Arlington ISD Board of Trustees Meeting - April 23, 2026

001Hey, hey. I don't know. Dude, heat. Yeah, Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey yeah. Oh yeah. Hey, hey. Yeah. I don't know. Heat. Hey, do I do though. Hey, hey, hey. really beautiful. I'm just >> Good evening everyone. Everyone, I will reconvene into open session this meeting of the Arlington Independent School District Board of Trustees for April 23rd, 2026 beginning at 7:11 p.m. We are doing share the gavl tonight. So, President Chapa has asked me to conduct the meeting. So, thank you, President Choa. Thank you all for joining us tonight. Our board meetings are open to the public. We welcome everyone, but we appreciate your participation and know that uh we have business to conduct. Disruptions will not be permitted. Anyone who disrupts the meeting or speaks when others are speaking may be asked

002to leave or be escorted out by security. We welcome civil input, but we insist that we remain respectful and civil. Thank you for your cooperation. We will begin with our pledges led by Crouch Elementary student Italia Hernandez. Please stand. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. >> Thank you. Please join us for a moment of silence. Thank you. Miss Haynes will be joining us shortly. She is currently at a AISD event representing the board of trustees. So, we'll expect Miss Haynes shortly. To learn a little bit more about our student in the pledge,

003I'll turn it over to executive director of family and community engagement, Mr. Erin Pales. >> Thank you very much, Trusty Fowler. I'm excited to share a little bit more about Miss Italy Ernnandez, who's a sixth grade student at Crouch Elementary. Um, first off, she did a wonderful job. Thank you so much for sharing your leadership this this afternoon, this evening. [applause] And so she's here with some tremendous support. She's here uh with her mother Janessa Ernnandez and little brother and sister Adelina Matias who who are also at Crouch Elementary in the second and first grade. And so we had a chance to have a little bit of a discussion and I I do want to point out she's here uh supported by her principal Jamie Stevens as well. >> And so um we had a

004chance to talk just a little bit and board knows that I've got a little bit of a connection to Crouch Elementary. And so, uh, she told me that her favorite subject is mathematics. Um, and she really enjoys playing soccer. She plays left wing, so she really enjoys receiving the ball and scoring goals. And she likes to get her energy up by eating some pepperoni pizza, you know, when she has time to take a break. And in her future, she's really interested in the area of medicine. And so we had a good good discussion about opportunities as she goes through seventh and eighth grade in high school and taking taking a look taking a gander at some of those CTE courses and maybe the PT PTE program at Buouie High School and so she's going to

005keep an eye on that. I want to close by saying that she's also supported by her grandmother and I always want to share a special story and I don't know how it happens whenever with pledge students but it just happens that way. So when I was walking in this evening, I noticed grandma. I went, "Oh my goodness, what are you doing here?" And then I turned, I saw her mom. I went, "Oh my," her eyes got real big. And my eyes got real big and I immediately felt kind of old because mom Janessa was a student of mine when I was a principal at Crouch Elementary. And so we talk about relationships in Arlington ISD. And this is just a wonderful family who truly show support not just for their families, their family, but for

006Crouch Elementary. So thank you, Principal Stevens, for the culture you've created there, Crouch Elementary. All right. Thank you, [applause] >> Italia. You did very, very well. Thank you. And we look forward to seeing what you do in the future. After our recognitions this evening, we'll take a short uh recess to take pictures with our honores in the boardroom and in the lobby. Leading the recognition portion of the agenda tonight is executive director of family and community engagement, Mr. Erin Pales. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you, Trusty Fowler. Um, we have a special group of students to recognize tonight, but before we do that, I'd like to ask our trustees and Dr. Smith to please make your way down to the front of the deis to recognize our honores tonight. Thank you. As they make

007their way tonight, we are proud to recognize some of Arlington ISD's brightest academic scholars. Our National Merit finalists and commended students, along with each high school's top two College Board recognized students. These two College Board recognized students also earned the highest two scores on the PSAT at their schools. Our national merit finalists and commended students earned their prestigious designation by excelling on the PSAT National Merit Scholarship qualifying test and meeting rigorous academic standards set by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. The honor places these seniors among the top students in the nation and recognizes their commitment to academic excellence. The College Board National Recognition Program honors high achieving students across the country for their outstanding performance on AP exams and PSAT assessments. We have hundreds of students across the district who have earned College Board honors.

008But tonight, we're honoring the top two students from each high school. Not only have these juniors earned one or more College Board recognitions, they also earned the highest two scores on the PSAT at their campus. We're pleased to have so many of these outstanding students with us this evening. We will now call up each student by campus. We're going to begin by with Arlington College and Career High School. As I call your name, please come forward and as we conclude, we'll ask administrators to follow them as well. So, we're going to start with Arlington Collegiate Career College and Career Top two College Board students. First, we have Junior Inola Adidigba [applause] and Duncan Miller. >> [applause] >> I believe we're going to ask our students to get in the middle there and take a photo

009with their principal, Dr. Bolan. >> Is anyone speaking? >> Look right here. Thank you. >> All right. Congratulations to our Arlington College and Career [applause] Top two College Board students. We'll move on to Arlington Collegiate High School. We like to recognize their top two college board students. We have Junior Linux Aphalava [applause] and Madison W. [applause] They're accompanied by with their principal. will go in the center. >> Scoot in on the sides. [applause] >> All right, congratulations to our Arlington Collegiate High School students. Moving on to Arlington High School. from Arlington High School. We have one of our college board students here with us this evening, Miss Karia Morris, who's a junior at Arlington High School, [applause] [applause] >> and she's accompanied by her principal, Miss Humbles. Congratulations. [applause] All right, Buoie High School, we

010have Kim T. Fan, junior, top college board student. [applause] And also from Buoie High School, we have Wesley Buoie. [applause] >> [applause] >> Congratulations to our students from Buoie. Now, Lamar High School top two college board students, junior Reed Bernett. >> [applause] >> and also junior Estifon Quay. [applause] >> They're accompanied by their principal, Miss right here. >> Congratulations to our students from Lamar High School. [applause] Next, we have Martin High School. First, we'd like to recognize top college board student Joel Lee Jr. [applause] We'd like to recognize National Merit finalist Sonia Miner, who's a senior, [applause] Cameron Reed, who is a senior, [applause] and Julia Tran, who's a senior. Julia Tran. [applause] [laughter] >> All right. Also from Martin High School, we have some National Merit commended students. We have senior Fiona an [applause]

011Raul Barios, senior [applause] Ethan Ostrander, senior, >> Lillian Walters, Senior, and Amir Yousef, Senior. [applause] Y'all are going to need to stagger whatever you're taking. Yeah. So, taller in the back. And >> they're accompanied by some support from Martin High School. >> Yeah. So, some of y'all come up. >> We're do a front row. >> Front row and a back row. closer. There you go. Look right here. >> Okay, we're good. [applause] >> All right, congratulations to all of our recognizes from Martin High School. Moving on to Sam Houston High School, our top two College Board students. From Sam Houston High School, we have Junior Tree Dong [applause] and Junior [snorts] Alan Cardardoza. [applause] And they have a cheering section. Look right here. Smile. >> We're good. >> Congratulations to our students from Sam Houston

012High School. [applause] And anchoring the group this evening, we have Sigin High School. >> From Sigin High School, top college board student Preston Murray [applause] >> and he's accompanied by his principal, Mr. Linton. We're good. >> Congratulations to our students from Sigin High School. [applause] Folks in the gallery, please join me in giving one more round of applause to these exceptional students. [applause] your hard work, determination, pursuit of excellence continues to make Arlington ISD proud. We look forward to all the things that you'll accomplish in the future. And also, I would like to thank a special cohort of staff that walk alongside these students. All of our guidance and counseling staff at our high schools, thank you so much for all the hard work that you do to get our students from point A to

013point B. [applause] Trusty Fowler, this concludes honors and recognitions for tonight. >> Thank you, Mr. Pales. We will take a 10-minute break so that we can take pictures and celebrate these remarkable students. Thank you. 10 minutes. Way to go. still zero to zero. Oh no. >> [music] >> s Oh, so [music] >> [music] >> I'm >> [music] [music] >> And the time is now 7:42 and we are back from recess. The next portion of our meeting is the open forum for agenda items. As stated on the posted agenda, members of the public who desire to address the board regarding an item on the agenda are required to register um in no later than 3 p.m. the day of the board meeting. Miss Crossno, do we have any requesters register to address the board regarding agenda

014items? >> Trusty Valer, we do not. >> Thank you, Miss Crossno. We'll now turn to the report portion of tonight's meeting and we will have uh item A is a spring demographer report. Dr. Smith trustees, as you know, we've had a partnership with uh Zonda Demographics for a number of years and they've been doing uh demography services for us. Rocky has been a part of that and he presents to us every fall and every spring and we're excited to have him here tonight to present our spring update to y'all. As you can see, as Rocky's coming up, there's going to be some additional data this year as the landscape of public education has changed in the state of Texas. Uh Zonda is working to make sure that trustees and boards and superintendents have the right

015information as we're navigating these changes. So, we're excited to have Rocky present to us tonight. Thank you, Rocky. >> Thank you, Dr. Smith, it's a pleasure to be back. Board, it's a pleasure to be here tonight. I know if you looked ahead, this is a lot lot of slides, but I talked pretty quick. So, just slow just slow me down if you need if you need to slow me down. You know who we are. We Dr. Smith just graciously introduced us. A lot of these first part are economic slides that you've seen before. I I really am excited to get to the mobility stuff. So, we're going to talk about that. Um the unemployment rates remain low. Right now, we're we're sitting pretty well. the job market or new job creation in Dallas Fort Worth

016is kind of flat. That says there's growth of about 6% but the margin of error is probably much larger than that. So we're we're sitting right there. So I'm going to jump into mobility. A look at Arlington. And what might surprise a lot of people is how young Arlington is. The average age 34.8 or me median age. But what I want you to look at are just those two. The millennial those pictures on on that top right there. The millennials being 25.7% of your population. Those are the parents of your students. Those are most your parents of your student. Now, some of the Gen Z's are starting to have children, but but a lot of parents are waiting or a lot of they're waiting to have children later. So, I guess they're not parents waiting

017because they're not parents yet. But you can see there that you've got over 50% of your population, Gen Z and millennials. So, I think you're going to continue to see some some strong younger persons coming in into the district. The challenge is where is getting them in in Arlington ISD. What changed in the student mobility? I think what's interesting is co once again is kind of what challenged things when everyone got sent home. Not only the students went home but so did the parents and so they learned to work from home. They learned to work with their student at home. It taught them something new. And then if we look in that middle technology technology had to improve to go along with these kids that are working at home. So then we have this new

