Arlington ISD Board of Trustees Meeting - April 9, 2026

001over. Beautiful. Hey, hey, hey. Yeah, hey. Hey, hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. All right. Wow. Oh yeah. Down. Hey, hey. Yeah. Heat. Heat. Everybody want it. down. Get out. Hey, Baby, down. Down up fire get down. D. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Everything. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Hey, Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. All right, it is 7:44 and we are back into open session. I call to order this meeting of the Arlington ID Board of Trustees on April 9th, 2026 at 7:44. We'll go straight into the pledges tonight and they'll be led by Short Elementary student Ian Owens. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, and liberty and justice for

002all the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. All right, please be seated for a moment of silence. >> All right, I'll turn it over now to our chief communications officer, Tyena Northington, to learn a bit more about the student who led us to the pledge. Miss Northingington. >> That's right. Amongst all of these young students out here today, we have one bright shining star from Short Elementary School. And I want to tell you, Ian actually says that he is a lover of all things reading. Um, but as I got to learn and speak with him, I learned that he actually is a really strategic thinker. He's a deep learner. And when I asked him about what books he enjoyed, he said he really enjoyed long books

003that were challenging, which just goes to speak to um how fascinated he is with learning. overall. He's always learning because he's in school. He got to participate in today's ice cream attendance party. So, that was a big deal over at Short. Um, he does have a huge crowd with him tonight outside of his grandparents. He's got some Short fans over there in the audience. So, I just want to bring some attention to a strings teacher who is um really passionate about what he, you know, fueling his really his love to play the bass. and he says that it's also something that she's taught him a lot of uh the musical parts and that she always supports him. And so I think as a child grows and learns what they love to do extracurricular those uh

004teachers and educators that we have that support group means so much more not only to our students but to their families. Um a very bright man who says if it he had his way he would make an egg omelette every day. Um he loves omelettes and that just says it's like music but making it in the in the kitchen. So, I think there's a lot of future. I want you him to know that we have a culinary program here in Arlington ISD. So, as he continues to develop his skills, we're excited to learn more and maybe have some omelets for the board members in the years to come. So, thank you so much, Ian, for joining us in the pledges this evening. All right, that brings us to the recognition portion of our agenda tonight.

005After our recognitions this evening, we will have a short recess to celebrate with our honores in the lobby. So stick around for that. And leading the recognition portion of the agenda is Miss Northingington. I'll turn it back over to her now. >> Thank you so much, President Chop and members of the board. Starting us off tonight besides the full packed house. The majority of them are from Duff Elementary School. This is just a fraction of their choir. I want you to just note that they have a very powerful choir program led by Mr. Joshua Lewis who was recently named the teacher of the year. So kudos to him as well. The group we have today made up of 72 students is part of that choir that actually has 176 students across their fourth, fifth, and

006sixth grades. Duff choirs have a longstanding tradition of earning superior ratings at coral festivals, and these students are proud to carry that legacy forward. In recognition of Jazz Appreciation Month, they will be performing Play That Music All Day Long by Terresa Jennings, a fun, high energy piece that showcases their musicality, personality, and their joy for performing together. Please join me in welcoming the Deaf Fourth Grade Choir. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Come on. You are so good. >> One more round of applause for our fourth graders from Jeff Elementary School. It's such a treat to hear from our students, but also to watch the energy of Mr. Lewis. That I can imagine the parents have watched Mr. Lewis once or twice. I can see why he was named teacher of the year. I just

007took a recording. It's just that's that's the energy we want people to feel when they are passionate about where they work and they love where their work. And so we're going to make something of that because that the his facial features are excellent for the children and for us >> as they clear if our I'm going to let them have a few minutes one more minute before we ask you to turn your attention to the screens this evening. So I'm going to give them another second or two so we can cue that up. Let some people find a seat. If you would turn your attention to the screens, they are very quiet. So, I'll go ahead and start our highlight this evening. Uh, we'll be highlighting our Arlington ISD student of the month for the

008month of April from Sigin High School. >> Tiwa Oenhibi is our Sigin Nation student of the month. Tiwa exemplifies what we want out of a Sigin Nation student. She's involved in every possible activity around our campus, starting with being our student council president. Also, she's immersed in the student experience. She's involved in everything she can possibly get her hands on around campus from being a member of the girls soccer team to being a part of our athletic program as well. >> I've known Team for 4 years now and I've watched her grow tremendously throughout those four years. I think that everything she's done has been an earned thing, not a given thing. She worked hard on improving pride and patriotism throughout our school and really pushed to better our community. >> She's from the first

009group that started Cougar Times, our Nation TV. She's one of those kids that's always comes around, always say hi. I'm gonna miss her. >> One of the things I really respected about Tiwa was that she took ownership of her learning. She did what it took to be successful. It's a pleasure to teach students like Ta. >> She's been on varsity for 4 years. Everybody in our district, they know her as the girl who's going to tackle you to get the ball. She is one of the girls I rely on the most and she truly set the standard for what it was to be a sigin lady cougar. Ta is one of our athletic training students. She's been with us the last couple of years. She's a very hardworking individual and have been a great asset

010to our team. She's one of the most influential and charismatic teenagers I think I've ever met. She is a natural leader amongst her peers and just helps to bring a positive environment. >> As you're hearing all this, you can see how he will exemplify Sige Nation where excellence is a standard. Good evening, President Kappa, Superintendent Smith, and board members. When I first came to Sigin High School, I was a kid who had attended charter school almost her whole life after my family had moved to the United States. The rules, environment, and people were all different. And although I was accepted by my peers, I never truly felt like I belonged. Everything was new to me, like trying McDonald's for the first time or learning a new form of greeting. I went from being around the

011same people almost my whole life to not knowing anyone. I was a timid kid but knew I wanted to be involved in something that changed my community. And then I discovered the student council. Joining student council my freshman year is the greatest decision I've made in my high school years. It led me to growth and become the person I am today. Once in high school brought me a home, a comfort I have never felt before. Being awarded AIS student of the month means a great deal to me because it shows the work I put in isn't going unnoticed and I'm incredibly grateful for the support that's brought me here today. First off, I'd like to thank my assistant principal, Miss Coronado, and my principal, Mr. Linton, for nominating and choosing me for this award. Next,

012I'd like to thank my adviser, Mrs. Brooks, who has played a major role in shaping who I am today. She has always held me accountable, challenged me to improve and pushed me to become a better person and for that I am truly grateful. Alth another huge thank you to my soccer coach for always believing I can be better and there is room for improvement. Joining soccer brought me a second home and comfort I will never forget. Another thank you to my athletic trainers, Coach Bonitez and Coach Kennedy for always loving and supporting me. Last, but definitely not the least, I'd like to thank my family and friends for the greatest support system I could wish for. Cuz I know my parents always supported my goals and aspirations, and I'm forever grateful for them and to

013be raising me to who I am today because I know it was definitely not easy. I am honored and excited to represent the Arlington Independent School District as I step into the next chapter of my life. Thank you again, We don't often have this many people in the audience for these these events, but I think you all can see why our student of the month honore is such a big deal. Um, we have amazing students here and we are so proud of you and what you've done at Sigin High School. Obviously, you're a born leader and so I can't wait to get you to come back and work in our school district in the future. Just saying. Um, but congratulations on such a well-rounded high school career for putting yourself out there when you didn't

014know anybody and you wanted to take that big step in joining student council because as you said that was a really important decision you made and it's obviously paved the way for you for the future. We are proud of you. Remember you always have a home in Arlington ISD. Congratulations on being our student of the month. Ta. Before we take pictures, this is a pin that the board of trustees wears and we give it to people who are special to the district and have done great things and that definitely is something that you qualify for. So on behalf of the board, there's a pin. Continuing tonight's board honors, we're proud to recognize our 2526 Arlington ISD district spelling bee winners. Across three district competitions, area 7, area 8, and the Spanish spelling bee, these students

015have demonstrated exceptional vocabulary, composure under pressure, and true perseverance. Their hard work and dedication to learning are really on full display, and they represent the very best in our district. We'll recognize our winners as I call your name. Please come forward. You'll start with Superintendent Smith. We have our Spanish spelling view winner, sixth grader Emily Moreno from Bergen Elementary. Spanish spelling bee runnerup Helen Chavez, also from Bergen Elementary. And area 7 spelling be winner, sixth grader Marcus Duzman from Foster Elementary. and they kept our moderator going for quite a while. There are a few rounds deep that they went um in their different regions. So, if they'll come to the center, we can take a photo with all three of them. >> Congratulations Next, we are proud to recognize our Arlington ISD swimming regional and

016state qualifiers. The students being honored tonight each earned first place in their event at the district meet. Competing and winning at this level is no small feat and these athletes have set themselves apart from the very best. Their success has advanced them to that regional competition with some even continuing on to the state level. There are many students that participate in our in swimming. So, we're pleased to have many of them here with us. We're going to call their name by campus to be recognized. So, if they'll come up from first in the 868 district, we'd like to bring forward from Lamar High School. Our swimmer is Jack Bedell, Dashel Hornia, state qualifier Carson Plundan and Nathan Cers. There might have been a common theme, I think, with dying their hair until they got far.

017We're going to have them come to the middle with their coach. They didn't make him do the beard. Okay. Congratulations. And for our parents in the audience to know, all of our photos do go onto our Facebook page and our Flickr pages. So, if you wanted to catch one of ours, please be sure to follow us on there. Uh, next we'll have the the students from Martin High School, our swimmers come down. We have Cayla Bratton, Aspen Gray, Clara Laughlin, Megan Wyn, Corey Wilbornne, Caroline Williams, Maya Xanders, Benjamin Ber, Drake Berdick, state qualifier, Grant Tester, Mitchell Hall, Brian Wyn, Dean Schwebach, and last but not least, Dylan Trong. Save the best for last. There we go. With 16 top finishers, the Martin girls and boys team also took home the UIL 6A district title. So,

018that's a huge congratulations to Martin. We're gonna have them sway to the middle. We'll have their coach come down and we can take a formal photo. If there's medals, I know some of you guys have your medals. Please feel free to put them on. right here. Three, two, one. Hold, hold, hold, hold. All right, there we go. Congratulations to Martin. >> Last but not least, we have our 85A district swimmers from Sigin High School in the house. We have two state qualifiers joining us tonight. Neil Ber and state qualifier Jocelyn Garcia. And if they'll put those proud medals on, we will happily take a picture of their coach is going to join us. There we go. >> Yeah, let's put the medals on. We love One more. One more. One more. Congratulations to Sigin High

019School. At this time, I'd like for us to turn our attentions back to the screens uh for a quick video of recognizing our Arlington ISD community partner award. This is our award of appreciation. And our recipient this month is the dental health Arlington for their smiles program and the Arlington back to school kickoff partnership. >> Dental Health Arlington. We are a lowcost option for the uninsured in Tarant County. We have a school-based program called Smiles where we go into the title one schools in Arlington and we teach first through fifth graders the importance of brushing, healthy eating habits and the importance of visiting the dentist. And the students that bring back a consent that are in second through fourth grade get free screenings, free sealants, and free fluoride. And we're hoping to add fifth grade

020in the upcoming year. This program is so important because it helps kids understand how a healthy smile connects their confidence and success in school. Our mission really aligns with AISD, keeping kids healthy in school and ready to learn. >> So, what do we do with all the teeth that need to be restored? they they get their care here back at Dental Health Arlington. And so one of the things that we do whenever they come here is we bring the families in and we not only treat the patient, but we can treat the whole family. We see from 0 to 99 and we're able to provide access to the entire family where they are able to keep their teeth well into their 8. We are also proud supporters of the AISD back to school fair each

021year where around 10 volunteer dentists help screen between 500 and 600 students. We've been honored to be part of this event since the very beginning. >> All right. Good evening, Dr. Smith, President Chapa, and trustees. Want to thank you on behalf of Dental Health Arlington. I'm Brig Surman. I'm the president of the board of directors. Uh we want to thank you for the partnership. We can't do what we do without the support of the schools, the administration, the teachers, and the parents and the students themselves. And of course, with your support. So, thank you very much. >> President Chapa was kind enough to share the mic with me tonight because I serve on the board with y'all and I have been able to see firsthand for the last two years what has gone on behind

022the scenes. I know that is so much more than is just in that video and we are so thankful to you Brig for each of you. We are so proud to be partners with you because what you do for our school, for our program is beyond just our students. You take it to the community. You take it to the families and there is access to dental health care that would never have been there if it wasn't for y'all. Thank you for your partnership. Thank you for your fundraising efforts. And thank you for having the vision to want to grow to include more families and more students in the coming years. Congratulations. Okay, that concludes the recognition portion of our agenda tonight. It is 18, so we'll we'll head to recess. But before we do that,

