'm sure you guys would be asleep right now. It gets pretty dry. Uh but if there's any questions at all, I'll be happy to answer them. >> Yes, sir. >> Yes. I totally understand this is something that that's needed for the the security of the district, but what kind of price point does all this type of stuff come at? Just just curious. >> It depends. Um that's a really good
054question. Uh in it, there's two ways of looking at things. You've got um your labor as a price point versus I'm going to buy a solution. A lot of times you can uh like I'm going to use centralized log management as an example. There are free software packages you can set up. You you've obviously got to have the hardware. um they do um but it's going to take time for you to set it up to learn the software. Um sometimes there's a little bit of programming involved, a little bit of uh learning some new scripting language, something like that. But then you could set it up and then you'd have your centralized logging uh solution and it wouldn't cost you anything. It's free open source software. Takes work though. It takes time and effort. On
055the other hand, you could go and find a vendor and pay them for a solution that is already done that way. Has all the wizards and all the easy stuff in it. So it just depends on which way you want to approach it. Um I would keep in mind that uh the labor cost on open source stuff is a real cost. U sometimes it's invisible a little bit but um a lot of the stuff um that is most important. We're trying to make u and by we I mean the region service center working with tea and also there's an organization called tzy that is the group of the region service centers um to make sure that there's funding like for instance the cyber security initiative funding of uh the uh training software um some of
056the other things uh that like that big pie chunk most of that's policy actually and it's mostly your time and effort So, there's that cost there, but there's not hardware and software to buy to make that work. Um, >> oh, no, not at all. No, not at all. And that's the whole point is they're trying to approach uh the EDR software that was provided. Um, uh, and that, by the way, just to let you know, um, in November, people were pressing and asking this question, well, is this going to be renewed? Is this going to keep going on? And uh the uh the uh the ISO, the director at TEA for security said it's going to be funded indefinitely as long as there's a TEA. So that's really expensive stuff. Um uh for what you
057got um I can't tell you a price, but I know it would be several thousand dollars a year for that EDR software. You don't have to pay anything for it. So lucky that the security awareness uh training is also uh not quite as expensive but it does cost it is expensive. So um the things that are the most beneficial is what they're trying to put money out there and fund so it's not on the school districts to do. Um the things that you guys have done well already you've already paid for. So that's the good news. It's uh keeping up with that. I know that uh you guys use uh network hardware from a company called Ruckus and that's a licensed uh product and it would just be uh keeping up with that licensing. You're
058>> welcome that y'all are having a conversation in Tammy's office today and I'm assuming was this part of your conversation. Um but I don't know if like Mr. president if uh if if y'all would want them uh not reason unless they you know unless that made sense. But we really appreciate y'all coming out and um because these guys are putting out fires, putting out fires, putting out fires every day and you have somebody come in objectively look at look at the situation. And by the way, you I'm assuming you help the other districts across region five with this very same thing. Is it right? >> Yeah. >> So you see it done all these different ways, right? So you you're you're um gracious at not trying to cram your opinion down our throat because you
059know every district is unique but we welcome you to you know uh when y'all consult you know with with justice and everything but I wonder if like um during the month of May or something like that Tammy I don't know if this sounds crazy justice if you know y'all come back again just y'all saying okay wanted to tell you where we're at on and start and just give some facts and things like that. Some of it's gonna be financial stuff from Tammy and all that kind of stuff. >> You can show that more specific some of the summer like making more complicated passwords like a bad time right now. complicated password is bad any >> yeah there's a human factor to a lot of these things >> those are the kind of decisions we're making
060we're also trying to see which thing we can do for free like it was a monitoring >> yeah system we found that will watch like our printers and our servers they go down give us an alert And that was free and it wasn't too bad. But if you want like for the logs, it's a little bit more intense. That may be something that if I look at some I try to gather like three quotes for different things, see how what the ballpark is and then I can almost pretty quickly determine like we just can't do that or that's going to do save us time and then money in the long run from having to assign someone to dig through things like that. So that's kind of how as I approach the decisions like we find
061a free thing that's great but is it a time cost where we can't go do something else. So we're trying to walk that line where it when it makes sense or it's a higher priority thing like security uh we're looking at some email security right now and um there was I can give an example. So one is is it not really managed it's not watched by anybody but us but we can pay double the price and have someone else watch it and tell us when problems are happening but it only did email. And so the second solution that we looked at can actually see a lot more of our Google landscape, give us a lot of alerts. So we'll have to deal with it, but it won't be like an automated. Well, some of it
062will be automated, but like it won't be a human on the other end watching it for us and like dealing with that. Luckily, that's what the EDR software we have does. there's a virus had we haven't had true viruses but we had people accidentally install browsers that that they shouldn't have things like that and we got notices and then they said what to do and we went and implemented what the people told us. So kind of a we're basically trying to figure out what we what's going to what do we really need to pay for and what we what can we not pay for if things add up really fast especially with also trying to do the hardware refresh. We talked about that today and that's going to be you know significant jump. I think