018technology these new opportunities be it virtual be it charter schools or be it just working from home at a you know with their own school district. And then finally, geopolitical is a pretty big deal. You we're not going to talk politics or anything like that, but we know we've seen some changes in the pol in the political realm as well. So, Texas has continued to grow. The overall population in Texas is is 31.8 million persons as of this year. Now, that's lot much smaller growth this year than in previous years, but Texas continues to lead the country in population growth. But what gets interesting is the growth in population does not correlate well to what we've seen in in ISD enrollment. So this chart on the left side, what you see there is the population

019growth. So in in July of 2025, we added the annualized growth there was about 391,000 persons in the state of Texas. But if you look at the enrollment in that top right chart, we actually declined 76,000 students in ISD enrollment. Again, that's TEA ISD enrollment includes public and charter schools. So, you can see that correlation just isn't there. The students are not in public schools. And and you can look at it by region. The next three slides, I'm going to go pretty quick because they're kind of the same. They're just telling a few different stories. The red color are areas where those regions declined in enrollment from 2019 because we looked at precoid to see what was going on if they were already declining and then we looked at at 22 to 25 just to

020see what's happening in the last three years. And and so this first one is 19 to 25. So and so and you see here there's seven regions that actually showed some population growth. They might surprise you. The Huntsville, Kilgore, Richardson of course is the Dallas region. Austin, Abalene, Midland, and San Antonio. Now, they all they they showed some growth. Now, in the last three years, you see how much that growth declined. You see what happened? They saw some declines, but you can see there that San Antonio dropped off because they they've been losing students, but Richardson hung on. So, the the Dallas region really that growth is coming from the north. Um you what they're seeing in the in the north part of that area. Austin, of course, has seen some strong population change. But

021what I want to show here is why that happened. If you look in Huntsville, Huntsville's got an online program that serves anyone in the state. That [snorts] online program accounted for 2500 of that 5,000 increase. Hallsville, which is out in East Texas, their online program grew by 15,000 students. So all that growth in that region is really from the online. similar in Rosco Collegiant and also in Fort Stockton, Austin and D and and region 10, Richardson, they did grow, but again was h housing development on the on the outskirts of towns. Virtual enrollment is is what I I believe is becoming a bigger story than even homeschooling in some cases. Ver virtual enrollment increased by 15,000 students going in into 2025. So when you think about that negative 70,000, if virtual grew by 15, really

022your your brickandmortar school districts probably decreased by a little more than that because of the the virtual program actually grew. So if you think if you if that wasn't there we would have declined by as much as eight as 80,000 students in the state where you know the chart charter enrollment does continue to be a challenge that there's over 446,000 students now in charter schools again most of those you you can see it by area that the the Dallas area's got about 20.6 Houston 22.4% 4% that's where the campuses are. So 22% of all the campuses are down are down down there near Houston. Edinburgh's got 20% in San Anton San Antonio's got 14.2%. Austin's got 5.7% but they've got a really large number of students in charter in charter schools there. What's been interesting

023is charter campuses have grown. They were 6% of the o of the overall state enrollment back in 2019. Now they're over eight%. Two percentage points doesn't sound like a lot, but at 6% that was probably about 300,000 students. And now we're looking at over 400,000 students that are in that are in charter. So it's a significant jump even at that small at that small bit. In Arlington ISDs, we look at your newcomer, what we call newcomers and levers. So, a newcomer is a student that was in your that was not in your system in 2425, but that student ID can now be found in 2526. And we don't count kindergarten or preK's newcomers. That's any first through 12th grader that is now in Arlington in Arlington ISD. A lever is a student that was in

024the system last year and based on student IDs is no longer in the system. Now, we don't count 12th graders as le levers, right? We want all those to to to leave, I guess, right? >> [snorts] >> So, we're we're just looking at kindergarten through 11th there in levers and and the good news is you can see that your levers decreased just a little bit this year and and your newcomers increased. So, we did see a little shift there and we'll take every bit of that. If we look at where the students are coming from, they're transferring in Arlington ISD. Most are coming from from Fort Worth. You've got quite a few from Kennedale down there in Mansfield as well. Mansville, I think there's a high portion of those are pre-K students that we're seeing

025down the south area. Now, if we look at the ones that are transferring out, Grand Prairie ISD still continues to get almost 1,800 students, but you can see there that I the leadership academy there has over 1,800. Uplift, 1400, and the Arlington Classical Academy is well over 800. So, so you see that that those are students that are now living in Arlington but transferring out. And this is what we're trying to capture when we look at some new data right right now what we did there is just map the p private schools by location. Private schools are you know based on what you know that vouchers are now available at private schools. Now what we're learning is the vouchers are probably not going to impact Arlington ISD's private school as as much you know the

026J because most of those private school vouchers going to people that are already in priv in private school. But you can see there the enroll enrollment there is identified to be approximately 7,000 students. You can see th those dist distributed there. That was based on working with Dian's IQ and I think you guys have have worked with Dian for a while so you kind of understand what what he's doing there. Um, of the 8,000 students that were levers in Ar in Arlington, about 39%, so almost 40% remain in the district. And of that 40%, you know, there's a good chunk of them that are now going to charter campuses. But some are in the district and are kind of, if you will, um, they're they're either going to another public school because they're transferring out

027or they're homeschooling. You know, there's a small portion that's homeschooling as well. But the good news is well it seems like it might not seem like good news to you but of these levers 60 almost 60% of them are at least staying in public school. They've left for another p public school and I think that's good for public schools in general. Um we've tracked it. This is an interesting chart you can stay up late tonight and look at if you really want but you know the the ones that remain in the district there you see that 37%. We've got a wave of students that moved outside, but you can see almost 70% of those stayed in p in public school districts. So, what we're trying to do with this data by by tracking where these

028students are at and where they're coming from is we're trying to map them within the district. And we're it gives us an idea what I've got here. There's a lot of things on this map, but the yellow lightning bolts, those are where students live that are no longer attending Arlington ISD. And in the places where there's a yellow light bulb but not a color, then those students are, you know, are unaccounted for, if you will, or likely possibly homeschooling. It just gives gives you an idea where that's happening. The the big purple circles there, those are students attending charters. The blue are attending day, those are daycare. We're tracking those devices. And of course, you got the greens that are going to private schools. So you see that you can see the levers there. The

02966 levers in in this Goodman zone. The I just picked these for example. They it was just in the middle of my screen. So there was no reason to pick them other than just to show a sample. 42 p 42 of those 66 levers remain in the district. Of the 47 levers in Amos, 38 of those remain in the district. So a good share in this area stayed in in the district. We're going to continue to watch this. This is that this is where I think our job might turn kind of fun, you know, if if if that that's okay because we think it's interesting to track that and just to see what we can learn from it. Um single family housing, I'm going to move on to single family housing. The the h the

030housing market's not do doing well nationally. It's not doing well in the state. We're down we're down to 40,000 starts in the Dallas Fort Worth area. This is down pre209. That's how low it is. We're just not we're not closing homes quick enough. So, they've stopped starting homes until they can work work off a lot of that inventory. Mortgage rates, they kind of jumped. They've kind of been all over the place. They got below 6% for a little little while. Now, they've kind of gone back up. We'll see what happens next. Now, Arlington though had a good year. We started 191 homes in Arlington in the last year, closed 114. Now, I think that if if you see a lot of the product, it's not product that's going to generate a lot a lot of

031students. It's a different type of product. Um, so we're not seeing a lot of students from those homes, but at least we're we are seeing some activity. You can see here there's a lot of numbers on this chart or a lot of zeros, but basically where you see color is where where there is some activity. [snorts] And you can see a few of those. There's still about 878 futures. So, those are futures to be developed. You've got about 500 VDL. But look, if you look at the inventory number, that's 117 and under construction is 61. 117 minus 61 is about 50 something students, 58 students. Those are homes that are finished but vacant. This is what I'm talking about when I'm talking about trying to work off inventory. They've got a strong number of homes

032now, almost as many finished as they do under construction. So, they're going to need need to work some of that off before they can continue to build homes. future housing. There's a lot of little dots on here. We have 20 active subdivisions with 61 homes under construction. You have 27 future subdivisions. Again, the these are small infill properties. Um some of them it's a different style of home. So again, we're not seeing real high yields from the new data. Multif family housing, your overall yield in multif family is 26. So that's a pretty solid yield. If you look on that chart there, the two middle cap, anything built from 2020 or before is yielding that high number because those homes are now we're we're more apt to see a a tax credit or something like

033that, some subsidies. The 2020 to current, the ones built in the last six years have a very low yield. And really, it's because of the pro the product being built. It's not really geared towards families. More onebedrooms are usually in those complexes than two or three bed bedrooms. So, it's really not not trending towards those. But we do have 2,000 units under construction, about 3,000 future units. 50,000 students attending over 58 thou in 58,000 units. Again, a 26 yield. So, I'm I'm going to talk a little bit about about birth rates. I'm not going to spend much time on enrollment because it's the same enrollment that you saw the la the last time I presented, but just wanted to mention once again that it's all about K it's all about kindergarten. What we're we're finding

034in Arlington is once we get them, we're we're able to keep them. And so what we've trended in kindergarten is an optimistic that we can kind of get around that 80% capture rate. So about cap about of the birth, we're we're trying to capture about 80% of those. If we get that we we get our kindergarten to stabilize in that 30 3100, you know, then we can kind of hit some some of the enrollment numbers that we're we're tracking. We're hoping ne next year that we see those begin to change. Again, this the drop of 2,00 last year was was the PE snapshot number. Next year, we're forecasting enrollment declines of 1500. I think you could begin to see that beginning to level off in the next few years just because some of these class

035sizes are going to begin to e begin to even out there. But again, this is the same n the same numbers that we showed before. I'm going to go through these and just skip to here. the we of course did a low forecast this year, something we haven't done in the past, but with all the uncertainty with with what's been going on with school of choice and then the futures of with vouchers coming up, we wanted to make sure that we kind of we kind of give give you an idea that if this kindergarten doesn't does not come back and we can't hold on to those or we start seeing a shift in some of the secondary trends with with the virtual stuff that that leaves, then we then we we could have some challenges.