023I do want to recognize her because she is here and she's now on the board of Dental Health Arlington or has been on the board for a long time, but former AISD trustee Kesha May here tonight. >> All right, we'll take recess at this point. Uh trustees, let's try to be back on the DIS about 10 minutes. We're in recess. Hey. Down. Hey. Happy. Down. I know. Heat. Heat. Hello. I feel Testing one. Hey you. Hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Hey, Heat. I don't know. Did you eat it? You ate it all. >> No, you didn't. >> Mashed potatoes. Not whipping cream. Okay, it is 8:27 and we are back from recess. The next portion of our agenda tonight is open forum for agenda items. Miss Cross, do we have any speakers registered for

024open forum? >> President Chapo, we do not. >> Okay, that brings us to our report portion of the agenda tonight. I understand that we are foregoing governance committee and finance and academic committee reports. So that will take us straight to item C for reports which is a update on our 2019 bond program. Dr. Smith. >> I'd like to invite uh Mr. Kelly Horn up to give us our most recent update on the projects that our voters approved in 2019. >> Thank you, sir. Good evening, President Chopa, members of the board, Dr. Smith. I'll jump right into this and before I leave this uh slide, I'll point out that the inset picture is a picture of our newest softball field at Martin High School and uh they're in that field's in use currently. And then I'll

025jump right into where we are finance. This is a drastic change from the last time that I presented a few months ago in the sense that uh most of our dollars now have been uh expended and uh across the board and there the the portion that's allocated. Of course uh just this week we've expended another 40 million of that in the facility side. So we're moving quickly to have all projects in phase four and phase five um contracted. Uh we're down to our smallest projects. All of these projects though, we plan still to wrap up by August of 2027 so that we can begin to close out the 20 the 2019 bond program. And so I'll just draw your attention to the bottom. You can see uh at the bottom of the page uh after

026our cost for uh issuance and then the arbitrage liability that we uh at this point we expect that we may have uh there's there'll be roughly 38 to $40 million at this point in interest earnings. And that number still may uh go up uh as we begin to work towards closing out the bond. But uh this is updated as of March 25th of this year. This uh this slide shows a list of all of our projects. You can see most of our projects now have moved into construction and co and of course close out and completion. We still have a few that the small projects that are we're holding in design just we can't put them all out on the street as we say to bid at one time. So we strategically just put put

027them out and make sure that we have good coverage. But week by week, those design projects are going into bidding stage. And again, of the 14 in bid currently, uh about six of those were bid this week. And all projects that we bid this week came in under budget. And we'll begin to wrap those up and present contracts for the superintendent to sign. And then I'll go through uh phase by phase just where we are. The Buoy and Sigin projects in phase one are under construction. If you drive by those two campuses, you'll see that the contractors mobilized on those particular fields to to get those started. Those are softball fields for those two campuses. And then of course, we're in close out on the Martin and Glasby project at this point in time. In

028phase two, uh we are in closeout on Arlington High School. Those projects that we show in construction, Fostering John's, they're actually in a in a group with Athetherton. They're going to move over and to close out uh this week or pardon me, next week, pardon me. And Wyman, of course, is uh just begun. And you'll see a picture at the close of this presentation that actually shows not Wyman, but Craraven's field in uh in all of its destruction. And so uh both Cravens and Wyman are are actively uh in construction now. The same goes with phase three. Uh Lamar, that's a two-year project. All of our high schools take two years to to complete or two summers is the way we look at it. Not two years, but two summers. The Little and Miller projects

029are wrapping up quickly and as I mentioned a minute ago, Cravens along with Wildman is in demolition right now and we we'll move towards construction of the actual uh bleachers and buildings very quickly. And then in phase four, uh all of these projects that uh are in the bidding stage here with the exception of Wimish bid, those are the projects that bid this week and uh and came in under budget. And then those projects that I show in design again are just being held uh to to bid those out piece by piece with the exception of Young. Young is uh being wrapped up in the design process right now. And in we're working with the city uh to receive their comments that we can in and include in in the Young project as we get

030ready to bid it. So we're moving quickly into phase four to get all of those under construction uh and and again wrap those up this year. And then phase five, these are most of our really small projects. Uh the uh the the projects that you see in bidding, of course, the the pro the largest project in that of course is the junior high concessions and then of course the lighting that we plan to include with that for those junior high fields. And uh of note here and our our hub participation went up uh and we're back over 25%. This will probably be the last time that I can give you hub numbers because as many of you are aware uh this April 2026, the state uh closed that designation and changed it to what they

031call vet hub now. And they no longer recognize minority and womenowned businesses as hub uh category. And so we won't be able to continue to to monitor that like we have in the past. We will on the projects that we have under contract right now. We'll continue to monitor those through close out, but we won't get numbers on the new projects uh at this point. And with that uh said, I'm I'm at my discussion slide and I promised you I'd have a picture of uh of Cravens Field. And actually, it looks a little different than that because most of that debris has been down and moved away at this point in time. And so with that said, I'll I'll open up to any questions tonight. >> Thank you, Mr. Horn. Are there trustees with comments

032or questions? Miss Fowler. >> Thank you, President Choa. Thank you, Mr. Horn. Okay, you mentioned about the hub, and you can't give us the numbers, but will the district still strive to use the >> to the best to the best of our ability, we will still continue to try to to try to encourage like local participation and and to but they the state's taken that designation away entirely. And so our contractors will no longer be able to to provide the numbers like they had before because the the designation's not recognized. >> But I do hope we'll continue to to use those businesses. >> Yeah, we we know those businesses well and and again local and and minority businesses that we can to the extent that we can. We'll continue to to strive to do that.

033>> Thank you, Miss Faler. Mr. Mike. >> Yes. Thank you, Miss Mr. Horn, for uh your presentation. Uh just to tack on to what you talked about the hub designation just from personal experience. Um in my business we were hub designated but we're also vet hub designated. >> Uh once that change came into law several hundred drug testing facilities kicked off. >> And so in the state of Texas there were only three designated drug testing facilities now in mine included. So that's how much of a significant impact >> right >> this this law has has changed with all the hubs designations. >> Yes sir. >> Thank you Mr. Mike. Are there any trustees with comments or questions? Okay. Seeing none. Thank you Mr. Horn. >> Yes sir. Thank you. >> Okay. That brings us to

034item D tonight. This is a follow-up report on our teacher retirement system active care. So trustees, we presented last to you in December. Uh Mr. Kale and Miss Danball were here. Uh and we promised you a followup on some questions that came up. One of the things that we don't want you to think is when we bring something to you and we say we don't have a recommendation at this time, it doesn't mean that the work doesn't happen behind the scenes. And so I'm going to turn it over to Scott and Holly and tell you a little bit more about the things that continue to happen as we explore these options for our teachers and staff across the district. Thank you, Dr. Smith. Good evening, President Chapa board members and Dr. Smith. We're we're very

035appreciative of having the opportunity to share this with you this evening. I wanted before we hit go on this first slide, I want to give you context of what we want to share with you tonight. We're all very aware that that this topic whether it be TRS active care or whether it be healthcare in general is a pretty involved um subject and we know that it's one that is also highly personal and affects people deeply not just in terms of their health care but in terms of their cost. And so what we're going to take you through tonight pretty quickly in in a few slides takes you through the history of where we've been in terms of of the initiatives uh that we've followed and the progress that we've made. And it's important I think

036to understand that foundation although it'll be brief. Uh what are the root causes of healthcare? Um, again, most of this will be a brief overview, but we're going to touch on that because until we really uh internalize what those things are and appreciate what they are, I'm not I'm not confident that we're going to be able to address them. And so, I'm hoping that uh we do an adequate job on sharing that with you. We're going to talk about market data and employer contributions uh particularly some differences between uh school districts, Arlington ISD included, as well as the private sector, and wondering why uh maybe some of those costs are so different and some of those premium contributions are different. We're going to show you a little bit about the work we've done behind the

037scenes to Dr. Smith's point a moment ago in doing a comparative over the last several months between um SWR and TRS active care and looking at options uh to model a different program within Arlington ISD should that opportunity present itself from a timing perspective to be the right thing to do. Uh we're going to talk a little bit about the option of on-site clinics and then how wellness plans contribute to what we're trying to do and what what their real value is and in our particular plans and then finally rolling that up into where it leaves us in this report with those primary options that are available to us to hopefully do something meaningful in the future to address this challenge which we all know is healthcare. So to go ahead and get started, uh

038I I covered this, but we're going to review those potential healthcare and wellness opportunities. We're going to cover that general overview that I I just shared with you. So from a history of advocacy and wellness efforts, um you know, AISD's advocated for flexibility to exit TRS due to active uh costs for some time. In fact, in 2019, we had the opportunity I also had the opportunity to testify in front of a House committee alongside TRS and um really share what our challenges and concerns were. And that was the beginning of starting to have some advocacy as well as some influence. And we that contributed to we believe a much deeper partnership than we'd ever had before. In fact, than most school districts had had before with TRS Active Care in trying to make progress on

039this this challenge we call healthcare. That ultimately evolved, it wasn't the bill we sponsored, but that ultimately evolved into Senate Bill 1444 allowing districts to opt out of TRS active care. Um, and then we launched in turn an employee wellness program in 2018. Our purpose in doing that, we'll talk as we go through this presentation, and I say this sometimes maybe too directly with my own staff, but if you don't get sick, you don't have to get well. And if you don't get sick, it doesn't cost anything to get well. And so, as as straightforward as that sounds, the reality is wellness is a big deal. not because it's some trendy thing to do, but because it's in the best interest of individuals and it's in the best interest of the collective cost of the

040plan. Um, we've we've gone more than just putting some website out there. Uh, we actually have wellness champions at every single one of our campuses and it really has has inculturated itself over the last several years to be more of a norm than something new um that people are are getting used to. And we focus now much more than we used to on prevention and healthier employees. And lots of research is out there to show that incentives improve engagement and outcomes. And our wellness program includes those incentives as well. We'll talk about maybe we expand those going forward. I'm going to let Holly Stanbar, our director of compensation, take over here for a minute and then I'll pick back up in a second. >> Thank you. So to continue with Scott's messaging, um we recognize

041that healthc care costs continue to rise every year and so this is a little bit of summary of what those root causes are. Um Gallagher Group provided us some resources that are marketwide data on rising healthcare trends. So I just want to share that it's not unique just to Arlington ISD. It's it's statewide and uh it's actually national as well. Um, we do have about 20 high-cost claimants, and those 20 high-cost claimants are $11 million of our $45 million uh claims. Um, we although we have $45 million in claims, we're taking in about $40 million in premiums. So, what that means is is what we're bringing in, we're costing about $5 million more than what we're bringing in. And right now, TRS is taking that cost. Um we are part of region 11 which is

042a um uh you know a high-risk high claims uh region and as part of that region um we see those rates continue to increase every year. So Arlington ISD is pulled with other districts and although we have um measures and efforts that we're trying to do to promote wellness and reduce claims um unless those other districts are also doing the same thing, it's going to make it challenging for us to see our regional rates uh lower. So we're we're focusing on us, but we certainly want our neighboring districts to also promote wellness as well, so we can see some of those premiums go down. Every year we see about a 10% increase in healthcare in our premiums and we've seen that pretty much the past several years. So we're anticipating that we'll see that again

043soon. Uh we're anticipating to get our rates in May. My understanding is that the TRS board uh is expecting to meet at the end of April. So we'll be looking for those rates and we'll communicate what those are to you um when we have those available. I can share that our claims have gone down. We recently did uh a new claims analysis and last year we were at 122%. And this year we're at 115%. Now that's not exactly where we want to be, but it does show that we're we're making efforts and we're we're seeing uh those claims go down. You know, this weekend we have the zoo run. We have several hundred of our employees that are actively involved in that. We're excited about that. We just did the traveling trophy where we um

044recognized uh some of our wellness champions for the efforts they're doing at their campus among lots of other things. So, I believe that those efforts that we're doing are paying off and you see that in our claims data. Ultimately, even though we're seeing those drop, we certainly want to get below 100% and we're advocating to the best of our ability with our employees, utilizing our wellness champs to get out there and have conversations at the campus and the department. Um this is a market comparative where we uh looked at private sector data and compared it to our um Arlington ISD data. Um but before I get into the private sector, I do want to share UEA sent out their recent comparison. They do that every year. And uh we add I always add in the

045wellness incentive to say with the wellness incentive, where would we be? And we would fall about uh 19. That does that would be for our hourly employees. and we we uh do a a slightly different contribution for our exempt, but it's not a big difference. Now, even though we're 19, I will share that uh Irving ISD is number one and they're contributing $56. Um so, there is some room for um improvement if we want to be more competitive in our contribution. Um on the left side of the image, you'll see uh year after year. Um on the top is the employees and at the bottom is the family. And you'll see that those increases um continue to go up every year due to these rising health care costs. But then you'll see subsequently that the