063the budget is okay but we may have to move around a little bit of money but that's the kind of things that we're looking at all these added software costs versus also keeping the technology partner up to date >> taking advantage of all the funding we can do almost 80 at least 80% of our things like Wi-Fi and connections and stuff like that so we can we definitely want to plan ahead so we can take advantage of what money that the state agencies we really appreciate what y'all are doing but if y'all have any other questions >> anyway we u we can share the actual report if you want to see like the initial findings a little bit more. Uh sometimes it's it's even hard for us to read, but it's there. We can give
064you all the data. If you ever have any questions, just let us know as best we can. >> No problem. Glad glad to help around the very first part of closed. Thanks. Thank you. We will move on to the superintendent report. >> Okay, Mr. President, let's see. I did reach out to our campus instructional leaders and just ask them if they could give us some fresh information on our um facilitation of independent reading, you know, which we all agree is a very important thing. So, without reading word for word. I will copy and paste this, you know, because I'm not smart enough to like format it real quick and everything, but I'll copy and paste all this into something to y'all tomorrow morning, but um I did want to just read a little bit about
065um tell you a little bit about what they said. Uh our sixth grade students have continued to show strong progress in meeting their AR goals. Uh seventh and eighth grade students are still working toward consistent goal attainment. It's something they're not really that accustomed to. It seems like the younger ones, you know, they're like sponges, right? So when you start something new, they're all uh high fives and all that, you know, and ready to jump off in it. And the high school kids, it's like, no way, Jose, relative to our little ones. Uh so Linda reports we're seeing increased engagement across those grade levels. Prior to spring break, students were recognized and celebrated for meeting their AR goals for the four six weeks. She said they recently completed six of seven reading challenges in which
066students worked in pairs to read seven books in six in six weeks. In addition, we are currently hosting ELA game time and math camp. And principles, y'all still jump in. Please jump in if you have any more elaboration on this after school on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I really appreciate y'all doing that through 5:00 pm to support star preparation. The cafeteria was has and this is Tiana back there with her buddy back way back there in the back. Cafeteria has graciously provided snacks and drinks for participating students. We had approximately 30 students attend each day last week and we anticipate increased participation this week. That is outstanding. Check this out from AES. 105 students met their AR goal for the four six weeks. Students goals have been set based on reading for 45 minutes each day.
067That's really good. So the goals are fairly challenging. These are not easy goals. She says uh Dana says we're excited to reward students uh the fifth six weeks that reach their goal with a surprise. So, I'm not going to read the next sentence because I don't know if I'm supposed to give the surprise away. So, I'm just gonna we'll just that'll be in the little thing I send y'all tomorrow. Um, Anow Primary School, uh, um, um, Dr. Priswell reports that our circulation, our books going out, no, actually this is from Miss Bo. Okay, this is from our librarian, awesome librarian, Miss Bo. She says at Anok Primary School, our circulation, books going in and out, has increased exponentially this year. taking library off the specials rotation and creating a weekly library time. Erica, thank you
068so much for students to come with their teachers has put our circulation at 154% compared to last year and April is just only the beginning. Okay, so it is only just beginning, she said. So that's really good. Um, at Anowak Elementary School, uh, we're encouraging students to continue reaching their AR goals, but pushing them more to find books that they actually want to read for pleasure. It helps a whole lot, uh, that they will read the first few chapters of a book. As a teaser, we show book trailers and encourage our students to write reviews of their favorite books so that their classmates can have peer recommendations. Our circulation increase so far this year has been 17.64%. I'd call that 20%, sir. That's okay with you. um at Anowaki Elementary School. I feel confident that
069this is because this year we added a morning and afternoon open checkout time in the library. Poor uh Casey is always busy and I just again want to thank our campus principles and everybody there because it's extra effort for y'all to facilitate this. It's a lot of extra work, but we know that this is just so important. I appreciate y'all letting me read this for just a moment longer because this is really exciting. It's really powerful. At Anowite Middle School, we've had a slight increase in our circulation this year. And I really think it's because of the incoming sixth graders. Again, your younger kids, they work hard at AES. So, she's given credit to AES to push a reading culture. And I believe that has carried over into their middle school years. Wow. I I
070love to hear principles bragging on other principles like that. I'm at AMS every morning from 7:00 to 7:30. And I have anywhere between 10 to 20 students in there every day, mostly sixth graders. Not all of them check out books every time, but the simple fact that they that they find the library a comfortable and welcoming space is a mega win. And that is absolutely true because we've been missing that. That's the first step to creating a reading culture at that campus. And then Anowak High School, Stacy, your bank, thank God for your your team. Thank God almighty in heaven for your team and what they did in raising $25,000. Um, she said, "AHS, I guess it's good that I said God because she says has been born again." Anyway, a lot of students and
071teachers still aren't aware of all that we have to offer, but we're getting a few regulars that love, it is harder with the older kids, you know, because they're not accustomed to this that love to come in and get something new to read and enjoy. And she said with the additional some board games, and by the way, if you get a chance, y'all are so busy. We all are. You know, you know, you might want to you got to be careful though not to trip if you go in there and see those new books. But Kenny, is it fixed? My goodness, those guys are good. Thank you, Kenny. >> Okay. Oh, that's what that guy handed me my phone this evening and talked to you on speaker phone. Yeah, he wanted his money, didn't he?