036So, I think you're going to be at or near 43 thou,000 students for the next 7 to 10 years. Some new home, it might slow some of the decline, some of these the new home stuff, but really I think it's going to be a matter of holding on to the ones that are already here. That was pretty fast. Is that okay? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Gardner. Do we have any trustees with questions or comments? All right. Well, thank you. >> Hang on, Mr. Mike. >> Yes. Uh, thank you for the presentation. I just had a real quick question. You you pointed out some of the trends for the districts that have that on that virtual schooling. Mhm. >> Is that so what you've seen every district that has some type of virtual component, did they

037all see the same increase in enrollment? >> You know, we didn't, but we didn't look at every single one. We looked at the big ones. You know, the ones that were like the Hallsvilles, the Huntsville, the Fort Stocktons that are quite that are not are not anywhere near Arlington, but are seeing some strong increases and those all have done very well. Now, it's tempered a little bit this year because more districts are getting in the game. They're they're kind of figuring that that out. We But I couldn't tell you what what what every program did. >> But from what you've seen, you haven't seen any where they have a virtual component and the enrollment dropped. >> No, I have not seen that. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yep. >> I do want to add one

038thing, just a reminder on that virtual piece. Legislation changed in the last legislative session last year that has opened that up for districts across Texas. Now, in the past, it was only a few programs like Fort Stockton had one, Grapevine Collieville had one. They just weren't there wasn't a plethora of them across the state, but that legislation has changed. So, I imagine this number is going to be a very significant one for us to watch. >> That's a good point. Thank you. >> I have a couple of questions and a couple of comments. Um, could it be, you know, we talked about our enrollment going down, but isn't it true that families are not having as many children as they used to? >> Um, I mean, there's certainly there that is certainly going on or

039they're starting their families later, I think, and then at that point they're they're having fewer children. >> Okay. Okay. And um when you talked about um students moving from out of AISD and going to a different district, do we know whether that's because the family moved maybe because of a job or is there still living in Arlington and chose to go to Grand Prairie or or Mansville? Do we know? >> Well, there's a little bit of both. Now, what we did show on there was that that the m there was a good majority of them actually moved out of the district, okay, of your levers. Now, those transfers, those are all living in your district and leaving that the transfer stuff that I showed was all students that live in in your district, but but

040transfer out. >> Okay? And as much as I wouldn't want students to do necessarily virtual, I don't want them going into charter schools or private, but I just don't know about the virtual. I just think students miss out on on so many social skills and opportunities when they're homeschooled or even a virtual school. And I know there's probably students that that's their thing and they don't, you know, care about anything else, but for the social reasons, I just I don't know. I'm kind of hesitant on that. >> Sure. >> Mr. Will Banks. >> I'm sorry, >> Matt. You were going to add >> I was just going to say we intend to be presenting some uh virtual option ideas to you in an upcoming board meeting here rather soon. And we hear you loud and

041clear. I think there's always the social component of it that we have to keep in mind. Um and at the same time realizing that the the mode of learning is changing and we have to figure out how to be flexible with the families that are looking for something like that as well. We we think we can actually offer better offer a better product than a lot of them that could actually help with uh some of the social things that you're talking about. So stay tuned and we'll have some more information coming up in a in a board meeting soon. Just piggybacking on that is I hear you Melody, but that's at the same time if we can appeal to people that have left the home school that don't have easy access to a French class

042or um a physics class and we can do that virtually. I think it's a way to boost our enrollment. And there are some that do it well. Um but like you said, that's been a very tight-knit group and controlled. Now it's wide open. So I agree it's worth watching the numbers and the timing on if we can. Right now it's the wild west. Um but I'm sure it's going to shake out in the next couple of years, [clears throat] but if we can figure out how to provide bring those people quote back into the fold, I think it's worth exploring. Um Rocky, if you could go to slide on the transfer out slide 19. A lot of slides in this, huh? Did I go past it? >> No. Well, first of all, I want to

043commend you on that other one >> with the with the chart. >> I love me a good SN key diagram. Okay. >> And I was really impressed to see it in this slide deck. Yeah. So, uh, >> uh, so yeah, on this one, so you know, and every time you've been here, I probably mentioned that, you know, my kids elementary school, they the Grand Prairie was really good about stealing a bunch of those >> um, kids that my uh, kids went to school in fifth grade and then they were in Grand Prairie for sixth grade. Um, do we know do we have a good feeling these? So, my I think you answered my first question. This is just people that still are families that still reside in Arlington, but now they attend Grand. >> Yes,

044sir. >> So, what like I'm not seeing the draw. I I don't want to knock on our neighbor to the east, but like help me understand what the appeal is in Grand Prairie. Do we know what it is? you know, when we look at those lever, >> I can I can comment a couple of things real quickly. Rock, you might be able to add that cohort, that number has stayed pretty significant for a decade or so. >> Yeah. So there is u my our hypothesis on this is that that we had a very thoughtful push by Grand Prairie ISD to market programs and we had some significant impact particularly on the east side of our school district I believe and uh where they went to Grand Prairie ISD a number of years ago and I

045I imagine that we'll find that some of those families are keeping their kids in Grand Prairie ISD because this number has stayed very very stable over a number of years and we believe it's probably coming from that same population or same neighborhoods of students. Uh, and we have some ideas on how to potentially bring more back into Arlington ISD for the future that our our team is working with Kelly Horn on and some some marketing things as well. But that that number for Grand Prairie ISD, if you take a look at our lever data from TEA over a number of years, that's a very stable number. It's it's uh it's kind of eerily stable. And and I probably have asked this question about Grand Prairie at least half the time since we've been up here

046since I've been on the board. And it's just I just don't think we got a really I don't think I've had a satisfying answer of what the real draw is and what we like you know I'm a product manager so we need to build a better mousetrap to keep not maybe not mousetrap but we need to put a better product on the that that's appealing to them whatever it is that's appealing to them you know or maybe we don't maybe >> maybe Dr. I think Dr. Smith is correct though the way it's stabilized. I think Arlington is not seeing what I think they've kind of it's beginning to even go down in Arlington. I think neighbors I think folks are starting to figure it out. I think they're starting to figure it out and offer

047some similar >> that we do have a >> Yeah. >> a superior product. So, >> y >> All right. Thank you, Rocky. >> Are there any other trustees with questions or comments? >> Oh, Melody, you're not sorry. Mine is still automatically kicking on. So, >> yeah. >> Okay. >> Sorry, I hit it thinking you were like it would go back to normal, but no, it's just working like it normally does for me. Um, I did have a couple comments and and just on on Mr. Banks' point about uh Grand Prairie ISD. Something that I I will throw out as like my total speculative uh reason on on that and why it has stayed steady for so long is if you look in my mind if you look at your facility footprint for us, we go

048all the way I would be interested to see where those students are coming from from within Arlington ISD. I would be not I would not be surprised if most of them are coming from east of 360 north of Interstate 20 because we the high schools that we have for that area is Sam Houston. Um it is split between Barnett and now Rodriguez Junior High was Carter Junior High. Those campuses are a long way from our kids who are living say great southwest to the Dallas County line. But Grand Prairie has the fine arts academy, has Disci Career Tech High School, has actually s just SGP, South GP, has several middle schools right in that area. And so I wonder if for a lot of families who reside in the very eastern part of our district,

049it is a much it is just the fact of the matter. They're not choosing programs necessarily, but it is maybe they are, but it is just it is so much more convenient for them to drive five minutes to Disco or SGP instead of driving 10 or 15 minutes to SAM. And some might think they they're already in Grand Prairie when they move there, >> right? >> Just because of how close it is. >> And they're in city of Grand Prairie. They are. So, >> um I wonder if that like if that is something when we're looking at all these facilities moves and demographic changes coming up if that's something that we might figure that >> we look at and try to figure out if that's something we want to invest in as something to counter

050that or try to figure out if that is actually if my speculation has anything to it. Um, on slide nine, I just want to run through and make a couple quick points because um, I will be hosting a I'll be one of the trustees hosting our trustee talk next week at Martin High School and we will be talking about some of these challenges. And so I just we have heard a lot the last couple years and I don't know if if anyone who lives in Arlington doesn't know it's um, local campaign season right now. I I they I don't know what they're doing, but it tends to come up this time of year. Frequently, districts get criticized all over the state for enrollment declines. And I think there's this societal tendency to say, well, my

051local district must be screwing it up. They must be doing something wrong. And we're starting to get a much clearer picture, not only nationwide, but statewide as well. It's a big it's a trend everywhere. And so there was an article in the I think in the New York Times about a month ago that highlighted a study by the CDC that said birth rates have declined nationally since 2007 by 23%. And if you go to the slide, so you're seeing ultimately a decline enrollment statewide in Texas in public schools even as our our population has continued to increase significantly. But then if you go to slide um it is the AISD specific one. I'm still working my way down. It's slide 37. I lost slides. >> So we we you you kind of see this, right?

052You see like we're affected by that national trend and decline in birth rates. And the last time you were here, your your table up in the upper right corner here went back further and it showed that our enrolled ratio continued to be in the in the 80s going back several years before this. And so, you know, even with what you've got here, the dis the difference every year between about 4,700 births with the 2014 cohort and now we're at 3,900. But, you know, that's a difference of of 700 over 700 kids a year. and you trickle that through 13 years, if you're counting pre kindergarten, 14 years of a school system, it's a significant drop in enrollment that that is just going to happen because there's fewer incoming kindergarteners to begin with. That bucket's just

053shrinking. >> But I was the first time you showed this chart, I was fascinated by the fact that our ability to get the incoming kindergarteners has remained largely constant. We're getting with the exception of the some of the um co years the first two co years we've been in the 80s popped up even popped up last year to 83. >> Yeah. And so this is a what this is something that I struggling now to educate folks on in the community that it's not just like the fact that we have fewer students is not indicative of we have a constant number of kids and they're just they're just all choosing to go somewhere else. it it's there's fewer kids and so and that is a big part I think of what is happening and I think

054your data also shows we have a significant amount of work to do on competing with charter schools and the homeschool environments and stuff but the birth rates I I don't think I appreciated until maybe the last year how much of a driver it is um and making an impact all over the state and I think it's is it 60% of all districts in the state now are experiencing enrollment decline or close to it >> well it's it's I'm not sure what the number is but you see from those region totals It it's large. It's a large number. >> Yeah. >> Okay. That's I just wanted to make those points because I I feel like that um we've been trying to get that message out and educate folks on it and it I just want to

055make sure we continue to do that. >> Sure. >> Because I think we're going to end up in bad policy places if we continue to make decisions based on assumptions about things that are in fact not actually happening. >> That's a good point. >> Yes, sir. >> That's all I have. >> Rocky, can we go back to the slide uh that Mr. Will Banks had and it had the top levers and we had some of our charter school levers on there. >> One of the things I wanted to point out to our trustees just as a reminder right now we're also working with right there um with our campus principles to be able to tell our story about our schools as well. As I look at that list of charter schools and if I go