046employer share is staying on trend with the the rising cost of the employee. So the cost is going up for the employee and in the private sector they're continuing to keep that trend. So you'll see the employer share for the employee only has stayed about 83% even though those premiums are increasing. And then for family coverage, you'll see that um that employer share average is about 72% even with those premium increases. Arlington ISD um employee coverage is 63% in comparison to the private sector at 72. So that's not, you know, that's not too bad. We're fairly close into that coverage, but where we are behind is our family coverage. Uh we're at about 16% when you compare to the private sector and what we're contributing. If we wanted to compare with the private sector, you

047know, apples to apples, we would need to add about 12 and a half million per year to be competitive. Um, so our um our employee contributions aligned with the private sector. Now, understandably, that's, you know, a lot of money. So, we need to consider what we could reasonably do if we wanted to be more competitive in the market. >> All right, Scott. So the so the next two slides I'm going to hit one then Holly will hit the second one are intended to show the kinds of exploration that we've done to consider okay so what can we do different what what can we do to take initiatives of of our our current state to make things better and the first thing that we did was we went and actually talked with our neighbor across the

048parking lot they were they were extremely helpful and supportive in those conversations and it was over a number weeks um that we we had those conversations about if we went to a single system if if our and for anybody listening please don't believe that hey this is the decision that's made or this is where we're going. This is what we're trying to provide is evidence that we're exploring options not that we've made decisions because we want to understand what those options look like as we try very hard to to solve these issues. And in this in these conversations with Southwestern, the question was if we give you the economies of scale, if we were in fact an independent um carrier for Arlington ISD, if we were self-insured and we went just with your system, what

049would what would that mean in terms of cost breaks and cost efficiencies? And the long story short, there's a lot of information on that slide, but the long story short is because where our current ratio is of claims to premiums, it's not much better. Now, what happens over time when you have ultimate control over your own plan is you can put a lot of things in place that you might not be able to get in place when despite the best of intentions and efforts, a TRS is trying to serve hundreds of districts with hundreds of different interests and and varying different levels of receptivity to trying different things. When you run your own plan, you assume more risk financially. You also have a lot more control. So, the Southwestern Health Resources model that we talked

050about them with, I believe, starts to show payback after you've been in uh the system for three years. You start to see that return on investment. Obviously, we would like it to be faster that we'd like to be in a better position. So, we'll talk a bit more in a minute about how we go about getting our actual claims down so that we are more marketable, whether it be this model or whether it be any other model. And that magic number is to get below 100%. So what's that mean? What that means is we've got to stop spending more in claims than we're bringing in in premiums. And the way to do that is either you lower your claims, ideal, or you raise your premiums, which obviously they're already higher than most people can afford

051in many cases. So the wellness objective is intended to lower those. But this is one model. I think there's still some viability to it. Um, I just don't know that we're ready in terms of what our current claims ratios are. You heard Holly say a minute ago that we've seen progress dropping from 122 to 115. That's on the right trajectory. If we continue that trajectory, this will become more of a reality and an option should we want to pursue it. There's also other pros and cons, of course. So the next and and Holly's going to speak to this, but the next thing that we've looked at and saying, "Okay, what can we do different to serve our employees to also address costs is we looked at the details of what it would look like to

052implement a care clinic model." I'll let Holly speak to that. >> Yes, we've actually uh spoke with different clinics, but Care ATC is one of the models um that you see here. I will share too, we've actually done personal on-site visits at Denton ISD and Mosquite ISD's clinics to see how those operated um over the last year or so. Um we've had a lot of great feedback about those clinics. Um one of the good thing about clinics is it is an opportunity for employees to get access to care very quickly because it would be here locally. Um and when they get quick access to care, it helps overall um health and chronic condition management. when you get those under control then you see with this care ATC model there is return on investment but it

053does come with the cost. So care ATC is just again one example um of different models out there but there are some options that we could consider. Um but those those options do cost anywhere between two and a half million to $3 million per year. But um if we do it with fidelity then we certainly have an option to lower claims which could end up at a later time putting money back in our pocket or money back in our employees pockets by being able to reduce those overall premiums. So Scott mentioned that we've been looking at some ways or considering some ways to reduce our claims. You guys are familiar with our wellness program. We use Vitality and Vitality has different tiers and one of the tiers uh if an employee reaches it we give

054them an extra $51 uh per month which is $612 a year. We also pay over the statemandated minimum of $225. So for our um non-exempt employees, our hourly employees, we pay them um or they're we contribute $314 which is $89 above the statemandated contribution. And then if they participate in wellness, they get another $51. Now, one thing we're not doing today is requiring the biometric and requiring the health assessment. The health assessment just takes a few minutes, but it gives you a lot of good information about where you can improve. And you can use that information to go visit with your health care provider at the biometric to say, "Here are some areas that I need to improve." Um, and so one of the things we're considering is is requiring our employees to do the

055biometric and the health assessment. And if they do not, we're considering um saying, "Well, if you're not going to participate in that, we're we'll move you back down to the statemandated minimum in order to incentivize our employees to participate." Now, I will share with you, we do free on-site biometrics. Um we certainly would uh make a plan to make that more available to our employees as often as possible. We also provide wellness points is what we call them uh to towards the o overall points if they go see their own healthcare provider. um because we we're trying to incentivize them to go, but we do on-site biometrics here at the district for free. Um another thing that we're considering is adding an another tier. That other tier um we targeted that that it would be

056$189 per employee per month. Now, that tier is going to come with a lot more effort. Um they would have to use the biometrics and it let's let's say that it reports back that their cholesterol is high. Now, again, none of these come to us. All this is confidential, but we could they would work with their healthc care provider and they would say here's the things that you need to show improvement on that's reported back to our vitality. And when you see those those those um changes to their overall health, they get points for that. And the more points they get will put them into this next tier where they would be eligible to get not only the $51, not only the $89 that we're giving, but also the $189. So that contribution um is

057over it's $554 which would actually put us at the highest on the UEA rating um if if we had employees doing this right here. It also would be a claims reduction strategy which is really what we're trying to achieve having our employees um be well and uh this model right here is based on 2526 rates. Like I shared, we don't have 2627, but with this platinum tier at $189 with today's rates, we could have employees paying nothing per month just for participating in wellness under this model that we're considering. All right, turn it back to Scott. >> So, I'm I'm going to go ahead and summarize at this point. And to start that, I'm going to just put a a bow on on what Holly just said. That's a lot of information, a lot of

058details. I want to remind everybody that might be listening, we're not making these changes today. We're exploring options, but but the gist of what Holly was just sharing was wellness has been put into our culture now for some time. We're starting to see the value of it. We're starting to see the acceptance of it and we're hoping to elevate the wellness program at this point to have more influence and a little more leverage, a little more reward um when it comes to behaviors that keep people from getting sick in the first place. When you first start a program like that, you you're you don't want to go too fast. People are getting used to it. It's new and it's different. And we're at a stage now with it being inculturated where we'd like to take

059it to a next level. So, we're confident that the interaction between the employee and their doctor is truly taking action on those things that come back. It's not just about taking a biometrics exam. It's not just doing a healthcare questionnaire. It's about what that tells the doctor and some evidence that there's action without without crossing the line of sharing medical information with us. But we know that they're taking action to intervene in whatever may be one of the flags and that therefore they're they're really stopping whatever um illness might otherwise be uh forming with the individual. So that helps the person and obviously helps long-term cost. Most of the big ticket costs aren't things that happened because you got the bug last week. The big ticket costs are things that happen over time. They're heart

060disease. They're cancers. and they cost a lot of money aside from the human toil that goes with them. So, we know that we have to get involved early and we're hoping to to take steps with wellness that take that to a different level than it's at today. So, one of the things that TRS shared with us just in the last week or so is that they're actually um going down the path of strongly considering I don't believe it's formally approved yet, but strongly considering a pilot with it sounds like a target of two school districts in the state of Texas. Assuming they go forward, we have been told that we are likely to be one that would be invited of the two. What they're talking about from their pilot perspective and and this is more

061of an immediate could have an impact as we continue these other things in the background is that they're looking at different tiers of u of networks within the same plan that an employee has a choice of what that tier is uh in terms of uh the actual network and those networks have different costs. So hopefully that will give more opportunity to people within the same plan to make individual choices that work for them either more expansive choices in terms of providers for example or more limited choices with um lower cost. So I think it's exciting and I think it's a product of the partnership that we've we've uh put together with TRS Active Care over the last several years that uh they're willing to consider us as one of those two pilot districts. Um, and

062we'll see where that goes from here. Um, considering the affordability of market-based increase and district premium contribution, $12.5 million, a lot of money. Um, it wasn't intended to put up here to say it's, you know, it's we're just going to find those dollars and it's going to be fine. It was intended to shed light and be transparent with with all of us about where we're at. A lot of times we hear school districts, why why are premiums so high in school districts? The chart you saw earlier is is at least a good part of that answer. We contribute, not Arlington ISD per se, but school districts as a whole contribute at a different rate to their employees health care than does the private sector. And there's reasons for that and we're schools and we have

063different budgets and that's all true, but the end result is you either have to increase contributions or lower claims in order to get premiums to go down. and that that's a key factor and whatever progress we make toward that uh would be helpful. Uh we talked a lot already about the enhanced wellness incentive and adding um adding both a um carrot and a um accountability standard to our wellness from where it's at today. In other words, a little bit more of an incentive dollar-wise, but also a little bit more at risk above the contribution that's already made above the state minimum to say, for example, again, anybody watching, these decisions have not been made. We're only brainstorming. Um, but for example, to say, um, you might really actually have to be in wellness to be

064in our healthare plan or to get our contribution above the state minimum. I'm not saying there's not pros or cons to that, but we're looking for a way to incentivize people to really engage in this in this wellness initiative to lower um the incidence of of illness and the costs that go with them. And then developing on-site clinics. We know there as Holly mentioned that there are clinics um that have been successful. They they give more afford they give more access to their employees. Um illnesses gets get addressed more quickly. Uh, it also a little tidbit is many of you have probably seen um the uh emergency dock in a box type places. The ones that actually say emergency room on them um you recognize I would assume that those are not full-blown emergency rooms

065but they bill very close to it. So, if you have the flu and you think you're going to a a a provider that is that is just, you know, a general doctor, but in reality it says emergency room. From a cost structure, it's very similar to going to any of our hospitals emergency rooms from a billing perspective. Most of our employees don't know that. And not only do they get hit with the respective um employee cost of going to an emergency room after the fact, but the the the system and the plan gets hit with it as well. And so having something like an on-site clinic not only would would give more immediate access to care, it would solve problems like that to give employees really real options at a very different cost structure. And

066then finally, if you roll all those things up, start to make some progress, whether it be in a contribution with with a modified pilot with TRS, whether it be some version of of an on-site clinic, of which there are multiple different ways to do that, whether it be a partnership um with THR Next Door, any combination of those things, including pushing really hard at taking wellness to a different level with incentives and accountabilities from where it's been in the cost can get us to a lower claims ratio to our premiums. And once we get start getting below 100%, we become marketable and we become much more in control of our own destiny and our own outcomes to get the health care plan we want at the cost we want. So I appreciate your time and

067and uh the opportunity to be here. Thank you for that. And we're happy to take any questions you may have. >> All right, Mr. Kell, Miss Stambbot, thank you. Trustees with comments or questions? We'll go first to Mr. Mike. >> Thank you uh Mr. Kell and um Miss Stanbeck. Very thorough presentation uh to see the effort that you all put into this uh and background. This is really really good presentation. I do have um a few questions. Uh I think it's it's eye opening to see that there are 20 highcost cases um that cost the district $11 million. Do you foresee that that is going to be a continuing trend or do you see that maybe some of those costs will go down? >> I think it's a great great question. the the high-cost claims

068throughout my career, whether it be here in this role at the school district or in other HR director and senior leader roles I've been in other organization, it is very consistent that there's a small number of cases that consume the majority of your costs and they're almost always related to um illnesses that occurred over time like the cancers and the and the um uh heart conditions and so forth. I don't think it's an anomaly. I think the only way to get to it is to get to the root cause of those things that contribute to those conditions. And it it's really hard to to get the organiz and I don't mean our our school district, but any organization's momentum toward that because the return on investment really comes years later. The things we'd intervene in

069today would probably start a stop a heart attack or a cancer 10 12 years from now. Um and so but it doesn't mean we can't start chipping away. But I don't think it's an anomaly. I think that is typical. >> And then um just going to slide seven that the clinic model which I really am impressed with. Um I see the one to one ROI. Is that one to one RORI just for the clinic model or is that one one for the entire I guess concept when we're talking about wellness and and everything? This right here is just for the clinic model, but I certainly believe that it would marry against what we're doing overall. And so doing the wellness program that we have, whether it's enhanced or not, married with this, I think both

070together could really make a a big improvement. >> Yeah, I agree. I totally agree. And then as far as the options, you've got four different options and then you've got the cost estimate. Um, does the cost estimate cover I guess if you pick option one then that cost estimate will still be the same no matter which option you you chose. >> So it's a blend of the four. So depending on the option one of the one or two of the options is a little bit less. They didn't break down exactly which option was the 2 and a.5 million versus the three. But we could plan design it however we however we want. But they did say in most these cases here they'll run anywhere between two and a half million and three million per year.