072Um, no wonder he was so happy. Okay, but we thought it was a foundation problem. Stacy, you know, those tiles did that number there. But but but Penny, as it turned out, it was just the tiles and it Why do they do that though? Why do they do like that? The when you put lay down ceramic tiles, what would cause that? I wonder. or >> but it but it was very nice right when we said okay wait a minute this is not the slab doing this it's just the tiles on top it's like thank goodness >> so it was at the high school library >> it's just an issue huh it'll probably happen again maybe in five years or something I guess yeah unless Let's say let's say li leave some real big grout lines
073maybe where those tiles I don't really know. >> Yeah. Where they float or something. Yeah. >> Or float. >> A floating. Okay. So hopefully it'll be good for a while. But if you get a chance to go by and see those books, they're beautiful. And so they're doing all kinds of neat stuff there in the library to get kids to come in. Okay. I'm almost finished and I really appreciate y'all's graciousness here. Okay. So, also, uh, Daniel and I are getting ready, uh, the the the principles are going to, uh, the principles are going to share some dates with us when we can bring the bookmobile around. We want to do some more of that. We've done we've dipped our toe in the water on that. And I thought it worked pretty well. The kids
074seem pretty excited. Um, you know, it's it's only special if if you know, you get to do it every now and then, that particular set of kids. So, we just move around, do different groups of kids. And then the other thing I was going to mention is, uh, Mr. president is that we're going to also getting dates and thank you principles for sending us dates on going around and cooking for the the staff uh this spring. So, we'll be careful not to give them food poison or anything because we need them. >> Thank you. >> Yes, sir. Wouldn't that be neat? >> Maybe if we could select a few finalists and then sub submit them to y'all and see if y'all would be interested in >> Thank you, Stace. There you go. >> That was
075a good idea. So you're back at 100. You can make all the bad on the board report. >> Okay. And Daniel did prepare something. It may be in your packet. Pretty self-explanatory. So if I talk so long on my deal, I'll just let you um glance at that. If you have any questions, uh I'll be sure to refer you to the calendar queen over there. There she is. knows all about it. And Carlton caught when we went over the agenda last Monday, Carlton Eagle out here called a mistake on the calendar and so it's corrected thanks to him. >> Come on, we got to give you credit. >> So anyway, appreciate Daniel putting this together. Appreciate all his leadership, you know, with in both of these um uh endeavors here. the number one and the
076number two. >> All right. Well, principal months. >> They submitted those. >> Yes. And if y'all had any questions on them though, they're they're thankfully they're always right here and accessible for us. >> And then the presentation of monthly financial reports, investment reports, and budget updates. And then we have one area. add everybody on our deposits. If you look at under the SE account that we have under that's the account where a company is called school bus initiative and so we can they'll have they can take instead of paying this larger fine they can pay a smaller fine if they committed to an environmental project. So we've had several companies, unfortunate for them, but fortunate for us, they had issues and so they collected our monies. We had one deposit in February. It's all based
077on we'll just take one of our old buses so that we >> remember it. It can't be used anymore. picture. >> Got to put the hole in there or something like that. Still polluted and everything. >> I was listening real I was listening real closely on that. Where exactly are we putting this hole? >> No. Willis, you know, he's like Kenneth, you know, it's a wonder he's they're not those two boys aren't bald like I am pulling their hair out. But, you know, he really wants for y'all to be aware. And of course, Tammy is aware and he confides in Tammy a lot and trusts her a lot. But, uh, we got so many suburbans, it's basically Troder's fault. Oh, wait a minute. I didn't know she was here. I forgot she was here. But
078anyway, no, just kidding. We have so many Suburbans now and they're getting way up under like 300,000 miles on them. And we're gonna have to start getting this one over here sitting at the table to help start paying for some of these suburbans. And uh but it's all good because it's all same money really. It's all to help our kids, you know. And um but uh we >> Yes. those kids come back and go back later. >> So Tammy, you know, and the new superintendent and y'all uh will be able to work through all that and figure all that out because in addition to that, um you've got, you know, this the usage of U pickup trucks, you know, for a which we love the fact that they're fact, I think I'm pulling a trailer