056through accountability ratings, I can tell you that we often have a better product than where the students are going to. And we have to figure out a way to tell our story better with the families uh that we serve in our community so that it can very clearly be seen. If you're comparing apples to apples, we know we have a better product most of the time. In those areas where we're not better, um we're going to fix that and we are going to be better. So, just a reminder that that you've heard some of the terms that we've shared with you about the cards and and things like that that we're providing our campuses with. I just wanted to remind you that I think there's there's a host of strategies that we're going to need

057to engage in over the course of the next couple of years to really see the students that are living within our boundaries. Is there a way for us to one keep the ones that might consider leaving and two bring some back that are maybe sometimes choosing something um that we can probably do better. >> Thank you, Dr. Smith. Any other trustees with questions or comments? >> Thank you, Mr. Gardner. Wonderful as always. Thank you. >> Take care. We'll now move to item B, our 2025 2026 financial update and the 2026 2027 preliminary budget report. >> This is everybody's favorite guest at the podium tonight. Uh I don't know if you know it, but everybody likes to sit next to Norberto at the board meetings. Uh we like it when he comes and tells us that

058there's a whole lot of money coming in. Uh jokes aside, uh this is an important topic for us uh moving forward where we are right now and what it's looking like for our budget report coming up. >> Thank you, Dr. Smith. Good evening, trustees. Um this is just an update and a an update for this year and a preliminary budget report for the following year. Um so purpose is just to provide a snapshot and status update for next year. So let's start off with the 2526 um financial update. I'd like to start off with the previous year actually fiscal year 25 because by this point in time the audit has been completed. So here you'll see at the top the top table this is the actual numbers from last year's audit. So the first number

059$264 million that's total assigned and unassigned fund balance. Um next line is general fund expenditure. So you divide you divide general fund expenditures by 365. Um the result is $1.7 million. So you divide that number by the total unassigned fund balance. And last year as of fiscal year 25 the district had 152 days in operating um fund balance. You take the same fund balance number from last year which is the actual and you carry that to the table below it. But in this table, we're adding the general fund expenditures that were adopted for this year. The calculation is the same. Total number of days of fund balance is 141. The little table below it references local policy C um CE. That one requires that the district maintain a general fund fund balance of at least

06025% of its general operating expenditures. That's about 90 days. We're at about 141 days. So, we have more than the actual policy. On the right hand side, you see transfers that we've that we've had from the local capital outlay fund. Um, and then you see a reference to the latest monthly financial report. So, this is where I'm trying to tie last year's numbers to your monthly financials. And then you'll see a little bit later to the budget amendment to then spring forward to the following year. And then there's a note on that as well that says that that's just as of today, right? So that excludes any additional increase, any additional onetime increases. Um, now I'm going to move over to this year. So here's just a dashboard. It's split up into four quadrants. The

061first one on the left just kind of shows how last year ended. There was a um huge change to public funding. We adopted the budget. We adopted compensation plan. And then after all that is when we get certified values and then there's a note at the very bottom March 13th there was an update that went out from TEA regarding changes in the way they made some calculations which I'll get to on the next slide. On the right hand side you see just a comparison of positions. It shows what we budgeted to start last year and then what we have as of right now. It shows vacancies. we do have a smaller number in vacancies because we did have a higher fill rate. Um the two largest categories driving that are teacher assistants and teacher positions.

062So between comparing both columns um just those two categories alone made up about 219 of the net change between both. [snorts] Um you do see a line as well if you if you compare the the FT total of 7 7,664 against 7,66 um 639 that is a decrease. In January we began freezing um department level positions um and we began closing vacancies that had been open for too long. And I'll touch on that a little bit later as well because that was an FFC recommendation. On the bottom left you see the enrollment trend. You um the graph is based on the PE's fall snapshot data. It shows the decrease over the last five years. And then to the right of it you see three numbers. It shows last year spring demographer report um what the

063budget came in at and then current enrollment. So it just kind of shows here's the trend as of the snapshot and obviously it changes um monthtomonth. And then to the right of that you just see the student to staff ratio which is based on enrollment trends and um FT positions. [snorts] So for the latest monthly financial report in the budget amendment um the first table shows you revenues and expenditures. It shows you the bottom line plus actual year to date and then the percentage of it. So right now revenues are trending higher than expenditures 76 versus 68% but in April we don't receive a state aid payment. So that's when expenditures kind of catch up to revenues. Um [snorts] on the right hand side you see a comparison arm security and SRO budget 7.6 million

064versus a school safety aotment of 3.4 million. So this $3.4 million is after the state doubled the funding for school safety. So before the state doubled the funding, we were at about 1.7. So even with doubled funding, it's still not sufficient to cover the cost of our armed um security and SRO's. So you see a little little circle below it. The idea here is just kind of to reimagine, right? We're repurposing, reallocating, and rep prioritizing our resources. And then that's going to lead you to budget amendment number three, the note that's there. So the budget amendment that's on the consent agenda, if you see, it's just it's not increasing expenditures. The idea there is trying to just move money around within the existing budget to cover things that maybe we didn't have budgeted for with

065savings that we have picked up. Couple of those include overtime and insurance. Um we we're projecting to to save about $1.4 million in insurance and about $1.2 million in overtime. Um but then there's other things like there's a note at the bottom a future budget amendment. So this is what I mentioned earlier regarding a change in funding. So you'll see below the below the line that's highlight um that's underlined last year um for this hold harmless we received revenues of $5.3 million. the state changed the funding mechanism and so the comprollers's original methodology was having us leaving us with zero in revenues [snorts] that had to do with the way they were um determining what properties were frozen and which ones were not. So essentially statewide there was a lot of properties that were previously

066frozen that weren't anymore because of the way they changed their calculation. um for our for our district we went from about 22,000 properties to about 3,000 properties now qualifying under that hold harmless. Um then there's a lot of reports about um certain apprais uh county appraisal districts and a lot of a lot of them are had issues with their softwares with the vendors. Ours was one of them. So we were one of the state we were one of the ISDs who we have we have amended preliminary values at the state because um the TAD submitted corrected um corrected values for us and then you see another line TA methodology revenue. So then TA came in and said you know just to add a little bit more consistency into all this they changed the calculation a

067little bit as well and so we got a gain of about 1.1 according to the TA method. um we did share our original values, our amended values with our um with our tax attorney firm and based on their calculations, they're recommending an appeal um for for another potential gain. So, this one's still in the works. This one is not in the current budget amendment, but it will come back as a future budget amendment. So with that said, I'm going to jump into this upcoming year. So this graphic I've shared, I've previously shared it kind of shows constraints building holding the budget. Biggest ones being legislative funding formulas. Um the boxes in black, those are the key points on the on the inputs, the revenues, which is half of the budget. 90% of that is coming

068in from enrollment and tax collections. On the expenditure side, 86% of that is payroll. Um, just a note up top when budget parameters and assumptions were adop adopted. And then a note at the bottom, we do have a bond election in process. So, here's a little bit more information on the revenue side. On the left, you kind of see enrollment. Um, we had a demography report. We're going to have another demography report. The next table in the middle shows just what that basic allotment, how it's trended for several years. Um, if you look starting at the bottom, it from 2010 through 2013, it stayed the same for four years. It went up for two, it stayed the same for four years, and it stayed the same for six years, and then it went up um

069this last year. And there's a little note of when ESERT expired. To the right, I took a a screenshot of the Fed CPI inflation calculator. So there the starting point was September 2019 because that was the last time um previous to this session that the basic aotment had been increased. So that's at 6160 and then it got increased in September of 2025. Right? So what was the inflation? The inflation at that point according to this calculator um 6160 in 2019 that buying power in 2025 is 7792. Yet the basic allotment is only 6215. So it's a it's a spread of about $1,500 times 50,000 students, it's about $75 million in loss of purchasing power. There's a little note at the bottom regarding the basic uh the allotment for basic costs. That is not included in

070the basic aotment, but that's only $106. So even if you add the 106 plus the 62 um to the 6215, we're nowhere near the 7792. [snorts] At the very bottom, um the next table just kind of shows a reference to pretty much how um funding works. There's a there's a section in there that says substantially equal access to similar revenue per student at similar tax effort. Um that essentially means if you look at the next table it means the last column are you taxing enough based on your students based on your tax um to meet your entitlement or are you not? So if your entitlement is exceeds your local collections, then in some cases we receive state aid. And if we don't, then in some cases we're paying recapture. And just to make matters even

071more complicated, recapture is subject in two out of the four categories listed here. Um the four categories listed here, the first the first line is MCR rate. This is the largest portion of the tax rate. This is calculated by TA. It offers the basic funding. And then the next two lines are golden and copper pennies which were approved by voters. And then the last portion is the INS rate, the debt rate. So this funds capital projects. And then at the very bottom line, you just kind of see a line of how compression has been working for the last few years. Um so for the last two years, it's compressed by about a penny. If the trend continues and for next year, the M rate may compress by about a penny as well. on this next

072slide for expenditures and variables. This is I mentioned this earlier regarding the FFC's recommendations. So the idea here is to kind of show where's the FFC's work and how are we I guess holding ourselves accountable to it. So I included the 2025 report, the three recommendations I had, and then the 2026 report. So the first one, that one's still under works. There's a lot of things pending for that one. The second one has to do with zerobased budgeting. We held campus funding flat this year. Um their per people pup people um funding did not change. So we implemented zerobased budgeting at the department and district level and we saved about $2.7 million. Um that can go up to about $3.7 million. Right now we have about $900,000 budgeted in the general fund um for technology

073devices. Right. So that is kind of pending on the decision of what happens with the bond. The next line, the staffing. Um this talks about the process of closing positions that have been vacant for 90 days. We did begin to implement that in January. So within the months of January, February, and March, we've closed about $2.3 million worth of vacant positions. So then this kind of wraps up to the to the three lines going down at the bottom. So we had we adopted budget um parameters and assumptions. There's FFC recommendations. There's admin recommendations and then all that kind of lumps to this process that's still ongoing because we still have a lot of things coming which is that last table to the right. Um we're scheduled to receive preliminary values at the end of this

074month. Bond election is still up. We have another demographer report. We have another workshop compensation plan. There's a lot of districts hitting the news right now. and then we come back for the adoption. So, here's just a preview. Any questions? >> Mr. Will Banks, >> if you could thank you, Miss Fowler. Um, uh, Mr. Travis, if you could go back to the one that had the the hold harmless part or can I ask you about this? I just need a little bit further clarification. So, in the actual hold harmless we received last year um was 5.3 million. Correct. >> Correct. >> Okay. What is actually budgeted right now for holdings in this year's budget? We we used um we used the incorrect data, the incorrect numbers that we had because remember we had we then