071And then I would assume that the employees and their family members who use these clinics, they would pay and we'd have a break even point. >> There is a way to do that where the the rates reduced for the employee um and and certainly you can add spouse and children as well um to that model as well and they can set lower rates which then bring you know lowers those those premiums that were that are being paid versus the claims coming in. Um, and so it's it's really it's really planned designed and we certainly can look at this model and there's other models out there as well based on what fits the need for Arlington ISD. >> Okay. >> Um, there was one more. Oh yes, on on slide nine, the pilot the pilot program.

072So I know um everything that you all have presented tonight, we're just researching, talking, doing all that. uh do we have any idea on when or how likely this pilot program would come online? >> So the information I've that's been shared with me is that it is it is very imminent. Um I'm trying to to to let TRS lead in this. I I know they have to go to their board. They may or may not have done that at this point uh for approval. Um, and when it gets firmed up and hopefully approved, uh, I'm confident I will get a phone call very quickly. >> And, and then do you anticipate, um, I know I've got all these questions, right? >> U, do you anticipate, u, if that call comes that you're going to put

073together some type of this strategy with the wellness and clinic? I mean, do you anticipate that's what you're going to do? >> Right. So if the if the if the opportunity comes to fruition with a pilot with TRS, there is absolutely no reason that it can't also be complemented by these other other things. I think the timing of hearing this still gives the opportunity that it could be implemented with open enrollment this coming summer, but I have to let them lead on that because it's obviously their their initiative. But we have no intent of just walking away from everything else. Uh, I think the the objective is to put as many um as many pieces of leverage against this problem as possible to try and make better progress than we've made in the past. >>

074Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> Thank you, Mr. Mike. We'll go next to Miss Feller. >> President Choa, thank you both for this presentation. I am very much in favor of a district care clinic. I think that's really something we need to focus on. I think our employees would appreciate it and it's a way to maybe bring down cost. You mentioned about, you know, the the smaller emergency rooms that people don't realize it's emergency rooms. Is there a way because the the the smaller emergency room is not going to tell them, do you realize we're going to charge you emergency room prices? Is there a way that we could flag an insurance card that would make the people say, you realize this is the same as an emergency room? Is there anything that we could

075do on that to alert our employees? >> It's a really good question. The uh the answer is never going to be no. There's always something we can do that that's that's more informative and helpful than what we're doing today because it is a problem. >> I think uh some whatever version of marketing campaign there's an opportunity to do some version of a marketing campaign of awareness. I completely agree with that. I don't know if it's a card or if it's something else. Um but the point is well taken. maybe a list of available places, you know, and they have to go to they have to go to one of those, not these emergency room places. >> I I do want to share share something that I think is of value. We partnered with communications uh

076in the fall and we sent out a memo. I think it went out in the December where we talked about this. Um and coincidentally, when we looked at the claims data, December was one of the lowest claims months. uh it was like in the low 80s and I was quite surprised because that's typically when people go to the doctor. I can't say with with all with all certainty that that strategy worked but I think the strategies that we're doing are showing that our employees are paying attention. So I think that we can continue to market that information um knowing that that happened and we can continue to look at the data to see if it supports you know the communicating more and putting that out to our employees and um teaching them and you know

077guiding them in the right direction. Maybe there could be a a way to log in because everyone uses their phone for everything and either an app or a login that takes them right to that information and then they could look and see the available places. >> Some some of the those are great ideas. Some of the challenges are at the moment we're in a TRS sponsored plan at whatever point if we chose to be in a self-insured plan it was all ours. So, I think we can still market, we can still remind people, by the way, your your cost and your premiums to go to this location, that location is much higher, and that can supplement what TRS already does. Um, whatever we do has to supplement it, though, versus necessarily being inside the TRS

078active care system. Um, they they've been very receptive though. I have to give them a lot of credit. They they have been listening and they have been trying very hard. They just are trying to serve the interests of multiple school districts. So, we're looking for those things that complement. Um, but we will absolutely continue to brainstorm of what we can do to better inform our our employees. >> Good. Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Thank you, Miss Fowler, Miss McMarrow. >> Thank you, Mr. Kale and Miss Stanvall. Um, I know that all of these strategies um we are we are very much just exploring, but I I want to echo what's already been said and go ahead and say that my favorite strategy on here is absolutely the employee clinic. I think that the return

079on investment would absolutely be sustainable because that's what I'm trying to think of is what can be sustainable as all of these strategies make an effort for us to take care of our employees. I think that the wellness clinic itself would provide for that that health measure that we have to my knowledge not not capitalized on as a school district yet and for a district of our size. Um especially given that a lot of our employees when I ask like hey why don't you participate in the wellness plan um a lot of them just say I'm just so busy and I got to do paperwork and I have to keep up with this and um you know actually when I was employee here I was in the same boat. I never did tap into the

080wellness plan even though everything was clearly there. I could have I could have done it. We have a lot of our employees that just don't. Um, one question that I had for you guys as we um, look at putting together um, in the near future our next legislative agenda. I know that our 2025 legislative agenda, we had um, a goal to continue to increase access to affordable health insurance options for public school employees. Are there any specific um asks beyond that that you guys feel as though we should articulate going into the 90th legislative session? >> You asked my favorite question. Thank you. Um it's short answer. Um and it's it's a it's a difficult ask. But the it would be it would be gamechanging for the state to fund school district health care to

081the same degree that it funds the the health care system that other state workers >> that other state is it ERS >> um are are a beneficiary of it is very different now some of it some of it so that full disclosure and we're being fair there different risk pools between those two the populations. There are elements like that that do differentiate the cost. >> Yeah. >> Um but additional funding for health care to get us more um competitive with the rest of the market dismissing the difference because it's private sector is not is not value added. It's still real. employees can choose to go lots of places including teachers, >> right? >> And we are not funded for health care um comparatively to where other state employees are and it would be really helpful

082to put some some spotlights on that. >> Yeah. >> And to really ask for some consideration >> that's spot on. And in our conversations with with legislators, the question has always been, why can't teachers and school district employees be um protected in their in their healthcare just as other government employees around the state are? No one's ever been able to answer that question because there is no answer. There is no answer. And yet, not one bill, to my knowledge, was filed last session to to do this. So, thank you. and I I hope that that is a direction that we take when we build our next legislative agenda. Um and I I really appreciate y'all bringing these great strategies to us tonight. Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss McMarrow. Mr.

083Will Banks. >> Thank you, President Chapa. And to piggyback on what um Mr. Kell and and the question um comments Miss McMarrow just made is I would absolutely be in favor of us um putting this front and center in our legislative agenda given the interim charge and um I think there's going to be you know if it makes sense given the hearings that are going to come up in June and August on the interim charges of both the House and the Senate if it makes sense to go down and testify on this very issue to bring it front and center to our legislators across the state. >> Thank you, Mr. Wanks. Any other comments or questions from trustees? >> I do have a couple Mr. Kale on to Mr. Mike's point about the case the

084high use cases. So, it looks like it's about 25% of our spend. are and I know you said that that's not an anomaly across organizations, but has has anyone figured out a way to mitigate that effect of of the high-cost cases? Is there any any tool available to do that? >> Yes, highly leveraged and le I'm using that word politely, right? but leveraged in terms of of incentives and disincentives from a cost perspective to fully engage in wellness. Yes, 100% makes a difference. Okay. And then I had a question on the So on the summary slide, we've got a lot of different options. My guess is that the ultimate is going to be that we do some combination of all of these things. >> Yes. On the developing on-site clinics, we're estimating potentially a spend

085of three million a year. Some of these have other additional costs to add on to that amount. What what amount do we have any idea of like what spending money will do to save us money by implementing these things? Because right now, I think it looks like the delta on our cost to spend or um claims to is we got 45 million and we brought in 40 million in premiums. So that's a $5 million delta. Do we think that engaging in spending more than say $5 million is going to save us save us more than $5 million? >> My my objective I I wish I had a balance sheet to show you. I just don't have that that computation in front of me, but my objective is to spend money on things that I believe

086are going to reduce claims because if I can reduce, it's almost like a road map. If I can reduce claims, I don't want people who are sick not going to the doctor. If you're sick, if you if you need a doctor, if you need care, you should go. Please, I hope no one takes that message otherwise. However, anything we can do, whether it be wellness, whether it be uh a care clinic for accessibility, anything we we can do that will reduce claims cost, which we will closely analyze before we make a final recommendation of what we think is is the best interest of of the options we've given you, has got to be targeted reducing that because on that road map I referenced, if we can reduce the claims and get below 100% claims to

087premium ratio, we just became an enviable book of business for all sorts of alternatives. whether it be self-insured or otherwise. And so, while I don't I I admittedly do not have the the formula to directly answer the question, I can assure you that when we make a final recommendation, it will come with that and it will come with the target of having a direct impact to reduce claims so we can get toward that outcome of having more control over our own plan and all the elements that go into that plan in terms of choices and size of network and the costs that are associated with it. Okay. And then on this last bullet point here, potentially pursue a transition to self-funded plan once claims ratios reach 95% or below. Are you aware of any school

088districts that that have reached that threshold? >> I am not aware of any school districts that have reached that threshold. I have complete confidence we can reach that threshold if we do some of the things that we talked about. >> Okay. Well, the TRS active care pilot program sounds pretty intriguing. I I hope that that to learn more about that. I mean it it once upon a time um you know public sector work was it was maybe not the best pay but like you made up for it in a lot of ways with great benefits and over time I think that's been significantly eroded in education so hopefully that's something that that comes through fruition. Um if there are no further comments or questions from trustees then that's it. Thank you Mr. Kale. >> Thank

089you for time. >> That brings us to our last report tonight. Uh this is a key progress measures report on campuses in need of improvement. Dr. Smith >> Dr. Champions on his way. As we told you all, we would be bringing you this on a monthly basis just to specifically talk about the key progress measure that we're working on to address some of our campuses that are um struggling with some accountability ratings. And he has a couple of amazing principles here this evening that are going to share their work as well. >> President Choa, board of trustees, and Dr. Smith, it's my pleasure tonight to expand on our conversation we had at the last board meeting where we took a took a look at some of our student results and then are bringing forward the

090question, what about our schools that were rated a D or an F and have have they made gains? What does that look like? And so tonight, we're going to be focusing on that key progress measure and hearing directly from a couple of outstanding uh campus leaders. So tonight we're going to take start with taking that benchmark data that we looked at for the whole district last time and look specifically at our DNF campuses. But before we get to that data, I want you to take a look at this slide. This slide, the gray bars show um our campuses that were rated D or F in the star accountability ratings in 2025. And then the dark blue color is what their most recent benchmarks benchmark um score resulted in. And what you want obviously is things

091to shift to the right. And that's exactly what what you see here. The the majority of of campuses that were Fs shifted to at least a D, maybe even better in some cases. Um and D's move to C's and B's. And so progress is being made. Another way to slice and dice this data is this dot chart. I want to thank our friends at research and accountability for putting this together for us. Um it takes a look at our schools and and if they grew or if they stayed the same or if they went backwards. So going backwards is that pinkish color toward the toward the bottom. Um I've been told that's salmon. Um, so the salmon colors you see those those are those two schools that were that were rated uh F or D

092um they actually went backwards slightly. The three dots right on the zero on the on that x- axis, those are three schools that that their ratings didn't change. They that data didn't change. All those teal dots that show a flow kind of heading upward. Again, that's that's the direction you want to see. they those are all campuses that made progress. So, one of the questions that a trustee asked was, "Are we making progress? Are the things we're doing showing progress?" And the answer is definitively yes. As a matter of fact, there's one dot that's way up there um in that far right hand corner um that's Blandon um with their uh remarkable results that they that they got on the most recent benchmark scores. So, we had a trustee at the last meeting, trustee Will

093Banks, asked specifically about closing the gaps. And so, we have some data here that takes a look at that question specifically for our schools that um were rated D or F in the 2025 accountability system. Um, and so this this chart takes a look at at scores from 2024 star. That's intentional, not 2025 because closing gaps takes a little bit of time. Um it's also a year after the shift um in STAR took place. And what's happened? And so as you take a look at those at the data from 2024 star to 2026 benchmark um where did we see movement? Where did we move backwards a little bit? And where did we see see movement forward? The darker the red the the larger the gap. The darker the green the the the larger the increase.