079somewhere tomorrow for them. I don't know where somewhere Golden Triangle remember where it is, but what it's for. I think it's aggra related, but maybe not. But um anyway, just running a bunch of miles up on those trucks. So in a perfect world, Lord knows we don't live in a perfect world, they would have um dedicated trucks to stale or one or two dedicated trucks to stagorn, you know, but and y'all may get there one of these days. I think you y'all can if you um you know, if you deem this to be a priority, which it certainly needs some attention. >> All right, we will move on to Our discussion items discuss date San Anton June 10th and 13th of 2026. The full work is June 17th through 20th of 2026. Registration opens April
08015th. You want to kick that in the close and come come up with something in close? >> Yeah, maybe we can talk about that. Can we let you know like >> 8 8:30 And I think this and it's because and it's obviously because every other school secretary across the secret secretary across the state is waiting to hit hit it so that they can get y'all into the good hotels. >> Oh yeah. Really? >> We'll find out who your neighbors are. >> Well, I suggested she get Nicole or Nikki or somebody on the other phone and start calling both deals. move on down to our there's no action taken on uh the discussion item discussion. >> Yeah. Can we kick uh item D in close and get some more clarity on that? That's going to be
081the waiver with TEA the foreign exchange students. involves personnel involves >> yeah can involve you know who we have how many of because that is one of the u you correct me if I'm wrong former high school principal but that is one of the considerations is you know the staff and the availability rebecca am I track am I track correctly Okay. >> Okay. We will move item D from the consent agenda to close and then I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda items um A through C. Um I had a qu I did have a question. >> Okay. >> It says uh what is it? B >> is the delegating teacher hiring authorities to inter >> that's going to keep things status quo. Well, what we'll do is we will because Corey or
082somebody told us that we have to when y'all get the other guy hired, then y'all immediately bless him to do it. But for now, do the interim so we can take care of business. And you'd love to be able to say it both in one sentence. Seems to me if that's what you're asking, you ought to be able to say and the new superintendent, whatever, once it gets landed. But apparently, who was that? Cory or somebody that said >> Yeah. Right. >> I wanted to make sure that that's the same so we're not waiting until we get a new person that will be able to start hiring as needed as soon as possible. >> Then we will roll it over to them. >> Perfect. Okay. Since the minutes there were some I was not at,
083can I I cannot vote on the ones I was not at. So that has to be separated >> on the agenda. We'll do it one at a time. I have a motion to approve minutes from the February 23rd regular meeting. >> So move. >> I'll second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> I motion passes. March 5th, 2026 special meeting. March Mike, you were special one. Which one did y'all both miss one? >> Which one was that? You remember? >> I don't He I wasn't there. I don't know which day he wasn't there. >> Yeah, I was not there the 17th. I was not there the 17th. Carlson, >> everything else I was >> March 5th special meeting. Uh so moved. >> All in favor? >> Motion passes. March 16th, 2026 special meeting. >> So
084moved. All in favor? March 17 March 17th meeting >> and then the March 18th, 2026 special meeting. So moved. All in favor motion car. Mr. President, this may not be the right time to do it. Just do make a clarification on item D. We're going to discuss that. Um, y'all are going to discuss that and close, but we're going to come back out in the open for y'all to take action. >> Yes. Yes. >> I just want to clarify that for everybody. Yes. Yes. >> So we'll have be considered delegating teacher hiring authority to interim superintendent commencing March sorry April 1st 202 move. Mike and Stacy Davis, >> excuse me. >> Item C, consider the 2026 2027 instructional calendar. They like it. >> Plus, we're also trying to meet what the what the commissioner wants,
085which is five days, you know. So, we're trying to do the right thing here. >> Second. D will be considering filing a wa to limit for exchange students per year government code 551.074 Consultation with board attorney regarding all matters by law. 7:30 just Can you take notes about what time we come? >> 8:43. >> 8:14. We're out of exactly >> We are coming out of closed. >> 7D consider filing a wa foreign exchange student for year and I'll entertain a motion on No motion. The item failed due to lack of a motion and it will be table for discussion. >> Now we're back >> back in the clos. >> We'll go back into executive session. You need to reread the closed thing or item in pursuant with >> just we're going to close session discussion
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