075got corrected version. So we actually we budgeted a little bit higher than the 5.4 because in conceptually if we're increasing the exemption >> we're losing value >> standard. Yeah. It would only stand a reason. So your state aid in theory probably should have gone up but because of the way this worked and the calculation change we we're actually we went in the opposite direction. >> Okay. And so we we're think so what you're anticipating in the next budget amendment is now that we have clarification from tea that that line item will shrink by $2.5 million. the not necessarily because the appeals the $2.5 million error the way the appeals work um the our tax attorney will submit the appeal but the appeal won't be reflected until a couple years from now. So there is a

076bigger hit this year but in a future year we would get the 2.5 billion back. >> Okay. So, I'm just trying to figure out what the hit to our budget this year is going to be and if that's going to be Sounds like it's going to be the same next year or it's we're not going to see the likes of 5.3 anytime soon. >> We're not going to see the likes of 5.3 anytime soon. Correct. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Will Banks. Any other trustee with comments or questions? Dr. Smith, >> Nberto, could you please go back to the slide and you were looking at the uh inflation index and uh what we would have seen. I just want to point out on that that dollar amount that you see 6160 Newberto

077if I remember right our basic aotment went up $55. Correct. >> Correct. So, um, out of the the gap between 779240 and 6160, the legislature assigned $55 per student to the basic aotment. If you uh calculate all of that out, that's about a how many million difference between if we' gotten all of that funding? >> So, 1,500 times 50,000 students um $75 million. interesting that that seems to be the the number that we um are facing with some of our challenges budget-wise that we've talked about now for a number of years to you. But inflation matters and so as we think about the next legislative session, I I do hope that we are um again clearly communicating uh that inflation plays a role in school finance as well. The uh other part that I wanted

078to point out, you mentioned that uh the maintenance and operations tax rate, we could see compression this next year again. Is that correct? >> Correct. Based on the trend at the very bottom of this slide, um it trends down. For the last two years, it's been at least a penny. If you average all three years out, it's been all four years out, it's actually been higher than the penny. So, while we can't predict what the state will do with this, the trend is showing us that we could see a a 1 cent tax decrease in the maintenance and operation budget this next year. >> Correct. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Smith. Anyone else? >> Thank you, Mr. Rivas. We appreciate this information. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> The next

079item is item C, our special education performance report. Dr. Smith >> trustees. I would like to invite Dr. Wartz and uh Miss Cindy Brown up tonight. They are going to present to you a report that has been required by um new legislation, but in all honesty, I know this is a passion for our board and so we want to make sure that we're providing you some good information on great things going on, areas for improvement and things that we're doing about it. >> All right. Good evening, President Chapa, um member Fowler, um members of the board, um Dr. Smith, thank you for letting us be here tonight. Cindy's here with me this evening to share with you our special education report. Uh House Bill 2 and Senate bill specifically 568 requires that in a public

080meeting we share with you um outcomes for uh special education students as they pertain to the programs that they're in. So tonight, Cindy's going to share with you a little bit about the landscape of special education, some specific strategies that we've been implementing this year to improve our outcomes with kids, and some of our next steps. And then we'll stand back to ask their questions. Cindy, >> thank you. Good evening everybody. Um, it's been a while since I've been up here, so I'm excited to share with you some updates on things. And, uh, we're going to start out by talking a little bit about the landscape or the demography report, if you will, for special education. Um, unlike our district enrollment, our special education enrollment continues to climb. We had 137 initial referrals this year

081so far. Those are kids that are brand new to special education services. 1,150 of them actually qualify, which is about an 88% qualification rate. We're proud of that because that does include requests from parents, etc. Uh, and when kids first get started in school, our current sped enrollment, and I will tell you this is a couple weeks old now when I first drafted this, was 7,998. We're now at 8,032 in the district, which is puts us still at 15.8%. The state, however, is at 16.6%. So, we still have a little room to grow there. That's a growth of about 3% over the last three and a half years. Um 650 students from last January. So what does that mean for us? Well, it means we have more kids getting what they need. And that's important.

082Um one thing to know that has really colored our work in the last couple of years is that 6,586 students approximately take STAR. So when you think special education, they're still responsible. talk about all the time, special ed kids are gened kids first and we want them to [clears throat] have their access to that gened curriculum. So we have been working a lot as a department to revise our structures to really focus on how do we make sure that our kids do have that quality education and then how are we really helping campuses be able to serve those students well. So, as you have heard in the past, RDA is our state accountability factor that is migrating where it will be part of the general A throughF accountability system just to know within the next

083couple of years. We get two we get RDA annually from TEA. We also have a five-year cyclical audit with TEA and I'm going to talk a little bit about both of those because we just had our audit last school year. So, some of our highlights to hit are glows if you will. Equity, we had no areas of significant dis disproportionality. RDA does a scale from zero to four with zero being the best score you can have. And in an area as diverse as Arlington, for us to have no areas where we're possibly over identified any group or not serving a group or maybe even over having behavioral consequences, all of those were zero. So, we're really proud of that work. Um long-term success, our kids that have exited out of having special ed services, our

084year after kids are also at a PL zero. So that means what they had worked and they have good access and they're able to compete with their peers. The climate in the district, we've worked really hard about behavior. You guys have heard a lot of reports about that. Of our suspensions and expulsions for our SPE students are at also at that zero, which is what we want everything to be at. And then our academic proficiency, the percentage of kids actually passing STAR had increased from year 24 to 25. So we're happy about that work, too. Doesn't mean that we don't have plenty of areas of opportunity. Our first one continuing to be academic proficiency. Um how do we make sure that our kids especially our star three through eight reading and math students, our end

085of course English one and two students and our algebra 1 EOC. Our processes, one of the things that was new in RDA this year is they took into account our federal requirements of meeting our timelines for evaluations. We want to make sure that those it's a it's an all or nothing. You either have a 100% or you have nothing. And I'll talk a little bit more about that. And then of course everything in special education starts with the IEP. That is the individual education plan. How do we make sure that kids are getting what they need so they can access that gened curriculum? And so we've been focusing on that this year. So I want to take you a little bit deeper into what does that look like? Well, first and foremost, that restructuring that

086we did, we kind of aligned it with those big areas because none of those are new to us. But instructional programming being our big focus. We added an extra area team last year by restructuring so we could really be on those campuses even more specialized programming. We continue to grow in our specialized programming. And so how do we make sure that those kids are getting access not only to maybe their social emotional needs or behavioral needs, but also most importantly, how are they progressing in the GED curriculum? And then of course evaluation compliance. That's often what people first think of when they think about sped. And it's not something that you want to ignore, but it's also not the only thing. And we really feel like each of these pillars re represent the whole spectrum

087of our work. So once we then looked at our data as a team, we dug in did some root cause analysis. And when we started to look at our areas that were three on the RDA report and the feedback we got on our cyclical audit, we really came up with four areas, four big causes of why our data looks the way it does. The first is that idea of when we think about instruction for special education, we have the specialized classroom or the sped setting, whether that's resource, that might be the C's classroom, wherever that is, and then also what happens when they're in the gened setting. So, we had to think about both of those things. What we found is there was a lot of time being spent with our kids on their IEP

088goals, not so much on mastering the gened curriculum. So, we wanted to even that out. Um, we also knew that our teachers, especially in the resource setting, needed some instructional materials. They were trying to use what GenEd did. That's an overwhelming amount. When you have a child maybe for 30 minutes in a resource class and then looking at the IEPs, one of the things we got in our SEC cyclical audit was that we were not talking enough about their progress in mastering the TEICSS. And so, how do we shift that to be a focus for us as well? And then finally, we were doing a lot of professional learning, but with the new plan this year with our embedded days, we were really able to be strategic and make sure that every piece of professional

089learning was focusing back on those outcomes for students. And so those are the big things that we did. Once we had identified those, then we thought about so what actions are going to do that. We're really digging into talking about planning instruction for resource inclusion, being clear on that is not just about IEP goals. That is also a time to help the kids be accessing that gened curriculum. We purchased for our students along with our CNI compadres as they were looking at science of teaching reading. We purchased from the University of Florida literacy institute UFly which is a supplemental material that is very much aligned with science of teaching reading but also has a lot of flexibility so you can use it in those smaller chunks of time. and then really training not only the

090teachers on how to have high quality IEPs but also our own team. We did a lot of training with region 11 around that and then really intentional PL planning and support for high quality facilitation of that learning. So when we looked at IEPs, this is just another slide going through some of the things. One of the things I want to talk about here is that we put a lot of systems in place to so we didn't wait till the end to find out that we had maybe missed a timeline. we were co getting on top of that and addressing it through the IEP meeting. Also, if we noticed we had some maybe some people in the evaluation team that were really struggling with that, how do we provide that support for them as well? So,

091as we put all these pieces together, here's what our data started to look like. So, when you look at the blue bars, those are our timelines last year that were out of compliance. The first bar you see, SPI1A, is our initial timelines. are we making sure that we're getting the evaluation done in the we said we would. Uh 11B is are we then having the IEP meeting in the time that we said we would? And then the last one is our prek or preschool which is our three is three rule. When a child turns three, they are entitled to have that evaluation. So we went from you can see a huge decrease and every single one of those was addressed in that initial IEP meeting. So right now we're at 100% compliance and that's because

092of the efforts of the team on that and campuses too. Then we think about the instructional piece again really digging into those how do we want this instruction to look at the science of teaching reading giving them the resources but then also talking about how do we use those using giving our teachers and resource decodable readers but what do we do with those when we're talking about our kids in special education and then um going out to the classrooms providing coaching support etc and then really showing and modeling them. We even had some of our specialists modeling. How do you use these things with say a student who's not verbal? What does that look like? And creating our own kind of library of videos of that. So that also was a lot of fun for

093our specialists to dig in and do those kind of things too. And then we also did some cross departmental walks with CNI, with world languages, with early childhood to think about how does this then mesh with our overall TXRL grant etc. So how does that look? Well, that comes back to what a stout student outcome is starting to look like. Remember, we're talking about special education students here. So, sometimes our rate of growth is a little bit different. But when you look at the math 3 through eight, we show an increase from benchmark last year to benchmark this year, a growth of two percentage points. When we look at reading language arts 3 through 8, we see a growth of one. [snorts] And then we look at English one and two, we did see a

094decrease. That decrease is due to English two. The good news is that's because we had a couple hundred more kids taking it. And that means our special education students that's different for their progress and their graduation rates. So we're excited about that. The other thing that this shows is RDA in the past has been a force distribution. They are now moved to cut points. So we have a clear target and our target is to be at that two which means for math 3 through 8 that's 40%. For reading 3 through 8 that's 40%. And then for English one and two it's 30%. So as of right now after benchmark we are at that DL2 in all of our areas. So celebrations and challenges overall um as I was listening to both the previous presenters thinking