094And so, um, you see some like again bottom bottom right, um, the last row shows former special education in the M's section actually grew 12 percentage points. Started at nine, but still grew 12 percentage points. Overall, a lot of good growth. American Indian makes up about 4% of our student population. Pacific Islander makes up about 2% of our population. So just a handful of kids in those in those areas obviously make a dramatic difference one way or the other. This is this happens to be math. The next chart is the same data but for reading. And again you see a lot of green frankly on this on this chart. Again the question is are we making progress? Are we seeing positive movement? The answer is yes we we are. Another thing I know we know

095that trustees are always interested in is so what exactly are campuses doing? And so I am honored to have two of our principles uh Lisia from Thornton and Aaron from Workman to talk very specifically about what they're doing on their campuses. And I'm going to turn it over uh we're going to start with Thornon. Alicia. Thank you, Dr. Champion, uh, President Chapa, Dr. Smith, and trustees. Um, I'm humbled to be here because when we talk about accountability, coming to share about what's going great at our schools, um, is something that that uh, I value and that I thank. So, I appreciate the time to be able to share about the highlights. So, I want to start first with uh, one of our drivers, our campus improvement uh, drivers. And so while there's many many things

096going on great at Thornton that are helping with uh improvement, these are the three that that are making the most impact. And so the first one here is a clear focus on goals. And the two uh items that you see here are student trackers and uh teacher trackers. And some of these pictures actually go along with uh with several of those um drivers. So Christian, for example, one of the students there, um has a tracker on imagine math. And so one of our um the things that we're working on are wildly important goals. And so thanks to the district and some of the professional learning that we've been getting, we're focusing on wildly important goals. And so that starts from the top. And we have one for reading, we have one for math, and from

097there it funnels down to what the teacher goals are and then to the student goals. And as you can see here, we're focusing on student goals and tracking their growth. And so you also see another one there that also tracks their progress by the unit assessments. And so uh teachers are having data conferences with the students. They're discussing their growth. Uh and then from there that affects tier one instruction because then that's when teachers adjust what they need to do for their tier one instruction. And then the small group instruction. And so hence the third picture there as well um with with the teacher small group instruction. Um the the second driver for our campus uh is one that's dear to my heart because of the community that we serve. And so we have best

098practices for EB students, our emerging bilingual students. And so um 75% of our students are English language learners, EB students, emerging bilingual Spanishspeaking students. And so thanks to the partnership that we have with world languages and um see uh the curriculum and instruction team, we are able to deliver some uh professional development that is systematic. And so that's important. Uh and as far as uh feedback uh we thank you because if we didn't have the professional learning that's systematic that support from the district then some of the these um things would not be able to happen. And so we are a campus of oneway dual language and we have that from prek through um third grade and we're adding fourth grade next year. And so we are also a CBLI campus contentbased language instruction. And

099so that can go for any EB student whether they speak Spanish or not. And so the strategies that are uh embedded in the one-way dual language in the CBLI are all strategies that are good for for any student, but it but but especially important to our EB students. And so while I know we have the big three that we focus on and the productive struggle, CBLI and one way dual language, but particularly CBLI does focus on that because um one of the strategies is systematic reading and writing um activities. And so for EB students, being able to speak in front of others in in front of their peers with their peers and reading is very important because there's also a cultural piece to working with our EB students. And so um that helps with that

100productive struggle and being engaged in academic discourse for our students. um we partner again with world languages with that and um again that helps our students be able to to um articulate what they're learning in reading and writing activities. Um the third driver for our campus is systematic support for our teachers and students. And so for our campus our size and with the 75% of our EB students uh that's very important. Uh so for our teachers we have instructional coaches that help support uh our teachers. We have the partnership with world languages and so they come uh to um coach our teachers as well. And so when I say systematic we started the training at the beginning of the year and so planning was well in advance before school started. So we planned at the

101beginning of the year delivered instruction. the world languages department provided the materials for the teachers and then they came back observed our teachers provided feedback uh met with the leadership team and then said okay you know how where do you fit in as far as following up on the support and so it it uh that has been going on all year same thing with CBLI and so I'm hoping that there's a plan for the CBLI um year two because year one is a pilot has been very very successful um we systematic support for teachers. We also have thanks to um school improvement an instructional facilitator that's been assigned to our campus. And so with having that extra person support us that's helping us as well. Um and then for um teachers as well, we have

102the Bailey coaches. And so we have a consulting firm that from thanks to school improvement and and the district that we have additional coaching support for our teachers. And so right now because it's reading uh and math science boot camp for STAR right now even the Bailey coaches are sitting down doing small groupoup support to be able to to help close the gaps. And so Bailey group has been very very supportive in doing coaching but as well doing small group instruction because um we can have a lot of coaching support but we our kids need a lot of help as well. As far as support for our students, we have uh student support interventionists that are integral to the growth of our students. And so while at the very beginning of the year this was

103a pull out uh program, it is now a pushin for teachers because um of the star boot camp. And so we um we've been able to redirect our resources. And and the third picture that you see there um is one of our fifth grade teachers with small groupoup instruction. And behind one of the smiley faces is actually another adult in there. And so several of our classes do have two adults in there to be able to provide additional small groupoup instruction. And so um uh we have the student support interventionist, the Bailey group doing small groupoup instruction. We have um teachers that are supporting as well support staff uh that are helping to to to support with the small group instruction as well. And so, um, those are three of the the big things that

104that is driving the improvement. I'm happy to say that for CA1 and for Benchmark that we've made growth. Um, it is it's it's one letter growth and we want to have two and and that's our goal. >> Thank you, Alicia Rodriguez. It is next up we have Dr. Erin Fogleman to talk a bit about Workman Junior High. >> Thank you, Dr. Champion. Good evening. Thank you all so much for giving me a few minutes just to talk about the great work we're doing at Workman. Uh we're really excited. We're digging in. We're locking in and trying to make everything happen for our kids. Uh first and foremost, it's really important that we all know and remember that every single kid matters. every kid that walks through our door, no matter of the day they enter,

105could be yesterday, doesn't matter. We're going to pull out all the stops for them. Um, we're focusing here since spring break. Um, all of our tested subjects are focused in our boot camps. And those boot camps for the wide swath are looking at our highest leverage TIEs. The highest lever TESS are things that we know that longitudinal data has shown us and current data shows us these are areas that our students truly struggle with. They're the hardest concepts. And if we get to um small groups, station work, get make sure kids are engaged, then we know that we're going to help show those growth. The other more important granular work that we're doing is focusing on domain three. And domain three is closing the gaps. Um we've worked closely with research and accountability. uh the

106team uh Natalie and Travis have been amazing at coming to our campus and really teaching us and making sure we're understanding you know what exactly does it look like to look at each individual student and so what we've done as a team is we have pulled list of students for each teacher um our tested subject teachers and our teachers are able to now see the story of a student um in domain three these are students that maybe were meets and masters and from last year's star to this year's benchmark uh regressed. It might be students that are at the high approaches level and are just a couple questions or three questions away from getting to meets. And the reason why we're focused on meets is because when a student can hit the meats level, then

107we know that they have met grade level and they have a higher potential of being successful in the next school year. And we don't want our work to just be about right now. We want our work to be about about the future as well. Um some of the teacher moves that they're making are um for example our math teachers. They have most most recently the last couple weeks are pulling small groups of students from their domain three lists to provide uh targeted instruction on areas that are specific to their needs um on on that student's level. and um our other teachers are um using the power zone. We focused this year on fundamental 5 which is the how in teaching. It's helping teachers get to the art of teaching and living in that power zone

108allows our teachers to have multiple touch points with kids. And sometimes all it takes for our kids that regress from meats to high approaches or masters to meets is just that knowing that the teacher sees them, knowing that the teacher um appreciates them and wants to keep helping them work through their uh productive struggle and all the things that Alicia was saying. Um most importantly, it's also we have to know that at workmen and as well as other schools too, it's not just our tested teachers that have the burden on their shoulders. It's all of us. Um, so our counselors have stepped up to the plate and are having one-on-one regression conversations. Uh, we pulled lists for them that shows them who has regressed in math from STAR to benchmark, who has regressed in reading

109and a specific list of who's regressed in both of those subjects. Um, and these organic conversations have actually been pretty um, informative. They have had the opportunity to work with them on test anxiety. They've had the opportunity to help them understand that, hey, when you get that score report, your name is on that paper. That score means something. Um, and what are you going to do about it? Are you going to just allow this opportunity to pass you or are you going to grab the bull by the horns and you're going to try your best and you're going to lock in every single day when you're in that classroom? And so that those fruitful conversations what we have seen in the classroom um and we did classroom walks today Dr. Dala and I and what

110we saw was kids are engaged in the work behavior is better at Workman. The halls are clearer. Kids are sitting in their classrooms. They're working with their teachers. They're working with each other. We still have so much growth to do. We're not going to be happy until we get an A, right? Um but we know that it takes all of this. um just digging in and everybody doing their part. Another area that uh our teachers um reminded me this year, they're like, "Hey, don't forget about those uh you are a superstar cards." Um but our tested subject teachers in tier one classrooms are writing handwritten notes, encouragement cards that are titled you are a superstar. And these are just authentic words from the teacher's heart that tells kids, "Hey, we see you. We know that

111you've worked hard. You've got what it takes. and you're going to make it happen. And so we believe in you. You know, whatever they want to say, but it's that personal message to show kids we love them. Um, and you know, the all of this work that we're talking about tonight is data driven. It's strategic. It's academic. We know what instruction is. That's why our kids are at school. But it also is important for us to illuminate the culture work that this is. Um, kids are feeling important. Kids are feeling valued. Um it's sort of the when you think of the big jar of and you put the big rocks in, right? That's the high leverage tees. Then you start putting in the little rocks and that's the domain three work and that sand that

112granular work that tiny work um is that culture work. And just to kind of top it off and this is um kind of touches my heart and I get a little sensitive about stuff like this. But one of my teachers, our orchestra director, emailed me a couple weeks ago, couple our admin staff, and he said, "Hey, I just want y'all to know that what you're doing is working." Because I overheard a sorry, I overheard a group of girls talking about, "Hey, we're going to do this. We're going to make workmen a C. We're going to lock in and we're trying our best and we're going to encourage each other." And it's just, you know, it it's rewarding to know that our kids feel it and the work we're doing matters. And so, thank you for

113the support you've given us through the PL um leader and me um fundamental 5 allowing us to bring experts into our building to help us um have those tools that we need to really help our kids. And so you're going to see great things coming from Workman. >> As you see board, we talk about the fact that our that A3F matters and accountability matters, but at the end of the day, it's about every student mattering. Um, which is what these two principles do an outstanding job every day at their school. Um, Dr. Smith always reminds us how we do business is as important as the business itself. Um, and so thank you for allowing us the chance to share with you a little bit about what's going on. What questions do you have for us?

114>> Okay, open up for questions, comments from trustees. We'll go first to Miss McMarrow. >> Thank you, Dr. Champion, Miss Rodriguez, and Dr. Fogman. I'll be really brief. I just want to say thank you. I know that um we can call it a tip or a tap and you guys get a lot of district level supports and some some even outside of the district like the Bailey Education Group, but everything that you guys are um sharing about what's happening on your campus this year is also very much a testament to you and your leadership and the mindset that you bestowed amongst everyone who comes in and out of your campuses. And I'm sure that families feel it too. So, I just want to say thank you for sharing your story and for modeling that mindset

115and that that will to learn and lead every single day. Um, as a board, we see it and we we would just want to acknowledge it and we're rooting you on. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss McMo, Miss Richardson. >> Mine is in the same train of thought as well. I have a question for both of you as principles if you don't mind just for a second stepping up and answering being put on the spot. As trustees we often have to stay at the governance level of this and so your reporting we get to hear it. Is there anything that you can think of top of mind that we can do to help you in this process? Is there something that besides just sitting here that we could to do for you to help? you

116go ahead because this is a hard question for me. >> I um over the years um I've been with the district for a long time so I know that this year there has been a tremendous uh effort from the district from the senior staff to from Dr. Smith to listen. So, I've had conversations where they come and sit down. There's no agenda and it's about listening. Um, we know we have a lot of work to do. We know it, but they remind us that um that there, you know, that there's more than a rating. We know it's important. And so, the listening piece is super important to us. um everybody that comes into our school to walk the hallways into the classrooms validating the things that are going on. We stopped Dr. Smith at one

117of the um so we talked about imagine math but there are many celebrations there's so much to say um the three to six minutes here does not do justice to to what we really want to say and then you know I'm thinking oh I could have said that as well >> um but Dr. Smith when you when we stopped at one of the areas where students you like you you you asked what are what are these students here and what do these numbers represent? It's the celebrations of our students and and so walking the hallways, listening to us, um researching because somebody decided to do a research on um or a study on the schools and and the um opportunity to learn index. That to me was a huge validation. While I knew our campus

118was one of the neediest campus, to hear it from Dr. Smith, to hear it from the senior staff, you know, um, validated that, oh, okay, they know and now there's action behind this the the study. And so I can see that that there's money now uh staffing considerations, funding considerations to support our campuses and and and I can see it uh very very clearly and I appreciate that. >> It makes you feel seen. >> I don't know how I can do better than that with an answer. Um I'll just add that um yes have I had a walk-in talk with Dr. Collins just the other day. Um Dr. Smith was on my campus just the other day other day and walked with my dean and it makes you feel like you're part of this that

119you're not alone in the work. Um that you have the support and and honestly not to put you on the spot but you can walk through the door of workman any day you want to and we can go walk some classrooms so you can see it. Um I know that might sound crazy but it's an open invitation because you two are doing the work and supporting us. >> I don't think that sounds crazy at all. I I think actually what we are told though is we are not able to walk in anytime. Apparently we make people apparently we make people nervous when we just show up >> but we will but we will organize a time to come see you. One of the things I was thinking about is you talked about it was your

120very last point that you did talking about the you are a superstar encouragement cards >> if maybe there would be an opportunity where you could drop some of those cards off to the district office and they could come to us and let us write some of those cards and maybe it doesn't go to the students. Maybe we could surprise some teachers >> who are having the test done that day and let us write words of encouragement to them. But let us be a part of that process besides just sitting here and hearing your results, but be a part and make sure that we are encouraging in the right way and making sure that they know that we care as well. >> I love that. Yes. >> One one thing that I would ask is continue

121to think outside the box >> for campuses that have high needs. you know, what what are we we can always rely on the traditional methods. Um, but what else can we do that's non-traditional that helps make a difference because our our kids do need more than just straight up tier one instruction and and some encouragement. So, >> so yeah, >> thank you. >> Other trustees with comments or questions? So, I just I think you answered the question that I was going to ask, which is, do you feel like you have the resources you need to continue improving the way that you're improving? And I'm seeing you say that that you do. Um, if we can go to the slide that has it's the one with the bar chart. I think it's slide five. And then

122I'm also going to roll over to slide six. I just want to make a couple couple just general quick points. Um this is massive improvement that you see here that the reduction in the number the projected reduction in number of of F campuses from 9 to one is is incredible. Um you know we've we've talked about the trajectory of how this has gone many times and how in 2022 I think the whole district we had four or five campuses under a C and then in one year we went to I think it was 34. Is that is that right? 34. And so in a very short amount of time, we have whittleled that down substantially. I'm not not great at math, but this is, you know, on the magnitude of by twothirds uh in essentially

123two years projected to do that. And if we go to the the one with the salmon dots, >> um the point I want to make here and and I think we heard from from doc, you know, Dr. Fogleman, Mr. is that the the work that you're doing that is necessary for the students. You know, I grew up right by Thornton. My wife went to Workman. Um that part, you know, we have students with very significant needs and it's very resource intensive to get them to the place where they can compete with students who come from more affluent backgrounds. And that's just a fact. And we we have been working on this a long time, but it is a re resource inensive thing. And we're very fortunate that that in this district six years ago, we

124passed a VAT which freed up significant amount of money for us to spend on staff resources. We I know we have grants and other things like that, but this is this is why we need the the funding that we do because it's not something that you can do on the cheap to get this level of improvement um in in a place that that is very hard to to do to do that. You you have to have the resources. And I would say every spring um just a general observation every spring it seems like we have folks um who come out of the woodwork who are who are semi AISD or education experts to tell us all the things that we've done wrong and and and what we should be doing who are there and how

125things are failing and we're not you know doing whatever and I think this shows this chart shows very well um if anybody had the silver bullet we would all be using it but we're all working very hard to improve our academic IC outcomes here and I think this chart shows that it's it is working. we have whittleled the number of very unexpected jump from a handful to 50% of our campuses a DRF in one year but since then we've continued we've brought them down and we've continued to do that and show improvement and so I'm very hope I'm very hopeful that this benchmark uh data is indicative of the results that we'll see later this year um because by these metrics um the vast majority of our underperforming campuses are showing significant improvement and that's

126very important to to note and It's through the hard work of of people like y'all. And so, thank you all for the presentation. And I know Dr. Smith has something he'd like to say. >> Trustees, I want to say a thank you to you all. One of the things that Alicia mentioned was the campus needs index and the work that we had done. And when we entered that and that was one of our key progress measures that year, I I mentioned to you all that that is that is different than what we had done before. And I appreciate the support to do that because you hear the results of what it means to allow us to do those things. And it does mean shifting resources and allocations. And it does mean having some tough conversations

127sometimes when not everybody gets the same thing. Why? Because our kids might need different things. And so I appreciate your um willingness to trust us to make those steps because we're seeing some of these things pay off. I want to tell you two quick stories about these two um leaders that are sitting in front of you and that were at the podium tonight because I think it talks it speaks to culture that we're trying to create. I was walking with Alicia Thornton and we're talking about as she mentioned some of the great things that we're seeing and we're in classrooms and and seeing progress for her students and one of the questions I always ask our principles when I walk around with them is what can I do to best support you? And one of

128her comments is you know what I need? I need to be able to have an after-school program for Thornton. Why? Because we need to keep going on this and we need to keep pushing forward on this. So this idea that the work is never done, that there's a culture of high expectations with a high culture of support, Alicia models that pushes for that for her own campus. And I think that is a testament to her Alicia and her leadership. And uh Aaron is uh was one of the first visits that I did when I joined Arlington ISD when Aaron was a brand new principal at Workman Junior High School. And we had some very interesting things going on at Workman that year. And we walked the halls and I remember talking very clearly to Aaron

129about all of the things that she was working on. And there were some big things. and we um as we walk her campus and I did walk recently with her dean and not Aaron and Aaron lets me know often when I don't when I haven't been there. So um but I did walk recently with her dean and not Aaron and I can tell you the drastic difference in the things that I'm seeing at Workman Junior High is significant. like it is clear as day that we have made extreme growth in student behaviors and a culture of learning at Workman Junior High School. Yeah, she said it. We have big work left to do and we all know that. But I wanted to make sure that I told some stories about these two because I think

130they model the culture that we want to see from our leaders and our employees in the system that it is entirely okay to challenge things and to push things hard and support at the same time because we can do we can do hard work together if we support each other well. And these two are modeling that on a daily basis. So I wanted to very publicly thank them for the work that they're doing. >> Thank you Dr. Smith, Dr. Champion. Thank you all for being here. Thank you. >> Okay, that brings us uh to the close of our report section tonight. We're moving on to action items. We have three tonight. Action item A is consider the approval of an exemption claim for Texas Senate Bill 546 on required reporting on school bus seat belt

131compliance. Dr. Smith, trustees, this is another one of the legislative changes that happened that have implications for a school district. As you all know, there were more bills passed this last legislative session that had consequences for school districts, both positive and negative, than we've ever had before. And this is one of those. It is a tricky conversation to have. Everybody knows that there are um seat belt things that we we want to do. And everybody knows that there's costs associated with that. And Michael is going to walk you through what this Senate bill requires and what decision we have to make this evening for an action item. >> All right. So, thank you Dr. Smith for tearing that up. And it I tell you, it's really hard to follow a academic conversation like that with

132a compliance conversation like this, but you know, thus compliance. So, we'll get right into it. Uh, Senate Bill 546, reporting of school seat belts. And I've got uh, director Jason Gillis, Jamal Harvey, Harvey, our uh, fleet manager here to ask any specific questions that you may have. But the purpose is basically to provide you with an overview of uh, Senate Bill 546. uh let you know where we stand currently with regard to compliance, look at some cost estimates, and then uh uh basically options for us to consider as a district. In summary, Senate Bill 546 requires that every uh vehicle that traveled that transport students has a uh threepoint seat belt passed to school buses and activity buses and it became effective in September of 2025 with the required compliance by 2029. We have a

133requirement by TEA to have a board action by the end of the 2026 school year. So the options are the boards may comply with by adding three-point seat belts to all of the buses that do not currently have them or the school boards may approve an exemption if funding is not available. Again, this decision is uh required to be made to tea by the 29th of May. Our current fleet status is that we have 71 school buses with no seat belts, 54 with twopoint seat belts, and 106 with threepoint seat belts. Important to note that every vehicle that we buy uh from that time point uh when we knew that this was coming does have a three-point seat belt on them. I was just talking with the team a minute ago. We have seven buses

134that are scheduled to be delivered tomorrow. All of them with three-point seat belts on them. Uh currently we have 125 buses that are out of compliance. And all of these buses have various stages and ages with different miles. As you all may or may not know, we try to keep a bus for 10 years or 100,000 miles, 10 to 12 years or 100,000 miles. And then we just age them out. And so we have of the 25 that are out of compliance, they're within that uh area somewhere phasing out uh within uh a little time. So, one of the requirements from TEA was that we actually go out and get bids to see what it would take to actually become compliant with the law. And so, these are the work that the team has done

135here to go out and get those bids. And you can see we've got a bid for a I think it's a 52, a 72, and a 76 passenger bus. Don't quote me on those, but uh the of those uh all of those, it's about $3.9 million to actually become compliant with the law. uh according to these quotes and the 125 buses. So the things that we considered the cost versus the remaining lifespan of the bus, the impact on the budget, the alignment with the replacement schedule, how we use the fleet, uh we keep a certain number of buses to basically be on reserve in case something breaks down and then we just have to uh put in a sub bus. And so how we use the fleet is was considered there and then this timeline

136for reporting uh requirements. So again, we've got two options. One is to retrofit the uh fleet uh that is out of compliance to the tune of about 3.9 million or to uh do the lack of funding exemption. And with that being said, we would recommend for obvious reasons to uh approve the lack of funding exemption uh as a board and then we will uh take some questions or discussion that you may have. So >> just one moment my screen disappeared. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Hill. Yes, >> Miss McMarrow. >> Thank you, Dr. Hill. Quick question. So, um I remember you you gave us some of this information at our committee meeting with finance and academics. Did you mention that um although the state legislature is requiring this um an exemption or updating the vehicles, it

137there is no requirement for students to wear the seat belt. Is that correct? >> That is correct. >> Okay. And um anecdotally where we are right now, do most of our seat most of our students opt to wear the seat belt? I'm just really curious as to what what we usually see. >> Elementary. Yes. >> Okay. >> Junior high and high school, we encourage them to wear them. Some do, some don't, but elementary. >> Okay. That was my only question. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss McMar. Are there other trustees with comments or questions? Okay, seeing none, do I have a motion to approve the administration's recommendation of an exemption claim for Texas Senate Bill 546 regarding required reporting on school bus seat belt compliance? >> I have a motion from Miss Fowler. Do I

138have a second? >> I second. >> And I have a second from Mr. Wilbanks. We'll move to vote. Trustees, please vote. >> All trustees voting in the affirmative. The motion carries seven to zero. Thank you, Dr. Hill. >> Thank you. That brings us to our second action item tonight. Consider approval of Blandon Elementary Transportation Plan. Dr. Smith. >> Uh Dr. Hill is going to stay right up there as we talk about Bllandon. And um we promised you all that after we went through um feedback sessions and uh closing discussions about Blandon Elementary that we would come back to you with some options to consider for transportation for families that are uh being asked to move to another campus because of the closure of Bllandon. And Dr. Dr. Hill is here to talk to you about

139that tonight. >> All right, Dr. Smith, we'll get right into it. And so again, the purpose of tonight is to provide you with the transportation options to consider for students and families that are impacted by the closure of Bllandon Elementary. Just a little bit about the background information you're all familiar with. Earlier this spring, uh you approved a resolution to close Bllandon at the end of the year. Students were reszoned to four other surrounding campuses, Bergen, Crow, Goodman, and Swift. Uh during these meetings about closures, we had a lot of conversation from parents about some of the concerns and transportation was high on that list. Uh when we made that decision, you all asked that we go back to that community and figure out what can we do to potentially uh ease some of that

140burden. And so we did that. Uh the reality is about 50 students uh zoned to Swift would be eligible for transportation based on the two-mile uh standard. approximately 370 other students would not be eligible based on that current uh two-mile standard. So what we did, we uh surveyed the parents. We asked them uh with McDalia, the principal's help, uh put a survey out asking if they need would need transportation, would they need in the morning, would they need an afternoon or both? Are there any special transportation needs and things like that? And uh we got pretty good response from it. The survey was open for about a couple of weeks and just a couple of screen grabs on some of the uh survey data, but in summary, the parents do need the transportation. Uh some

141say they don't know right now, but for the most part they do say that they need that transportation. And so what we've done is just looked at some options as to what would it look like to provide transportation. And so one of the options is only provide for the eligible riders. Uh that's that's an option. Option two, uh which is the most efficient option would be to provide hub transportation for our bland families. hubs would be determined uh after we find out every kid who would want to ride. We' work the with the transportation department and the routers to determine every kid that want to ride where they live and then we would potentially put hubs uh in those areas. That is consistent with the method that we use for our our uhmies right now.