095about we have challenges in both of those areas. We have the challenge of continuing to grow but we also have some funding issues that are coming up and I'll talk briefly about that. Um but celebrations proactive model as a team we have really focused on strong relationships with campuses getting in front of any issues really being that open door and part of that is by having that fifth area team has really helped with that we've had a little more time with principles to talk about things and we've really tried to include the executive directors um student outcome focus we're having a lot more discussions in staffing meetings and we see it in our IEPs when we do our periodic checks of really talking about how are we progressing on the screeners, what is their benchmark

096data looking like, all those kind of pieces. And then really maximizing our time on campuses. As of January, we had made 3,959 visits to campuses so far. That includes everybody on my team from my assistant directors to myself to our BIS to our GAP, all those people. But we know that's where the work is. How can we help? Challenges going forward. You might have heard a little bit about the Texas Education Freedom Accounts and that was something this year we had an increase in our number of outside evaluations. Public schools have always been responsible for doing any evaluations for kids who live in our district who attend a private school. Um this year we did see an increase of over 69. Those are completed. That doesn't include the people who thought they might or were

097told they should and so some of those were half done, etc. Staffing shortages. We continue to fight that battle. HR has been instrumental with us in helping us really shrink that number. The area that is still touchy is for speech language pathologists who are also part of that evaluation team. And then volume and complexity. One of the things that we're seeing is our students their IEPs are more complex. Their need for services. It's not as simple as we just need a little bit of help. It's way more involved than that. And then we're seeing more change of placements. we are getting a lot of students moving into the district who have IEPs. So when we look at those that's always a journey because different people do different things in different ways and so how do

098we settle on that and we're seeing a lot of is they need a change of what their IEP says. And then last but certainly not least is funding. The state is overhauling how special education is going to be funded. Moving to an intensity of services model. We had it dropped last Thursday. We had our first webinar on Tuesday and the good news is once we get to the other side of that we will see somewhat of a narrowing I think of that gap of what it actually cost to serve a student with a lot of needs but it's going to be a heavy lift in the meantime. So we'll be partnering with Nberto and working through all those pieces discussion. Thank you, Miss Brown, Miss Richardson. >> My iPad has died, so I can't tell

099you what slide to go to, but can we go back to look at um that right there? Okay. >> Okay. When we're looking at the speech language pathologist and we're talking about the staffing shortages, what do you attribute that to? >> You know, I think when it comes to speech language pathologists, number one, that is probably an area that grows with everything else. There's very few kids that are if you are let's say you have autism services a lot of times you also have speech so there's just a huge number of them and what has happened is and this is something for us is we write don't believe that virtual speech is the best thing for students and that's what a lot of districts have started to go to >> what does that mean >>

100that's where they would go online to receive their speech services >> okay >> and so we are trying to not do that um like I said my team has really been hard at recruiting. We go to the things we bring and once we get them, they stay. >> Okay. >> Now, we have a few retiring, which we're always sad about, but yeah, and that's a statewide shortage. Every time I go to our TSA sped director's meetings, that's something we're all struggling with. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you, Miss Richardson, Miss McMurro. >> Thank you, Dr. Brown, and thank you, Miss Baker, for being here tonight. This is really exciting and I was going to see if you could go back to the slide with the strategic plan of action root causes

101and actions. Yes. So the trend I see here is we're really intentional now really intentional now to make sure that the IEP floor is not going to be the instructional ceiling for our students receiving special services. And I do believe that that alone is going to lead to those outcomes we want to see where we can support students far beyond their time here in Arlington ISD. And um recently some of us took a site visit to a couple other school districts to learn more about what 18 plus programs offer our students and um is the number of uh students enrolled in 18 plus. Are we seeing that an uptick in that specific program or is it kind of stable? >> No, it is definitely growing. Um, we grow, you know, and students graduate throughout the

102year from 18 plus because they get permanent full-time employment a lot of times. Um, so we run around 100ish students in 18 plus and that has grown, you know, the last few years. We've added Project Search partnership at Arlington Memorial. We're always adding new sites. We are now going to have a garden plot at UTA so we can start doing some of those things because we're looking for a gardening partner for the garden center because we've got some students that are interested in that. So yeah, that has continued to grow. We have over 50 partners right now. But our my coordinator that's over that is always looking for new people and if a student says they have an interest, who can we find that we can help them explore that career? >> That's so wonderful.

103And a big takeaway that I had, as much as I learned in one day, is that these 18 plus programs, they don't just change the trajectory of our students lives. It really has the potential to help our community at large and particularly our school districts depending on those partnerships and um the opportunities we offer our young adults in 18 plus. So, I just want to commend both of you. This is really exciting. Um, and I I know that this is definitely a team effort and it's lots of intentional planning and um, I particularly love what you shared as well about the professional learning. I know that we've had a lot more professional learning this year and I love that we're we're so thoughtful about making sure that whether you're a self-contained special educator, whether you

104partner, whether you co-e, our our special educators are getting that learning alongside um anyone else who really needs the to certain tools for certain jobs um to just continue this great work. So, thank you both for being here tonight and for this great information >> and thank you for bringing that up. I didn't even mention part of our professional development is also our teaching assistants because they are the glue that makes special education work and they've been thrilled to have those opportunities this year too. >> Thank you, Miss McMurra. Mr. Mike, >> thank you for your presentation. Coincidentally enough, I was on the same trip with uh Miss McMurro and so she asked pretty much all my questions. [laughter] Um, but I will tell you the out of everything that we saw on that that

105visit, it was the 18 plus programs that really they they touch you on the inside. >> Um, and to see what this district is doing for um our special ed students is is um something good. I think I think we're not treating them any different from any other student and we're giving them the resources to be able to be productive citizens. Um, which is a good thing. Uh, what I will ask, >> sure. >> Um, is there anything else that we can do as a board to help support you and the team uh, in your endeavors with our students? >> I think what Dr. Smith said is this is a board that's very invested in that and that is always our number one thing is do you see us and as we do try to

106make sure that we are providing similar experiences for our students we had our prom last weekend that was also a good time um it was the theme was boots and you should have seen some of the proud faces on that but uh I think that's our biggest thing and then to be asking those questions and you know I think we don't want the perception out there that just because you have some special differences um you learn differently doesn't mean that you can't reach whatever potential it is that you want to do. And that's our big goal with our team is to that's where everybody's buckets get filled is to see that success out there. Whether it's you know I we have a student who lifelong dream was to work in the Martin High cafeteria and

107by golly that's what he does now. And you know we have other students that want to learn cake decorating. We want them to be able to do that. And then we have students who go to CTC. We have deaf students who have gotten some of those certifications just with the aid of an interpreter. And that's what we want is to make sure that all those pathways as we increase that for gened students making sure our sped students have the same possibilities. So thank you for asking that question. >> Agree. Thank you. >> Thank you Mr. Mike, Mr. Will Banks. >> Thank you Miss Balor and thank you city Brown for this presentation. It was a great update and there's you know sounds like a lot to celebrate. If you could go to slide A. We'll

108start with I think the biggest payoff I think in your slide deck and you know seeing this here um the now these three charts so kind of in the RDA >> a lot of stars stuff which is >> where we >> kind of struggling >> but then all of these which are kind of more logistics and administrative and following um some of the federal guidelines lines we're like well within compliance. Absolutely. >> Is that a fair statement? >> Yes. >> And from all your efforts there. So that's kudos to you on that. And then go to the one uh talking about the star >> the Yeah, that one. So um looks like we've got some um we're making progress. >> Sure. >> Right. And so but you know there's obviously still room to grow. So

109on the DL2, you say that's where the goal is >> for right now. Yes. Not long term. >> Okay, good. [laughter] Because DL2, you know, even the current Scots, that's and I will say great. >> Yeah. And one of the things that's new with RDA this year is they really want us to have a tight partnership with a liazison from region 11 and that's a statewide expectation. >> Oh, has that really helped? >> Yes. And so, and one of the things too though is she helps us keep things in perspective and she has said over and over again, a district this size to be solidly at a two approaching a one. I will say algebra one, we are approaching a one. >> Oh, that's awesome. >> So, we want to get there and I I

110really feel like the things we've put in place, >> we can get there >> as we move forward. >> Perfect. So, let's jump let's jump down to slide um 11. Um, so Matt and I were just at the North Texas Area Association of School Boards, and I think this topic of the outside evaluations for private school is really taxing all of our districts across. I mean, and it sounds significant. What are we doing to mitigate that as being a drain on our >> staff and directing away from our students who need it? >> We got real creative this year because we want they have to stay within timeline, too, because we're still held accountable for that. And so, we looked at people that maybe wanted to work outside of their regular workday and re, you

111know, giving them some extra incentive around that. We've also gone to where we've used some contracted services because the reality is you saw the first slide we had so many initial evaluations in our district. It does make it challenging. We also partner with some of our other outside providers of evaluations that we've done before. We're also lobbying back to TA and giving them feedback. One of the things they changed, normally we're responsible for the private school evaluations of the schools that are in Arlington. >> They changed that for this particular program. It was only it was the people that resided in Arlington and private schools in Arlington. So, we got a bunch that are right along our border >> that normally would have gone to our district to the west. >> Yeah. >> So, we're

112working on that. I think the thing that we and I talked to Dr. Woods who's our assistant director of our compliance and evaluation about that is doing some more information for parents upfront so that we wouldn't have gotten so many people who got started with the process and then we're like no. So maybe even having some forums, you know, early on like Januaryish and try and get because some of our parents were not educated enough to know what those processes were >> and they're just like, "Well, I want this because I want this for my child." I will say that just like the demographers shared, maybe a half dozen of these outside evaluations were students in Arlington ISD. We're wanting the TA because we had to do a special upload for those. So it was

11369 outside but then about a half dozen of kids who currently go to AISD who are interested in those possibly going to a private school. So it was kind of and then once they got started with us our team's goal was then to make them want to stay here. >> Yeah. >> Because some of the services they might not be able to get outside. So >> we looked as a way to drum up business that way. >> Yeah. >> But I think our big thing is to get >> find a silver lining. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. >> That's awesome. Can I add one thing on there, Cindy? I don't know if you can help me on this, but in TIFFA, so when I look at that, I think of our state's voucher subsidy program that we

114have now. And in that voucher program that the state has enacted, uh, do you know ex about how much it costs for us to do one of those evaluations? >> You know, the state's going to give us $1,000 for every initial evaluation. We think that's about a fourth of what it actually cost. And I want to point that out. So that the state in this voucher program, the burden has been put on school districts for this u this assessment in this um process. And the dollar amount that they say that school districts are going to get is $1,000, but we believe that anywhere from about uh $3,500 to about $5,000 is the actual cost. >> Correct. >> Thank you. Just outrageous. Um but again, thank you. Um I'll just, you know, I had wanted to

115call out some things on a few other slides, but I'll be brief and say that the focus on high quality instructional material in alignment with what we're doing for the general population in terms of the science of reading that we know is paying off in spades and applying that. Kudos to you guys because you know the fact of the matter is where we're struggling on our RDA is those >> absolutely >> I hate to say the star based measures. Um, but I believe wholeheartedly in our moral imperative. I know I'm going to get creep for my buzzword, but uh, you know, all districts, no matter if you're Arlington, Texas, Arlington, Virginia, we owe it that all students deserve a great education and are wellprepared for future. And all students doesn't mean some students. It means

116each and every child no matter, you know, what their disabilities are. And um I know we're struggling with some of our special populations. When you look at our RDA, >> sure, >> our other special populations, our homeless students, um been, you know, we've been needing to kind of move the needle for a little bit now over the last three years. we've, you know, on the star scores, you know, we've kind of regressed. We were on a great trajectory >> uh to get up to that one, but we've slipped. So, >> um given where we are on all of our RDAs, you mentioned a lot of different changes to the RDA process and the they're moving from the force distribution to the cut scores. Um, I think it would behoove the board if we had if

117we could have a report on our RDA and talk about more than just FedE, but uh where we where we stand with RDA and what we're doing to really help all of our special populations. Glad to do that. Absolutely. >> Absolutely. And I do want to add one more thing on that, Mr. Wilbanks, that um I didn't touch on too much in here, but part of what we've really done is increase the data literacy of our special education teachers. Now, when you think sped, you think a lot of data, but a lot of that is qualitative data. And how do we talk the gened data lens? And so, um, Wendy and the rest of my team that supports campuses have done a lot this year to number one look at the reports and then talk

118about how does that impact us and then even taking it so far as to go on to the state um, website where you can actually put in a child's accommodations, let them practice using them online because that's a whole another thing, too. And so some of those practices that we know are good for gened >> that seem kind of simplistic, it's some low hanging fruit that we think will also pay off. >> Yeah, that definitely, you know, if it's true for them, it's especially true for >> absolutely >> um our sped population. So thank you. Thank you for the report. >> Welcome. >> Thank you, Mr. Will Banks. So Dr. Dr. Brown, do I understand correctly that if a student lives in Arlington but is not necessarily an AISD student, we're required to do the

119testing for them >> if the private school is in Arlington. Yes. >> Okay. And that is at no cost to the parent. >> Correct. That is absolutely no cost to the parent. And you know, when we think evaluations, yes, it's a diagnostician, but it's also usually a speech pathologist. It's also usually a school psychologist. It's also with the rise in autism, it's also often an occupational or physical therapist to look at those needs, too. So, it's it's, you know, when that's when we talk about what it really cost, those are all the things, not to mention the time and the equipment and all those other pieces to it. So, yes, >> and I do want all students to have those services and and to get a possible IEP, but then there's students that are not

120even going to be in Arlington, which means we won't get any money from the state for those students. So, we're we're expending money, but we're not getting anything back. >> Correct. >> Interesting. Um, I want to applaud your program. One of my very best friends, her son went through the 18 plus program and did very well and now he's employed at Tom Thumb and loves his job and is doing very, very well. >> That's awesome to hear. >> So, so thank you for this report. >> Thank you for shining light on that. >> Anything else? >> Thank you, Dr. Thank you. >> All right. Next up is our item D and it is our principal incentive program report. Dr. Smith. >> I believe that uh Mr. Scott Kale and Mr. Ms. Holly Stanbar are coming

121to present to you a proposal. Uh this is just a report tonight. This is not an action item, but uh Scott and Holly are going to go through a proposal to potentially include in our compensation plan this year. Uh and I'll let them detail what we're thinking. >> Good evening, President Choa, uh member Fowler, members of the board, and and Dr. Smith. Thank you very much for having us. I am going to turn this over to Holly. We'll both be here for questions, but she did a good amount of this work and I want to give her an opportunity to present it to you. >> Thank you, Mr. Kell, for the introduction. It's good to see you again this evening, trustees. Um, so the purpose of this presentation is to review a principal incentive program

122in efforts to enhance student outcomes and campus performance. So experts say um with the Wallace Foundation that school leadership plays a critical role in student outcomes. So that lies with the campus principal and the campus principal can not only help with student outcomes but also help with um overall achievement um employee morale culture, uh employee turnover, student discipline, a variety of things that really dive in and help build that campus culture um improve and overall achieve. So with that, um, we also found out this spring that Fort Worth put out an ACE principal model. They call it the accelerating campus excellence, and they shared this amongst the DFW um area. And they advertised that they were paying anywhere from $130,000 to $145,000 for principles who wanted to take this opportunity. So with this recommended model,

123um, the compensation for our principles could range from 130,000 to 66,000. But I'd like to share that those numbers are conservative because I looked at um our entry level or uh more less tenur elementary principles to our less tenured secondary principles. So in all due reality, it really could be higher into the low 140s up to the mid 180s depending on the tenure of the principal that we were to hire under this program. Now, that would be just the base incentives of um up to 25,000, but in a few minutes, I'll talk about some additional incentives that we um could provide as well. So, the parameters of this program, we would like to pilot it um at three campuses for the 2627 school year. That would be one high school, one junior high, and one

124elementary. This will give us some time to look at the overall program effectiveness of the program that um for the 2627 school year. But ideally we would like to do full implementation for the 2728 school year. Um it would be 23 campuses in total that is including those three campuses that we would pilot in year 1. Um currently right now we do have two F-rated campuses. Now those may with uh future accountability they may not be that way um later this summer when we get those reports. But we want we would want to include those as well. Um we also want to highlight that we have principles um that have been at that campus for more than two years. We're recommending that they're not eligible for this hiring incentive. Um we also know that um

125we want to incentivize our teachers as well. But uh this program is specifically for principles for differentiated compensation. Now we recently just submitted the application for teacher incentive aotment to Texas Tech. So that's under consideration with them right now. But there would be options for our teachers uh should that continue for them to get uh teacher incentive aotment as differentiated pay alongside those those that campus principle. So there's a little um chart there. It kind of demonstrates what that would look like. We would look at the campus need index that includes socioeconomics. We would have the top 23 campuses as well as the frated campuses if there are any. Um, and then from there there would be a $10,000 incentive just for being employed at that campus. Um, then there would be a $10,000 accountability

126um, improvement. Um, we're also considering a double incentive. If they were to go from like u like an F to a C or uh a C to an A, they would get double that incentive. And then we also are considering the community uh and staff engagement surveys. If those surveys are improved or they're staying, you know, where they're um high quality, then we would give a $5,000 incentive for those as well. So, here's a sample scenario. This is a C-rated campus right now, and we hire a principal at Forest Ridge High School. U we would give her a $10,000 hiring incentive just for being at that campus. Now, for that first year, she was able to improve the accountability ratings from a C to an A. So, she received a $20,000 incentive for a double

127uh grade improvement. She also had a a glowing student survey and a glowing staff survey. So, she is going to get $35,000 in incentives. Now, we hired um a gentleman at Stone Hedge High School, and so he got the $10,000 incentive. This was a D-rated campus. That year, he did not improve the rating. and it stayed at a D. So, he did not receive the $10,000 accountability rating. However, his surveys were glowing, so he did receive the $5,000 survey incentive. So, he received $15,000 that year. Um, one thing we would consider is that program eligibility would no longer be um eligible when it's been identified as no longer high needs through that campus needs index for two years. And then if there were any F-rated campuses, um once they approved to a B and remain

128that way for two years, they would no longer receive this incentive either. We want to make sure when we hire these principles or the principles that are in these roles that they're not just left with no resources. So we're asking that there's a standing OSL leadership panel that will consider these inquiries that are coming from these campus principles. What can we do to support them? What incentives do they need? what interventions do they need? Um so that way they feel supported. However, um we are um recommending that the principal transition out of the role if they remain at a D for two consecutive years or an F for two consecutive years. Um those options could include reassignment or those options could include um separation depending on the circumstance. And again, those would be conversations that

129we'd have at the leadership level. Um again this is a pilot for the 2627 school year at three campuses. We'll look at the program effectiveness to consider what the if moving to full implementation for the 2728 school year. And right now um our accountabilities with the star but I know that's under consideration with the state. So we we also may need to modify this depending on what that accountability looks like. So I'm here today to communicate this to you. Um we also plan to communicate this to the pilot principles at those three campuses um ideally in May and then we would roll this out in August 2026 um as far as starting the program in full with a full implementation in 2728. Any questions? >> Are there any trustees with questions or comments? I'll jump

130in first while they're thinking about it if that's okay. Holly, will you go back a couple of slides? I wanted to make sure I added a couple of things. Yeah, Melody's like, "Okay, sure, man." [laughter] Uh, I want to add go back to the slide. Um, one more, please. Right there. So, there are two things that I want to point out. When we say pilot, this is pilot. All of those things underneath regarding full implementation could change. Okay? When we pilot, we're seeing how they work. And that could even be from the number of schools that we do it uh at to uh some of the calculations on how we do this. When we say pilot, we're going to see how it works and make adjustments accordingly. So please don't take those bullets is set

131in stone for what the final the next year would look like. The second thing that I wanted to point out and I want to be transparent about this is the the um bottom right bucket there where it says community and staff incentive engagement incentive based on survey feedback improvements. That's a really tricky one for some of these situations. And I want to be honest about this. When we hire sometimes for a change agent in a school, you're changing adult practice in the school. And that doesn't always make people feel give you high ratings on an engagement survey. In fact, you're asking them to change practices that they may have done for 20 plus years. And sometimes that comes back as negative implications. So we want to study this year. That's why this is a pilot.