142And so that's that or indeed option three would be the highest cost option which would be a neighborhood transportation for all of those students just running through there. And so what we would do regardless of what option you would go with, we would conduct a formal review after one year looking at writership, family feedback, the attendance impact, and just any other uh data data points that could possibly be there. Again, we notice right now that some parents may be closer to their new assigned school than the hub stop. And so things like that is what we would look at. So we always want to kind of look at the financial impact. And so, uh, the financial impact of either of these options would be limited to basically additional fuel. And you may ask why? Well,

143we run a three- tiered system. Uh, and basically each bus has three runs which equal a route. So, we run an elementary run, I'm sorry, a high school run followed by an elementary run and then a junior high run that equals their route. And so, most buses only have two runs. they don't have an elementary because the elementarymentaries are spread out all over the place. And so it would be very easy for us to just add another run to uh take kids to these four campuses. And so generally what would happen if I don't have an elementary run, I would run my high school. I would stage until it's time to go get my junior high. So with the staging time, we would just say, "Hey, go pick up this Bllandon route and take them

144where they need to go." Uh very limited impact staffing wise. It would be just additional fuel would be the the impact. financially. So, we would uh recommend approving option two uh for providing transportation for students implanted by Bllandon and then we would monitor that throughout the school year uh and just report back as necessary. So, questions or discussion? >> Thank you, Dr. Hill. Mr. Mike, >> thank you uh Dr. Hill for this uh presentation. Um, if we go to the three options on slide seven, um, I know that administration recommendation is number two. Is there anything precluding us from doing number three? Well, what we we wanted to try to be consistent with what we do right now for anything that's not the two-mile and the uh the academy was the closest thing that we

145try to wanted to stay consistent with that. >> And the the only only reason why I bring that up, right, is because we made the decision to close this school down. >> Uh and these families are impacted by our decision >> and many of them who came up here You could see like there was camaraderie at the school, there was community at the school, but a lot of them they don't have the necessary vehicles to take their children where they need to go. Just option two for me right now with that caveat where it says that hub stop may be closer to the assigned school. It almost negates the impact of what we're trying to do to transport them. So that that is the only hesitancy for me for option number two. And of course

146option number one is just not viable at all. So for me it comes down to number three as being the most meaningful impact for the families that are impacted by our decision. >> Thank you Mr. Mike. Miss Fowler. >> President Choa. I have to agree with with Mr. Mike. I feel like since we're the ones that are closing the school, we need to do whatever we need to do to make sure those kids get picked up and brought to the new school. A lot of the families told us they're used to walking their students to school and then meeting them after school and walking them back home. A lot of these families don't don't have cars and I don't think it's fair for us to make a decision that impacts the students and the families

147without providing the transportation for them. So, I'm more inclined to go with option three as well. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Fowler, Miss McMarrow. >> Thank you, Dr. Hill. Um, it's been mentioned that yes, this is an extenduating circumstance. I I did have a question. If we did go with the hub option, would we still have elementary age students crossing Pioneer Parkway or Collins? >> That would be determined again by where we place the hubs at. Okay. Okay. >> There is a possibility that I think to the point that was made early, those families are are used to walking to Blandon now. >> Yeah. >> Current Bllandon there's no plan to really do anything like immediately. So that could be the hub and so it wouldn't really change anything for those families. They would

148continue to walk to Bllandon. We'd pick them up there and then take them out to the other four schools. So that's a possibility. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Doesn't change anything that they're constantly already doing. Thank you, Miss McMahero. Mr. Wilbanks, >> thank you, President Chapa. I I can see where option number two is the most efficient and I would be more lenient to moving that direction. Now, if I if we knew for certain that Blandon would be a hub, plus maybe a couple of other hubs um that could help reduce hazardous travel, like Miss McMurro said, across Pioneer and Arkansas, um how close are we determining where those hub might be? What do you need to make that decision? >> It would be a couple of data points. One, truly, how many students are

149going to need the transportation? uh again this uh survey was out there and where those students live. It's similar to what we do with themmies right now. We basically take all the kids who are going to be at an academy Jones Corey uh Wimish wherever and just plot them and then that the routers they say okay here's centrally where we could pick up those those kids at. And so it basically change it could change every year. >> Yeah. And I imagine as we go over time, the number of kids from that area that would need transportation will change. >> Could change. Yes, >> it's um a fairly transient population. Um but I I'm kind of with my other colleagues on the other side of the dis. Um, I'm strongly leading to option three, but once

150you do further study, maybe check back in December and see if we can adjust to a hub or something more efficient. And then, of course, once one school year goes and we see how it goes the next fall, continue to to um evaluate the necessity of this long term. But um, my first option is I want more information. on how a hub system would work and have more assurance that you know at a minimum Blandon is a hub before I could vote for option two. >> Thank you, Mr. Wanks. Any other comments or questions? Dr. Hill, I have a couple of questions. So, I I um can you run back through what option three would look like in practice? >> So, option three would look like we would basically turn that into the two-mile But

151it would be less than two miles. So you would be running through the neighborhoods picking up kids basically at the bus stop at the corner. Determine >> we would we would they would we would determine some points of pickup. >> Kids would go to them. The buses would go up and down the street. Okay. >> Correct. I'm I'm curious about so I I I recall vaguely that there was a scatter plot during our discussion of the Blandon um issue that plotted where the kids lived and it looked like there was a real critical mass pretty much right close across the street. >> Yes. um across Collins and so I if Bllandon is a hub I think that that's a really efficient solution but can I recall also that there were it's not a huge attendance

152zone to begin with so like comparing this to to me I I had to wrap my head around the idea that there was a hub because with academy transportation we're talking about the entire district correct we're picking hubs across an entire district this is a >> relatively really small existing attendance boundary Um, so if Blandon was a hub, could we com could the more the the areas where kids are more sort of far-flung from Blandon, could we do neighborhood transportation for them and some kids are based on a hub? The ones who live, it seems like the bulk who live across the street from Bllandon be on a hub. We could definitely do a hybrid because again as the buses leave Bllandon they're going to four different schools. >> If they have to traverse to

153Blandon to then ride right back where we could have placed a stop at, we could definitely do a hybrid. So yes. >> Okay. So then and then a question I had based on just the way it was worded. So I know we've been talking to families. I know that there are some families that um we have reszoned and and we have zones that maybe aren't ideal for the family because then they really live closer maybe to Ranken, but we couldn't draw a boundary to Ranken and so they're going to transfer they're going to opt to transfer their kid to Ranken. For the families that choose to do that, are we going to provide transportation to them if they choose not to go to their assigned campus? consistent with transfers across the district, we would not

154be providing transportation for any families that elect to transfer. >> Okay. All right. Um, how would if we wanted to Well, I guess we could craft it anyway. So, we've got neatly option one, two, three right now. If we wanted to do something that was we're pretty confident at least for this next year that Bllandon would be a hub. It sounds like I have some colleagues who like that idea but maybe don't like the idea of just of having multiple hubs where some kids are having to travel further to the hub to then to the campus that they'd have to get to. How would we do we would we need to come back at some point for further action to approve a final plan or could we today just say if land's a hub's the

155hub but we like option three or some other option for other hubs? I I think you could actually um make a motion just to say that you want a hybrid of option two and three with the parameters that you've discussed this evening and we can make that happen. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> All right. Seeing no further discussion, do I have a motion to I do have com >> I'll make a motion. >> Okay. Miss Richardson has a motion >> and I'll say >> Okay, let me finish the motion. >> Nope. We are ready. >> Okay. Um do I have I have I have sounds like I have a motion. I haven't said it, but so I'll ask you to reverify, but is there a motion to approve option two on the understanding that at

156least one hub will be Blandon Elementary with the option three for other portions of the current attendance zone? >> Motion. >> Okay. I have a motion for Miss Richardson and I have a second from Miss Fowler just to verify. Okay. And trustees will move to vote. All trustees voting in the affirmative. The motion carries modifying option two with a blend of three. All right, that brings us up to action item. Thank you, Dr. Hill. That brings us to action item C, our last action item tonight. Um, this is to discuss the proposed termination of a probationary uh employee. This option, this item has been discussed um under in close session. Is there anyone who would like to have discussion on this item? Okay, seeing none, we'll move to um a motion. I'll make the motion.

157I move that the board of trustees terminate the employment of Justin Thompson at the end of the contract term based on the board of trustes judgment that the best interest of the district will be served by this action and that the superintendent provide written notice of this action to the employee at least 10 days before the last day of instruction for the current school year. So, I have a motion. Uh do I have a second? Second. >> Have a second for Mr. Mike. Trustees will move to vote. All trustees in uh voting in the affirmative. The motion carries seven to zero. That brings us to our consent agenda. Are there any trustees who would like to withdraw any items from the consent agenda tonight? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

158>> So move. >> Have a motion for Mr. Wilbanks. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Have a second for Miss McMurrow. Trustees will move to approve or to vote. All trustees voting in the affirmative. The consent agenda is unanimously approved. That brings us to our open forum for non-aggenda items. Miss Crossnode, do we have speakers registered for non-aggenda forum tonight? >> President Chapo, we do have four speakers, two in person, two virtual. >> Okay, we'll move to the uh in-person folks first and then we'll we'll move to the folks who are virtual to give us time to get them online. Um, our first speaker tonight in person will be uh Jeff Carlton. And as he works his way down, I'll I will read our rules. Although, Mr. Carlton, I'm sure you're not going to

159violate any of them. Uh, this is a routine part of the board's agenda for regular 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 speakers directly. Derogatory comments aimed at an individual will not be tolerated and personnel matters are not appropriate subjects for open forum. You'll have up to three minutes to speak and when Miss Crossno notifies you that your time is up, please end your presentation and if you have any documents for the board to review, we'll ask that you please hand them to Dr. Hill. >> All right, Mr. Carlton, you have three minutes. >> Yeah, thank

160you. Uh earlier this week I emailed you on behalf of 21 Arlington High families whose students came up through the fine arts and dual language program at Corey Jones and Gun. I encourage you all to look at the names of the people who signed that letter. Those are the parents of your top students. They're your PTA members and your booster club members. They're the volunteers on your district-wide committees. They're the parents who raise money for your foundation, who teach in your schools, and who advocate for our students all year round. We wrote because of the significant gap between our expectations for the Fedla experience at Arlington High and the reality that we're seeing. We sent our students to Arlington High because of their phenomenal K through8 Fedla experience. And because we were promised a specialized

161program at Arlington High that built on those experiences, but instead counselors and teachers have told our students, "We don't know what to do with you." The advanced pathways and unique opportunities in the fine arts haven't developed. Fine arts teachers have said they would like to do more, but they don't have the bandwidth or the staffing to do so. The promised Spanish immersion classes are now only starting to come together as co as cohort one approaches the midway point of their high school careers. From K through8, Fedla has been a huge success for our students in the district. Cory and Jones are toprated elementary schools. Gun is rising fast. Their teachers and administrators like the phenomenal Matt Varnell are presenting at national conferences about the success of the program. But the vision or will to extend

162this program into Arlington High appears lacking. In the fine arts, we're seeing advanced students who took daily art, piano, theater, dance, and choir classes at gun for three years, placed into beginner level intro intro classes with classmates who are simply filling elective requirements. On the dual language side, we're seeing a Spanish class once every other day, which really stretches the idea of dual language and immersion beyond recognition. All of us can share slides from Arlington High presentations that showed us advanced tracks in fine arts and Spanish immersion classes on the social studies track, but that social studies track isn't there. And when my kid tries to sign up for advanced theater courses, he's told those classes aren't available. We understand that K through 8 acted more like a magnet school and AHS is a comprehensive

163high school. But what we're finding is that Fedla at Arlington High means nothing more than a few additional Spanish classes in the exact same fine arts experience that they could get anywhere else. were zone for Martin. Four years ago, my son appeared in a high school play at Martin. They had roles for little kids back when he was just in fifth grade. He was so blown away by the experience that he spent all of junior high asking us to send him to Martin. We kept telling him no because Arlington High was going to be the fine arts academy with unique opportunities. We were wrong. If Fedla has turned into a program that ends after 8th grade, we would appreciate if somebody would be able to tell us that. um that way we can make the

164best decisions for our kids, some of whom are still rising the program through elementary and junior high. This also needs to be said. Arlington High is a good school with great people. There are phenomenal teachers there. Our students have felt a positive, welcoming culture in many of the programs. The updated facilities make a real difference. What's lacking is the same preparation and thoughtfulness that marked our experiences at Jones and Corey and Gun. Thanks. >> Thank you, Mr. Carlson. Our next speaker in person is Tiffany McGuffin. >> Miss McGuffin, you'll have three minutes. >> Members of the board, Dr. Smith, my name is Tiffany McGuffin. I am a proud parent of two students in the Arlington ISD fine artsies. You won't find anybody in my professional or personal life does that not know the exceptional experiences

165that my students have been given in public schools. But I'm here today because I am frustrated and disappointed in the program at Arlington High School. Arlington ISD built something truly special with its fine arts and dual languages. The foundation laid at Guns and Jones is exceptional. Those principles, those directors, they set a high bar of excellence, the Spanish language and the arts. They challenge students and nurture talent. They build both skills and passion. The level of excellence is why families like me chose Arlington High School in a district where we can make a choice. We had expectations based on experiences, but we're not seeing that. The name is on the building, but the program is not there. From our initial eighth grade meetings to now prepping for 10th grade, our cons concerns continue to grow.

166There is no intentionality, no exceptionalism, no enhanced opportunities, no additional faculty. There is no differentiation between students coming in with years of exposure and the rest of the student body. There is no curriculum that elevates this school from any other one in the district. TEA has 14 curriculums with TEACS and theater alone. Arlington High School offers three. That's not even enough to compete a four-way p four-year pathway, let alone the three arts needed per year to graduate with the fine arts distinction we were promised. There is no vision of college and career readiness. Students have spent their whole academic years honing skills or sitting in classes that are repetitive and uninspired and they are lo losing interest from conversations with family. I can't imagine the retention is very high. My advocacy for programs started on

167my own frustrations back in August. But what has pushed me to standing here today is the questions I'm getting from eighth grade families about whether or not it is a good choice for them to make. I understand that taking a program takes time, but I am asking for innovation, intentionality, and alignment with the standards that are already established by you and this district. Our students are talented. They are motivated. They have been trained by teachers and administrative committed to them. But they are not masters of their craft and they are hungry for more. We should not have to be seeking out art opportunities while attending a fine arts high school and that's what we're doing. With the right vision and the leadership, this program can be absolutely competitive and the true lighthouse that we thought

168you guys wanted. Arlington High School is a good school with good teachers, but this program has not hit the mark. Thank you. Thank you, Miss McGuffin. We'll now move to our virtual speakers. >> The first virtual speaker that I have registered tonight is Jessica Meyer. Are you there, Miss Meyer? >> Yes. Can you hear me? >> We can hear you just fine. You'll have three minutes. >> Okay. Um, I agree wholeheartedly with Jeff and Tiffany and I just wanted to share some of um, my my daughter's specific experiences in the fattel program. Um, she started in the second cohort of students at Corey. She's currently a freshman at Arlington High. She's into theater and piano and Spanish. Um, she's taken piano every year since kindergarten. And in junior high, she took advanced piano one, advanced

169piano 2, advanced piano 3, where she would have four recitals every year. She would be able to perform a different solo at each recital, which really increased her um confidence. And this year, she was placed in piano one. And going into the school year, I was asking around like, is she in the right class? Piano one doesn't seem like the right fit for her. And soon we found out because no one could really answer my question. Soon we found out that her class was full of students who had never even played the piano before. They're having two recitals this year, not four, like she had before. And in the first recital, she wasn't allowed to do a solo because there wasn't time for everyone to do a solo, and we haven't had the second one

170yet. Also, at the first recital, there was no mention of a fine arts academy, which is baffling to me. So, it just seems like there's no cohesive feeling of pride or enthusiasm that Arlington High is the home of the Fine Arts Academy. Um, she's also in the wrong Spanish class. I was told she would take DLI Spanish 4, which is geared towards dual language immersion students. Um, but that class is not offered at Arlington High. It's offered at gun, but not Arlington High. So, she's in regular Spanish 4, which I don't think is challenging her enough. um definitely not enough to continue increasing her Spanish language skills, especially now that um there's only one other Spanish class um that's math, whereas before they were taking math and science in Spanish. Um she's also in the

171wrong theater class. Um she took advanced theater classes at gun and um the class that was made for fattle students at Arlington High didn't fit in her schedule. So she was just placed in a regular theater class. No one mentioned this to me or asked, you know, which classes would you like to prioritize? Do you want to change anything in your schedule to make sure this class fits? Um so again, the lack of transparency is very frustrating. Um, and due to these experiences that she's had, she's sadly going to drop out of the program to pursue other interests. Um, I did have to sign a form in order for her to drop out, but no one asked me why. Um, I would recommend doing an exit interview with families that want to drop out and

172take that as a learning experience to try to see if anything could have been done differently. Another idea is to have maybe one or two counselors that um serve all the fattel students that are experts on the program and can answer all of our questions. They can advocate for these students and the success of the program. Um when we started >> your your time has has expired. So if you can wrap it up in the next say 20 seconds or so. >> Yes, absolutely. just going to say that I we lived we were zoned for Martin before and we just this this year moved to a house closer to Arlington because we had faith in the program and knew we would they would end up there. Um sadly they're not going to end up staying

173in the program. But I am still happy to be at Arlington High because I'm an AHS alum. However, not all families will feel that way. So, I hope this is helpful and will bring on some effective changes that will keep the momentum going for this great program. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Meyer. Our last speaker tonight who's virtual uh is Megan Noble. Miss Noble, can you hear us? >> I can hear you. Can you hear me? >> We can hear you just fine. You'll have three minutes. >> Amazing. >> Starting now. >> Okay. All right. Hi, my name is Megan Noble and my zip code is 76016 and I have four children in AISD public schools. It's my cat. My oldest is a junior at Martin where we're zoned and is on the district's

174champion swim team that was here tonight and as well as um in Martin Corral and they sang. He wasn't there tonight because he was singing with Arlington Master Corral. So, a little bit of background. When my oldest was first in first grade at Wood Elementary in 2016, which we loved. Um, at the prompting of Friends, I went to Corey Elementary to hear Dr. Matt Vernell's pitch for a new fine arts and dual language academy for um, uh, for his brother who was then an incoming kindergartener. I'm a theater professor currently at UTA. And so of course I was immediately intrigued both by the prospect of my children learning a second language um to all the way to fluency by the time they graduate high school and also by the offerings like dance and theater and

175piano beginning in kindergarten. Amazing. I remember vividly Dr. Varnell saying that in um that that same meeting that uh learning one language really helps children to see the world with more than one eye. And uh that went for Spanish. But I also consider the arts to be a language in and of themselves as well. Um, so my application for Fedla that year and all the subsequent applications I submitted. Um, I in 2019 2022 uh for my now third grader Corey, my now sixth grader at gun referenced the very same quote. And at every step along the way, despite my hesitancy, dropping my baby off at that first kindergarten year in the midst of like major construction with water dripping from the ceiling in his kindergarten classroom and then in my sixth grade in sixth grade,

176dropping him off as a baby 11-year-old at the huge junior high school. My doubts over that decision had always given way to confidence that Feda was absolutely the right choice for my kids despite his their brother having a different track. I've seen Dr. Varnell, the leadership, the teachers, the Corey gun pave the way and deliver on so many promises that made uh that they made back in that first information uh session. And that changed actually this year when my second son became a freshman and now I'm driving all over Arlington to four different schools. Um I do want to see my kids through Feda and be an advocate for the program. I'm in the arts. I work down the street. Um, but since we're vote zoned for Martin, I have a kid at Martin. I'm

177a Martin alum. Uh, I do find myself scrutinizing over what Arlington High is offering that's different from Martin or any other high school in our district to make it a true fine arts and dual language academy. Can it really call itself a fine arts academy if its theater, piano, dance offerings appear to look the same as every other school in the district? To my limited knowledge, of course. But can can ah ahs really call itself a dual language uh academy if emphasis is not on encouraging kids with this incredible foundation in the Spanish language to continue their path forward towards fluency through immersive opportunities travel community service among Spanish pe speaking populations anything makes my kid think that Spanish is Am I done what did you say >> your your time has expired but you

178if you can wrap it up in the next 20 or 30 seconds. >> Oh, I can. Yeah. >> Yeah. And you you can't hear you can't hear the the the buzzer and so >> Oh, okay. Oh, thank you. Okay. So, I'm just writing. I'm struggling to convince my uh headstrong ninth grader that the pursuit of becoming bilingual is worthwhile. And as I see him giving up on purpose because he says he can't write a sentence in Spanish for a test, I wonder why the privilege, challenge, and gift of learning another language seems to be lost on him completely. And I'm questioning whether programming has been put into place to show the practicality of having language skills in the real world. I'm questioning whether the long drive from 76016 is worth it. And at this point,

179um, am I just forcing my kid to continue Spanish because it's the only thing that seems to be different from any other high school because there are additionally no advanced performing arts classes or programming for kids who have been in these classes since kindergarten. So, I'm having a hard time justifying continuing with the program. And the district has put so much money, leadership, vision into Fedla. So the question I'm asking tonight is, does the program come to an end, a natural end in eighth grade or will additional personnel and curriculum be added to ensure the retention of those students who've invested so many years of their lives for the sake of the the vision that Dr. Varnell presented so many years ago. I hope this is the beginning of a new conversations about continuing to

180invest in these kids who've hung in there. Thanks so much. Thank you, Miss Noble. Okay, that concludes open forum for agenda non-aggenda items tonight. We'll move on to superintendent comments. Dr. Smith, >> trustees, I think I um didn't give a superintendent report last time, so we're going to give one this time. And I want to make sure that we hone in on marketing and engagement this time and specifically the engagement portion of our priorities to talk about involving our community stakeholders as valued partners in student learning. As you all know, we had a recent state of the district. And I want to start by first thanking the chamber because uh sitting down with Michael Jacobson um in uh September of last year and saying, "Michael, I'd like to start making some changes to the way

181we do the state of the district and Michael agreeing to allow us to do uh some changes to a a chamber hosted and sponsored event was a big deal. But he went along on the ride for us. And one of the key things that we wanted to do was start to elevate student voice so that our partners, our community partners at the chamber level and in local businesses could see, hear, and feel the experience of students in Arlington ISD. And so we started to make some plans in beginning in October. Again, I mentioned earlier poor Tyena, but poor Tyena and others were along for the ride. And we started for with a room of about 15 people uh in the conference room upstairs and laid out the vision of what we wanted to see. We

182wanted to see the idea of having students take place in the state of the district event and our community members being able to experience some of the things that student were experiencing our system. In short, getting them back in our schools even though we know some of the people in our chamber in particular in that stakeholder group don't have kids in our schools anymore and don't walk the halls of our schools or go to our performances anymore. And so the goal was always to try and get that experience to happen in our school system. And from there, our team, our communications team, our academic services team, CTE, our um athletics department, our fine arts programs, they all started coming together on a regular basis and I wasn't involved in all of that and they made

183this experience come to life for our community at that point. And I want to uh make sure that I acknowledge them and the experiences that you see here. just the fact that we were able to start to have uh community members see phabbotomy in action. I still am a little um I can't believe that we actually drew blood at a state of the district event, but we did. And uh that experience in itself I think opened people's eyes to the work that happens in our schools on a daily basis that are extraordinary things that are happening for kids giving them college and career opportunities that when we all went to school frankly just did not exist. But for a student to walk out the door and be certified to go be a phabotamist right when

184they're done graduating from high school while they're pursuing potentially a career in the medical field or actually just going into the workforce is something pretty spectacular. our gentleman at the top right who began learning piano at Martin High School as a freshman in high school and to have that piano one experience that we just heard about. But that investment in those experiences so that students can learn and perform is pretty extraordinary. I want to make sure that I thank very specifically uh Tyena and our communications team because a lot of the burden felt fell on them to plan things. But I also know that there were a whole lot of other departments that were involved in in uh organizing this. Our CTE presence there was extraordinary and uh Sarah took that and ran with it

185because we were in the middle of a CTE transition at that time. So, uh, together I think we were able to create something that from the feedback I've heard from our chamber partners was extraordinary for them to see. You all get to see it as trustees. But the goal again was to bring our people in our community into our schools to see the great things that were happening. And if they weren't walking through the halls of the schools, we created something pretty extraordinary for them to see on the lawn that day and in the uh those two venues that day. So, thank you to you all for being willing to allow us to make some changes and thank you to our team for making the vision start to come to life and we can't wait

186to see what next year looks like. Appreciate you all. >> Thank you, Dr. Smith. Are there trustees with reports tonight? I see Miss Fowler. Thank you, President Choa. I want to give a shout out to Arlington Collegiate High School under the supervision of Principal Jeff Kger. Once again, they have finalists for the Gates Scholarship. Uh for the last four years, they've had finalists, two years with winners and one of those years with actually two winners of the Gates Scholarship. This year, they have finalists Jayla Anderson and Brooklyn Buchanan. And I think the uh awards will be announced at the end of this month, but they're just doing incredible things over at Arlington Collegiate High School. And year after year, they have finalists for the Escape Scholarship, which is an incredible scholarship and award. So, I

187just wanted to do that shout out. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Fowler. Any other trustees with comments or reports tonight? Seeing none, that brings us to our secretar's report. Secretary Richardson, do we have any items to report? >> We do not. >> No items to report. Then all matters on the agenda tonight have been addressed and I will adjourn this meeting at 10:34.