132We understand and wholeheartedly agree when we hire people and put them in principal positions like this, we want them to do it the right way and treat people well. At the same time, I'm not 100% sure if that measure is the right way to measure that for that additional incentive. And so as we pilot it this year, just know that I might come back to you and say we might want to do something different along the way because if if we actually are hiring a leader to lead some change on a campus, sometimes that does mean you're going to get some push back from the adults on the campus and it it would result in some decreases in those surveys. So please know that that's my hesitation there and we're going to be monitoring that

133closely over the course of this pilot here. >> Thank you, Dr. Smith, Mr. Willbanks. >> Thank you, Miss Fowler, and thank you, Matt, for that clarification. I um I love the measured approach to this. This is researchbased. I was going to be quick and brief and say two thumbs up. I'm excited about piloting something like this and really seeing what the results could be and then maybe either adjusting or rethinking it all together. So, um, thanks for bringing it, Ollie. Thanks for >> Thank you, Mr. Will Bankbanks. >> Thank you, Mr. Willbanks. Mr. Mike, >> thank you for the presentation. I I like it a lot, but I do have a question on we're on this slide number five. Have we have we already identified the three schools or are we still in the process

134of identifying? I know there's been some discussions, but those not those have not been identified as of today. >> Okay. All right. That's it. Good. Good. It's good. >> Thank you, Mr. Mike. Let me ask um if we do this and if we're able to give a raise, would the principles in this program also be eligible for a raise? >> Yes, Miss Fowler. This would be separate from their base salary. So if a raise is given, they would be eligible for that raise and these incentives are separate and apart from >> Okay. Thank you, Miss McMurro. >> Thank you, Miss Fowler. And thank you, Miss Stanbaw. Um Dr. Smith mentioned um on this slide actually the um engagement in incentive option based on staff survey on on the um pilot campus. And I absolutely respect

135um what you said, Dr. Smith, and I I do appreciate you and staff for being willing to explore that. I know that um other districts, as you mentioned, are starting to do um administrator incentive systems, but I think that this is very interesting and worthwhile to explore. And I also think it's something that will set us apart in offering this type of incentive to our instructional leaders when they are tasked with this big work. Um so you know it might I don't know what it would look like and I think that you're you're probably interested in exploring that and we are starting with the pilot to learn. Um, but I just appreciate you guys um being willing to add that piece because um we can learn a lot just from these three campuses and what

136what the outcomes will be as far as um climate and culture is a big priority of our board and of our school district. And I think that here we're just really showing that in this pilot. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss McMurra. Any other trustees with comments or questions? Thank you, Miss Dan. This was very interesting. Thank you. Thank you. Our last report tonight is item E, our trustee continuing education hours report. Do I do that? I am happy to report that all trustees have completed the required continuing education hours. Yay, everyone. [applause] [clears throat] >> I do want to point out I um I think it's important to note that a lot of the public doesn't realize that when you sign up for this volunteer position. None of you get paid and you have

137significant requirements that come along with this regarding training and significant requirements as far as district duties as well. So, I appreciate this board and your dedication to continuous learning and growth and um thank you for obviously investing. You go well beyond the minimum and I appreciate that because whatever we do together like this and and invest in learning makes us better as a district. So, thank you all for your work. >> Thank you, Dr. Smith. This is a tremendous group of trustees and they take their job very seriously, our volunteer job very seriously and I appreciate each and every one. All right, we are ready for the consent agenda. That concludes tonight's reports. Uh do we have any items to be pulled for discussion? Seeing none, is there any discussion on the consent agenda? Move

138approval of consent. >> I have a motion for Mr. Will Banks. Do I have a second? >> Second. Thank you, Miss Richardson. We'll now move to vote. All trustees vote in favor. The motion passes. Next up is our open agenda for non-aggenda items. Miss Crossno, do we have any requesters for non-aggenda items? >> Trusty Fowler, we do have one. >> Welcome, Miss Dine. I'll go over the rules. I know you know them, but this is a routine part of the board's agenda for regularly scheduled meetings. This segment of the meeting provides citizens with an opportunity to share their views with the trustees on items that are not on the agenda tonight. It is not intended to be a discussion or a debate and trustees will not reply to the speaker. Derogatory comments aimed at an

139individual will not be tolerated. Personnel matters are not appropriate. Subjects for open forum. You will have three minutes to speak and Miss Crossno will let you know when your time's up. Welcome, Mr. Dine. >> Thank you, Trusty Fowler. Good evening, President Chappa, trustees and Dr. Smith. My name is Jeannie Dine, and I'm proud to serve as the executive director of the Arlington ISD Education Foundation, and just as proudly as a parent and an alumni of Arlington ISD. I'm here tonight for a very important reason, one that involves courage, commitment, and a little bit of rhythm. Earlier this week, trustees Sarah Mcmura and Larry Mike took to the dance floor for Dancing with the Arlington Stars in support of the Arlington ISD Education Foundation. And when I say they showed up for our teachers, I mean

140they didn't just walk out there, they hit their marks. They had moves. They had timing. At more than one point, I found myself wondering if the Jackson 5 had actually taken the stage. Now, I will comment on technique and rhythm and choreography because they were fantastic. Truly, they brought energy, confidence, and just the right amount of flare to the dance floor. And thanks to their performance and their willingness to show up in a big, bold way, they helped raise meaningful support for our teachers and classrooms across Arlington ISD. And that is worth celebrating. So tonight, on behalf of the Arlington ISD Education Foundation, I have the honor of presenting them with these very official and highly coveted Mirror Ball trophies. [applause] >> These are a symbol of their dedication, their spirit, and their willingness to

141go above and beyond for our students. And now they're going to do the dance again. >> Not in these shoes. [laughter] >> Is Is there a way for us to see this video real quickly? I know it would be outstanding if Spence if you could help us or Greg if you could help us with this. >> I think I believe in them. I I think we've interrupted Miss De's uh three minutes. >> If you send him that link, he's gonna play it. I'll send the link. >> Yeah. >> So, trustees McMurra and Mike, thank you for being such great sports and for reminding all of us that being a champion for public education sometimes comes with a beat and a spotlight and maybe even costumes from the 1970s. And while we're on the topic of

142showing up, I'd be remiss if I didn't use the rest of my time to remind everyone that the fun is just getting started. Tomorrow night is our AISD education celebration at Six Flags Over Texas, our largest community event of the year. The forecast is sunny, clear, and perfect for a fun night with no lines, incredible student performances, and an entire evening dedicated to celebrating and supporting AISD. Every ticket, every sponsorship, and every moment of that event goes right back into our schools. And you can visit our foundation website for tickets and more information. So come out, bring your families, be a part of something that makes a real difference for our students. Thank you for your time, and let's give another round of applause to our newest Arlington dancing stars. >> Thank you. We're excited

143about tomorrow. Thank you. >> While we're stalling, Mr. Kine, if people have not bought tickets yet, can they buy them at Six Flags? >> What's that? Can they buy them at Six Flags or they have to go to the website? >> They're all available online, but you can even do it mobiley and they will be available through the duration of the event. So, >> if you just wanted to come for a couple of hours, the website would still be live all the way through 10:00 p.m. tomorrow evening. >> Wonderful. And how much are the tickets? >> They're $30. And when you purchase the tickets online, there's an opportunity to select a school code >> where the school of your choice from Arlington ISD will receive $5 per ticket. >> Wonderful. And this is only open

144for AISD students. >> Anyone can attend. >> Okay. Obviously, the the target um audience are AISD students and parents and teachers and staff in our AISD community. Anyone who wants to support the district. >> It's always so much fun. >> And there are no lines, which is the best part. >> Exactly. And you'll have some of the uh choirs and people going through the park. >> We will have approximately 1600 Arlington ISD fine arts performers. >> Wow. That's incredible. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Trusty Fowler, if you would like, I can probably give my superintendent report and add the video on right at the end as part of engagement because we're going to talk engagement tonight. >> Sounds good. Dr. Smith. >> Excellent. I uh I think maybe that they I might not

145have slides at this point. So, we Oh, there it is. Okay. So, um this month, I'd like to focus in on our marketing and engagement priority. There's a lot going on in our school district to create um engagement for our families and community stakeholders and we will see some of our trustees in action at the end of all this. But first, I want to highlight our family expo earlier this month and they did exactly what this priority calls for. Involved family and community as valued partners in student learning. The event brought uh so many community members together to help families prepare for the summer, get resources, and keep the learning going even when school is out. Thanks to the family and community engagement team for their great work on this event. Next, I want to

146highlight the reading race. The family and community engagement team is constantly engaging our community stakeholders with regular stakeholder lunchons with various stakeholder groups like the one last week with local realators. But that's not all they do. In fact, they recently ran a challenge at elementary schools to get students reading. As a reward to the students for their dedication, our family and community engagement team along with several community partners hosted their readers and their families for a day at Camp Thurman with hands-on experiential learning and a whole lot of fun. Finally, I want to highlight some students that uh take engagement to the next level with our hope squad. They I want to give them a shout out uh across the district who are taking initiative to promote good mental health throughout our school district. We

147have hope squads at schools across the district who actively work to prevent suicide and make sure their fellow students are cared for. They celebrated hope week earlier this month with a conference at the CVPA where they all came together to discuss how to support their peers and build a culture of care on their campuses. We're super proud of our students and the teachers and counselors who helped support these efforts. And then finally, I heard the dance was amazing and I can't wait to see the engagement of our trustees and their efforts to engage uh others in our support of ADF. >> And now we'll see if they have the skewed up. >> [music] >> Hang on. >> Do your thing. Secondly, >> Miss Richardson for my trustee report tonight. I wanted to tell you about

148a special student that I was able to visit today. Clara Laughlin is a senior and you may remember her because she was with us a few weeks ago with the Martin High School swim team being recognized. But now she is an intern at Purdue and Brandon. It is special that she's doing her internship there because pictured right here, what you see is the very first AISD intern in the 1970s that started with Purdue and Brandon and is still a full-time employee along with our current AISD intern. So, it is a partnership that has gone on for many years. We are so lucky in Arlington ISD to have local businesses and companies take our students in, teach them the ways and to see what they want to do. Clara is excited to be attending the University

149of Texas&M in the fall, but in the meantime, she has a paid internship with Purdue and Brandon because she has done such an incredible job. So, thank you for them for inviting me to come and attend, but also to see Clara and to celebrate her. >> Thank you. Thank you, Miss Richardson. And just one more before we hopefully get to see the video. Uh Jayla Simone Anderson, she is a senior at Arlington Collegiate High School and she has just been named the Gates Scholar. >> Absolutely. Round of applause for Shayla. There she is. and she also has received a full ride scholarship to TCU, >> but she is a gate scholar and she was there were were two from that particular school and uh when it came down to it, she's the one who won

150and so we're very very proud of her and look forward to seeing her bright future. >> Oh my goodness. Here we go. >> Dance it. >> That's it. Not quite right. >> It was somebody that came up to Larry and wanted to touch his hair. [laughter] >> [music] [music] >> Oh my god. That is okay. We will look forward to seeing unless they want to do a live performance right now. >> Oh, I'm not I'm not thinking they want to do that. >> I'm a little sore. >> [laughter and clears throat] >> And um Secretary Richardson, do we have any? >> We do not. >> Okay. And I think Mr. Will Banks had asked for a report on RDA. Is that right, Mr. Will Banks? Definitely forgot. >> That's all right. That's all right. >>

151All right. I think we have concluded everything and I will close the meeting at 9:31. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you.